THE RISE OF THE 
 AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 A Philosophical Interpretation of American History 
 
 BY 
 
 ROLAND G. USHER, PH.D. 
 
 M | 
 
 AUTHOR OF * PAN-GERMAXISM," "THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH 
 
 CHURCH," "THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HIGH 
 COMMISSION," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1914 
 
Copyright, 1914, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Publish**, April, 1914 
 

 TO 
 
 THE FAIREST AND LOVELIEST OF HER SEX 
 MY DAUGHTER FLORENCE, 
 ON HER THIRD BIRTHDAY 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In these days of specialization, the community is divided 
 for nearly all purposes into only two classes the specialists 
 and the laymen; and all the specialists are laymen in every 
 subject but their own. In those manifold subjects in which 
 he is a layman, the modern reader demands a lucid, vivid ac 
 count of results and not of processes, a brief statement of 
 the meaning of the development, which can be deduced from 
 the array of facts and dates marching down upon him out 
 of the past. Assuming these facts to be true and important, 
 what do they mean, he asks? Assuming these to be the es 
 sential parts of the puzzle, what is the picture like? A 
 specialist himself, the reader knows the value of processes, 
 but he has neither the time, inclination, nor skill to perform 
 the historical process for himself with even adequate mate 
 rials. He asks for results first, for broad outlines and fun 
 damental factors, and is willing to waive for the moment the 
 question of authorities and the verification of data. He wishes 
 to learn at once what competent authorities consider to be 
 true and cares comparatively little by what precise road they 
 reached their conclusions. 
 
 In writing this book it has therefore been my aim to give 
 the reader a lucid account of results and not of processes; 
 to explain briefly the meaning of the facts of national de 
 velopment, rather than to chronicle the mere sequence of 
 events for, from my point of view, the founding of colonies, 
 the granting of charters, the battles, debates and constitu 
 tions are not in themselves history, but simply the material 
 
PREFACE 
 
 out of which history must be made. I conceive it to be my 
 business, not to describe the pieces of the puzzle-picture, nor 
 to tell the reader their number nor even their relationship, 
 but to give him some point of view where the pieces cease 
 to be pieces and blend together into a picture. I believe that 
 the essential and elementary "facts" in history are not the 
 actual events but the more complex conclusions which are to 
 be deduced from a series of such events. 
 
 My indebtedness to the instruction and writings of my 
 teacher, Edward Channing, to the works of Rhodes, Van 
 Tyne, Beard, Turner, Hart and many others will be only too 
 manifest. Here and there I have added foot-notes to ex 
 pand and elucidate the text but without any idea of furnish 
 ing adequate information of the extent or whereabouts of the 
 available or valuable material upon the subject. The Guide 
 to American History by Channing, Hart, and Turner, the 
 bibliographies in Hart s American Nation, will give the 
 reader, anxious to verify or expand my narrative, access to 
 the literature of the subject. I have used only material that 
 is accessible to all, except on a few minor points, and I do 
 not claim any novelty or originality for this volume or for 
 the ideas expressed in it, beyond the general point of view 
 and a much fuller treatment and different emphasis than is 
 usual in brief histories upon such topics as States sover 
 eignty, the growth of nationality, commercial relations with 
 the West Indies, the influence of economic and geographical 
 factors, and the growth of democracy. 
 
 Washington University, St. Louis, January, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I PAGE 
 
 THE MEANING OF AMERICAN HISTORY 3-10 
 
 ^The place of the United States in universal history 3 
 
 Its place in European history 3 
 
 Its chief subject the achieving of nationality 5 
 
 ^Definition of a nation 5-6 
 
 Slowness of national growth in America 6 
 
 The Revolution and States rights anti-national 8 
 
 Nationality achieved through the Civil War; Lincoln the father 
 
 of American nationality 9 
 
 II 
 
 SPANISH AND FRENCH FAILURES 11-17 
 
 Spanish and French exert no influence on the history of the United 
 
 States 11 
 
 Explanation lies in their purpose in coming 12 
 
 in their character 14 
 
 in the strength of the Indians 14 
 
 in the weakness of Spain 15 
 
 The French in the South and in the St. Lawrence 16 
 
 III 
 
 THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 18-30 , 
 
 The United States made possible by the control of the Atlantic 
 
 acquired by England in 1588 18 
 
 Emigration was the result of economic forces which made people 
 
 willing to come 19 
 
 and of religious beliefs 21 
 
 and of the reports of explorers 22 
 
 The settlement of Jamestown 23 
 
 The Pilgrims and the settlement of Plymouth 24 
 
 The Puritans and the settlement of Boston 25 
 
 Other colonies founded before 1660 6 
 
 Colonies were made permanent 
 
 by the geographical advantages of the Atlantic coast ... 26 
 
 by the absence of powerful Indian tribes 27 
 
 by the size of Massachusetts 27 
 
 by maize, tobacco, fish, and furs 28; 
 
 IV 
 
 THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 31-44^ 
 
 The most fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the economic 
 
 strength of the colonies, in 1776 31 
 
 The extent of the growth in population 32 
 
 Rapidity of growth explained by immigration 33 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreign elements: Germans, Scotch-Irish, Portuguese . . . .34 
 
 Indented servants, criminals, adventurers 36 
 
 Radicalism and restless spirit of immigrants 36 
 
 Only little patches of settlement by 1760 37 
 
 Only common interests: the lack of a medium of exchange with 
 
 Europe 38 
 
 and a dependence upon the West India trade 39 
 
 Character of colonial commerce 39 
 
 The Navigation Acts 41 
 
 Smuggling 42j 
 
 The result was a creditor and debtor class in each colony . . .431 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 45-60 
 
 Second fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the ability of 
 
 the colonies to govern themselves 45 
 
 ^Democracy a natural indigenous growth 45 
 
 Town government in Massachusetts 46 j 
 
 County government at the South 48 1 
 
 Origin of the belief in States rights 49 
 
 Origin of State governments 50 
 
 ^Evolution of representative government . 52 
 
 * The wilderness produces essentially the same forms in all colonies . 55 ( 
 
 trraft, corruption, and "rings" 56 
 
 Divergence of institutional development between England and 
 
 America 57 
 
 The men produced by colonial democracy: Washington .... 58 
 
 Franklin 59, 
 
 VI 
 
 STATES SOVEREIGNTY 61-72 
 
 Third fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the determination 
 of Americans from the first to govern themselves without 
 
 actual interference from England 61 
 
 The Colonies always considered themselves sovereign 61 
 
 Nullification in Massachusetts in 1665 63 
 
 Antiquity of opposition to English interference 64 
 
 Reasons for inefficiency of English supervision . . 65 
 
 Nullification of the Navigation Acts 68 
 
 English origin of schemes for colonial union .69 
 
 Invariably defeated by principle of States* sovereignty . . .70 
 
 Entire lack of nationality in 1760 . 71 
 
 VII 
 
 THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 73-91 
 
 The expulsion of the French from Canada made English assistance 
 
 unnecessary and. actual independence possible .... 74 
 
 Danger of Indian uprisings past 76 
 
 Active opposition roused by English plan to replace States 
 
 sovereignty by administrative union 77 
 
 by the decision to enforce the Navigation Acts and so destroy 
 
 colonial commerce with the West Indies . . . . . . 81 , 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prompt nullification of the Sugar and Stamp Acts . . . ., . 82 
 
 The American idea of the English Constitution 86 
 
 Taxation without representation 88 
 
 The real justification of the Revolution 90 
 
 VIII 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 92-105 j 
 
 Resistance neither national nor spontaneous 92 
 
 Generality of the belief that it was inexpedient 92 
 
 Resistance before 1772 sporadic and unorganized 94 
 
 Armed resistance organized by Samuel Adams through Committees 
 
 of Correspondence 97 
 
 The Boston Tea Party a demonstration of intent to resist ... 99 
 
 The Coercive Acts of 1774 101 
 
 Active preparations for resistance begun 102 
 
 Lexington and Concord 103 
 
 Bunker Hill 104 
 
 IX 
 
 FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 106-122 
 
 States and individuals stand aloof 106 
 
 Real obstacle in way of cooperation a difference of opinion as to the 
 
 relations of States to each other 107 
 
 All existing organizations extra-legal 107 
 
 Tacit acceptance of Congress and Committees in 1775 by the people 109 
 
 Difficulties in way of instituting central government 110 
 
 Great accession of strength from adhesion to the Revolution of the 
 
 debtor party in each colony 113 
 
 Pressure put upon creditors 114 
 
 Confiscations, robbery 116 
 
 States sovereignty the real obstacle in the way of the Revolution 117 
 Independence understood to mean cooperation through some form of 
 
 central government 117 
 
 The Declaration of Independence affirms States sovereignty . . .118 
 
 Formation of State constitutions 119 
 
 Central administration begun 120 
 
 The French Alliance and the Confederation 121 
 
 X 
 
 WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 123-139 \ 
 
 The war was not won by superior force or generalship . . . . 123 
 
 A record of defeats. Lack of popular support 124 
 
 The victory due to the fact that the English did not push the war 
 
 till 1778 127 
 
 to the width of the Atlantic .... 131 
 
 to the strategical geography of the Atlantic coast .... 132 
 to the ability of Washington and Greene at wilderness-cam 
 paigning 133 , 
 
 XI 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 140-150 
 
 The country grew populous and wealthy. A comparatively small 
 
 number of individuals bore the costs and losses of the war 140 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The balance of wealth and political power swung from the old 
 creditor to the old debtor party, putting the radicals in 
 
 the majority 144 
 
 The victory decided that England should not influence the decision 
 of American issues and put the creation of a central gov 
 ernment, the settlement of commercial and monetary 
 questions, the definition of the relations of the States to 
 each other into the hands of the radicals, who declined to 
 meet financial and treaty obligations and adopted States 
 sovereignty as the basis of central and State government 146 
 
 XII 
 THE CRITICAL PERIOD 151-167 
 
 The definitive failure of the radical policy 151 
 
 Difficulties were superficial and economic 152 
 
 Accentuated by the commercial crisis 152 
 
 by overproduction 153 
 
 by hostile state legislation 155 
 
 by dislocation of business through paper money, interference 
 
 with the collection debts 156 
 
 Necessity of administrative reform 158 
 
 Strong central government a prerequisite 160 
 
 Radical defects of the Confederation . .160 
 
 Economic and geographical factors making for union 162 
 
 The Federal Convention called 166 
 
 XIII 
 THE CONSTITUTION 168-181 
 
 The Constitution based upon equality of condition 169 
 
 Character of American life in 1787 169 
 
 x The people made sovereign 172 
 
 / Relation of the States to the Federal government 173 
 
 Relation of the Federal government to the people 174 
 
 The people" limited to men of property and good character . . .175 
 
 Powers conferred on Federal government 175 
 
 Federal government to be controlled: 
 
 by the separation of powers 176 
 
 by reservation of local government to the States 176 
 
 by checks and balances 178 
 
 Opposition to the adoption of the Constitution 179 
 
 First elections and the inauguration of Washington 180 
 
 XIV 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 182-195 
 
 The success of the new government due to economic conditions . . 182 
 Hamilton s solution of the administrative issues: 
 
 the funding of the Federal and State debts ... . . 184 
 
 the provision of a Federal income from the tariff and excise 
 
 taxes 188 
 
 the payment of the army 188 
 
 the provision for currency and fiscal control through the na 
 tional Bank 188 
 
 Jefferson reconciles the Anti-Federalists to the Constitution by his 
 
 principle of loose construction . . . 190 
 
pres 
 Eml 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XV PAGE 
 
 THE WAR OF 1812 196-210 
 
 Its causes : as a war between England and America in the economic 
 dependence of America upon the European and West India 
 
 trade 196 
 
 as a war between parties in America in the division of interests 
 between the commercial and agricultural classes, and 
 between the English and French sympathizers .... 201 
 The incidents leading to the outbreak: the Jay Treaty, the move 
 ment to annex Canada, rights of neutral shipping, the 
 >ress-gang, the Louisiana Purchase, the Chesapeake, the 
 
 ibargo 198 
 
 The United States defeated: 
 
 by the geographical factors which won the Revolution . . . 206 
 by the outbreak of civil war and the attempt of New England 
 to secede 207 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM 211-228 
 
 Results of the War of 1812 were to make clear the consequences 
 
 of our economic dependence upon Europe 211 
 
 Cotton: its history; and growth to 1815 212 
 
 Manufacturing in New England the creation of the War . . . .213 
 
 Demand for roads and canals in the West 214 
 
 The demand for the protective tariff 215 
 
 The demand for the extension of slavery: the Missouri Compromise 218 
 
 The demand for Internal Improvements 220 
 
 Effect of protection and Internal Improvements upon the interests 
 
 of the South 221 
 
 The Union and the Constitution attacked by Randolph and Hayne 223 
 Webster proclaims the national significance of the Constitution, 1830 225 
 The difficulties compromised : the demands of all refused .... 227 
 
 XVII 
 JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 229-240 
 
 Causes of Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism 229 
 
 The Twelfth Amendment and the popular election of the President 230 
 New difficulties and the creation of the caucus to obviate them . .231 
 
 The caucus robs the people of the right to choose 232 
 
 Jackson against the caucus 232 
 
 The origin of national parties 233 
 
 Jacksonian and Jeffersonian democracy contrasted 234 
 
 Webster shows that the Constitution made the people sovereign and 
 
 that States sovereignty was undemocratic 235 
 
 Growth of Committees in Congress and of the Speakership . . . 236 
 
 Interpretation of the Constitution by Marshall 237 
 
 Democratic radicalism in the States 238 
 
 The Spoils System introduced 23"8 
 
 Subconscious growth of nationality 239 
 
 xvm 
 
 THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 241-256 
 
 The possibilities of cotton-culture 241 
 
 Effects of cotton on slavery: methods of culture; 242 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 value of land and slaves trebled ; demand for virgin soil . . . 243 
 
 Expansion and growth of the Gulf States 243 
 
 The South becomes a country of one crop 244 
 
 Statistics of Alabama in 1850 245 
 
 Agitation about slavery: Anti-slavery 245 
 
 Arguments concerning slavery compared 246 
 
 Character of development in North and West of diversified industry 
 
 and scientific intensive agriculture 248 
 
 Machinery and transportation; canals and railroads 249 
 
 New complexity of economic fabric 250 
 
 Results upon social and intellectual life 251 
 
 Geographical and geological factors causing a division of economic 
 
 life along Mason and Dixon s line and the Ohio River . 252 
 
 Results of these factors upon institutional life 255 
 
 The Civil War a misunderstanding between honest, sincere men . . 256 
 
 XIX 
 
 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 257-268 
 
 By 1835 it was clear to the South that the profits of cotton-culture 
 were limited only by the amount of virgin soil, and that 
 the supply of virgin soil east of the Mississippi and south 
 of the Missouri Compromise line was already exhausted 257 
 
 Movement to colonize and then to annex Texas 259 
 
 The Mexican War adds more territory 261 
 
 The settlement of Canadian and Oregonian boundaries adds still 
 
 more 262 
 
 The fight to open the territories to slavery 263 
 
 The complex tangle of interests 263 
 
 The Compromise of 1850 267 
 
 Secession openly preached at the South 268 
 
 XX 
 
 THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 269-281 
 
 The growth at the North of the belief that slavery was wrong . . 269 
 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin 269 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska; the sack of Lawrence; the assault on Sumner; 
 
 the South accepts the responsibility 270-273 
 
 The formation of the Republican Party .275 
 
 Dred Scott Case 275 
 
 Lincoln-Douglas debates put the matter plainly and unmistakably . 277 
 
 Helper s Impending Crisis 279 
 
 The agitation for the reopening of the slave-trade 280 
 
 John Brown s Raid 280 
 
 XXI 
 
 THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 282-296 
 
 The antiquity of the belief in the Tightness and legality of secession 282 
 
 Early schemes for two or more confederacies 283 
 
 Fundamental causes economic and geographical 284 
 
 Immediate causes of the War 285 
 
 belief that the political tie of the Federal government alone 
 
 stood in the way of the extension of slavery 287 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 realization that the South must fight before the disparity 
 between North and South became greater; the sections 
 
 compared 288 
 
 the belief that cotton was king 292 
 
 the belief that the Mississippi would force the western States 
 
 to market their produce in the South and compel secession 293 
 Lincoln s election the signal not the cause of secession .... 296 
 
 XXII 
 SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 297-307 
 
 The South secedes 297 
 
 The Confederacy based upon slavery 299 
 
 Northern attempts at compromise 299 
 
 The Southern leaders reject compromise 301 
 
 Why the War did not break out in March 1861 303 
 
 The casus belli: the firing on Sumter 304 
 
 The North arms 305 
 
 XXIII 
 THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 308-316 
 
 The strategical geography of the Southern States 308 
 
 Why Virginia became the chief field of war 309 
 
 Strategical geography of Virginia 309 
 
 The importance of the Shenandoah Valley 311 
 
 Strategical geography of the Mississippi Valley 312 
 
 The general strategy of the War . 314 
 
 XXIV 
 
 WHY THE NORTH WON 317-339 
 
 The physical and economic preponderance of the North . . . .317 
 
 The failure of the border States to secede 318 
 
 The rapid recovery of the North from the commercial Crisis of 
 
 1861-2 318 
 
 The neutrality of England and France 320 
 
 The blockade prevents the exportation of cotton and the importa 
 tion of anything else 322 
 
 Administrative inefficiency at the South 324 
 
 Financial mismanagement at the South 329 
 
 Arbitrary infringement of liberty of individuals and States . . .331 
 
 The reasons for the length of the War 333 
 
 XXV 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 340-359 
 
 The achieving of nationality 340 
 
 Lincoln the father of American nationality 344 
 
 How the War "created" the nation 345- 
 
 Geographical factors making for nationality 347 
 
 The development and enriching of the North 350 
 
 The collapse of the old regime at the South 351 
 
 The artificiality of the slave power proved 351 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lack of community life at the South revealed 353 
 
 Slavery seen to be undemocratic and abolished 354 
 
 The extreme economic exhaustion of the South 356 
 
 The effect of the logic of "facts" upon popular sentiment North 
 
 and South 357 
 
 XXVI 
 THE ISSUE OF RECONSTRUCTION 360-368 
 
 Complexity of the problem 360 
 
 Influence of actual conditions 362 
 
 Attitude of the Republican Party 364 
 
 The issue places a new obstacle in the way of nationality . . . 365 
 
 Presidential Reconstruction 366 
 
 XXVII 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION: ITS CAUSES AND 
 METHODS 369-391 
 
 Objections to the Presidential solution 369 
 
 Hatred of the executive and of Johnson 370 
 
 Realization that the Southern States had actually been out of 
 
 the Union 370 
 
 Fear that the South meant to reenslave the negro as a punish 
 ment for crime 371 
 
 Fear that the Southern and Northern Democrats would out 
 number the Republicans in Congress and undo the results 
 
 of the War by statute 375 
 
 Suspicions of the new Southern militia 375 
 
 The Reconstruction Acts and the Fourteenth Amendment . . . 376. 
 
 The execution of the Acts 379 
 
 The election of 1867 and the Fifteenth Amendment 380 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 THE SOLID SOUTH 382-391 
 
 Southern feeling towards Congressional Reconstruction .... 382 
 
 Character of Reconstructed State governments 383 
 
 The South saved by the creation of the Solid South 385 
 
 The practical disfranchisement of the negro 386 
 
 ^Southern problems really at bottom economic and solved by economic 
 
 forces 388 
 
 The negro problem 388 
 
 The emancipation of the poor white 391 
 
 XXIX 
 
 NATIONAL PROBLEMS 392-404 
 
 The fundamental problems of American development 392 
 
 Their solution by economic forces 392 
 
 Economic dependence on Europe was due to the backwardness 
 of the country and was obviated by its growth in popula 
 tion and wealth 392 
 
 Divergence of interests resulted from the existence of sections 
 in different phases of economic growth and was solved by 
 the rapid growth of the West and South 393 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And by the discovery of gold and silver 394 
 
 Quarrels of States, of sections, and of individuals due to racial, 
 economic, and institutional differences have been obviated 
 by the shifting of population and economic interdependence 395 
 
 New national Problems: 
 
 The Nationalization of industry and its effect on institutions 
 
 and parties 397 
 
 The effect of the size of the country upon the premises of 
 
 democracy 398 
 
 The effect of the inequality of property on the premises of 
 
 democracy 399 
 
 The worst fears of the fathers realized 401 
 
 The new conception of the function of government .... 402 
 
 The new concept of the State 403 
 
 INDEX . 407 
 
THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
THE RISE 
 OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 THE MEANING OF AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 WHEN, in the year 1890, within our own memories, the fron 
 tier in the United States officially ceased to exist, the great 
 westward march of the Aryan race, begun thousands of years 
 ago, came to an end and definitely closed the only period of 
 the world s history which man himself has recorded. The 
 tide of westward movement, which had streamed out of the 
 East into the West for so many centuries, breasted the peaks 
 of that lofty mountain-range which Benton used to call the 
 "shining mountains," and West met East. The history of 
 the United States is the story of the last and geographically 
 longest stage in this westward progress of the Aryan race. 
 Considering the vastness of the area reclaimed from the wil 
 derness and the development there of an advanced civiliza 
 tion within the brief space of three centuries, the achieve 
 ment is without parallel in the records of the race. Such is 
 the place of the United States in universal history. 
 
 A nation becomes, however, a great factor in human de 
 velopment as much by the splendor of its ideals as by reason 
 of its actual achievement. Homer placed the Elysian Fields, 
 the abode of supreme happiness, in the West, the land of the 
 setting sun. Out to those unknown regions, where Phoebus 
 Apollo stabled his steeds at evening, went Odysseus to talk 
 with his father s spirit; out into the West Virgil led JEneas 
 to see the dead heroes, riding and leaping in the green 
 
 Q 
 
THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 meadows under perpetual sunshine. The grim sagas of the 
 Norsemen tell us how the dead chieftain was laid upon a 
 couch on board his long ship ; how the great sail was hoisted 
 and how the raven standard flapped sinister wings against 
 the mast; how the flaring torches flung a beam of light to 
 guide the ship on its last long journey out into the West 
 across the great water to that shore where Odin waited to 
 welcome his chosen warrior to the halls of Valhalla. Some 
 prophetic impulse led the bards to make the West symbolic 
 of the hopes and ideals of the Aryan race. There, the 
 dreamer of dreams has built his castle; there, the seer of 
 visions has beheld great empires, boundless wealth, inconceiv 
 able happiness. The dull eyes of struggling European peas 
 ants have for three centuries seen in the United States the 
 Elysian Fields. The search for them in the West had been 
 unremitting; only from America came back word that Elys 
 ium had been found, a land truly flowing with milk and 
 honey. America has been the hope of the despairing, the 
 refuge of the pursued ; here the homeless have found shelter ; 
 the hungry, food; the sick at heart, courage; and the op 
 pressed, liberty. No one who has asked in faith has been 
 turned empty away. The United States holds the unique and 
 superb position of embodying for millions of men and women 
 the racial vision of an abode of the Blessed in the West. Such 
 is her place in the history of Western Europe. 
 
 But for this deep and abiding racial belief in the location of 
 the Elysian Fields, the present United States would not 
 exist. The first explorers would never have agreed that their 
 hopes could find realization in the cotton fields and rice 
 swamps of the South, in the wheat fields of Dakota and in 
 the cod fisheries of New England. The incentive for the 
 toil and suffering indispensable to the discovery and ex 
 ploration of this continent came rather from the expecta 
 tion, firm in the minds of Spaniard and Englishman, that he 
 would next day see gleaming upon the distant horizon the 
 silver walls of the Seven Cities of Cibola, or the deep red 
 glow of the enormous carbuncle that lighted the broad halls 
 
THE MEANING OF AMERICAN HISTORY 5 
 
 of the wondrous palace of Prester John. The expectations 
 of standing upon the shores of the sea that washed the is 
 land of Cipango, where the streets were paved with sheets of 
 solid gold, lured Champlain up the St. Lawrence and brought 
 La Salle into the Mississippi Valley. The search for the 
 fabulous wealth and mythological personages did not cease 
 until the eighteenth century. The dreams and visions of 
 men, the persistent search for a will-o -the-wisp can alone 
 explain much of the exploration and development of the 
 United States. Only the dissatisfaction of men with what 
 they found, their abiding faith in something better further 
 west could have colonized a great continent in three centuries. 
 This splendid westward progress which gives us our place 
 in the history of the Aryan race, the ideal of liberty and 
 freedom which has created for us a unique place in the 
 history of Western Europe, are not the chief facts in Ameri 
 can history. The history of the United States is in the 
 truest sense the story of the assemblage of the crude ma 
 terials for a great people and of the development in them of 
 a national consciousness. We shall entirely miss the most 
 vital fact about this story if we allow ourselves to as 
 sume even for an instant that anything deserving the name 
 of nation existed in North America in 1660, in 1760, in 1789, 
 or even in 1861. American history does not describe the life 
 story of a nation, nor even the development or growth of a 
 nation, but the very birth of the nation, which, as such, is 
 still in its infancy. The fortuitous collection of many in 
 dividuals upon the same sea-coast does not of itself create a 
 nation, nor do these people become a nation when they first 
 grudgingly permit a common government to perform certain 
 limited functions which none of them could individually per 
 form at all. A nation is not made by the adoption of con 
 stitutions nor by obedience to law; its existence is not mani 
 fested by conventions nor legislatures; for it is a spiritual 
 bond between the people of a community and does not exist 
 simply in the physical, geographical, economic, or con 
 stitutional factors necessary to its existence and expression. 
 
e THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 A nation exists only in the spiritual consciousness of a great 
 people and consists literally of the ideals, aspirations, hopes, 
 and fears which they have in common. Nor is this nation 
 made with hands. Its constituent parts think the same, not 
 because they vote to agree, but because they do agree in very 
 fact. They possess the same aspirations and ideals, are loyal 
 and patriotic to their common government, not from policy 
 or from desire, but because such psychological factors are 
 realities. Until this spiritual bond exists, until the people 
 become conscious of its actuality, no sentient, conscious 
 national existence can be predicated. No amount of fervent 
 wishing by individuals that it might be, no eager attempts 
 to make it so, can be accepted as proof of its existence. A 
 nation either is or is not. It cannot be * created ; it must 
 grow into being. Certainly, the very least we can demand 
 as proof of its existence, is the expressed conviction of all 
 classes of the people in all parts of the country that a na 
 tional tie is desirable and possible. So long as men could 
 fiercely debate, as Washington phrased it, "whether we are 
 one nation or thirteen/ 7 so long as one great section of the 
 community could maintain with threats and at last with arms 
 its complete independence of and difference from the rest 
 of the people, no true national bond could exist. 
 
 But no one who reflects can be surprised that nationality 
 is as yet young in this country. We have scarcely possessed 
 for decades the outward physical and political expressions of 
 nationality which most European countries have had for 
 centuries: territorial unity; continuous settlement through 
 out the whole area; something approaching stability of popu 
 lation; which can alone make possible the actual experi 
 ence in living together from which community of sentiment 
 must come. For two centuries and more, the American peo 
 ple has been struggling into physical existence and has needed 
 all the energy of its members to cope with the essentials of 
 individual and community life. Nationally, we have been 
 undeveloped rather than wrongly developed ; we have lacked 
 national consciousness from the same inevitable reasons that 
 
THE MEANING OF AMERICAN HISTORY 7 
 
 prevent the man from preceding the child. In Burke s 
 expressive phrase, we were "a people still, as it were, in the 
 gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone." We had to 
 become a nation by feeling, thinking, living, and by develop 
 ing through the experience of decade after decade that unity 
 of ideals and aims whose expression is patriotism. As a 
 nation, we have yet to share each other s crusts, drink to the 
 dregs the cup of national humiliation, be welded one to 
 another by the devastation of sword and fire, by those hor 
 rible catastrophes that make nations old in experience be 
 fore their time. As yet we have suffered as parts, never as 
 an entity; we have not yet rejoiced as a people with such 
 a delirious, spontaneous outburst as thrilled England after 
 the defeat of the Armada or Germany after the victory at 
 Sedan. 
 
 Ours has been a growth, unspoiled and lovely, the natural, 
 normal growth of the child, protected from luxury in its 
 adolescence, furnished with every necessity as manhood ap 
 proached ; lacking experience, not knowing how or when to 
 utilize his resources, but sane, strong, courageous, indomi 
 table. There is something of an epic splendor about this 
 growth to rugged physical manhood of a great people. Like 
 Antaeus, we drew our strength from the ground. We built 
 our house with our bare hands and fashioned our national 
 physical body in an incredibly short time out in a cleansing 
 wilderness far from the sins and lusts of the race and out of 
 materials unstained by the drums and tramplings of Euro 
 pean conquest. Thus were we purged of the dross and freed 
 from the subtle temptations of the old world. Our sins were 
 the animal cravings of the boy for too much food, too many 
 clothes, the revel of the child in the riotous pleasures of 
 the race, from curiosity rather than from wickedness. 
 
 The events of American history are more obviously con 
 cerned with the relationship of entities than with their at 
 tempts to unite into a whole. Perforce we study Massachu 
 setts and Virginia, the ideas of the North and the views of the 
 South, not as parts in relation to the whole, but as separate 
 
8 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 entities whose relation to each other has yet to be defined. 
 The debates in Congress were occupied with the interests of 
 sections of the country, not as parts of a whole but as antag 
 onistic entities whose common interest and bond must be dis 
 covered and could never be assumed to exist. Indeed, it is 
 impossible, as Webster and Lincoln pointed out, to reconcile 
 the ideas of States sovereignty and of Nullification with any 
 other conception of a central government than that of a 
 fortuitous, anomalous, and technical bond of dubious value. 1 
 The theory of States rights meant nothing if it did not assert 
 the superiority of the interests of a single State over those 
 of the aggregation of States ; Nullification was an empty form 
 unless it meant that each State possessed vital interests so 
 widely divergent from those of other States that its very ex 
 istence would be at stake if it was to admit the right of the 
 central government to adopt and enforce any policy which a 
 majority of the other States might deem expedient. Both 
 States rights and Nullification premised the absence of that 
 normal community of interests, of that essential uniformity 
 of thought and ideals, upon which alone one nation in the 
 proper sense of the word could be based. They denied the 
 existence of a whole of which they were severally parts ; they 
 solemnly affirmed the existence of a formal relationship be 
 tween entities absolutely complete within themselves. Seces 
 sion stated in actual words the contention of a great section 
 of the country that two nations really existed within the 
 bond of the Federal Government and that the formal recog- 
 
 i "The tendency of all these ideas and sentiments is obviously to 
 bring the Union into discussion, as a mere question of present and 
 temporary expediency; nothing more than a mere matter of profit and 
 loss. The Union is to be preserved, while it suits local and temporary 
 purposes to preserve it; and to be sundered whenever it shall be found 
 to thwart such purposes. Union, of itself, is considered by the dis 
 ciples of this school as hardly a good. . . . They cherish no deep and 
 fixed regard for it, flowing from a thorough conviction of its absolute 
 and vital necessity to our welfare." Webster, first reply to Hayne, 
 Jan. 20, 1830. Works, III, 258-9. "Again, if the United States be not 
 a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of con 
 tract merely . . ." Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Nicolay and 
 Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, VI, 174. 
 
THE MEANING OF AMERICAN HISTORY 9 
 
 nition of this obvious political and constitutional fact was so 
 vital to the well-being of the South that those States were pre 
 pared to demand its acceptance at the point of the bayonet. 
 The doctrine of the constitutionality of secession affirmed that 
 the separation would be legal according to the Constitution be 
 cause there had always been entities in America, not an or 
 ganic whole. The Civil War was not a fight for the preserva 
 tion of the Constitution or of a technical political bond called 
 the Union, but a war to remove the last and greatest obstacle 
 in the way of the formation of an American nation the be 
 lief of nearly one-half the country that a single nation not 
 only did not exist but was neither possible nor desirable. 
 The great number of Southern men who accepted the action 
 of their State as superior in obligation even to their own per 
 sonal conclusions that the war was wrong, proves absolutely 
 the lack of a distinctly national consciousness in 1861. 
 
 The result of the Civil War was, therefore, something in 
 finitely grander than the preservation of a constitutional 
 form known as the Union. The North was inspired by the 
 vision of "a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a 
 strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks, as an 
 eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled 
 eyes at the full mid-day beam"; the vision of a nation one 
 and inseparable, in which the rights of the whole should 
 never be sacrificed to an individual or to any body of indi 
 viduals. Just as the greatness of Webster consisted in the 
 fact that he made the North see this vision, so the greatness 
 of Lincoln s achievement lay in the fact that he made North 
 and South alike realize that the aim of the war was not so 
 much the abolition of slavery or the denial of States rights 2 
 
 2"! have, therefore, in every case thought it proper to keep the in 
 tegrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest 
 on our part. . . . The Union must be preserved." Lincoln, Message to 
 Congress, Dec. 3, 1861. See also the First Inaugural Address, the first 
 paragraphs. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the 
 Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery." Lincoln s letter 
 to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862. Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works, 
 VIII, 16. See also Grant s correspondence for 1861 in Letters of U. 8, 
 Grant, edited by J. G. Cramer. (1913.) 
 
10 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 as the creation of a mighty nation, powerful in her grasp of 
 a continent and two oceans, rich in the fruits of united en 
 deavor, invincible by reason of her consciousness of a noble 
 and splendid ideal. The superiority of the whole over the 
 parts, the splendor of the aspirations born of designs based 
 upon the unity of the people, were the decisive factors in_ 
 favor of the North. The War made Southerners and North 
 erners Americans. The essence of American history then is 
 this achieving of nationality by a great people. Than this 
 no subject could be greater or more fascinating to the student. 
 It is the only instance in all human history where we can 
 watch the consciousness of nationality actually dawning in 
 the individual mind. 
 
II 
 
 SPANISH AND FRENCH FAILURES 
 
 WE owe the first knowledge of this continent to Norse rovers, 
 to Breton or Portuguese fishermen, who told of its fish and 
 grapes, but never deemed its existence of greater moment. 
 We owe its real discovery to the mistaken geographical no 
 tions of the earth s size and form, prevalent in Western Eu 
 rope at the end of the fifteenth century, which filled a tall, 
 ruddy-haired Genoese sailor with visions of incalculable 
 wealth and of the salvation of souls unborn, and led him to 
 embark a crew of adventurers and criminals in three small, 
 leaky vessels for a voyage to find a sea route to India and 
 China by sailing west. We owe the name America to an ad 
 venturer, contractor, and sailor, who wrote the first account 
 of the Mundus Novus which attained much circulation or 
 notoriety. Nevertheless, neither the date of the discovery, 
 the person of the discoverer, nor the nation he represented 
 exercised then or since any appreciable influence on the his 
 tory of the United States. When the English settlers landed 
 at Jamestown in 1607, the Spanish had long relinquished the 
 exploration and settlement of the northern Continent and 
 had left within the limits of the present United States only 
 a handful of soldiers and settlers in Florida and New Mexico 
 whose continued existence was made precarious by pestilence, 
 famine, and hostile Indians. A century of Spanish effort 
 hardly provided the English who followed them with the 
 knowledge that land of continental dimensions existed here. 
 
 Yet if Spanish discoverers and explorers contributed noth 
 ing of value to the history of the United States, it was not 
 for lack of diligence nor of prodigious effort. They sought 
 Cipango with the greatest tenacity among the islands in the 
 
 11 
 
12 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Caribbean, hunted the South and Central American coasts 
 with assiduity, and even attempted wild guesses at the rela 
 tion the scattered islands and bits of continent bore to the 
 maps of Asia already published by travelers and geographers. 
 It was plain to most that the great land south of Cuba was a 
 part of Asia. Then came Balboa. He pushed across the 
 Isthmus of Panama and found the sea on the western side 
 (1513). Was the Mundus Novus then in the South and 
 was it Asia itself that lay to the North? Magellan in his 
 long voyage around the Horn and across the Pacific (1519-21) 
 demonstrated that South America was not connected with 
 Asia and for the first time gave Europeans some notion of 
 the magnitude of the Pacific Ocean, and of the true size of 
 the globe. 
 
 Then came to the shores of the northern continent strong 
 expeditions, with infantry and cavalry, generals and priests, 
 seeking everywhere the great countries of Asia which Marco 
 Polo had seen and described. One skirted the northern coast 
 of the Gulf of Mexico and saw the mouth of a great river; 
 others sailed along the Atlantic coast and made at least one 
 attempt to settle on the James River; two traversed the con 
 tinent from Florida west to the Pacific. Coronado pushed 
 north from Mexico through the Zuni pueblos to the plains of 
 western Kansas and probably returned through Texas. De 
 Soto, in the east, marched northward from the Gulf into 
 Tennessee, and his men, burying him, a victim to the climate, 
 returned along the Mississippi. The Spaniards had explored 
 the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the 
 Gulf as far north as the latitude of Virginia and Missouri 
 and yet do not seem to have measured distances or plotted 
 maps to scale or to have realized that a river as large as the 
 Mississippi must drain a land of continental dimensions. 
 "Whatever they knew, they kept carefully to themselves and 
 in 1600 the cartographers knowledge of the interior was still 
 of the vaguest. 
 
 The reasons for this failure of the Spanish to colonize 
 are not far to seek. The Spaniards came not to found homes 
 
SPANISH AND FRENCH FAILURES 13 
 
 as the English did, but to hunt for gold, for the mysterious 
 fountain of eternal youth, for the land where the Grand 
 Khan, Prester John, Gog and Magog, and the mythical per- 
 sonages described by Sir John Mandeville and other imagi 
 native medieval travelers dwelt in surpassing luxury and mag 
 nificence. They had read that there were rivers of diamonds, 
 trees on which grew pearls and rubies, and a huge palace 
 lighted by a single glorious carbuncle. The simple tale of 
 Fray Marcos about his trip to the pueblos in Arizona was 
 elaborated by breathless auditors into statements, greedily 
 accepted, that he had seen a city as large as two Sevilles, 
 where all the women wore great strings of golden beads, 
 where all the men were silversmiths, and where the very 
 lintels of the doors were studded with emeralds and rubies. 
 Such cities the Spaniards had expected to find ; for such ex 
 peditions money and men were forthcoming. Their disap 
 pointment was great, for they found some adobe pueblos, into 
 whose door-jambs had been pressed with a no more skilful 
 instrument than the Indian s thumb, rough uncut topazes 
 and garnets. The inhabitants were darkskinned men and 
 women clad in dirty woolen blankets and wearing a few 
 bracelets and anklets of rough-beaten gold and red copper. 
 To the north, Coronado found only huge herds of "hump 
 backed cows"; to the east, other explorers found the arid 
 plains of Texas, and the swamps of Louisiana and Florida. 
 They stood in the treasure house of the new world, in the 
 Elysian Fields the race had so long sought, in the abode of 
 wealth, liberty, and hope; and they knew it not. They 
 sought the wealth of Inde and of the Grand Khan of China ; 
 they were ready with Benedict to "fetch you a toothpicker 
 from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of 
 Prester John s foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Chan s 
 beard; do you any embassy to the Pigmies"; but they were 
 not ready to work. They turned to Mexico and Peru where 
 the gold, silver, and precious stones they had come for were 
 to be found. 
 At the same time, the failure to colonize was not due merely 
 
14 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 to the aims of the men who came. The cutthroats and down- 
 at-the-heel gentlemen of Europe, looking for sudden riches, 
 were indeed far from good material for settlers, but they 
 came to spots unsuitable for permanent colonies and they 
 came utterly without preparation for settlement and indeed 
 without even the faintest notion of what the mainland was 
 like. The swamps and lowlands of the Gulf States, the hot 
 fields of Texas are not favorable spots for white men to live 
 in, and the population there is still sparse. Unfitted for 
 permanent residence, the voyagers were not able to maintain 
 themselves for any considerable time. A Spaniard clothed 
 in leather jerkin, heavy cuirass, helmet, leather boots to his 
 knees, and an arquebus weighing twenty pounds was not 
 ready for a march through a Florida swamp on a torrid 
 summer s day. The horses sank to their knees in the ooze 
 and were burdens rather than aids to progress ; the insectivora 
 swarmed; yellow fever, malaria, and dysentery carried off 
 the unfortunate explorers at a rapid rate. Narvaez and his 
 men, driven mad by disease, hunger, and the swamp pests, 
 finally killed their horses, made boats out of the skins, em 
 barked on the Gulf and perished miserably trying to reach 
 Mexico. 
 
 In addition, tHe Spanish landed one and all among fierce 
 and well-organized Indian tribes. The Zuni and Moqui 
 pueblo confederacies in Arizona and New Mexico and the 
 Creeks and Cherokees on the Gulf coast, though less ad 
 vanced than the Aztecs and Peruvians, were yet the strong 
 est bands on the Northern continent and extended their in 
 fluence to the north until it met that of the Iroquois in 
 Pennsylvania and Illinois. None of them were civilized in 
 any degree as we use the word. They were, in fact, in middle 
 barbarism, two ethnical periods, of some thousands of years 
 apiece, behind the European explorers in development. Not 
 having attained the knowledge of smelting iron or the use 
 of the alphabet, their warfare, agriculture, architecture, and 
 domestic life were those of people who, for lack of hard im 
 plements, must be content with axes whose edges turned, with 
 
SPANISH AND FRENCH FAILURES 16 
 
 plows and hoes of use only for scratching the surface, and 
 with houses built of mud and wattle or of soft limestone. 
 Their social organization too was most primitive : they traced 
 property and descent through the mother instead of through 
 the father, had no private ownership of property, no domestic 
 animals save the dog. They were utterly unfit to cope per 
 manently with the white men, with whom they could not 
 amalgamate and whom they could not in the long run suc 
 cessfully oppose ; but they were stalwart, entirely void of phys 
 ical fear and sufficiently well-organized to give the Spaniards 
 infinite trouble in this first encounter. 
 
 Nevertheless, with ordinary prudence -and moderation the 
 Spaniards might have fared well. They considered the In 
 dians, however, to be heretics fit only for slaves. Coronado s 
 men snatched the blankets from the very backs of squaws and 
 even of chiefs; De Soto outraged Indian notions of dignity 
 by compelling chiefs to carry burdens. One and all the Span 
 iards scoffed at the Indians worship and to all this they added 
 treachery and cruelty. From greed, violence, and slave-catch 
 ing could come only one result. The Spaniards were attacked 
 and ambushed, their water and food destroyed, their horses 
 killed, their guns stolen. The Indians, who had been ready to 
 find among the first Spaniards the white Messiah their legends 
 told about, came to detest them with a deep and strenuous 
 hatred. Moreover, coupled to the selfishness, greed, and in 
 subordination of the rank and file were the rivalry, jealousy, 
 and treachery of the leaders. Indeed, the existence of such 
 factors makes the failure of the Spaniards to influence the 
 history of the United States seem not surprising, but inevit 
 able. 
 
 Nor was Spain the strong united nation needed to mother a 
 sturdy race of colonists and protect their infancy. Her unity 
 was seeming rather than real; her loyalty to the king ques 
 tionable ; the prevailing idea of her prosperity based upon the 
 economic fallacy that the silver she began to get from Peru 
 in such enormous sums was real wealth. Prom the dynastic 
 visions of Charles V and Philip II came weakness, not 
 
16 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 strength. Throughout the century she was occupied either 
 with war with France, or with subduing revolts in Germany, 
 in the Netherlands, or in Spain itself. Her rulers had, in 
 fact, neither energy, money, nor men to devote to the creation 
 and development of a new Spain in the temperate regions of 
 North America. 
 
 The exploits of the French Huguenots in Florida and South 
 Carolina and the work of French fur-traders and fishermen 
 in the St. Lawrence region had also led by 1607 to no results 
 of permanence. The same causes which made the Spanish 
 settlement difficult, plus the enmity of the Spaniards them 
 selves, effectually crushed all the enterprises in the South, 
 while the inclement winters of the North, and the difficulty 
 of raising food in the brief summers caused the fur-traders 
 and fishermen to erect only factories which they visited yearly. 
 Along the Great Lakes, too, the French met the fierce and 
 well-organized Iroquois, who effectually prevented them from 
 playing a significant part in the history of the United States. 
 The existence of the French colonies in the eighteenth century 
 rather than the dramatic exploits of explorers in the seven 
 teenth is of importance in our national development. 
 
 Thus it fell out that when the English queen issued a pat 
 ent of colonization in 1578 to Raleigh and Gilbert, her notions 
 of what she was granting were of the vaguest. Fairly ac 
 curate maps had been made and published showing the conti 
 nent and its main features of coast-line ; but side by side with 
 these there flourished many maps representing all sorts of 
 conceptions of the new land, and the men of the time had 
 not yet proved to their own satisfaction which of these ideas 
 was right. "Without actual experience, no one could tell be 
 yond a doubt which was valuable and which was worthless. 
 The English appear to have believed that the Atlantic coast 
 was in places only a couple of hundred miles wide, and that 
 on the other side of this narrow strip was the China Sea 
 and the cities Marco Polo had described. So naive too were 
 their conceptions of natural forces that the first Virginia 
 settlers were ordered by the English capitalists, who financed 
 
SPANISH AND FRENCH FAILURES 17 
 
 the expedition, to sail up the rivers till they came to the spot 
 where in a storm the waters of the China Sea washed over 
 into the head waters of the James and the Potomac. Even 
 after it became known that land and not water lay to the west, 
 the expectations lingered of finding marvelous cities and, 
 at the very least, a water-way to China. Champlain thought 
 the La Chine rapids were all that blocked his path ; La Salle 
 fully expected to sail down the Ohio into the Pacific, and, 
 after being disappointed in this, long believed that the Mis 
 sissippi led thither; in fact, as late as the Revolution, the 
 Rev. James Maury, made famous by the Parson s Cause, pre 
 dicted a glorious commercial future for Virginia because of 
 the water-way through the Potomac, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers 
 to the Pacific and the Chinese trade. Magellan had demon 
 strated the fact that a new world existed, but it remained for 
 the French and English gradually to "discover" the confines 
 of the present United States by living in it for nearly three 
 centuries. 
 
 No proper conception of the area and configuration of the 
 continent was definitely attained and spread generally 
 through the community until the days of Jefferson when 
 Lewis and Clark returned from their long journey to the 
 Pacific coast. The effective discovery of the present United 
 States was, then, a long and difficult process, which was so 
 far from begun when the first English colonists came here 
 that the name Virginia, applied by the English at that time 
 to the whole Atlantic coast, was still one to conjure up to the 
 excited imaginations of adventurous men all sorts of won 
 drous possibilities. This ignorance of actual conditions and 
 the resultant color it lent to glorious legends and fables was 
 probably no less important a factor in producing English 
 emigration than had been Columbus s misconceptions of geog 
 raphy in causing the discovery of the Western Hemisphere. 
 Had either known precisely what they would find here, had 
 either dreamt of what they would suffer here, neither would 
 have come at all. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 OF the many events that happened on this continent only 
 those are a part of the history of the United States which 
 vitally influenced the fortunes of the people who ratified 
 the Constitution at the end of the eighteenth century, and 
 who have since, by the friction and strife of a century s 
 earnest endeavor, at last welded themselves into a nation, 
 possessed of unity of language, laws, and ideals, and whose 
 advanced corporate consciousness entitles it to the respect 
 and admiration of the world. During the colonial period 
 the elements of this nation were brought into a wilderness; 
 the Revolution separated those elements from England and 
 left them to forge themselves into a nation without Euro 
 pean interference; the history of the country since 1789 is 
 the story of fusing and welding discordant political and 
 economic interests into unity. The Civil War completed the 
 nation whose first elements came hither in the Susan Con 
 stant and the Mayflower. The genesis of the United States 
 consists, then, of those things which made it possible for 
 Englishmen to come to America; of those things which made 
 them willing or anxious to come; and of those things which 
 made it possible for them to stay. 
 
 The present United States was made possible by the victory 
 of the English fleet over the Spanish Armada at Gravelines 
 in July 1588. The victory was itself the product of the 
 genius of the English race for naval architecture and the 
 legitimate result of the development of a new type of fighting 
 ship that could sail as well as fight. The Channel pirates 
 and the daring voyages of Hawkins and Drake to the Spanish 
 Main gave the men of the English South Coast a knowledge 
 
 18 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 19 
 
 of seamanship, a reckless courage, and a contempt for Span 
 iards. But after all the fact that the English won by sheer 
 efficiency and bravery was of less consequence in the history 
 of the United States than the fact of the victory itself. The 
 Spanish fleet was vanquished England became mistress of 
 the seas and the new land to the west lay open to English 
 enterprise. That one day s valiant work, far more than the 
 voyages of Cabot, the reiterated claims of Mary and Elizabeth, 
 and the patents of James, gave the English a right to the 
 soil of the New World. The control of the ocean highway 
 to America was the indispensable prerequisite of posses 
 sion. 
 
 A great outburst of energy in the last years of the sixteenth 
 century and the first of the seventeenth betokened the loosing 
 of the pent-up strength stored away in England by the domes 
 tic peace and economic growth of the preceding century. 
 Population and wealth had increased enormously. The fet 
 ters which decadent feudalism and the gild and open-field 
 systems had placed upon agriculture and industry were 
 stricken off. "With the enclosing of fields and the turning of 
 arable land into pasture for sheep came an improvement in 
 the old wasteful methods of agriculture and stock-raising 
 which doubled and trebled the output of the realm. The 
 dissolution of the monasteries placed a vast property which 
 had been hitherto administered merely for subsistence into 
 the hands of men who utilized it for profit. Means of ex 
 change increased ; the middleman appeared and the broker in 
 grain; trading-companies, most significant for the develop 
 ment of the new world, and ready money seeking investment. 
 The old economic fabric had given way before a new. The 
 victory of the Armada seemed to be the occasion for suddenly 
 displaying the great progress made since the Wars of the 
 Roses. A taste for literature and the drama, fine clothes and 
 houses, music and art began to invade the middle class. Not 
 only the control of the sea but the energy and wealth stored 
 away by the English nation during the sixteenth century 
 made the colonization of America a possibility. Nor was it 
 
20 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 less important that the settlement of domestic and foreign 
 quarrels allowed the subjects of James to spend money upon 
 enterprises which would have been hazardous in the extreme 
 in any previous ten decades. In 1606 the moment was indeed 
 propitious for colonization. 
 
 Out of the economic tangle of the sixteenth century came 
 two varieties of men interesting to us: the capitalists with 
 money to invest, or, as the phrase went, "to adventure," and 
 the "planters," the men anxious to try their fortunes in a 
 new land. The rise of towns, the distribution of the mon 
 astic lands and of the huge estates which escheated to the 
 Crown during or after the Wars of the Roses and which 
 were mostly granted to gentlemen without titles, the new 
 agriculture, the new manufacturing all produced a new 
 class of men Avith ready money. The prodigious success of the 
 Muscovy, Levant, and East India Companies made this class 
 willing to risk a great deal for the hope of large profits. The 
 very same events had turned tenants from their fathers 
 fields ; had left monks homeless ; had deprived apprentices and 
 journeymen of their own tasks, and had thus created a class 
 of unemployed men whose vigor and ambitions were great. 
 Then the vast amounts of silver poured from the mines of 
 Peru had, by a sort of poetic justice, provided men with 
 good reasons for emigration to the new continent whence the 
 silver came. The value of money had declined, prices had 
 risen in consequence and were in 1600, as a result of this and 
 many contributory causes, two or three times what they had 
 been in 1500. Every one whose income was derived from 
 money payments lost, of course, a large proportion of their 
 means of support, and many families turned out to make 
 their own fortunes the younger sons they could no longer af 
 ford to maintain. Not only had the economic crisis made the 
 English nation rich enough to undertake the colonization of 
 America, not only did the political situation allow it thus to 
 divert its energies, but the two had together produced the in 
 dividuals needed to occupy the new country. 
 
 The great movements of the time had also worked to pre- 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 21 
 
 pare individuals for migration to a new land where the pos 
 sibilities of economic and personal development were not 
 cramped by relics of feudal law, the limitations of scholastic 
 philosophy, or the creeds of Kome. The Renaissance had 
 brought to the individual a sense of power utterly foreign to 
 the medieval man and, as well, a new restlessness, a reckless 
 curiosity, and a love of adventure for its own sake. The six 
 teenth century man was sure that knowledge was power; that 
 omniscience was possible; and that any man might attain it. 
 His delight in physical existence, his confidence in his own 
 ability, led him to look upon the unknown, and indeed the 
 unknowable, as the only field "whereby a notable mind," in 
 the words of George Beste, "might be made famous and 
 fortunate." The greater the danger, the larger the risk; the 
 larger the compensation, the greater the glory. To those 
 eager to obtain fame and wealth in the conquest of the phys 
 ical world, the Reformation added a number of admirable, 
 pious men and women desirous of finding a place where there 
 ^vere no fetters upon freedom of speech and of worship, and 
 where, in consequence, they might work out their own sal 
 vation in the way they believed God had directed, without 
 interference from either those who thought them heretics or 
 those who called them fools. And they sought not a place 
 where every one should be free to think as he liked and do as 
 he pleased, but a place where all men should agree upon 
 fundamentals and whence all others could be expelled. The 
 saving of their own souls, their own obedience to God s com 
 mands as to temporal and spiritual observance, were the 
 reasons for their coming. The self-same arguments that 
 drove William Bradford and John Winthrop from the Eng 
 lish Church led them to exile Roger Williams and the Quakers 
 from Plymouth and Boston. 
 
 Curiosity, the spirit of adventure, an eager search for the 
 Northwest Passage to China led the first English explorers 
 to American waters, but their reports of the possibilities of the 
 land rather than their own experiences fired the minds of 
 adventurer and planter alike. The returned navigators 
 
22 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 described the surpassing climate whose warmth raised ex 
 pectations of growing lemons and olives in Maine ! Wine 
 could certainly be made in large quantities, they declared ; the 
 silk worm would flourish; spices of all sorts either abounded 
 or could be cultivated; gold was plentiful but would have to 
 be mined. These samples of the saner predictions made were 
 all proven true to the average mind by the enormous profits 
 made from a cargo of sassafras bark brought back by Gosnold. 
 That they knew much more about the country than we can 
 prove they knew, is certain. Laudonniere and other Hugue 
 nots who escaped from Fort Caroline were in London as early 
 as 1566 and lived with Raleigh and the Gilberts; three of 
 Hawkins s men who made their way across the continent from 
 Mexico to Maine and were brought home by French fishermen 
 were closeted with merchants and promoters. Walsingham, 
 the Secretary of State, Peckham, and others listened to what 
 they had to say and studied carefully the records of Ver- 
 razano s voyage along the Atlantic coast in 1524, of Cartier s 
 voyage to the St. Lawrence ten years later, and no doubt 
 many maps and narratives which are since lost. Gilbert even 
 consulted the famous astrologer and alchemist, Dr. Dee, as 
 to the possibilities of the new land, and, as Dee records in 
 his diary, "I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert, and John Davis went by 
 appointment to Mr. Secretary Beale his house where only we 
 four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privy of the 
 northwest passage." Nevertheless, despite the explorers and 
 the writing in the stars, the limitations of their knowledge 
 were astonishing. Gilbert, for instance, seems to have be 
 lieved the new country peopled by fauns ! 
 
 Impelled by some such considerations as these, heartened 
 by the tales of explorers, a body of merchants and gentlemen 
 contributed a considerable sum of money, secured in 1606 the 
 charter of a joint-stock company from the Crown, permitting 
 them to exploit and settle the new Virginia, as the whole At 
 lantic coast was then called. After some delay, one hundred 
 and twenty men sailed from the Thames in December 1606, 
 in three ships furnished by the London part of the Virginia 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 23 
 
 Company. Landing in May 1607, they began the first per 
 manent settlement in the present United States, at James 
 town, in the very sort of locality which the sensible instruc 
 tions they carried explicitly warned them against. They put 
 up the first rough shacks on a little peninsula in the James 
 Eiver, near a strip of woods affording Indians an excellent 
 cover for attack, and besides a pestilential bit of marsh and 
 stagnant back-water. The "planters" too, for the most part 
 adventurers and down-at-the-heel gentlemen anxious to make 
 a fortune, all of them a thoroughly unpractical lot, had not 
 come to work for a living but to become rich without work 
 ing. When, therefore, they found that pearls and nuggets 
 of gold were not to be picked up on the banks of the James; 
 that the inhabitants had little worth stealing; and that the 
 Virginia rivers did not lead to China, they sulked and shirked 
 and became mutinous. The food began to get low; once 
 rats broke into the granary; once fire consumed both houses 
 and food. One year after the founding of Jamestown, only 
 fifty-three out of one hundred and ninety-seven persons who 
 had landed there were still alive, and the quarrels of the 
 leaders, the hostility and thievery of the Indians, and the 
 lack of food seemed certain to destroy the colony. The situ 
 ation seems to have been saved by the one man of sense 
 on the ground, a professional soldier fresh from a romantic 
 life as a free lance in Hungary and a galley slave in Con 
 stantinople, whom the capitalists in England had hired to 
 accompany the expedition, Captain John Smith. He hanged 
 the mutinous; pacified the Indians and bought corn from 
 them; and forced the laggards to work by explaining that 
 the Company s rules provided that all should share in com 
 mon both the food and the work, and that he who would not 
 work should not eat. The Company in England, taught by 
 experience, sent over artisans and laborers to replace the 
 lazy, adventurous spirits who had succumbed to malaria and 
 fever; and finally put in charge of the Colony in 1611 an 
 other professional soldier, Sir Thomas Dale, who governed 
 the settlers by the military rules then in use in European 
 
24 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 armies and produced not only order and industry, but 
 church-going and perhaps piety ! 
 
 Meanwhile, in the North, the Plymouth branch of the Vir 
 ginia Company had explored the New England coast and 
 had planted one colony in Maine, which stayed out the winter 
 of 1607-8 and promptly returned in the spring with harrow 
 ing tales of the severity of the climate and the definite in 
 formation that lemons, olives, and the silk-worm did not 
 flourish there. Scarcely a year followed, however, without 
 bringing some voyager to the northern coasts, among them 
 Captain John Smith, Samuel Argall from Virginia, Cham- 
 plain from the St. Lawrence, and many Dutch traders from 
 the tiny factories they began to establish about 1614 in the 
 neighborhood of Long Island Sound. Permanent settlements 
 there were none between the James and the St. Croix, but the 
 whole coast was alive with fur-traders and fishermen during 
 the long summers, a few of whom at times stayed out the 
 winter, and all of whom were doing a valuable work in chart 
 ing the coast and in making known to Englishmen its pecu 
 liarities and resources. The shores of Massachusetts Bay 
 were by no means an unknown region when the Mayflower 
 with about one hundred souls on board came to anchor off 
 Provincetown in December 1620. 
 
 Thirty-five members of a congregation of Englishmen at 
 Leyden had left Holland, not because they could not worship 
 there as they wished, but because they found it hard to 
 make a living, saw their children losing their English speech 
 and habits, and feared that the renewal of the war with 
 Spain might actually put their lives in danger. In the new 
 country, they could not fare much worse, they argued, nor 
 run much greater risks and would probably be, in the end, 
 far freer and more comfortable. They had arranged with 
 some London merchants to finance their expedition, in return 
 for which they agreed to put the proceeds of their labors 
 into a "common store" for seven years, at the expiration 
 of which land should be assigned to each family and a pro 
 portional division made of the joint property of the mer- 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 25 
 
 chants and the settlers. Some of their friends in England had 
 been induced to join them and a good many laborers and 
 craftsmen had been hired by the merchants to accompany 
 them to work on the latter s behalf. The little colony at 
 Plymouth was by no means homogeneous, in character or in 
 aims, and the strict religious life of the Pilgrims irked the 
 laborers sent by the merchants. The common stock was a 
 failure, as it had been at Jamestown, and, after some years 
 of suffering and privation, as severe as that at Jamestown, 
 though not by any means as fatal, Plymouth was sheltering 
 a fairly prosperous band of about three hundred men and 
 women. 
 
 Soon after their arrival, the adjacent shores of Massachu 
 setts Bay were dotted w r ith little villages of log huts, hous 
 ing such fur-traders and adventurers as Thomas Morton of 
 Merrymount and Robert Gorges of Wessagusset ; a small band 
 of men settled at Dorchester and another at Salem, all un 
 der grants from the Council for New England, to whom 
 James I had delegated in 1620 the right to grant to colo 
 nists the land between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels. 
 Most of these settlements were soon absorbed into the Colony 
 of Massachusetts Bay, founded by the arrival of the Great 
 Emigration at Boston in 1630 under John Winthrop and 
 Thomas Dudley. In contrast to the fur-traders, who had 
 money and servants but were not colonists, and to the Pil 
 grims, who possessed numbers but few worldly goods, the 
 Puritans were well provided with both and came for the ex 
 press purpose of founding a new state in the wilderness on 
 the model laid down in the Bible. Several of them had held 
 positions of prominence in England, most of them had some 
 property, and, with their retainers, furniture, and domestic 
 animals, they soon established around Boston a number of 
 small but thriving towns, whose population was constantly 
 augmented by new arrivals from England. 
 
 Indeed, so marked was the strength and wealth of the Bay 
 Colony that its malcontents seceded and founded Providence, 
 Rhode Island, the River Towns, New Haven, and New Hamp- 
 
26 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 shire, without hindering its own rapid growth. The settle 
 ment of New England was in a sense merely the expansion 
 of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Lord Baltimore had founded 
 in Maryland a colony meant to be a refuge for Eoman Cath 
 olics persecuted in England; the Swedes had set up factories 
 along the Delaware; the Dutch had extended their trading- 
 posts along the Hudson and Long Island Sound. By 1640, 
 the whole Atlantic coast was fringed with colonists all of 
 whom had arrived in a single generation, the great bulk of 
 whom had come within the single decade, 1630-1640, to a 
 land on which it had hardly seemed possible in 1588 that 
 an English colony would ever exist. 
 
 The explanation of this rapid growth and of the perma 
 nence of the English colonies is to be found partly in the 
 extremely advantageous character of the land for the pur 
 poses of settlement. The soil was fertile, the climate tem 
 perate, the rainfall varied and dependable, making possible 
 a great variety of crops and in particular allowing the pro 
 duction of all the staples to which the colonists had been 
 accustomed in Europe. The change in their mode of life was 
 not, therefore, too violent, as had been the case with the 
 Spanish and the French. The numerous rivers were so many 
 highways opening the country for miles inland to exploita 
 tion at a time when the making of roads would have opposed 
 insuperable obstacles to its exploration and settlement. The 
 influence of the land upon the people who came was good. 
 It attracted serious, hard-working men and women, looking 
 for homes, whose energy and resourcefulness were developed 
 by life in a climate too cold to make existence easy. From 
 the elements that had fatally distracted the attention of the 
 Spaniards precious metals and luxuriant vegetation it was 
 entirely free, and forced the colonists to develop profitable 
 industries by their own labor. The treasure-seekers, the 
 merely adventurous, the lazy, the stupid were soon eliminated 
 and the population was recruited only from the more desir 
 able European emigrants. 
 
 Nor was it without a deep thankfulness and sense of its 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OP THE UNITED STATES 27 
 
 significance that Winthrop wrote, "God hath cleared our 
 title. Perhaps the character of the land, perhaps chance, 
 had made the coast Indians weak, and they had been further 
 decimated by pestilence just before the English settlers ap 
 peared at Jamestown and at Plymouth. In addition, num 
 bers were swept off by strong drink which acted upon their 
 unaccustomed frames like virulent poison, and by the measles 
 and smallpox which they caught from the whites and which 
 raged as epidemic fevers, deadly as the plague. While it is 
 not probable that the English were influenced solely by a 
 desire to insure the Indians welfare, the fact remains that 
 one and all they treated them with courtesy and did not 
 rouse their antagonism. Henry Hudson, in particular, so 
 entertained the chiefs along the Hudson in 1609 when he 
 explored that river, that the Iroquois were ever after firm 
 friends of the English. No doubt the attack upon them by 
 Champlain on the Richelieu River that same year and the 
 prodigious fright they received from the firing of his blun 
 derbuss contributed to the general result. In time, how 
 ever, as the coast Indians learned that settlement by the 
 English meant not only fire-water, guns, iron hatchets, and 
 kettles so superior in operation to their own crude tools 
 that life became a pleasure, but the loss of their land and the 
 destruction of the game, hostility developed apace and gave 
 rise to sporadic outbreaks which were with one or two ex 
 ceptions crushed by the colonists without great difficulty. On 
 the whole, it is true, that only in the first years of the century 
 were the Indians a menace to the existence of the English 
 settlements. 
 
 Nevertheless, had it not been for the founding of Massa 
 chusetts Bay and the presence around Boston of thousands, 
 where at Plymouth and Jamestown were only hundreds, the 
 fate of the United States might have been different. Massa 
 chusetts was a tower of strength to the people of New Haven 
 and the River Towns in their resistance to the encroach 
 ments of the Dutch. The little collection of huts inside 
 the rough palisade at New Amsterdam was rather a trading- 
 
28 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 post than a permanent settlement, for its population were 
 Indian traders, sailors, and the cosmopolitan crew which had 
 haunted the New England coast until dislodged by the set 
 tlers who had not scrupled to eject them bag and baggage 
 as undesirable tenants. From Holland were sent out by the 
 Dutch "West India Company "governors" whose duty it was 
 to control the fur-trade and make money for the Company. 
 Yet weak as New Amsterdam was, had it not been for the 
 existence of Massachusetts, the attempts of Kieft and Stuy- 
 vesant to get control of the Connecticut River valley might 
 have been successful, more settlers might have come, and 
 the English conquest of 1665 might have added to the other 
 elements already in America a really considerable amount 
 of Dutch blood and tradition. To the south, the Swedes 
 succumbed to the Dutch. Thus, little more than half a cen 
 tury after the first English settlers arrived, about eighty 
 thousand people were scattered along the coast from Maine to 
 North Carolina, all of whom recognized the English King 
 and the English law and the vast majority of whom had 
 come from England itself. 
 
 The most vital fact, however, explaining the permanence of 
 English possession is found in the existence of maize, an 
 indigenous and nutritious food-plant, which could be culti 
 vated successfully where the European foodstuffs could not 
 be grown. Wheat, barley, rye, or oats needed a cleared field, 
 deep ploughing, and constant labor. A hole made with a 
 sharp stick in the open fields or in any forest clearing, a 
 bit of fish dropped in and covered with a little dirt knocked 
 in with the foot, a few kernels of maize covered in a similarly 
 primitive manner and the whole process of agriculture was 
 finished. Neither the Jamestown nor Plymouth colonists nor 
 many and many a trader would have lived to tell the tale 
 but for this maize which they could raise or buy from the 
 Indians. At first serious discussions, which amuse us, took 
 place over the edibility of shell fish, turkeys, and blueberries, 
 and grave doubts were felt about the safety of drinking 
 the water, instead of the "small-beer" to which they had 
 
THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 29 
 
 been accustomed in England. These doubts were vanquished 
 by a little experience induced by necessity, and it is hardly 
 an exaggeration to say that the great majority of the colo 
 nists supported life even during the first half century largely 
 from indigenous food-products. 
 
 But America would never have counted many inhabitants 
 had it not provided them with a profitable return for their 
 labor in the shape of commodities which could be sent to 
 England in exchange for the clothes, shoes, books, and lux 
 uries to which they had been accustomed. The market was 
 soon overstocked with sassafras, but tobacco furnished the 
 Southern colonies a marketable staple whose importance in 
 the upbuilding of the United States cannot be exaggerated. 
 The simplicity of its cultivation, the possibility of employing 
 unskilled labor, the simple method of curing it discovered 
 about 1616 by Rolfe, made it the decisive influence in en 
 suring the growth of the young colony on the James. By 
 this time, it was well known in England that olives, wine, 
 and silk were as legendary as gold and pearls, and expect 
 ant colonists for New England needed to be assured of the 
 presence of some tangible asset. The cod, whose dense 
 schools stopping the progress of ships had attracted Breton 
 and Portuguese fishermen as early perhaps as 1450, now 
 became a staple of the thriving trade of Boston and Plymouth, 
 where the pious Bradford and his lieutenant, John Alden, 
 developed an amazing commercial sagacity for men who had 
 renounced worldly aims. Along the New England coast the 
 supply of fur-bearing animals was soon too much reduced 
 to make the trade profitable, but New Amsterdam and Fort 
 Orange (Albany) rivaled Tadousac, Quebec, and Montreal 
 as fur centers. The Hudson and Mohawk tapped the 
 home land of the great Iroquois tribes and were the natural 
 outlet for their spoils of the chase. By all these varied 
 factors, the advantages of the site, the absence of powerful 
 Indian occupants, the value of maize, tobacco, fish, and furs, 
 the permanence of the English colonies in America was as 
 sured as early as 1640. The preponderance of the English 
 
30 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 over all other elements of the population made it clear 
 that they would mold the destinies of the growing nation 
 and absorb foreign elements rather than be themselves 
 absorbed. 
 
IV 
 THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 
 
 IN 1665, the whole Atlantic coast passed finally into English 
 control; in 1776, the coast colonies declared themselves in 
 dependent of England. The chief task for the historian of 
 colonial history is the explanation of this latter fact the 
 most important single fact in our annals the depicting of 
 the forces which enabled us to deserve and to win our in 
 dependence. The fundamental cause of the Revolution lies 
 in the rapid economic growth of the colonies which made 
 them in 1775 strong enough and wealthy enough to stand 
 alone. Independence was necessarily an accomplished fact 
 which no fiat could create and which was in 1776 a condition 
 resulting from the operation of forces in the decades just 
 past. The Revolution by no means created thirteen States; 
 it declared the already accomplished fact that those thirteen 
 States were independent entities, distinct from England in 
 ideals and interests, strong enough to maintain themselves 
 against the rest of the world, experienced in self-government, 
 and imbued with the spirit of liberty. The premise of the 
 Revolution is the preceding century of colonial history, and, 
 unless we study that century of growth from the point of 
 view of its most significant result, we shall be closing our 
 eyes to some of the most vital facts in our history. These 
 are the extent and character of the economic growth which 
 made us strong enough to resist; the system of self-govern 
 ment which had enabled us to manage our own affairs so 
 long without assistance that the severing of the political and 
 constitutional ties with England was accomplished literally 
 by writing a few words on paper declarative of the exist- 
 
 31 
 
32 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 ing facts; and the relations of the colonies to the mother- 
 country out of which grew those tangible constitutional and 
 political issues which roused so great an antagonism on 
 either side of the ocean as to result in actual warfare. The 
 growth of the colonies, the rise of American democracy, 
 States sovereignty, these are the chief topics of colonial his 
 tory between 1665 when the Atlantic coast became English 
 and 1776 when the colonies declared themselves independent. 
 The most important fact about the growth of the thirteen 
 colonies is its extent. Within three generations, a few scat 
 tered groups of people had grown by natural accretion and 
 by immigration into the elements of a nation. When the 
 Susan Constant anchored in the James River in 1607, a few 
 hundred fur-traders and fishermen were in the habit of 
 spending the summers on the Atlantic coast; by 1640, the 
 English settlers already numbered thousands, nearly 16,000 
 of whom were in the Bay Colony alone; and by 1660, about 
 80,000 souls were building homes in the new continent. 
 Within a century, the number of colonies had doubled, and 
 the population, as nearly as it can now be estimated, was 
 twenty times as large as in 1660, having reached the astound 
 ing figure of 1,600,000. Clearly, if this development be any 
 criterion, the period preceding the Eevolution was not one of 
 acute suffering and distress. And the Revolution itself only 
 stimulated the resort of people thither, for thirty years later 
 the first census of the United States claimed a total popu 
 lation of 4,000,000. Here, in fact, lies the fundamental cause 
 of the Revolution: a century of growth had made the col 
 onies strong enough and wealthy enough to stand alone. 
 Of this the leaders were thoroughly aware. As the Decla 
 ration of Causes of July 4, 1775, finely and truly said: "We 
 gratefully acknowledge as signal instances of the divine favor 
 towards us that His Providence would not permit us to be 
 called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to 
 our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike 
 operations, and possessed of the means of defending our* 
 selves." 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 33 
 
 The story of this most significant growth, however, does 
 not describe the settling of thirteen colonies which normally 
 developed by the increase of population and interchange 
 of ideas into the thirteen States of the Revolutionary epoch. 
 It tells of a scarcely broken stream of new emigrants from 
 Europe, with varied customs, ideals, and traditions; of a 
 constant and vital transformation decade after decade of 
 every aspect of colonial life. The colonies in 1760 were not 
 only collectively and individually bigger and richer; they 
 were individually totally dissimilar in population, in govern 
 ment, in ideals from the tiny communities extant in 1660. 
 The first settlers, indeed, far from giving final form or even 
 definitive direction to the various States, in most cases merely 
 began the formal existence of that particular political entity, 
 which, after a century and more of transformation and 
 astonishing growth, ultimately became one of the States which 
 declared themselves sovereign in 1776. To suppose that the 
 Massachusetts of 1640, the New York of 1689, the Pennsyl 
 vania of 1700 was in anything more than a technical political 
 and constitutional sense the father of the State of 1776 is 
 to lose sight of the most significant fact in colonial history, 
 to forget the growth which made the Revolution possible. 
 In addition, it indicates our failure to remember that the 
 difference in development during that century of those who 
 came to America and those who remained in England was 
 perhaps the main cause of that disagreement out of which 
 the Revolution ostensibly grew. The very extent of the trans 
 formation is a cardinal point to stress. In 1760, the thirteen 
 colonies were not English; they were already American. 
 
 While there is always danger of exaggerating the extent 
 of the change and of thus seeming to forget that fundamental 
 qualities of the people and basic notions of government can 
 be directly traced to the influence of the first settlers, it is 
 nevertheless only necessary to remind the reader that dan 
 cing, card-playing, and theater-going were common amuse 
 ments in Revolutionary Boston to show him how great a 
 change had taken place since the strict days of John Cotton. 
 
34 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Indeed, Harvard College, founded as a bulwark of the the 
 ology dominant in 1640, had by 1700 already become the 
 home of liberal thought to the utter dismay of the orthodox, 
 and the leaven had so spread in the community that even 
 the Great Awakening of 1745 was wholly insufficient to stifle 
 the theological dissent from the older Calvinism. In Penn 
 sylvania, a militia, courts, a hierarchy of judicial officials, 
 and a police force in Philadelphia bore eloquent testimony to 
 the extent of the departure from the ideals of Penn. 
 
 The very elements of the future nation, much less the 
 nation itself, were not on this continent in 1660. Six of 
 the thirteen colonies, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 the Carolinas, and Georgia, came into existence after the 
 Eestoration. 1 To the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Cavaliers were 
 added other elements of which several outnumbered the 
 original English settlers. There were probably more Quak 
 ers around Philadelphia in 1690, and more Germans in New 
 York and Pennsylvania in 1715, than there were English on 
 the whole continent in 1634. The Salzburgers, the Palatines, 
 the Huguenots, the Scotch-Irish from Ulster, the Portuguese 
 Jews were racially and religiously dissimilar from the Pil 
 grims and Puritans and brought (except the Scotch-Irish) 
 totally different languages, political traditions, and social cus 
 toms whose marks are still as distinct in the districts where 
 they settled as the impress of the Puritans upon Massa 
 chusetts. Most of these dissimilar elements settled along the 
 coast after 1700 and no small proportion came after 1740. 
 The growth which the colonies had attained by 1760 was 
 due less to the normal increase of those already here in 1660 
 than to direct immigration from Europe. 
 
 The character of the individuals who came was also vastly 
 different. With the Pilgrims had come many laborers sent 
 over by the merchants who financed their expedition; Win- 
 throp and his partners had also paid the passage of many 
 
 1 New York, of course, belonged to Holland before 1660, and the 
 abortive settlements of the Swedes along the Delaware seem scarcely 
 worth reckoning. 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 35 
 
 artisans and farm-hands, and the settlers alive in Virginia 
 were largely descendants of men and women induced to come 
 by the Virginia Company s promises or payments. Still, the 
 proportion of the well-to-do who paid their own transporta 
 tion and came to the new country with seeds, cattle, tools, 
 and ready money was much greater before 1660 than it was 
 after that date. By 1700, the first extravagant expectations 
 of great wealth and wine-growing had long been definitely 
 abandoned ; the Seven Cities of Cibola had been transplanted 
 to inaccessible spots in the interior, and navigators had found 
 the Northwest Passage unpleasantly elusive; the Atlantic 
 coast was rapidly being stripped of fur-bearing animals and 
 the new Hudson Bay Company had monopolized the trade 
 with northern Canada. The possibilities of abnormal profits 
 in trade with the new continent had disappeared, and the 
 capitalists who had financed colonies were disappointed with 
 the small returns and declined to "adventure" more money. 
 The emigrants were with every decade more and more 
 recruited from those driven from Europe by their individual 
 poverty. Many came as "indented" servants, who in return 
 for passage allowed the ship-captain to auction them off to the 
 highest bidder, binding themselves to serve him for five or 
 seven years. Most of the labor in the tobacco fields of the 
 Chesapeake colonies and in the grain fields of Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey was of this type. At the end of the term 
 of service, the colony gave him land and his late master 
 furnished him with clothes, seeds and tools. He began life 
 anew; the social stigma hitherto attached to him soon dis 
 appeared and he became a full-fledged citizen. Many polit 
 ical prisoners of excellent and desirable stock were shipped 
 over by Cromwell and by James II, and the English govern 
 ment also attempted to mitigate the severity of the criminal 
 code by giving those condemned to death or to long terms 
 of imprisonment the option of transportation to the colonies. 
 More of these were sent to the Barbadoes and the West 
 Indian sugar colonies than to the continent; those guilty of 
 the petty offences then punishable by hanging were hardly 
 
36 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 what we should call criminals; but these unfortunates as well 
 as the indented servants and political prisoners were very 
 different material for a new nation from the stern, capable, 
 educated men and women who followed Winthrop and Brad 
 ford, Hooker and Davenport, Calvert and Penn. In addition, 
 many and many a cosmopolitan adventurer of the type of 
 Morton of Merry mount, many a smuggler and illicit fur- 
 trader, who fretted at the restrictions of society, came to the 
 new land and formed with kindred spirits, at first along the 
 coast and later in the interior, numerous settlements whose 
 business, good and bad, was in volume out of all proportion 
 to their size. These were "the stumbling blocks" in New 
 England s Canaan, the tares sprung up among the wheat. 
 But these dare-devil, careless frontiersmen formed an im 
 portant element among the new people and in actual numbers 
 cannot have been negligible; we must not forget that they 
 too left descendants. In fact, it was their spirit rather than 
 that of Puritan and Cavalier that became the dominant note 
 of American life in the days of Jackson. 
 
 These emigrants to the new world, however their object in 
 coming changed from time to time, were, in 1760 as in the 
 beginning, a sturdy race of enthusiastic, resourceful radicals. 
 Otherwise they had not come. Whatever the motive which 
 led them to America the difference of creed, the desire to 
 invest capital, the lack of opportunity to make a living at 
 home, ambition, adventure, restlessness it was invariably 
 their discontent with what existed, and their faith in their 
 own ability to better their fortunes which led the emigrants 
 thither. The result was striking. Gradually the population 
 of Europe was sifted, as Stoughton said, that "We might 
 plant choice grain in the wilderness." Gradually as the 
 more venturesome were drawn into the colonies, the more 
 conservative were left at home. Those whose hatred of the 
 pressure of creed, of social convention, or poverty, had been 
 sufficient to drive across three thousand miles of ocean into 
 an unknown wilderness were not likely to rear there de 
 scendants who would brook much interference. The children 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 37 
 
 of such men, in the Governor of Pennsylvania s vivid phrase, 
 "rode restive." They preferred the possible dangers of 
 change to the continuance of slight grievances. Their cousins 
 in England were normally of the opposite mind. They were 
 the descendants of the men who had preferred to endure 
 what they knew rather than face perils yet unknown, those 
 too contented at home or too lacking in initiative to leave. 
 A century and a half of emigration had cast the characters 
 of the two sections of the Anglo-Saxon race in different 
 molds. It had created in Americans a spirit, a temper of 
 different metal from that which the stirring events of the 
 same period had produced in the mother-country. The very 
 growth itself furnished the possibility and almost the cer 
 tainty of a fundamental disagreement between the colonies 
 and England. 
 
 Despite its rapidity this growth in population had not 
 resulted by 1760 in a fringe of continuous settlement from 
 Maine to Georgia, but had produced rather a collection of 
 little communities dotted along the coast, reaching in places 
 a hundred miles inland, all effectually separated from each 
 other by days of traveling by water or land. 1 A week spent 
 between Boston and Newport, between Providence and New 
 York, or between New York and Philadelphia was by no means 
 an uncommon experience of travelers on horseback unin- 
 cumbered by heavy baggage; and the various little com 
 munities were in point of fact in far more constant com 
 munication with London and the West Indies than with each 
 other. Indeed, even in New England the settlement was very 
 sparse; the acreage of primeval forest still great; the roads 
 poor or non-existent. Connecticut was composed in 1760 of 
 three or four little groups of towns widely separated; New 
 York of a little cluster around the city, another around Al 
 bany and a third up the Mohawk, with a few scattered farms 
 along the rivers. Pennsylvania strung out along the banks 
 of the Delaware and its tributaries, or pushed down the fer- 
 
 i See the notably careful and accurate map in Channing s History of 
 the United States, I, 510. 
 
38 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tile valleys of the Blue Ridge. There was in 1760, and in 
 deed in 1790, no geographical or economic basis for a single 
 nation or a single government. Nor did these scattered 
 groups, already acutely conscious of their political identity, 
 possess any economic interest in common or any economic 
 bond of a positive character. They had grown strong as 
 thirteen units, not as a whole; and, though they soon came 
 to realize that some sort of cooperation would be necessary to 
 secure that freedom from English interference they coveted, 
 they desired freedom individually, not collectively. 
 
 The only economic conditions common to them all were 
 negative in character: the lack of a medium of direct ex 
 change with Europe and their common dependence upon the 
 West India trade. 
 
 The three thousand miles of ocean separating America from 
 Europe and the proximity of the continent to the West Indies 
 are two of the most obvious and cardinal facts in American 
 history. With them are vitally connected in some fashion 
 nearly every economic and governmental issue in our his 
 tory not only colonial trade and development, but the Revo 
 lution, the Jay Treaty, Louisiana, the War of 1812, the Tariff, 
 the Monroe Doctrine, and much more. 
 
 Except for Virginia s tobacco and South Carolina s indigo 
 (cotton was not grown for export till after the Revolution), 
 the colonial products were too bulky for export and were in 
 addition not sufficiently salable in Europe to make it worth 
 while to pay the freight thither. At the same time the very 
 general lack of manufactures in the colonies 2 left them de 
 pendent upon Europe for nearly everything which the mem 
 bers of the household could not produce with their own hands. 
 A little iron, some glass and cutlery were made in America, 
 but not enough in quantity to supply even local demand. 
 Pins, nails, thread, stationery, tape, knives, and the like, as 
 
 2 "The genius of the people in these colonies is as little turned to 
 manufacturing goods for their own use as is possible to suppose in any 
 people whatsoever." Stephen Hopkins, Rights of the Colonies Exam 
 ined, 13. (1765.) 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 39 
 
 well as French millinery and English broadcloth, were regu 
 larly imported by American merchants. For all this, they 
 must pay, and, with little currency in the colonies and that 
 so debased that the English would not accept it at face value, 
 with no commodities in most colonies which the English 
 wished in exchange, the merchants were forced to undertake 
 a round of regular trading ventures in order to pay their 
 European bills. 3 
 
 The West India colonies, owned by England, France, Hol 
 land, and Spain, were producing great amounts of sugar, 
 then scarce and correspondingly expensive in Europe, and 
 were therefore making huge returns to the owners of plan 
 tations. The planters preferred to buy food and necessities 
 from the continental colonists rather than divert the labor 
 needed to produce them from the infinitely more lucrative 
 work of cane cultivation. The colonists were equally glad to 
 find so near at hand a market in which to exchange what 
 they raised for the sugar, molasses, and rum so highly valued 
 in Europe. The ordinary method of exchange between Bos 
 ton and England was therefore via the "West Indies. The 
 New England ship loaded at Boston with salt fish for the 
 slaves food on the sugar plantations, with staves for the 
 barrels and hogsheads in which the sugar and molasses were 
 to be shipped, with boards, window frames, and all the various 
 pieces needed for constructing the planter s house. At St. 
 Christopher, she would load with sugar and molasses, pro 
 ceed to London, load with manufactured goods, and so re 
 turn to Boston, clearing ordinary between fifty and one hun 
 dred per cent profit. We know of a captain who made 
 
 3 The difficulty of making remittances to England at all, even by 
 means of a round of trading voyages, is admirably illustrated by the 
 correspondence between William Penn and his American agent, James 
 Logan. "If thou canst not get silver ... by the Madeiras directly 
 thither, as well as by Barbadoes with Madeira wine, send as fast as 
 thou canst turn our cheap corn, flour, and bread into wine, and some 
 wine into sugar, home for supply." Penn to Logan, 1704. Penn and 
 Logan Correspondence, I, 340. (Pennsylvania Historical Society, Me 
 moirs, IX.) 
 
40 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 eight hundred per cent profit off a cargo of salt taken into 
 Baltimore, and we find merchants considering themselves de 
 frauded if the net profits of the carrying trade fell below 
 one hundred per cent. Even if such cases were not as com 
 mon as the evidence seems to indicate, there can be no doubt 
 that the legitimate profits from this triangular trade were very 
 large. 
 
 Another triangular trade, of which the West Indies were 
 a significant factor, was far more lucrative and hence even 
 more popular in New England. A ship-load of inferior 
 molasses converted into Medford rum in the numerous dis 
 tilleries in Massachusetts and Rhode Island would purchase 
 from the sodden chiefs of the West African Coast a crowded 
 ship-load of " black ivory," whose value in the West Indian 
 sugar plantations or the Virginian tobacco fields transcended 
 many times the costs of the enterprise. Rum, molasses, and 
 slaves became the solid basis of many a colonial fortune and 
 there can be no doubt that men and women, who believed 
 themselves even more attentive to the calls of conscience than 
 their descendants who are prompt to censure this nefarious 
 traffic, saw in it absolutely nothing objectionable. This at 
 titude toward slavery and the slave-trade in the eighteenth 
 century needs to be most carefully borne in mind by those 
 who undertake to assign the moral responsibility for negro 
 slavery in the South in 1860. It is also incontestable that 
 the Massachusetts men who engaged in this traffic were not 
 one whit different from those sterner men who wrote in the 
 Body of Liberties in 1641, " There shall never be any bond 
 slaverie villinage or Captivitie amongst us, unless it be law- 
 full Captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as 
 willingly sell themselves or are sold to us." 
 
 The significance and importance of the existence of the 
 West India Islands in the colonial and revolutionary periods 
 can scarcely be exaggerated. So great were the profits, so 
 completely did any commerce whatever rest upon one or the 
 other triangular trade, that by 1760 the colonists had come 
 to Defoe s conclusion, that without that trade they would 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 41 
 
 perish. 4 To their minds, the results from it in the cases of 
 individuals and of communities alike were so tangible and 
 convincing that they had almost ceased to believe that any 
 other forces had been behind the exhilarating growth of the 
 past decades. 
 
 The number of ships clearing from New York had in 
 creased from 64 in 1717 to 477 in 1762; the exports to Eng 
 land which had been according to a seemingly trustworthy 
 source 18,000 in 1701 were in 1767, 61,000 ; and the imports 
 into New York from England, which were of course the 
 direct fruits of the West India trade, had risen from 31,910 
 in 1701 to the enormous figure of 417,957 in 1767. A glance 
 at such a balance-sheet as this made clear to colonial mer 
 chants how great a demand for English goods existed in the 
 colonies, and how utterly incapable they were of carrying on 
 any direct trade with the mother-country. Indeed, they 
 knew well enough that the English cared little for their ex 
 ports; but would be panic-stricken at the idea of losing a 
 market for English goods of which the total imports were 
 annually well into the millions of pounds. Above all, they 
 were afraid of losing so convenient a method of receiving the 
 West India products at their own doors and of there selling 
 their own manufactures, a trade from which they derived 
 great profit and in which the colonial shippers shouldered the 
 risks of loss or capture at sea. 
 
 That the Navigation Acts were intended to confine this 
 lucrative trade to English and colonial ships, and were meant, 
 
 * "The very Being and Subsistence of New England in matters of 
 Trade consists in and depends wholly upon their Union with and Sub 
 jection to Great Britain, as the Growth [i. e., products] of their Coun 
 try, which is the only Article that supports their Commerce, is taken 
 off by the British Colonies only. . . . Without this Export those Col 
 onies would perish. It is true, the Islands [in the West Indies] would 
 starve for want of provisions too, at least at first; but on the Conti 
 nent, if the Islands did not take off their Product, their Lands which 
 they have been at a vast Expense to cure and clear and plant would 
 lie useless and uncultivated. . . . Their Plantations would produce more 
 of everything than their mouths could devour or than they could find 
 markets to vend them at." Daniel Defoe, A Plan of English Commerce. 
 
42 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 as well, to handicap the foreign sugar islands by compelling 
 them to provide themselves with the food, lumber, and live 
 stock which the English tropical colonies obtained from the 
 continent, this, too, they well understood. Nor, while the 
 continental colonies were weak and the surplus available for 
 export was small, were the Navigation Acts needed to pre 
 vent the colonists from seeking a market elsewhere. The 
 logic of the situation and the obvious advantages which 
 colonial ships possessed for carrying the sugar and tobacco 
 to England were sufficient to prevent any very considerable 
 breach of the spirit of the acts, however zealously the colonial 
 captains labored to evade paying the customs dues. 
 
 But as the eighteenth century progressed, the productive 
 capacity of the colonies grew proportionately faster than did 
 the needs of the English West India colonies. Probably not 
 later than 1700, the English West India markets were over 
 stocked with colonial goods at times when the French, Dutch, 
 and Spanish islands were ready to pay high prices for the 
 same commodities. Inevitably, the colonial captains threw 
 the statutes to the winds and sought the better market. The 
 easy sale and the large profits, the willingness of officials 
 and ship-masters to overlook statutes and regulations, and 
 the lack of any coercive force to compel obedience resulted 
 promptly in the development of a brisk and regular smug 
 gling trade between the foreign sugar islands and the colonial 
 merchants. Fraudulent clearance papers, and the posses 
 sion of several sets of false certificates by most ship-captains 
 lent a specious legality to these practices, and colonial ships 
 were soon doing business with Hamburg and Middleburg as 
 well as London. The illicit business grew indeed at such 
 a rate that by the time of the Revolution apparently trust 
 worthy authorities stated the volume of trade between Ham 
 burg, Holland, and New York at a quarter of a million 
 pounds. 5 While such statistics are probably inaccurate, 
 there can be no doubt that the direct trade with Europe was 
 
 BH. B. Dawson, "Kew York City During the Revolution, 38, and the 
 statistics and authorities there quoted. 
 
THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 43 
 
 very large and that these figures represent the belief of 
 both English and colonial merchants as to its extent and 
 value. To the colonist, it was the sum of which the English 
 government meant to rob him in order to put it into the 
 pockets of Englishmen; to the London merchants, it repre 
 sented the sum of which they had already been robbed. 
 
 This economic interest, however, was not in any sense of 
 the word national, nor did it constitute any positive bond of 
 union between the colonies. In fact, individuals and not 
 entities were affected; and not by any means all individuals. 
 The growth of wealth, like that of population, had not been 
 evenly spread throughout the colonies or even throughout 
 any single colony. Those towns which lay even a short dis 
 tance from the sea or from some river remained, like Brain- 
 tree, Massachusetts, nearly static in population and wealth, 
 dependent largely for what they possessed on the work of 
 their own people. Vast and noticeable as was the increase 
 in general wealth, individual merchants and planters, indi 
 vidual towns, and even colonies possessed more than a pro 
 portionate share. The handsome mansions around Boston 
 and along the Chesapeake, the imported clothes and conven 
 iences of certain individuals soon marked them as a class 
 apart from the rest in the city or town. With ready money 
 to lend, with goods to sell, with positions to fill, they soon 
 became the creditors of many in the same community who 
 were not so well off. The rich were, in sooth, not as wealthy, 
 nor the poor as destitute as those classes in Europe; the 
 actual distance between them was slight, but it was unmis 
 takably there, and must never be forgotten by one who hopes 
 to understand the history of the Revolution. The merchant 
 was the only purchaser of colonial produce, and the only 
 importer of the coveted English goods. His profits as mid 
 dleman, then as now, were grudgingly paid, and the fact 
 forgotten that the great profits on a successful voyage were 
 balanced by equally heavy losses when a cargo of grain 
 spoiled, the ship was wrecked, or was captured by pirates or 
 privateers. Unquestionably, there had grown up in the 
 
44 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 colonies a hatred of the creditor class by the debtor class. 
 Similarly, the inland towns and hamlets, the "frontier," 
 were usually heavily in debt to the coast towns for salt, seeds, 
 tools, and numerous commodities they had grown accustomed 
 to but could not make. So we find a distinct feeling of hos 
 tility nourished by the farmers in the Berkshires against the 
 Boston merchants; by the farmers in the Blue Ridge against 
 the coast towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia; and the be 
 ginning of the present antipathy between the counties and 
 the city of New York. In these "debtor" districts, really 
 primitive conditions existed, and the people, shivering in 
 homespun around the great fire in the log cabins, supposed 
 that the merchants and planters must be extremely comfort 
 able, clad in broadcloth and ensconced in a plastered house, 
 decorated with the expensive "china paper." That the lat 
 ter were also exceedingly uncomfortable, the farmers did not 
 know and would not have believed had they been told. The 
 creation of these great creditor and debtor classes was one 
 of the chief results of the character of colonial growth. 
 Their existence is one of the cardinal facts needed for a com 
 prehension of the Revolution; for that war was fought quite 
 as much between two parties in America as between England 
 and the colonies, and the Loyalist and Patriot parties coin 
 cided far more closely with the lines of creditor and debtor 
 than has generally been supposed. The Civil War was not 
 over in 1781; it continued during the Critical Period; the 
 adoption of the Constitution marked the victory of the credi 
 tor party, which was promptly crushed in 1800 by the debtors 
 enrolled as Anti-Federalists. Indeed, the fact that the East 
 has been normally the creditor of the West has been one of 
 the fundamental facts in our history and is the explanation 
 of most of our economic phenomena. Colonial growth not 
 only provided economic interests sufficiently powerful to 
 cause the breach with England, but it resulted in the crea 
 tion of the two economic interests which have been dominant 
 in this country ever since, those of the settled country and 
 of the frontier. 
 
THE OKIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 
 
 PROVIDENTIALLY, the English settlers began their new life so 
 far from home that active assistance or interference from 
 England in local government was out of the question. 
 American democracy originated in necessity: the settlers 
 did their own work because there was no one else who could 
 by any possibility do it. By 1775, they had governed them 
 selves so long in every particular and with such complete 
 success that the breach with England caused and involved 
 absolutely no administrative difficulties or changes. The 
 fact that the colonists had governed themselves was conclu 
 sive proof that they were not dependent upon the mother- 
 country, that merely formal and superficial obstacles stood 
 in the way of complete independence. In this we find a 
 second fundamental cause of the Revolution, scarcely less 
 significant than the economic strength of America. 
 
 The width of the Atlantic Ocean, the fact that a very few 
 thousand people were scattered in tiny groups over a thou 
 sand miles of sea-coast, the absolute lack of kings, feudal 
 barons, or administrative organs of any sort created by past 
 generations to perform the community s work for it, these 
 were the primary causes of the origin of American democ 
 racy. Nor need we look further than the exigencies and 
 circumstances of the moment for an explanation of its early 
 character. There seems to have been no conscious choice be 
 tween alternative forms or models, no consideration of 
 theories. Naturally, emigrants did not forget such habits 
 and traditions of local government as they brought with them, 
 but the needs of the moment rather than theory and precedent 
 shaped the Virginia parish and the New England town. It 
 
 45 
 
46 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 is only too evident from the records that the first govern 
 ments grew into being rather than were consciously created. 
 The circumstances of settlement, permitting no great ex 
 tremes of wealth or poverty, of education or ignorance, natu 
 rally provided the very conditions best adapted for democ 
 racy. Indeed, any other form of government would have 
 been an anomaly, and the various schemes, worthy and un 
 worthy, concocted by capitalists and theorists, from the com 
 plicated system of councils proposed by Sir Thomas Smith 
 to the elaborate dreams of John Locke and the constitutional 
 experiments of William Penn, one and all promptly and in- 
 gloriously failed. The conditions were right for democ 
 racy and were therefore wrong for feudal palatinates and 
 aristocratic lordships. No one tried to plant democratic 
 governments; nothing else could be made to grow. 
 
 The beginnings of self-government in the town of Dedham, 
 Massachusetts, furnish a most interesting example of this 
 natural evolution. The settlers brought with them the tradi- 
 / tions of the medieval parish and of the close town-corpora 
 tion of Elizabeth s time, with a full panoply of ideas about 
 nobles and kings, and little or no actual experience in govern 
 ment. The strongest influence was that of the " Church 
 covenant," then in vogue amongst the Puritans and Separa 
 tists, an agreement to abide by the common decision which 
 did hold the seed of democratic self-government, but which 
 certainly was not intended to sanction anything we should 
 recognize as democracy or administration. This was the only 
 precedent they seem to have found useful. In 1636, twenty- 
 two "proprietors" signed a simple "covenant" or agreement 
 to abide individually by the decision of the majority, and 
 the community then continued for some weeks to exercise its 
 sovereignty by performing the work of the miniature State 
 with its own hands. 1 It gave neither itself nor its members 
 titles nor powers; it discussed neither laws nor theories, and 
 formally recognized no necessary governmental relationship 
 
 i The Records of the Town of Dedham have been published and this 
 information is drawn from them. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 47 
 
 with any other body of men in the world. The "executive" 
 business consisted of allotting lands; and the first ordinance 
 was thus recorded: "Ordered that the next Fair day every 
 man of our society shall meet at the footway and assist to 
 mend the same, and soe many as can bring whelbarrowes. 
 The sovereign was at one and the same time executive, legis 
 lature, and judiciary, but found spades and wheelbarrows 
 more useful than the pen and the gavel. The only office 
 created during the first four years was that of collecting the 
 fines due from those who came late to the town-meeting, after 
 the beating of the town drum. 
 
 On May 17, 1639, the town adopted its first "constitution," 
 and there is no good reason to suppose that Winthrop at Bos 
 ton was consulted. They acted of their own grace and mo 
 tion and recognized no authority as higher than their own. 
 "Whereas it hath been found by long experience that the 
 general meeting of soe many men in one meeting of the com 
 mon affayres thereof, have waisted much tyme to noe small 
 damage, and business is thereby nothing furthered: it is 
 therefore nowe agreed by generall consent, that these 7 men 
 heerunder named we doe make choice of and give them full 
 power to contrive, execute, & performe all the business and 
 affayres of this our wholl towne. The sovereign delegated 
 the whole of its authority for the space of one year. Surely 
 no such "constitution" was ever thought of in England nor 
 ever would have been by these same men had they stayed in 
 England. Nor would they have thus tacitly assumed their 
 complete legal independence of all other authority, had not 
 the miles of wilderness between them and the Governor at 
 Boston compelled them to act on their own initiative. The 
 conditions of the new world fairly thrust the scepter into 
 their hands. It is perfectly clear that the annual town- 
 meeting resumed all authority at the close of each year, and 
 instead of electing new incumbents to these offices, literally 
 created the offices over again. In 1640, a town-clerk and 
 surveyors of highways were elected; and the selectmen ap 
 pointed the first administrative officials, fence-viewers, 
 
48 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 wood-reeves and hog-reeves. The title, selectmen, does not 
 appear in the records until 1648. 
 
 No doubt the close organization of the New England town 
 was largely influenced by the severity of the climate. The 
 long winters forced the people to cling together, not only for 
 sociability, but for the juster and easier distribution of the 
 scanty store of food and fuel. Then too the proximity of the 
 Indians made scattered settlement dangerous. Nor was there 
 much temptation to stray far from the town. No agriculture 
 was profitable in the North until much labor had been ex 
 pended in clearing the land and most men were unwilling to 
 put so much time into a few acres which were not favorably 
 situated for trade and intercourse. The land around the 
 town seemed in most cases as likely to be fertile as that fur 
 ther away, and the difficulties of clearing and cultivation 
 made comparatively few acres all one family could really use. 
 
 In the South, the conditions exacted by the tobacco-culture 
 created, aided by the traditions of English county and parish 
 government, a very different type of local organization. The 
 culture of tobacco consisted in sowing the seed in small beds, 
 in transplanting the young plants into the earth loosened 
 with a hoe between the stumps in a clearing, in hoeing them 
 regularly, and in pinching off the shoots and tops which 
 developed the stalk at the expense of the leaves. The heat 
 of the sun, the arduous and continuous toil, the simplicity of 
 the work made profitable the employment of forced or slave 
 labor. The mild winters, which left the ground open to 
 cultivation nearly if not all the year round, and the necessity 
 of constantly clearing new fields to take the place of those 
 which could not be artificially fertilized, all tended to make 
 the work of the plantation continuous and to tempt the set 
 tlers to draw further and further apart in their eagerness 
 to increase the size of their individual holdings. Here were 
 conditions as different as could well be conceived from those 
 in New England but which no less powerfully worked for 
 the growth of self-government. Obviously, the owner, of a 
 plantation, living with a couple of overseers and from a dozen 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 49 
 
 to a couple of hundred forced laborers or slaves, on a tract 
 some thousands of acres in size, miles from his nearest neigh 
 bor, needed desperately authority of a peculiarly broad type. 
 But in the nature of things there was no one to whom this 
 authority could be delegated or who could effectively use it 
 save the planter himself. Where all citizens were in such a 
 position, local government was necessarily less concerned 
 with the regulation of the behavior of citizens than it was 
 with that of their servants or slaves. Misbehavior and crime 
 committed by the slave or indented servant had to be punished 
 by the master as the only possible delegate of the com 
 munity s authority, and his right to decide what was or was 
 not to be punished and what penalty ought to be inflicted had 
 to be made as absolute as the imperative necessity of prevent 
 ing insubordination and revolt among the laborers. Elabo 
 rate local government was not needed for there was prac 
 tically no community life; nor, while the plantation system 
 lasted, was there likely to be a community life whose needs 
 could not be met by the simplest possible arrangements. 
 Legislation dealt chiefly with the relation of employer and 
 employee, of master and slave ; the difficulties between masters 
 were few. The whole business of the county was little more 
 than the collection of the quitrents due the Crown, the re 
 cording of land titles, and the trying of the few law cases 
 arising between planter and planter, and could be transacted 
 to general satisfaction by at most three officials, whose com 
 bined powers were not infrequently vested in the same in 
 dividual. 
 
 Such conditions naturally induced the belief that govern 
 ment ought to interfere with the individual as little as pos 
 sible; that its sphere of usefulness was so limited that the 
 less it did, the better, a view based upon the undeniable 
 fact that in Virginia, in Maryland, and in most places where 
 an agricultural population was widely scattered over a great 
 area of land, there were very few things which the individual 
 imperatively needed, which he could not do for himself more 
 promptly and efficiently than the community could possibly 
 
50 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 do them for him. In fact, the need for cooperation was 
 slight, and the advantages were obvious of complete control 
 over the laborers without too much investigation by others as 
 to the justice of the planter s administration of the laws. 
 Amid such surroundings, grew up the men whose descend 
 ants believed so firmly in loose construction, in Jeffersonian 
 democracy, and in States rights. Under utterly different 
 conditions, which made cooperation as valuable to the New 
 Englander as individual discretion was to his Virginian 
 cousin, grew up the men whose descendants believed as firmly 
 in the benefits of a strong centralized administration, in Fed 
 eralism, and in National government. 
 
 While apparently a less natural evolution than the local 
 governments, the State governments were as little the result 
 of design and as much the creatures of conditions. Many of 
 the first settlers came to the new land as employees of an 
 individual or of a trading-company and the royal charter dele 
 gated to the grantee certain powers over them. That any 
 thing more elaborate would be needed than some method for 
 deciding simple civil and criminal cases was not anticipated. 
 A handful of men in a wilderness would hardly need special 
 legislation or complicated organs of administration. Even 
 the most intricate schemes of the idealists provided no sepa 
 ration of functions and usually delegated authority and com 
 plete discretion from one body of men to another. The re 
 sponsibility was to be shared rather than the actual work of 
 administration. Self-government by men whose very pres 
 ence in the new land betokened their economic dependence 
 on some one else was not even thought of as a possibility. An 
 adventurer, like Mbrton of Merrymount, "governed" the 
 laborers he had hired, and left to his partners the "govern 
 ment" of their laborers. The Virginia Company delegated 
 part of their governmental authority to a council in the 
 colony; the merchants who financed the Pilgrims gave them 
 authority over the laborers sent with them; while Winthrop 
 and the few members of the joint-stock company which be 
 gan the colony at Boston, expected to exercise and certainly 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 51 
 
 did for some years exert all the authority there was. In 
 most colonies, something like autocratic or military rule was 
 the actual government of the state for a lengthy period. 
 Smith at Jamestown and Dale after him practically put the 
 colony under martial law; the Dutch governors in New 
 Netherlands were forced to do the same; and in all the col 
 onies, even in Massachusetts, the real control remained in the 
 hands of a few men until well toward the close of the seven 
 teenth century. 
 
 At the same time, practically without an exception, the 
 autocrat was compelled to share his power with the settlers 
 on a basis which was far removed from the sort of govern 
 ment intended by the King who granted the charter. Indeed, 
 most colonial charters were little more than the record of 
 English ignorance of American conditions, and scarcely one 
 of them had after half a century more than a nominal rela 
 tion to the form of government actually in operation under 
 it. It is, indeed, hardly accurate to speak of state or colonial 
 government as distinguished from local government before 
 1660. Outside of New England, the settlers were either so 
 few or so scattered that the whole colony was in practice 
 simply the one large town, which governed the whole geo 
 graphical entity, so far as it was governed at all, with some 
 spasmodic assistance or interference from the nearest settlers. 
 Indeed, the trouble and expense of sharing in the govern 
 ment of the colony, the obvious preference of each individual 
 for spending his whole time in the promotion of his own 
 economic welfare, the pressure of necessity which forced him 
 to solve for himself the more formidable difficulties, left the 
 majority of the settlers long indifferent to the form or policy 
 of the nominal unit to which they belonged. The growth of 
 the community and that alone forced upon a reluctant people 
 State government. 
 
 In every colony, however, there grew into being during 
 the seventeenth century some sort of a representative as 
 sembly into whose hands fell eventually the direction of the 
 government. The most rapid growth was attained in Massa- 
 
52 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 chusetts, where alone existed before 1640 enough towns near 
 enough to each other to make possible some intercourse and 
 to render advantageous some share in the direction of the 
 common affairs. The Charter was not meant to provide for a 
 government in the colony but it did not forbid it. It did not 
 provide for representative government at all: it directed the 
 election by the freemen in person (and it was assumed they 
 would remain in England), of the usual officers of a joint- 
 stock company, called then the Governor and Assistants (the 
 modern President and Directors), who were to exercise the 
 entire authority vested in the company, subject only to the 
 approval of the stockholders at the meeting of the General 
 Court. By-laws could of course be passed; the officials in 
 America would of course enforce the English civil and crim 
 inal law, and make such arrangements as the exigencies of 
 the occasion might dictate. Winthrop, Dudley, and the few 
 stockholders who came to America accordingly voted them 
 selves, before landing, the extensive judicial and administra^ 
 tive powers of an English justice-of-the-peace. Some op 
 position promptly became apparent; their interpretations of 
 the English civil and criminal code and their levy of taxes 
 were questioned, but "Winthrop s coolness and the ability and 
 essential fairness of his administration silenced the objectors. 
 He and his associates were forced, however, to admit to mem 
 bership in the trading-company some hundred men who ap 
 plied for admission in 1631. Their rights to a definite share 
 in the economic advantages possessed by the company could 
 not be denied and the certainty that they could easily obtain 
 title to lands and goods in some other part of New England 
 counseled acquiescence. But Winthrop and his friends for 
 bore to mention to the new freemen that the Charter invested 
 them with broad powers of administration, and continued 
 therefore for three years longer to admit new freemen from 
 time to time and to exercise such legislative, executive, and 
 judicial functions as they deemed advisable. 
 
 Meanwhile, local governments m the various towns around 
 Boston sprang into vigorous life and their propinquity to 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 53 
 
 each other resulted in an organized movement among the resi 
 dent freemen for a share in the government of the stock com 
 pany. Executive orders and demands for taxes had come 
 from Boston to these new sovereign communities, and ex 
 cited in their members some wonder as to the authority Win- 
 throp possessed. Finally, a committee of investigation ap 
 peared in Boston in 1634 and demanded sight of the Charter, 
 which had up to this time been sedulously kept secret. One 
 reading opened their eyes. The freemen, thus apprised that 
 they possessed a voice in the common affairs equal to that of 
 the Governor and Assistants and the right to elect those of 
 ficials yearly (who had hitherto elected themselves to office), 
 proceeded immediately to avail themselves of all their privi 
 leges, and from that moment began the transformation of 
 the trading-company into democratic representative state 
 government. The continued use of names and forms, the 
 claim that the Charter authorized these proceedings need not 
 blind us to the fact that the General Court from the first 
 transacted business never before performed by commercial 
 companies (whose governing heads were normally resident 
 in England) and by methods which Charles I certainly never 
 contemplated when he approved the docquet of the Charter. 
 At the same time, the language of the Charter was so broad 
 that few things were done which could not be read into its in 
 clusive phrases. 
 
 The direct exercise in person of authority at quarterly meet 
 ings in the performance of a routine business yearly growing 
 in volume soon became a burden on men whose individual af 
 fairs necessarily claimed constant attention and unremitting 
 toil. Various expedients were tried for securing the exer 
 cise of the freeman s authority without his presence in Boston 
 and yet without forcing him to forego the careful considera 
 tion of the matter in hand for which his vote stood. The use 
 of proxies merely allowed the men who did go to vote all 
 the proxies on new business as they saw fit and thus really de 
 prived their friends of their votes. The freemen then tried 
 balloting for officers in their home towns and sent the 
 
64 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 "papers" to Boston; but as this compelled them to vote in 
 the dark and caused many votes to be wasted, the expedient 
 was adopted of holding what we should call a caucus at the 
 end of the session of the General Court, at which the freemen 
 present prepared what we should call a " slate" to be sub 
 mitted to all the freemen in all the towns. The freemen soon 
 fell into the habit of designating the man to go up to Boston 
 to perform these important functions in behalf of the rest. 
 Soon, they saw the obvious advantage of investing him with 
 full authority to act for them as his judgment dictated in all 
 matters of common interest. They could not go in person, 
 and, unless they were to sacrifice their power altogether, they 
 must delegate it. Thus, the pressure of circumstances created 
 in Massachusetts out of the nominal machinery of a trading- 
 company a representative assembly, an upper house, and 
 an executive of limited powers. Moreover, the fact that there 
 were freemen in every town soon changed the emphasis of 
 representation; the first deputies were the representatives of 
 the freemen only, but their constituents soon came to act as a 
 town rather than as freemen, and the assembly soon actually 
 represented the proportional strength of the various local 
 entities in that geographical district originally granted to 
 the trading-company. Thus was an articulated state created 
 utterly unlike anything in existence in Europe. 
 
 The emigrants from Massachusetts, who founded the other 
 New England colonies, erected everywhere the sort of govern 
 ment already developed in Massachusetts. In fact, the fa 
 mous "written constitution" adopted in Connecticut in 1639 
 was nothing but the description of the forms in use in the 
 Bay Colony. In Virginia some twenty years earlier, in 1619, 
 the Governor had summoned an assembly which was the first 
 truly representative body in America; but the loss of the 
 Charter in 1624, the broad powers vested in the new royal 
 governor, the difficulty of cooperation on the part of people 
 so widely scattered and the efficiency of the county govern 
 ment made representative institutions weak till into the eight 
 eenth century. Bacon s Rebellion in 1676 was an unsuccess- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 55 
 
 ful protest against the autocratic rule of Berkeley. In Mary 
 land and the Carolinas, where quasi-feudal potver was vested 
 in the proprietors, similar pressure of circumstances pre 
 vented them from exercising it and forced them to share it 
 wjth the colonists. In Pennsylvania, Penn was most anxious 
 to establish representative institutions, and, after some dis 
 pute and difficulty, came to an agreement with the people. 
 After 1689 ensued three-quarters of a century of rapid de 
 velopment in self-government, which is in some respects the 
 most important fact in colonial history, for the colonists 
 learned how to govern themselves in state as well as in local 
 affairs. So thoroughly did the Atlantic Ocean and the wilder 
 ness do their work, that the Declaration of Independence was 
 in very truth merely the statement of an existing political 
 and constitutional fact. 
 
 Nor was this all. The uniformly primitive conditions had 
 everywhere developed institutions in an essentially similar 
 manner. Differences there were, by no means unimportant, 
 but on the whole the similarity was so great that all the 
 Americans thoroughly understood one another s methods of 
 procedure and action. There was no fundamental constitu 
 tional or political obstacle in the way of the formation of a 
 single nation out of the English colonies. "I find," wrote, 
 John Adams to his wife, " although the colonies have differed 
 in religion, laws, customs, and manners, yet in the great es 
 sentials of society and government, they are all alike." 
 Simple, axiomatic, obvious as this vital fact seems to the 
 modern American, its transcendent importance can hardly 
 be over-emphasized. The possibility of political union was a 
 direct result of the constitutional development of the colonial 
 period. From this political experience came the precedent 
 for the Constitution and as well for those two notions of the 
 proper function of a central government which, under the 
 names, broad and narrow construction, have been such 
 permanent bonds of political association ever since. 
 
 In the working of colonial governments, too, we meet from 
 the very first with a good many of those traits which have 
 
56 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 lately, received so much notice and vilification. Not only have 
 most people assumed that our colonial ancestors discovered 
 the true frame and form of democracy which later genera 
 tions in their wickedness perverted to strange uses, but they 
 have steadfastly believed that the conduct of our ancestors 
 was impeccable. The evidence is overwhelming in amount 
 and conclusive in character to show that the evils as well as 
 the virtues of American democracy are a legacy from the 
 colonial period. One of the earliest Massachusetts elections 
 was held in Cambridge instead of in Boston as usual, in order 
 to increase the attendance of Winthrop s supporters who 
 lived in the adjacent smaller towns and to put the formidable 
 obstacle of several hours journey in the way of the attend 
 ance of Mrs. Hutchinson s Boston friends. The latter, when 
 they realized the success of Winthrop s manoeuver, tried ob 
 struction and filibustering in hope of using up the time and 
 preventing the Court from reaching the election at all. 
 For many decades, black and white beans were used in many 
 colonies at the polls, and it was a common practice for a 
 man to carry a few up his sleeve, which he slid into the box 
 when he inserted his hand to vote. Repeating was com 
 mon. John Adams calmly recorded in his diary the defeat 
 of a friend at the polls because, after voting for "the first 
 time," the candidate s friends went over to the tavern and 
 when they returned to vote again found the polls closed! 
 The Governor of Rhode Island publicly complained more 
 than once that the assembly of that colony was un- 
 blushingly for sale. In Boston and most surrounding towns, 
 the real government was in the hands of a "ring" of poli 
 ticians of the ultra-modern type. John Adams wrote in his 
 diary for February 1773, of "the Caucus Club" which met 
 in a certain garret, where they put "questions to the vote 
 regularly, and selectmen, assessors, collectors, wardens, fore- 
 wards, and representatives are regularly chosen before they 
 are chosen in the town." 
 
 If the political development of the colonies had made them 
 decade by decade more alike, it had steadfastly carried them 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 57 
 
 in another direction from that which English constitutional 
 development had taken. In 1760, the Americans understood 
 each other ; they did not understand the political phrases used 
 in England nor did the English understand those common in 
 America. The pressure put upon the Americans by the wil 
 derness vitally to alter the habits of action they brought 
 from Europe is not more difficult to appreciate than the 
 changes in England resulting from the Eevolutions of 1640 
 and 1689. In America, democracy both in town, county, and 
 State, had been actually created; in England, had risen the 
 House of Commons and Cabinet government. Between such 
 divergent ideas a breach was inevitable. Yet American and 
 Englishman saw in his own ideas fundamental notions in 
 vested with peculiar sanctity by a century and more of tradi 
 tion; and both were right. The fathers and grandfathers of 
 both had lived and died espousing the notions he proclaimed 
 in 1760 ; both were honest, both were sincere ; each misunder 
 stood the other; each believed the other was trying to de 
 ceive him and was wittingly making propositions which he 
 knew to be false. Nothing short of a century of divergent 
 constitutional development could have produced a breach of 
 such magnitude between honest men and a difference of 
 opinion too fundamental for compromise, explanation, or 
 apology. Had it been less serious, the strong peace party on 
 both sides of the water in 1775 might have successfully 
 averted war. The constitutional development, which gave 
 the colonists the political experience indispensable for inde 
 pendence, also resulted in the divergent constitutional ideas 
 which caused the breach with the mother-country. In a 
 double sense, American democracy made the Revolution pos 
 sible. In a very real sense, it is the rock upon which this na 
 tion is built. 
 
 These same decades of quiet colonial growth and develop 
 ment had produced and trained the generation of men who 
 were to fight and win independence from England. His 
 torians have long unanimously agreed that for ability, 
 probity, learning, and unselfish devotion to a great ideal, the 
 
58 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 men of the American Revolution and of the constitutional 
 period will bear comparison with the men alive during any 
 crisis of any country s history. The achievements of the 
 colonial period were really stupendous. The successful work 
 in coping with the many exigencies and needs of colonial life 
 was the only thing which could possibly have fitted the leaders 
 to meet the astonishing difficulties of the Revolution, the 
 Critical Period, and the organization of a central government. 
 The prosperity of the colonists alone could have allowed 
 them to accumulate those fortunes which permitted them to 
 devote their lives to the new cause. Washington was the 
 richest man in America; Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson, 
 Madison, the Randolphs, Hancock, and many more were men 
 of independent means. It is hardly possible for us to con 
 ceive what their adhesion to the cause in 1775 meant ; it com 
 pletely disproved though it did not dispel the notion, then 
 widespread in England, that resistance was the work of a 
 rabble who had nothing to lose. 2 
 
 George Washington was born, as he thought, to poverty, 
 and trained himself therefore to make his own way in the 
 world. When he unexpectedly inherited a great fortune, he 
 was therefore singularly fitted to make the best use of it. 
 To years of hard labor and outdoor life, he owed his vigor 
 ous constitution and physical endurance; his Indian cam 
 paigns and service under Braddock made him the only man 
 in the colonies with any considerable actual experience in 
 military matters and the only man acquainted with the effect 
 upon British troops of the conditions under which a war 
 would have to be fought here. He knew from experience the 
 hopelessness of conducting a wilderness campaign upon the 
 
 2 A Committee of Congress, appointed to report on the conduct of the 
 English troops in America, declared in April 1777, that the British 
 conducted themselves as was to be expected towards "a people, whom 
 they have been taught to look upon, not as freemen defending their 
 rights on principle, but as desperadoes and profligates, who have risen 
 up against law and order in general and wish the subversion of society 
 itself. . . . The same deluding principle seems to govern persons and 
 bodies of the highest rank in Britain." Journals of the Continental 
 Congress, Ford s ed., VII, 279, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 59 
 
 European model, and he never forgot it. The final victory in 
 the war we owe to his keen use of the topography of the 
 country to create an impregnable defense. To him we owe 
 the victory. ! He was one of those rare men who loom gigantic 
 before the eyes of their contemporaries.; He was not as im 
 peccable in little things as he has been represented to be by 
 the garrulous Weems and a century of school text-books. 
 He was fond of cards, was not a total abstainer, and, though a 
 deeply religious man, was by no means devout. Possessed of 
 an extraordinary temper, like Henry VIII and Oliver Crom 
 well, he had it under that same extraordinary control. 
 Somehow he possessed that thing rarer than genius, more in 
 tangible than magnetism, a superlative sanity and probity. 
 He gave the Revolution a watchword unique among rally 
 ing cries: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and 
 honest can repair." Scarcely a dozen men have ever pos 
 sessed in all history the confidence of a great body of men to the 
 degree he did. Their willingness to follow him without ask 
 ing explanations or expecting comprehension of the reasons 
 is one of the decisive factors in the movements of the time. 
 His personal influence kept an army in the field during the 
 war, held the jarring statesmen together till the Constitution 
 was formed, and then set the new government on its feet. 
 One cannot conceive of the Revolution without him. He is 
 in the truest sense the father of the present nation. Had 
 colonial America never developed into the United States, it 
 would still be famous in history because it had produced such 
 a man. 
 
 No sooner had the first tentative movements in the quarrel 
 with England begun than the need of a foreign ambassador j, 
 was felt who possessed sufficient ability, foresight, and infor 
 mation to meet the statesmen of the old world upon their own 
 ground. Colonial America had made such a man out of a 
 boy born in Boston in 1706, the fifteenth child of a poor 
 Boston soap-maker. Benjamin Franklin had been a printer 
 in Boston, Philadelphia, and London by the time he was 
 twenty. His "Poor Richard s Almanac," the "Pennsylvania 
 
60 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Gazette/ the printing of the Pennsylvania paper currency 
 started him on a business career so successful that he retired 
 upon a competence at the age of forty-three. He entered 
 local politics and was soon sent to England to negotiate with 
 , the Penns for a settlement of the old dispute about the quit- 
 ) rents. His tact and finesse attracted such attention that he 
 became the Massachusetts agent, and then the general colonial 
 agent at London, where he remained till the outbreak of the 
 [Revolution. He was acquiring that diplomatic experience of 
 which his country stood in need in 1776 when an alliance was 
 to be proposed to France. He also brought to the service 
 of America a European reputation for scientific achieve 
 ment of the first order, gained by his epoch-making experi 
 ments with electricity. It is certainly an extraordinary fact 
 that "the wilderness," as the Europeans called America, 
 should have produced a man who was not only a philosopher 
 and scientist of the first order, but who was clearly the equal 
 of the European diplomatists matched against him, and who, 
 as it was remarked with astonishment, was not abashed in 
 the presence of kings. The reputation of Franklin in Europe 
 for wisdom, sanity, and probity enabled him to borrow vast 
 sums of money on no better security than his personal assur 
 ance that some day they would be paid. That such a man 
 should be the American ambassador went a long way to 
 wards convincing the French that we deserved independence. 
 If the character of Washington was our army, that of Frank 
 lin was our treasury. 
 
VI 
 
 STATES SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 THE impartial student who reads without prejudgment the 
 evidence of the colonial period will hardly be able to avoid 
 the conclusion that, whatever nominal bond the individual 
 colonies recognized as binding them to the Crown or to a lord 
 proprietor in England, they considered themselves sovereign 
 States in all but name. 1 The tiny Confederation of Ports 
 mouth and Newport formally declared in 1641 that "the Gov 
 ernment which this Bodie Politick doth attend unto in this 
 island and the Jurisdiction thereof, in favor of our prince, is a 
 Democratic or Popular government; that is to say, it is in 
 the power of the Body of freemen orderly assembled, or 
 the major part of them, to make or constitute just laws by 
 which they will be regulated/ The Crown is mentioned 
 merely by courtesy; no other authority than that of the 
 freemen themselves is recognized ; and not only do they speak 
 of "this Bodie Politick," and denominate it a "confedera 
 tion/ both of which terms proclaim sovereignty, but they 
 declare "this Bodie Politick " to be a "democratic or Popu 
 lar government." There could scarcely be a more implicit 
 renunciation of English sovereignty. When the Long Par 
 liament had firmly grasped the scepter of empire, its leaders 
 
 i The use of the word "colony" seems to me objectionable for many 
 reasons, the chief of which is that it continually reminds the reader of 
 a legal superiority of England over them which the Americans never 
 recognized in actual practice except when convenient. Until inde 
 pendence was actually declared, however, the word "State" is hardly 
 correct, because it denies a relationship to England which in theory the 
 Americans gladly recognized. The usage of students sanctions "col 
 ony" and forbids "State," and I have felt it better to employ the 
 familiar word except in cases where I have deemed it essential to 
 emphasize the fact of States sovereignty. 
 
 61 
 
62 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 intimated to the Puritans in New England that they would 
 be glad to pass any desired legislation. It is an extremely 
 significant fact that Massachusetts declined the offer for fear 
 of creating a precedent for legislation by Parliament at 
 some subsequent epoch when the men in control at Westmin 
 ster might not be so favorably disposed towards the colony. 
 This same idea of the proper relationship between England 
 and the colonies was writ large in the preamble of the 
 Articles of the New England Confederation of 1643. By 
 the outbreak of the Civil War, they say: "We are hindered 
 both from that humble way of seeking advice, and reaping 
 those comfortable fruits of protection which at other times 
 we might expect. " And from whom could they more reason 
 ably have expected "advice" and "protection" than from 
 their co-religionists? Already the New England colonies saw 
 themselves as States independent of the mother-country in 
 all but name, the only connection with England being their 
 right to seek advice and protection. Of English rule, of 
 English right to interfere in colonial administration, we find 
 no recognition. The very word "colony" is rare except in 
 the most formal documents and is almost invariably coupled 
 with the term commonly employed, "jurisdiction." After 
 Edmund Randolph had been in Massachusetts some months 
 in 1676 this fact became very clear to him. "In this as well 
 as in other things," he wrote, "that government [of Massa 
 chusetts] would make the world believe they are a free State 
 and [they] act in all matters accordingly." In very truth, 
 the position which the States assumed in 1776 was the same 
 they had held throughout their earlier history. They never 
 had recognized more than a nominal right of England to 
 interfere in America and they did not propose to accept at 
 the dictation of George III a theory in regard to their status 
 which their fathers had uniformly rejected as untrue and 
 inexpedient. The Americans in 1776 took their stand upon 
 the solid basis of history as they -knew it to have happened. 
 In sooth, though the English government was early in 
 formed of this tendency by the enemies of the colonists, and 
 
STATES SOVEREIGNTY 63 
 
 though it several times felt the matter important enough to 
 deserve investigation, the exigencies of the situation in Eng 
 land itself gave Charles I and his sons little real oppor 
 tunity to press the matter to a conclusion. The attitude of 
 Massachusetts at these times is extremely significant from the 
 point of view of the Revolution. When the news arrived in 
 1634 that the King meant to appoint a new governor for the 
 colony, the General Court ordered the harbor fortified, ap 
 pointed a commission of war and called out the militia, in ex 
 pectation, they announced, of "danger from the French." 
 There is no fact in colonial history more remarkable than 
 this: that four years after the founding of Boston, the men 
 of Massachusetts were prepared to fight England in 
 maintenance of their liberties. The spirit of 1776 is 
 merely the recrudescence of the spirit of 1634. When 
 the royal commissioners were expected in 1664, the General 
 Court ordered out the militia, and appointed a committee to 
 hide the Charter. The Commissioners learned to their amaze 
 ment that they were expected to land with only a few men, 
 unarmed, and that, instead of receiving the royal representa 
 tives with joy, the community was holding a day of fasting 
 and humiliation. A good deal of verbal willingness to meet 
 the King s demands was expressed, but the numerous delays 
 and the excessive amount of discussion which followed every 
 request soon roused the suspicions of the Commissioners, who 
 at length formally asked whether the General Court recog 
 nized the validity of their commission. The Court replied 
 that it wished respectfully to know wherein the colonists were 
 at fault, and, after much pressing, finally said: "We humbly 
 conceive it is beyond our line to declare our sense of the 
 power, intent, or purpose of your commission. It is enough 
 for us to acquaint you what we conceive is granted to us by 
 his Majesty s royal charter. If you rest not satisfied with 
 our former answer, it is our trouble, but we hope it is not our 
 fault." The Commissioners rebuked them and notified them 
 that they proposed next day to avail themselves of their com 
 mission and try a case. The next morning they found a 
 
64 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 messenger of the General Court on their doorstep, warning 
 the people by the "allegiance that they owed to his Majesty," 
 not to aid or abet them, for they were usurping powers which 
 were not rightfully theirs. The General Court a few hours 
 later tried that case itself. 
 
 Some very plain language reached the Commissioners ears: 
 " They say that so long as they pay the fifth of all gold and 
 silver according to the terms of the Charter, they are not 
 obliged to the King, but by civility;" "they say they can 
 easily spin out seven years by writing, and before that time 
 a change may come." They had solicited Cromwell "by one 
 Mr. Winsloe to be declared a Free State, and now style and 
 believe themselves to be so." Charles replied with a royal 
 order to send the officers of the colony to England. The 
 General Court, when shown it, expressed doubts as to its 
 authenticity and asked proof that the signature was really 
 the King s! Charles, however, was unwilling to press the 
 matter and allowed it to drop. Had he shown George Ill s 
 determination to force from them an acknowledgment of 
 England s sovereignty, is it difficult to imagine the result? 
 In the other colonies, the same leaven was at work. Penn s 
 agent wrote him in 1704: "This people think privileges their 
 due and all that can be grasped to be their native right. . . . 
 They think it their business to secure themselves against a 
 Queen s government." 
 
 In fact, the colonies saw in 1776 that the declaration of 
 their independence would involve no real administrative dif 
 ficulties, because they had in very truth never been actually 
 governed by England at all. As Franklin ironically told the 
 House of Commons, the colonies before 1763 had been easily 
 governed at the expense of only "a little pen, ink, and paper; 
 they were led by a thread." Nor did his hearers perceive 
 that he spoke the literal truth. There was, indeed, in the 
 colonies in 1760, as there had been throughout the preceding 
 century, a prodigious admiration for England, a feeling that 
 it was "home," and, as Franklin said, "to be an Old Eng 
 land man was of itself a character of some respect and gave 
 
STATES SOVEREIGNTY 65 
 
 a kind of rank among us." Even the early Puritans had 
 considered the English Church their mother-church, had at 
 tended its services when in England, and had spoken of 
 it with evident affection. At the same time, paradoxically, 
 the colonists felt no gratitude was due the Crown or Parlia 
 ment for their existence or prosperity. The Address pre 
 sented by Massachusetts to Parliament in 1661 declared sig 
 nificantly that they had transplanted themselves at their own 
 expense and owed their present condition to their own efforts 
 in the preceding thirty years during which they had been 
 undisturbed. The attempts of the Crown to collect quitrents 
 in Virginia, the energy with which the Baltimores and the 
 Penns had attempted to collect their rents, were conspicuous 
 features of life in those colonies, and had roused even by 
 1700 a resentment, often openly expressed, against these at 
 tempts to derive a revenue from the colony. The Penns were 
 told more than once that the colony was not a private estate 
 which owed them rent, but a body politic, whose members 
 possessed the right of self-government, and of which the pro 
 prietors were members, like other citizens. The citizens ob 
 jected to the payment of rent not because its amount was 
 excessive, but because they did not feel themselves bound 
 by law or gratitude to pay it at all. And these facts were 
 prominent in the minds of the leaders who fought the Revolu 
 tion. The settlement," wrote Jefferson in 1786, "was not 
 made by public authority and at the public expense of Eng 
 land, but by the exertions and at the expense of individuals. 
 Colonial experience had taught the colonists that they owed 
 England no gratitude for what they had not received. 
 
 The fault was not altogether that of intention at White 
 hall. As soon as Charles II was firmly seated on the throne, 
 he created a committee of the Privy Council to supervise the 
 colonial governments, which was continued under various 
 names and did all that was done to govern them until 1763. 
 This was in truth little, but it is difficult to see how it could 
 have been more. The average voyage to England consumed 
 six weeks and the colonists knew, therefore, that they could 
 
66 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 not receive a reply to an appeal for advice or protection, even 
 if acted upon at once, in less than three full months at the 
 soonest. A little experience showed them, that they must wait 
 for a reply nearly a year. After their petition reached Lon 
 don, it must be read, the facts investigated, their request 
 considered and passed upon by a number of busy men, who 
 ordinarily had before them awaiting action a score of mat 
 ters equally urgent. As was usual, the work of the commit 
 tee devolved upon one man, its secretary, William Blathwayt, 
 whose diligence and energy were remarkable, but were 
 completely overwhelmed by the physical labor of merely read 
 ing the mountain of papers concerning administrative routine 
 voluntarily submitted by the colonies. Anything like effect 
 ive supervision was practically impossible. If an order was 
 sent to a colony, the committee well knew that the colonists 
 would have a full six months to disobey it before proceedings 
 could be instituted against them or even information of their 
 delinquency brought to London. A law, " repugnant to the 
 laws of England," and forbidden therefore by the charters, 
 would usually have been in full operation for months if not 
 years before the London office discovered its repugnancy. 
 With twelve legislatures producing laws on the Atlantic 
 coast, the work of reading them became a formidable task, and 
 the difficulty of detecting and dealing promptly with objection 
 able laws exceedingly great. Well aware of these facts, the 
 colonists easily prevented any supervision at all over impor 
 tant matters by passing laws for one year only, which would 
 no longer be in force when read in England, and which could 
 easily be repassed year after. year by the legislature without 
 fear of the effectual exercise of the royal veto. The second 
 Massachusetts charter required the submission to the English 
 authorities of all "acts," so the General Court submitted a 
 long list of unimportant "acts," and transacted all important 
 business by means of "resolves" which were not required to 
 be sent to England. In Pennsylvania, all acts w r ere required 
 to be submitted every five years to the English authorities, 
 a provision easily evaded by passing acts likely to be vetoed 
 
STATES SOVEREIGNTY 67 
 
 for periods not longer than four years and six months. Dum- 
 mer, the Massachusetts agent in London, wrote home an 
 1716 that the Secretary of State had told him that "by 
 several votes and resolutions of the lower House, printed in 
 their journals, we showed an inclination to be independent 
 of the administration here [in England] and that we treated 
 the King s commands as waste paper." 
 
 No sooner had the authorities in England become aware of 
 this propensity than they undertook to overcome it; at first 
 by the supervision of the Committee of Trade and Plantations, 
 and then by the appointment of governors who would ac 
 complish on the ground what could not be done by officials 
 in England. The colonists were equal to the emergency. 
 Without coming to an open breach with the Crown, they 
 managed to nullify the work of the royal governors and 
 other appointive officials, or, in those colonies which chose 
 their own officers, succeeded in evading supervision. Mas 
 sachusetts held governor after governor helpless by refusing 
 to vote him a salary or make any regular allowance either 
 for the expenses of administration or for his household. 
 They paid him from time to time by allowing him to sign a bill 
 voting him a present after he had affixed his signature to the 
 bills the General Court wished passed. Strict orders were 
 sent from England prohibiting the acceptance of anything 
 but a salary, for the authorities rightly saw that much might 
 be expected from a governor financially independent, and 
 nothing at all from a man dependent upon the assembly s 
 votes for the very bread on his table. Yet governor after 
 governor found it impossible to resist this pressure from the 
 legislature. 
 
 There seems to have been a general recognition of the 
 right of judicial appeal to the Privy Council from the colo 
 nial courts; but, though frequently used by individuals, it 
 was chiefly confined to cases where the colonial judges pat 
 ently were not sure what decision to render. 
 
 The only series of general regulations made by the mother- 
 country were systematically disregarded from the moment they 
 
68 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 were made. The Navigation Acts, passed during the reigns 
 of Charles II and William III, restricted the trade of the 
 mother-country with the colonies and that of the outside 
 world with her colonies entirely to English and colonial ships. 
 The more important colonial staples sugar, molasses, to 
 bacco, dye-woods were to be carried only to other English 
 colonies or to England. Trade with foreign countries or with 
 their West India colonies was forbidden. Not only were the 
 detailed regulations of these acts disobeyed, but even their 
 general intent was nullified. The coast was crowded with 
 smugglers ; sugar and molasses were openly sold at more than 
 one place for less money than the duty; most ships carried 
 several sets of false papers, and traded at will with the 
 foreign sugar islands in the West Indies and with Europe. 
 The English calculated in 1767 that a trade worth more than 
 a quarter of a million pounds sterling was being carried 
 on by America with Germany and Holland. Attempt after 
 attempt to stop the smuggling was of no avail; new acts, 
 new regulations, were simply waste paper, and few or no 
 men could be found in America who were willing to accept 
 an appointment as customs officer, so excessively unpopular 
 was the service and so determined were the colonists to evade 
 the regulations. Randolph was astonished at the lengths to 
 which they went in Boston in 1676 to thwart him. They 
 landed their goods at night and when he appeared to investi 
 gate arrested him for breaking the curfew rule ; they landed 
 the goods on Sunday, and arrested him for working on the 
 Sabbath. The courts would issue only special search war 
 rants permitting him to search only for specified articles in 
 a specified place. He found that the merchants had built 
 a series of connecting warehouses, and, after they had seen 
 his warrant, kept him standing at the door while they rolled 
 the sugar and molasses into the next warehouse. When there 
 was nothing he could seize left in the place he was allowed 
 to search, they admitted him. Their intention to disobey was 
 an open secret. Violence was not unfrequent in later years 
 where the customs officers showed any real determination: 
 
STATES SOVEREIGNTY 69 
 
 heads were broken, ships burned, officers tarred and feathered, 
 ridden on rails, or even murdered. It is easy to understand 
 the fierce objection to the Writs of Assistance in 1761, which 
 permitted the search and seizure of dutiable goods wherever 
 the officer could find them; they made all the familiar ex 
 pedients for evasion useless. Another difficulty was experi 
 enced in the jury trials of such men as were arraigned. It 
 was almost impossible to secure a conviction from any local 
 jury and the English admiralty officials were anxious to obtain 
 the right to try such cases in some other colony than that 
 where the offense was committed. As few men were innocent 
 and few cases were tried where the party was not caught 
 flagrante delict o, such a removal of the trial was tantamount 
 to certain conviction, and the penalties for breach of the acts 
 were extremely severe. The colonists therefore resisted these 
 proposals stoutly. It is extremely interesting to note the 
 similarity of the measures which roused such indignation after 
 1760 to those which had excited active opposition during 
 the colonial period. The outbreak after 1760 was due not 
 only to the fact that the English government was making a 
 systematic and persistent attempt at enforcement for prac 
 tically the first time, but also to the new consciousness of 
 the colonists of their growing strength and of the actuality 
 of their independence. 
 
 The favorite idea in England for the solution of all these 
 difficulties was that of a colonial union of some sort, and 
 many schemes were evolved and proposed. Some provided 
 for a common administrative and judicial machinery; others 
 contemplated some sort of a general legislative body with more 
 or less limited powers; but one and all established a central 
 machinery intended to be directed by the Crown, even when 
 its officers were not actually to be appointed in England, and 
 patently meant to supersede the authority of the individual 
 colonies in many matters of importance, and perhaps to out 
 vote the unruly by means of the more peaceable. One such 
 scheme was actually put into operation with disastrous re 
 sults. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed Governor of New 
 
70 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 England, New York, and New Jersey, with broad powers and 
 unusual privileges to take the place of the charters just re 
 voked in 1684. Some opposition was expected, and probably 
 nothing but the knowledge of impending changes in England 
 prevented an actual rebellion before 1689 when, on pretense 
 of casting out the Stuarts, Andros was put in jail and the 
 old charter governments restored. William III was not al 
 together blind to the fact that enthusiasm for him had not 
 been the chief motive at work, and only after great suspense 
 and some difficulty were much less favorable charters ob 
 tained. This was, however, until the Revolution the only 
 attempt to institute any uniform administration. 
 
 The reply of the colonies to the other schemes for centrali 
 zation and for a central government was an unqualified neg 
 ative. No scheme won colonial approval which was not based 
 upon the conception of the several colonies as sovereign States. 
 The New England Confederation, formed in 1643, was a 
 league of States for offense and defense, and contained in 
 one of its first clauses an explicit reservation of the liberties 
 and privileges of each " jurisdiction. " In their dealings with 
 each other, the colonies always preserved scrupulously this 
 attitude and signed "treaties," made commercial regulations, 
 granted letters of marque, coined money, declared war and 
 peace, and performed most of the varied acts customarily 
 reserved to the sovereign. In some cases, the language of the 
 charter lent directly or indirectly some color to these pro 
 ceedings, but it is safe to say that they were not undertaken 
 because of the existence of any such permission, nor limited 
 to powers authorized by even a liberal interpretation of any 
 document. Whatever they were in law or in name, the 
 colonies were and always had been individually sovereign and 
 they had in 1760 and 1776 absolutely no intention of sur 
 rendering that independence to each other, to a central ad 
 ministration, or to England. Several schemes were suggested 
 by colonists for three or four sectional governments and these 
 met with some favor. At Albany, in 1754, representatives of 
 the colonies finally agreed upon a scheme for a general govern- 
 
STATES SOVEREIGNTY 71 
 
 ment, which was much disliked in England because the powers 
 allotted the general government were too few and those re 
 served to the individual colonies too many, because the central 
 administration was not strong and the thirteen colonies in 
 comparably too independent. It found equally little favor 
 in America because it gave the general government the power 
 of taxation and the control of commerce. The one the in 
 dividual colonies had always had, the other they had always 
 coveted. In truth, one cardinal fact of the colonial period 
 is the legal and actual independence of the several colonies of 
 each other and their actual independence of England. 
 States sovereignty was the only idea which possessed much 
 precedent in 1775, and the only idea of cooperation ever tried 
 and widely approved had been that of a loose confederation 
 of sovereign States, which had control neither of taxation 
 nor of commerce, and whose central authority was little more 
 than a general agent whose masters from time to time in 
 dicated their wishes. Surely it is significant to find the 
 Parliamentary Commission of 1652 conceding to Virginia in 
 exchange for her submission, that "the Grand Assembly as 
 formerly shall convene and transact the affairs of Virginia," 
 and that the Virginians should have freedom of trade "as 
 the people of England do," and should "be free from all 
 taxes, customs, and impositions whatsoever, and none to be 
 imposed upon them without consent of the Grand Assembly." 
 "The bottom of all the disorder," wrote Hutchinson from 
 Massachusetts in 1772, is "the opinion that every colony has 
 a legislature within itself, the acts and doings of which are 
 not to be controlled by Parliament, and that no legislative 
 power ought to be exercised over the colonies except by their 
 legislatures." The Revolution was fought by precisely that 
 sort of an organization which colonial experience had shown 
 was the only one for which the general consent could be 
 gained. 
 
 There was naturally no accepted idea whatever of a nation 
 as we now conceive it; there was indeed no sentiment in 
 favor of nationality; each colony wished to be independent 
 
72 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 not only of England but of its neighbors, and would not have 
 entered the struggle on any other terms. The strong bond of 
 economic interest which was later to furnish such cogent 
 reasons for nationality was as yet non-existent because the 
 colonies were as yet contiguous only "on paper." The colo 
 nial period, from the point of view which we apply to 
 later history, is the study of the foreign relations of the 
 separate States with each other and with England. In no 
 colony was there a majority in favor of a national government 
 superior in obligation in its relations to the individual to the 
 latter s duty to his colony. When Patrick Henry declared 
 himself not a Virginian but an American, he proclaimed not 
 a fact but a vision. 
 
VII 
 THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 THE fundamental causes of the Revolution are writ large in 
 the history of the colonial period. The rapidly increasing 
 population of the colonies, their growing wealth, the depend 
 ence of the West India Islands upon their produce, their long 
 experience in self-government, their determination not to sub 
 mit to dictation or control from England or from each other, 
 had made them more and more conscious with each succeed 
 ing decade of the weakness of England s control over them, 
 of the almost insuperable difficulties which the width of the 
 Atlantic interposed in the way of schemes for strengthening 
 it or for making it more effective. They saw, indeed, that 
 they had always stood alone and they naturally concluded 
 that they might now as well declare the fact. The longer 
 they studied the story of the settlement of the country, the 
 less they felt themselves bound to the mother-country by ties 
 of gratitude for an aid in money or in men which she had 
 either been unwilling or unable to send. The Navigation 
 Acts on their very face were intended to benefit only the 
 citizens of England itself, for Ireland and Scotland were 
 expressly excluded from their privileges; the royal governors 
 had imposed expense upon the colonies and, instead of render 
 ing valuable service in administration, had done their best to 
 prevent the transaction of the public business in the ways 
 which experience had taught the colonists to be the most ex 
 pedient. Not the suffering, but the prosperity of the colo 
 nies, not their weakness but their strength, not the tyranny 
 of an autocratic government but the obvious lack of any 
 effective supervision at all, caused the Revolution. They 
 had grown to a realization of the truth of Berkeley s warn- 
 
 73 
 
74 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 ing to the Virginia Assembly in 1652. "What is it can be 
 hoped for [from the Parliament] which we have not already? 
 Is it liberty ? The sun looks not upon a people more free than 
 we are from all oppression. Is it wealth ? . . . Industry and 
 thrift in a short time may bring us to ... it. ... Is it ... 
 peace? The Indians, God be blessed, round about us are 
 subdued; we can only feare the Londoners." 
 
 The immediate causes of the outbreak are to be found in 
 the changed conditions after the close of the Seven Years 
 War and in the events of the years from 1760 to 1775. The 
 result of the Seven Years War was of transcendent impor 
 tance : the departure of the French from Canada removed the 
 only external reason the colonists had for valuing the con 
 nection with England. The existence of the French colony 
 rather than its history, its loss rather than the method of 
 its loss indicate the salient influence of the French upon the 
 history of the United States. Before the fur-traders had been 
 long settled in the St. Lawrence Valley, they discovered that 
 it lay just north of the corn-belt and that the existence of a 
 colony there would always be precarious because of the diffi 
 culty of ripening a full crop of the only indigenous grain. 
 The attempts to escape from the Valley are the most vital 
 part of the history of French Canada. Through New York 
 lay a splendid road down the Richelieu River and the lakes 
 to within a few miles of the Hudson and the Atlantic Ocean. 
 Through the Connecticut River valley lay another desirable 
 road. Along both lay fertile fields in a climate which made 
 the cultivation of maize as successful as it was precarious 
 around the St. Lawrence. The knowledge of this eagerness 
 to secure possession of New York or New England rather 
 than their actual strength in Canada caused the abiding fears 
 of invasion in the English colonies, which bound them firmly 
 to the English allegiance for a century and more. To the 
 Congregationalists of New England, the greatest danger was 
 to be feared from Catholicism, and a stock part of every war 
 scare in the eighteenth century were the lurid tales of the 
 ship-loads of inquisitors and instruments of torture which 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 75 
 
 were following in the wake of the great French fleet, coming 
 from France to cooperate with an army from Canada in an 
 attack upon New York or Boston. 
 
 Had Champlain not offended the Iroquois in 1609 the 
 history of the United States might have been different. That 
 powerful confederacy of the ablest and best organized In 
 dians on the continent held sway over a vast territory rang 
 ing from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi and from southern 
 Tennessee to the Great Lakes. Their home land was in New 
 York and their determined opposition to the French and 
 persistent friendliness to the English, despite promises, bribes, 
 and missionaries, interposed an impenetrable wall between the 
 French and the fertile fields of the Atlantic coast, and thus 
 condemned Canada to insignificance. The only hope lay to 
 the west in the Mississippi Valley beyond and behind the in 
 fluence of the Iroquois. There were fertile fields and a vast 
 supply of furs. Yet, while striving to build up this empire 
 in the west, the French never quite abandoned hope of reach 
 ing the Atlantic Ocean. But the alliance between the Iroquois 
 and the English was so firmly cemented in 1684 by Governor 
 Dongan of New York that only the New England colonies 
 remained exposed to the attacks of the coureurs de bois and 
 the Indians of the St. Lawrence region. So strong was 
 New England that nothing more than marauding expeditions 
 was to be feared unless assistance should come in force from 
 France. More than once such a great expedition was planned ; 
 at least once French regiments from Canada reached the 
 neighborhood of Albany undetected and could have captured 
 it; and, if small scouting parties could unchecked ravage the 
 very heart of New England, the decisive success of an attack 
 in force was more than probable. 1 Under such circumstances, 
 
 i How strong these fears were is shown by the statement prepared by 
 Commissioners of the colonies assembled at Albany in 1754. "That it 
 is the evident design of the French to surround the British Colonies, 
 to fortify themselves on the back thereof, to take and keep possession 
 of the Heads of all the important Rivers, to draw over the Indians to 
 their Interest and with the help of such Indians, added to such Forces 
 as are already arrived and may be hereafter sent from Europe, to be 
 
76 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 nothing could save the colonies but an English army and an 
 English fleet. Nor should we ever forget that between 1660 
 and 1763, France was accounted easily the most powerful 
 nation in Europe. This potentiality the victories of Wolfe 
 definitively removed, and, as travelers and English political 
 writers had busily prophesied for more than a decade, Eng 
 land lost what Kahn considered "the best means of keeping 
 her colonies in due submission." 
 
 A series of events had also practically ended the dangers 
 of attack from the coast Indians. As decade by decade the 
 colonies grew larger in population, and extended further and 
 further into the interior, the Indians were of necessity pushed 
 nearer and nearer the mountains; the whites began actually 
 to outnumber them in most districts, and the possibility of 
 anything more than sporadic outbreaks disappeared. Peace 
 and quiet were assured even more certainly by the growing 
 scarcity of fur-bearing animals along the Atlantic coast, by 
 the consequent decay of the fur-trade, and by the concomitant 
 disappearance of the illicit traders who had so threatened 
 the existence of the infant communities by distributing fire 
 arms and fire-water. Such trade as remained the colonists 
 were able strictly to regulate. In addition, the founding of 
 the Hudson Bay Company in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century and the exploration by the French of the Mississippi 
 Valley opened a vast and virgin field of operations for the 
 fur-traders, and thither hastened the adventurous spirits, thus 
 ridding the Atlantic coast of the very men whose dealings 
 and behavior had so frequently given the Indians just cause 
 for offense. 
 
 A century, too, had greatly altered the Indians ideas of the 
 white men. At first, the notion of private property in land 
 was new to the savages, and the superiority of iron hatchets 
 and kettles, to say nothing of guns and liquor, over anything 
 
 in a Capacity of making a general attack upon the several Governments. 
 And if at the same Time a strong Naval Force be sent from France, 
 there is the utmost Danger that the whole Continent will be subjected 
 to that Crown." Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, VI, 103. 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 77 
 
 the Indian possessed was so marked that few chiefs hesitated 
 before assenting to deeds of sale whose purport they did not 
 understand. The white man wanted land for corn, grass for 
 his cattle, wood for his wigwam; and they supposed that, 
 like the Indian, he would soon move his habitation when the 
 land became exhausted. The very idea of permanent pos 
 session was not grasped at first, and when such Indians as 
 Philip comprehended it, a fierce hatred for the intruders led 
 them to begin a crusade of extermination. The ease with 
 which the outbreaks of 1675 and 1676 were suppressed damp 
 ened the ardor of the savages and reassured the whites. By 
 1760, the colonists knew themselves capable of coping with 
 any Indian uprising. No aid from English troops was needed. 
 Indeed, the colonial scorn for Braddock s methods and troops 
 was ill concealed, and his defeat rendered extremely unlikely 
 any subsequent requests to the mother-country for assistance. 
 This precise moment, when the colonists for the first time 
 felt free from the dangers with which the French and the 
 Indians had so long menaced them, was selected by the English 
 ministry as opportune for the introduction of uniform ad 
 ministrative regulations, which could not fail to raise ques 
 tions of the character and value of the colonial relations with 
 England. Of economic, political, and social conditions in 
 America, George III and his advisers knew little ; of the colo 
 nial hostility towards England, they were aware but thought 
 it merely insubordination. That the colonies possessed any 
 vitally different economic interests from those of England 
 and Englishmen, that English political ideas and phraseology 
 would connote very different things to the colonists than they 
 did to Englishmen, they do not seem to have suspected. They 
 knew indeed that no real control of the colonies had hitherto 
 existed, but they deemed it a result of the stupidity and 
 inertia of their own predecessors and of the stubborn spirit 
 of the Americans rather than a consequence of fundamental 
 geographical factors, which still stood in the way of the estab 
 lishment of any efficient administration. Indeed, the fact that 
 no effective control had existed was to them an admirable 
 
78 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 reason for creating a system which should make English 
 sovereignty more than a name. 
 
 Indubitably, the conquest of Canada caused England seri 
 ously to consider the status of her possessions in America, 
 and forced upon her attention the fact that the growth of the 
 continental colonies during the past half -century had vastly 
 changed the problem of dealing with them. The few scat 
 tered settlements had become States whose size, prosperity, 
 and spirit forbade the longer continuance of the old policy 
 of laissez-faire. The new English policy aimed at centrali 
 zation, at "the weaving of this land into our system ... so 
 that Great Britain may be ... a grand maritime dominion 
 consisting of our possessions in the Atlantic and in America 
 united into one Empire, into one center where the seat of 
 government is." To this end Charles Townshend proposed 
 to replace the varied forms of colonial government by a uni 
 form system of local administration which would furnish a 
 firm basis for an efficient central administration over them all. 
 Experience showed the necessity of taking from the colonial 
 legislatures the power of the purse and of providing by 
 customs duties and stamp taxes, collected by royal officers 
 appointed from England, a sufficiently large revenue to sup 
 port an army, pay the salaries of executive and judicial 
 officers, and in general defray the expenses of colonial ad 
 ministration. Only in this way could any independence be 
 secured for the royal officials and obedience be ensured to 
 the administrative regulations which should weave England 
 and her colonies into one great articulate Empire. If the 
 Navigation Acts and the Sugar Acts could be actually en 
 forced, the revenue would be considerable and the remainder 
 of the necessary sum could be obtained by indirect taxes 
 whose incidence would be extremely light. Disobedience and 
 evasion of explicit royal orders, smuggling and piracy, trade 
 with foreign colonies and European countries, none of which 
 could continue without disrupting the new Empire before 
 it was born, would all cease; order, harmony, and efficiency 
 would take the place of the old haphazard rule. 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 79 
 
 If we assume with Townshend that the colonies were merely 
 dependencies of England, to be governed by the Crown in 
 accordance with the legislation passed by Parliament, if we 
 find glorious as he the vision of a greater entity built out of 
 the mother-country and colonies for the ultimate benefit of 
 both, then we shall agree with his conclusion of the justice, 
 equity, and expediency of such a scheme. If, on the other 
 hand, we take as our premise the actual condition of colonies 
 which had been for more than a century sovereign States 
 in all but name, we shall begin to understand the instanta 
 neous opposition which those proposals roused in America. 
 To a people, most of whom had never been even asked for any 
 taxes beyond their local levies, few of whom had paid even 
 the quitrents to which the holding of their land obligated 
 them with any regularity and without constant protest, the 
 proposal to establish a series of taxes, however mild and 
 judicious, could not fail to be regarded as an innovation 
 deserving of the keenest scrutiny. And the purposes for 
 which this revenue was to be spent were undoubtedly of 
 questionable expediency. The institution of a uniform cen 
 tralized administration for all the colonies, directed by the 
 English ministry, composed of officers whom they appointed 
 and paid, certainly involved the complete overthrow of the 
 system of government which had been in existence ever since 
 the colonies were founded. The colonial legislatures had been 
 practically supreme and had directed and controlled the Eng 
 lish governors with little regard for the technicalities of 
 constitutional law, for instructions from kings, or for pro 
 tests from the Board of Trade and Plantations. Each legis 
 lature had tightly drawn the strings of the colonial purse 
 and had never paid a penny to an English appointee with 
 out first being assured of his performance of their wishes. 
 The colonies had virtually controlled their own policies and 
 their own legislation, and, realizing, as the Massachusetts 
 men told the Commissioners of Charles II, that they could 
 " easily spin out seven years by writing," had recked little 
 of English policies and royal displeasure. Undoubtedly, the 
 
80 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 colonies had passed a vast number of conflicting regulations; 
 the franchise, taxation, local government, the criminal and 
 civil codes were alike only in their fundamental notions, and 
 interposed a very real barrier in the way of administrative 
 efficiency as the English understood it. Yet these same local 
 peculiarities were regarded by the colonists in 1765 as the 
 most characteristic and admirable feature of American de 
 velopment. Each little community was eager to preserve in 
 tact the right to adapt itself to such exigencies of its economic 
 and political needs as the practical demands of the moment 
 might dictate. Uniform regulations were suited to uniform 
 conditions; a single policy to a people whose interests and 
 aims were identical; but were highly inexpedient for thirteen 
 communities whose dissimilarities were more striking than the 
 similarities. The majority of Americans, in fact, did not 
 believe a uniform administration desirable or possible. Had 
 their fathers struggled hard to avoid paying the governor a 
 fixed salary and to prevent the regular collection of the 
 proprietor s rents, that they might yield the control of the 
 purse without a protest? Had their fathers overthrown An- 
 dros, negatived every English plan of organic union to cling 
 fast to the idea of a league of sovereign States, only that 
 the sons might in their folly permit the establishment of the 
 very type of government which their fathers had deemed 
 inexpedient? Had the work of the legislatures ever been 
 so inefficient, had the royal governors ever demonstrated such 
 conspicuous ability as to justify the transfer of the real 
 direction of colonial administration from the one to the 
 other? Nor could the colonists believe that a standing army 
 in America, instituted at the very moment when the real 
 dangers of the past century were clearly at an end, could 
 be intended to cope with anything but the resistance of the 
 colonists themselves to the new arrangements. Whatever 
 pleas for a new and more glorious British Empire might be 
 used to lend a specious splendor to such proposals, their 
 acceptance certainly meant the renunciation of the virtual 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 81 
 
 sovereignty and independence which each colony had un 
 doubtedly enjoyed ever since it had been founded. 
 
 If the administrative result of the English reforms would 
 be the overthrow of local administration, the economic re 
 sults certainly threatened to bankrupt the colonies. An 
 efficient central government meant the actual enforcement of 
 the Navigation and Sugar Acts, and meant the cessation of 
 the lucrative smuggling trade with the foreign sugar colonies 
 on which the very prosperity of the continental colonies was 
 believed to rest. 2 The Sugar Act of 1733 had been intended 
 to prevent the direct importation by the continental colo 
 nies of molasses, rum, or sugar from the foreign West India 
 Islands and had imposed customs duties meant to be pro 
 hibitive and penalties for evasion believed to be severe enough 
 to intimidate offenders. Yet, from the first, the Act was 
 null and void in America. Sugar had been openly sold in 
 Boston for less than the duty and the English government 
 had with difficulty collected 2000 of revenue annually at 
 an expenditure of 7000 for perception. The Sugar Act of 
 1764, by far the most offensive of all pre-revolutionary acts, 
 made the Act of 1733 perpetual, increased the amount of the 
 duties and the severity of the penalties, and provided for 
 the exercise by English naval and customs authorities of 
 such plenary powers for the detection and punishment of 
 
 2 The Sugar Act of 1764 "will put a total stop to our exportation of 
 lumber, horses, flour, and fish, to the French and Dutch sugar colonies; 
 and if any one supposes we may find a sufficient vent for these articles 
 in the English Islands in the West Indies, he only verifies what was 
 just now observed, that he wants truer information. Putting an end 
 to the importation of foreign molasses, at the same time puts an end to 
 all the costly distilleries in these colonies, and to the rum trade to the 
 coast of Africa, and throws it into the hands of the French. With 
 the loss of the foreign molasses trade the codfishery of the English in 
 America must also be lost and thrown also into the hands of the 
 French. . . . This, nor any part of it, is not exaggeration but a sober 
 and most melancholy truth. . . . Ministers have great influence and 
 parliaments great power: can either of them change the nature of 
 things, stop all our means of getting money and yet expect us to pur 
 chase and pay for British manufactures?" Stephen Hopkins, The Rights 
 of Colonies Examined, 12, 13. (1765.) 
 
82 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 offenses as are now exercised by the United States Revenue 
 officers. To this, the colonists paid and intended to pay no 
 more attention than they had always paid to English 
 acts which seemed detrimental to their welfare. 
 
 To their wrath and astonishment, however, the English 
 ministry promptly evinced a hitherto unheard of amount of 
 energy and decision, and introduced first a Stamp Act and 
 then various revenue bills to raise money to maintain in 
 America an administrative and military corps capable of 
 enforcing the Navigation Acts, new and old. The Stamp 
 Tax was not indeed a bad form of taxation and was then in 
 operation in England without objection, and has since been 
 frequently used in the United States; the duties were ex 
 tremely moderate, and all the varieties of commercial paper 
 which the ordinary man was likely to handle were exempted 
 altogether. The opposition in America came from the clear 
 evidence afforded by the Act itself of the purpose of its 
 passage. The Commissioners were to be appointed by the 
 Crown; their powers were broad, their discretion unlimited; 
 the culprits could at discretion be tried outside their own 
 colony by an Admiralty judge, sitting of course without a 
 jury, and proceeding by the rules of the Admiralty law, 
 instead of by common law. In addition, the duties were 
 payable only in sterling money at London rates; the colo 
 nists, long hampered by the scarcity of coin in America, 
 declared it a conspiracy to strip the country of specie. 
 
 The purpose and not the tenor of the Stamp Act was as 
 much responsible for the opposition in America as it was 
 for the satisfaction in England. There can be little doubt 
 that the mercantile community on either side of the Atlantic 
 was responsible as much for the policy of centralization as 
 for that of resistance. Both were actuated by the fear of 
 bankruptcy. So long as the carrying trade between England 
 and her own sugar colonies could be restricted to her own 
 colonial shipping, so long as the continental colonies supplied 
 the English colonies with food and necessities and compelled 
 the foreign sugar colonies to divert valuable time and labor 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 83 
 
 from raising sugar-cane to raising food for their own mainte 
 nance, the English sugar colonies possessed a very consider 
 able economic advantage over their rivals. For the conti 
 nental colonies to supply the latter with food on the same 
 terms at which they supplied the English sugar colonies 
 meant the loss of this very important advantage. "When, 
 in addition, the New England merchants traded freely with 
 Amsterdam and Hamburg and took back to America Dutch 
 or German goods, the English merchants in England had 
 lost just so much of their normal market. The pressure upon 
 the ministry to put an end to this "robbery" was persistent, 
 and, from an English point of view, entirely justifiable. 
 That the repression of this illicit trade and open smuggling 
 was oppression, never occurred to George III and his advisers. 
 But the Boston and New York merchants, who remembered 
 that the English West India Islands consumed each decade a 
 smaller and smaller proportion of their produce, and furnished 
 fewer and fewer of their numerous ships with full cargoes 
 to London, who realized that their profits depended on their 
 ability to market the whole of the colonial output some 
 where and that the only possible additional market for bulky 
 and perishable goods was in the foreign West India colonies, 3 
 saw in these regulations nothing but a fixed design to strangle 
 colonial trade and to ruin colonial merchants simply in order 
 
 s The Remonstrance of the Colony of Rhode Island to the Lords Com 
 missioners of Trade and Plantations against the Sugar Act of 1764 
 stated that Rhode Island imported annually 120,000 of British goods 
 and raised in the colony 5000 worth of goods capable of being sent to 
 England, "and, as the other goods raised for exportation, will answer 
 in no market but in the West Indies, it necessarily follows that the 
 trade thither must be the foundation of all our commerce." Thirty 
 distilleries turning molasses into rum are "the main hinge upon which 
 the trade of the colony depends," and use 14,000 hogsheads of molasses 
 annually, of which 11,500 come from foreign sugar plantations (of 
 course in inviolation of the Navigation Acts). "The British West India 
 Islands are not, nor in the nature of things ever can be, able to consume 
 the produce of the said colonies." To Africa, the colony annually ex 
 ported 1800 hogsheads of rum and with the proceeds made remittances 
 to England valued at 40,000. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island 
 and Providence Plantations, in New England, VI, 378-383. 
 
84 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 to increase the profits of British merchants. The fact that 
 this trade was necessary to colonial prosperity proved to the 
 Americans that the English statutes and regulations were 
 exceedingly unjust, and were, therefore, illegal and unconsti 
 tutional. Parliament never could have intended to commit 
 such hideous injustice; any such reading of the acts must be 
 wrong. The continued insistence of the English ministers 
 upon this very interpretation, the passage of further acts and 
 regulations to enforce it seemed to prove only too clearly 
 that England actually intended to compass the ruin of her 
 own colonies. "Single acts of tyranny/ wrote Jefferson 
 in the Summary View of the Rights of British America, "may 
 be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day ; but a series of 
 oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued 
 unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly 
 prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to 
 slavery." The growth of the colonies had developed by 1760 
 an economic interest diametrically contrary to the interests 
 of England, and over its continuance, not over its rightfulness, 
 the Revolution was fought. The Americans conceived the 
 economic bondage to Europe, which pressed so hardly on them, 
 to be the result of the political tie which bound them to 
 the mother-country; if that tie were once loosened or could 
 be changed, all would be remedied. When they found it 
 impossible to alter the conditions which so hampered their 
 development, they determined to get rid of the political con 
 nection entirely and thus become free. 
 
 The prompt nullification of the Stamp Act by the Ameri 
 cans only convinced George III and his advisers the more 
 firmly of the necessity of such measures. They knew little 
 of the commercial necessities of the continental colonists; 
 still less of the actual facts about colonial self-government. 
 They correctly saw that the conditions in America were 
 entirely at odds with the legal and constitutional relation 
 ship between the mother-country and her colonies; they cor 
 rectly saw that if the authority of the Crown and of Parlia 
 ment was not to become a mere figment of the imagination 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 85 
 
 recognition of it must be extorted from the colonies as soon 
 as possible. With the cooperation of the colonies, a magnifi 
 cent future lay before the British Empire; but until so 
 anomalous a condition of affairs was changed, cooperation 
 would be impossible. As Wilson later phrased it in the 
 Constitutional Convention of 1787, "The fatal maxims es 
 poused by her were that the Colonies were growing too fast 
 and that their growth must be stinted [checked] in time." 
 
 Accordingly, in June 1766, Townshend announced the policy 
 of the ministry. "It has long been my opinion that America 
 should be regulated and deprived of its militating and con 
 tradictory charters, and its royal governors, judges, and at 
 torneys be rendered independent of the people. I there 
 fore expect that the present administration will, in the recess 
 of Parliament, take all necessary previous steps for compass 
 ing so desirable an event." There would be "a different 
 police (policy) founded on and supported by force and 
 vigor." With these words ringing in their ears, the Ameri 
 cans learned of the proposed organization of a really effi 
 cient American customs service, of the imposition of duties 
 on glass, painters colors, and tea, all to make "more certain 
 and adequate provision for the charge of the administration 
 of justice and the support of civil government" in America, 
 and to be spent by the English ministry. The low duties, 
 the studiously careful taxation of nothing but luxuries, the 
 excellence of the provisions for administrative efficiency, the 
 fact that the Tea Acts permitted the sale of tea in America 
 from 30% to 40% cheaper than in England was nothing to 
 the Americans, who were, as always, furiously opposed to 
 the payment of any taxes at all intended to make the Eng 
 lish officials independent of the colony, and firm in their 
 opposition to the establishment of an efficient English ad 
 ministration. Was this to be the result of the long battle 
 between Massachusetts and the Crown over the Governor s 
 salary? Was Massachusetts thus tamely to surrender and 
 make him independent of her legislature? Were the colo 
 nies themselves to pay the money necessary for the creation 
 
86 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 of an administration intended to destroy their prosperity 
 by enforcing the Navigation Acts? The reorganization of 
 the Admiralty courts, the legalization of general search-war 
 rants for smuggled goods, the new efficiency of the English 
 army in the colonies only increased the dangers apprehended 
 from such measures by the extent to which they rendered the 
 proposed administration more efficient. 
 
 The resistance was prompt and for the most part was a 
 resort to the old habits of evasion and violence so common 
 in the relations of the populace and the customs officers. 
 The breaking of heads, burning in effigy, riding on rails, 
 the sacking of houses, the forcible landing of goods in defi 
 ance of the revenue officers were as old as the colonies them 
 selves. Conscious of their strength, the crowds indulged in 
 more striking manifestations of their determination, dancing 
 round liberty-poles, burying the Stamp Act with mock 
 gravity, and boycotting or threatening the English officers 
 till they left the colony. There was here no organized re 
 sistance ; the participants belonged to the poorer and rougher 
 elements of the populace; and their deeds were openly dep 
 recated by the colonial leaders and legislatures. In fact, 
 few were anxious to do more than nullify the English acts 
 or supposed that such proceedings could lead to a separation 
 from the mother-country. "The ideas of people," wrote 
 John Adams, "are as various as their faces." 
 
 There was, however, for the first time talk among the 
 leaders of legal or constitutional resistance to the English 
 measures and a great turning of books and consideration of 
 precedents to discover what the legal relations of the colo 
 nies to England really were. Firm in their English tradi 
 tions, the Americans refused to believe that the law obligated 
 them to the performance of anything actually detrimental 
 to their welfare. Out of the voluminous correspondence, 
 speech-making, and tract-writing, there finally appeared about 
 1774, a coherent American notion of what the British Consti 
 tution was and what were the privileges of the colonies under 
 it. In the writings of James Otis and of Stephen Hopkins, 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 87 
 
 we find it clearly expressed, but, above all, we see it in the 
 Summary View of the Eights of British America, written by 
 Thomas Jefferson in 1774. 
 
 The Americans assumed the existence of an English Con 
 stitution superior in obligation to acts of Parliament, based 
 upon an original compact between the King and people and 
 containing " those rights which God and the laws have given 
 equally and independently to all. * The British Empire con 
 sisted of England, Scotland, Ireland, Massachusetts, Virginia, 
 and the rest of the colonies, all of them equal in rank, each 
 provided with a legislature and an administration supreme 
 within its own sphere. The King was, as Jefferson said, 
 " chief magistrate of the British Empire," "the chief officer 
 of the people, appointed by the laws and circumscribed with 
 definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of 
 government, created for their use and consequently subject 
 to their superintendence." The King was of course subject 
 to the Constitution; Parliament was the legislature of Eng 
 land as the General Court was the legislature of Massachusetts 
 or the General Assembly that of Virginia. Parliament pos 
 sessed by the Constitution no more right to legislate for Mas 
 sachusetts than the General Court possessed to pass laws for 
 England. The right of free trade was the inalienable pos 
 session of each "part of the Empire"; the Constitution sanc 
 tioned no laws whatever on that subject, and all those passed 
 by Parliament, being therefore in contravention of the Con 
 stitution, were void. 
 
 Such notions obviously bore no relation whatever to any 
 conceptions of the English constitution ever entertained in 
 England. That Americans should advance what George and 
 his counselors deemed ludicrous travesties as constitutional 
 defenses for their extraordinary behavior, only confirmed 
 the latter in their opinion of the "factious" intentions of 
 the Americans. The American notions were, however, the 
 logical result of the application of States sovereignty to the 
 British Empire ; and were simply a plain statement of actual 
 conditions in 1774. The separate States were sovereign and 
 
88 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 recognized the King s headship of the Empire for what it 
 had been, an ornamental constitutional feature. They as 
 signed both King and Parliament purely nominal parts be 
 cause neither had ever regularly exercised any actual author 
 ity in America. But neither King nor colonist realized that 
 the difficulty lay in the fact that the legal status and the 
 actual condition of the colonies no longer agreed. The Eng 
 lish concluded that, because the law said so, they were still 
 dependencies to be dealt with at the discretion of King and 
 Parliament; the Americans assumed that the Constitution 
 must have been always in force and obtained their definition 
 of the Constitution from what they knew to be true about 
 government in America and about the actual relations of the 
 colonies to England. Both the English idea of American 
 government, and the American idea of English government 
 were therefore astonishing misconceptions. And each firmly 
 believed in his own particular variety of misconception be 
 cause the facts of everyday life with which each was familiar 
 proved its validity; each scouted the other s notions be 
 cause neither could credit the existence of such conditions 
 as were claimed to be found on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 How were Charles James Fox, rake and gamester, wit and 
 litterateur, the stolid Farmer George, the routine-ridden Graf- 
 tons and Townshends to comprehend life on the American 
 frontier or to appreciate the virtues of a "Washington or the 
 ability of a Franklin? The personal experiences of the 
 leaders had been too utterly diverse for them to comprehend 
 the motives which swayed their opponents. 
 
 Starting from such opposite premises, argument and dis 
 cussion only intensified the differences of opinion and con 
 vinced each of the other s wilful intention to falsify and 
 misrepresent. The little phrase, " taxation without represen 
 tation, " which soon became the decisive point of most prac 
 tical discussions, was clearly understood by each in a sense 
 which made nonsense out of the other s contentions. The 
 English Parliament was elected by the counties and such 
 boroughs as had always had the right to send. In them, the 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 89 
 
 franchise was based upon a variety of accidental and in 
 consistent notions, completely lacking in regularity. Many 
 great cities were not represented ; many rich men had no vote ; 
 while tiny hamlets and barren hillsides returned two mem 
 bers to Parliament, and more than one nobleman and wealthy 
 landowner returned a score. A majority of the House of 
 Commons were put in their seats by about two hundred and 
 fifty individuals. Thus Parliament did not contain a single 
 member who represented any uniformity of qualification of 
 any sort. Nor, as Edmund Burke told the Electors of Bristol, 
 was that important. He was not their member and what they 
 thought or wanted was naught to him; he and every other 
 member sat for all England, for the men who did not vote 
 and for the boroughs which sent no members, as much as for 
 the few men who voted. Parliament legally represented every 
 man, woman, and child in England, and whatever it did was 
 law beyond appeal. Any one taxed by Parliament, was le 
 gally taxed. Such was and still is the theory of the English 
 Constitution. 
 
 In America, on the other hand, the franchise was uniform, 
 though not everywhere the same; while nearly every colony 
 demanded property and moral or religious qualifications, 
 every man might hope to fulfil them. The apportionment in 
 America was strictly according to population and was regu 
 larly changed to keep pace with its ebb and flow. There was, 
 therefore, in America no idea whatever that an individual 
 or a town could be vicariously represented; if the man or 
 town deserved representation, it would be freely accorded. 
 To say, therefore, that the colonies had a perfect right to 
 representation and were in fact already represented in Parlia 
 ment, sounded to the Americans like nonsense, while the 
 American claim to be taxed only by a body of men for one 
 of whom he or his town had voted seemed to Englishmen 
 worse than presumption. 
 
 One bit of American logic particularly irritated the English 
 men and seemed to them most cogent proof that the Ameri 
 cans were wrong and knew it. The latter, entirely ignorant 
 
90 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 of English conditions, save of course for the better informed 
 who were promptly stigmatized as Tories, kept insisting 
 loudly that they were "justly entitled to like privileges and 
 freedom as their fellow-subjects in Great Britain." Magna 
 Carta declared against taxation without representation, and, 
 despite it, Parliament, in which they were not represented, 
 persisted in levying taxes. But, as William Knox keenly 
 said, if they had been living in England, would they not have 
 been bound by Acts of Parliament, would they not have been 
 deemed fully represented? Should they claim all the rights 
 of Englishmen in England and shirk their duties? Should 
 they be awarded the privileges without assuming the obliga 
 tions ? 
 
 If we start from the obviously correct notions of the legal 
 relationship prevalent in England, we shall agree with George 
 and his ministers that the measures they proposed were emi 
 nently just, equitable, and moderate. "We shall perforce ac 
 quit them and the English people of any intention of tyran 
 nizing over the colonies, of imposing any formal or legal ob 
 ligations not binding on Englishmen in England, of demand 
 ing any type of taxes not long collected in England, of levy 
 ing sums in excess of those laid upon the English themselves. 
 Constitutional arguments have, however, rarely succeeded in 
 adjusting the legal and political fabric to conditions mani 
 festly antagonistic. The real issues were not constitutional 
 but economic and administrative, and concerned not law but 
 expediency. Did the continental colonies need a larger 
 market than the English sugar colonies offered? Was it not 
 most inexpedient for them to consent to taxes and regula 
 tions which proposed to enforce a policy which they believed 
 certain to result in the destruction of their prosperity ? Both 
 issues were old and the colonies, individually and collectively, 
 had invariably answered both in the affirmative. The Revolu 
 tion did not grow out of new issues and new claims. The 
 colonies merely reaffirmed with emphasis the position they had 
 already many times assumed. The justification of the 
 American Revolution lies in the fact that the colonies were 
 
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 91 
 
 strong enough to stand alone, had governed themselves suc 
 cessfully for a century and more, and could see no economic, 
 ethical, or constitutional advantages in such a connection as 
 the English proposed. Whatever the law was, they were in 
 fact free agents, sovereign powers, able to accept or reject 
 measures and policies as they thought best. The logic of 
 facts was with them; the law as they honestly understood it 
 supported them; they asked for nothing which their fathers 
 had not in substance possessed. They were free and they 
 claimed the right to make the fact clear. 
 
VIII 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 
 
 ARMED resistance was by no means the result of a spon 
 taneous outburst of indignation from a united nation. In 
 deed, the candid student, who will read the documentary evi 
 dence with the colonial passion for States sovereignty in his 
 mind instead of the national ideals of the Federal Convention, 
 will be compelled to admit, unpalatable as the fact may be, 
 that the Revolution was not a national movement at all. Loy 
 alty and devotion to the States was strong, fervid, and 
 freely expressed ; the determination to maintain with force, if 
 necessary, each State s independence of England was un 
 questioned. But both were as old as the colonies: in 1634 
 and 1664 Massachusetts had manifested precisely that same 
 determination. Of national feeling in the present sense, there 
 seems to have been among the people in general very little, and 
 that little was manifested only by individuals. At the Stamp 
 Act Congress and all other gatherings of men from more than 
 one colony, the sentiment in favor of complaint was strong, 
 but that in favor of united action was weak. The advocates 
 of a central colonial government of some sort were listened 
 to with tolerance but hardly with approval. Was not a cen 
 tral administration, robbing the individual colonies of part of 
 their power and initiative, the very thing against which they 
 were protesting? 
 
 Among the colonial leaders a strong party counseled de 
 lay. Franklin pointed at the rapid growth of the colonies in 
 wealth and population since 1760 and predicted that if war 
 could be averted for another decade or two the very growth 
 of the colonies would totally change English policy. "Our 
 security lies in our growing strength, England will soon value 
 
 92 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 93 
 
 our friendship for it." "Bear England s infirmities a little 
 and gradually they will come to treat us well." The com 
 mercial relations with England were too valuable and too 
 necessary to the prosperity of the colonies to risk their rupture 
 by a war. England is worth preserving and her safety may 
 in a large degree depend upon ourselves. Hence she must 
 soon grant us all." Nor was actual fighting necessary. The 
 English were prevented by circumstances too fundamental ever 
 to be changed from exercising a control over the colonies suf 
 ficiently effective to rob them of the actual independence 
 which had so long been theirs. George III and his ministers 
 must soon realize how insuperable a barrier the width of the 
 Atlantic actually was. In fact, the belief was very general 
 before 1775 that organized resistance would not be necessary. 
 It is hard for us to remember that in 1768 most colonists 
 felt for "The King" fervent loyalty, which was not infre 
 quently coupled to an active dislike for George III and which 
 has been often confused with a lack of patriotism to their 
 own country. They still thought as their fathers had, and 
 saw not the slightest incompatibility between a desire to cling 
 to the mother-country as long as possible and a firm determi 
 nation to disobey all rules and regulations which they did not 
 approve. They saw the familiar aspects of the old colonial 
 quarrels with England, realized that their fathers had found 
 petitions, vigorous protests, and a nullification of the ob 
 jectionable acts by passive resistance invariably effective, and 
 they were naturally unwilling to go further without more 
 serious provocation. England had hitherto never done any 
 thing more than insist, and, if they vigorously wrote and 
 talked, they might in the meantime have their own way. The 
 landing of troops at New York in 1765 and at Boston three 
 years later somewhat shook their complaisance, but as the 
 months passed by and found the trade with the foreign West 
 India Islands still brisk and profitable, as the obnoxious new 
 acts were promptly repealed, and the older ones not enforced, 
 the average man saw no need for action. 
 
 In John Dickinson s Farmer s Letters published in 1768 
 
04 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 we find those ideas which seem to have most nearly expressed 
 the views of the vast majority of the people. Of the un justi 
 fiability of English policy, he has no doubt; but he cannot 
 think it represents the mature opinion of King and people. 
 "I cannot yet believe they will be cruel or unjust. . . . Let 
 us complain . . . but let our complaint speak . . . the lan 
 guage of affliction and veneration. He dilated upon the value 
 and importance of England to the colonies: "The prosperity 
 of these provinces is founded in their dependence on Great 
 Britain ;" the obvious economic dependence of America upon 
 England does not seem to him to prove necessarily the desira 
 bility of the English interpretation of the political bond, but 
 merely the advisability of caution, patience, forbearance. In 
 fact, he denied that a new issue was being thrust upon the 
 colonists, or that other measures than passive resistance and 
 nullification would be necessary to meet the crisis. The im 
 portance of correctly estimating the attitude of Dickinson and 
 his numerous supporters can hardly be exaggerated, and we 
 must above all beware of assuming that they approved of 
 English policy or were any less patriotic in their attachment 
 to their States than were the adherents of the War party, or 
 were any less determined to resist in the eventuality of the 
 failure of compromise. Such motives held the vast majority 
 of the population inactive throughout the war, and led to the 
 prompt formation after Bunker Hill of a strong peace party, 
 opposed to the war not because it was wrong, but because it 
 was unnecessary. 
 
 Actual resistance previous to 1775 was, on the whole, indi 
 vidualistic and sporadic, and had no close connection that can 
 now be traced with the later movements for armed organized 
 resistance or for independence. The cases which furnished 
 Otis and Henry with the texts for their famous speeches on 
 the Writs of Assistance in 1761 and on the Parsons Cause in 
 1763 were essentially local and the effect of the speeches less 
 general than has usually been supposed. Neither led to open 
 resistance. The violent demonstrations around Boston in op 
 position to the Stamp Act and to the Townshend Acts were 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 95 
 
 for the most part the work of mobs, whose actions were de 
 cried and discountenanced by the leaders. A press gang went 
 ashore in Boston and had a fight with the crowd. The revenue 
 officers who attempted to inspect Hancock s sloop, the 
 Liberty, were locked up by the crew, who landed the cargo 
 and made false entries in the books at the customs house. 
 The subsequent seizure of the vessel brought out the old Boston 
 gang, which had long been accustomed to oppose the revenue 
 officers, and which sacked the houses of the inspector and con 
 troller of customs in most approved fashion. A cargo of wine 
 was landed at night in March 1768 and escorted through the 
 streets by forty men armed with bludgeons. At Providence a 
 customs officer was tarred and feathered, and at Newport a 
 revenue cutter was burned at the dock. Some years later a 
 body of men went down Providence harbor in row boats and 
 burned the revenue cutter Gaspce which was aground on the 
 mud flats. Such "opposition" was pretty common but was 
 not essentially different either in purpose or degree from the 
 violence offered to the revenue officers in America ever since 
 the days of John Kandolph, or from that which the English 
 revenue officers had to contend with at the same epoch in 
 England and Ireland. Certainly, these brawls were not gen 
 erally considered at the time to be steps towards independence 
 or even as the first events in armed resistance. 
 
 There was also a great deal of violence growing out of the 
 continually strained relations between the debtor and creditor 
 classes of the community. Of these cases, that of the North 
 Carolina Regulators in 1770 is thoroughly characteristic. A 
 considerable body of men, armed with clubs, attended the 
 session of the Superior Court and demanded from judge and 
 attorneys, "justice" in the decision of their cases, meaning 
 apparently a decision in their favor. A good many lawyers 
 were badly beaten ; several gentlemen of property (the cred 
 itors who were trying to collect their debts) were chased out 
 of town, and the Judge "took an opportunity," as he wrote 
 the Governor, of making his escape "by a back way." This 
 same determination to prevent the collection of debts and the 
 
96 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 foreclosure of mortgages by interfering with the sittings of 
 the courts was common before the Revolution, continued 
 throughout the war, and finally reached its climax in the very 
 general movement against the creditor class which was one 
 of the most prominent features of the Critical Period. Such 
 demonstrations had vital results in hastening the formation of 
 strong State governments, and, in particular, in producing 
 sentiment in favor of the strong national government advo 
 cated by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but they were 
 not primarily directed against England nor against her offi 
 cials or acts. 
 
 Inflammatory speeches and articles became common after 
 1765 and people talked energetically about "liberty" and "in 
 dependence." The lofty appeals of the leaders constitute a 
 distinct feature of these years, but it is sufficiently clear that 
 their words in most cases fell on deaf ears. The non-importa 
 tion agreements of 1767 and 1768 roused more general fervor 
 than anything else, and the demand from England for the 
 rescinding of the Massachusetts Circular Letter of 1768 
 caused a most exciting debate in the Massachusetts Assembly 
 in which Otis compared the colonists to Pym and Cromwell 
 and predicted that England would lose America unless the 
 Acts were repealed. The Assembly was carried away by en 
 thusiasm and voted, 92 to 17, not to rescind the letter. They 
 resolved that the letter was modest and innocent, respectful 
 to Parliament and dutiful to the King! The Governor next 
 day dissolved the legislature. Throughout the colonies, the 
 sensation was profound. Massachusetts had openly defied the 
 Crown. It was just the time when the famous "No. 45" of 
 ^Wilkes s North Briton was so conspicuous in the agitation for 
 liberty of press in England; "92" and "45" became talis- 
 manic numbers : 92 patriots drank 45 toasts ; 45 candles were 
 lighted and 92 cheers given ; 92 Sons of Liberty set up a pole 
 45 feet high. The colonies generally resolved to support 
 Boston, where the enthusiasm ran so high at a mass meeting 
 that Cooper and Samuel Adams declared it the most glorious 
 day they had ever seen. At this juncture, the troops were 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 97 
 
 ordered to Boston, and, as in 1634 and 1664, the Town-meet 
 ing voted "at the utmost peril of their lives and fortunes, 
 (to) maintain and defend their rights, liberties, privileges, 
 and immunities. They ordered a day of fasting and prayer, 
 and resolved to provide themselves with arms for fear of war 
 with France ! 
 
 Everything except a truly revolutionary spirit had mani 
 fested itself : the traditional hatred of the water front for the 
 press-gang, the revenue officers, and the soldiery; the tradi 
 tional opposition to an efficient executive; the war of debtor 
 against creditor. But this was not revolution. Resistance 
 was organized and the Revolution really foisted upon a reluc 
 tant people by the work of Samuel Adams and his Committees 
 of Correspondence. Such committees were in themselves old 
 and premised merely the cooperation in a common cause of 
 some few towns around Boston, whose leaders kept up an in 
 defatigable correspondence with individuals elsewhere. In 
 1763, self-constituted, unauthorized committees sprang into 
 being in many places and began corresponding with each 
 other to secure an interchange of sentiments and, if possible, 
 an agreement. None of them had any particular organiza 
 tion, or assumed executive or directive powers. Most of them 
 lasted but a short while, and even in Massachusetts there was 
 a constant succession of committees rather than one committee 
 with a permanent personnel. Indeed, by 1772, no definite re 
 sults of any sort were visible. * The dispute between the king 
 dom and the colonies," declared the Massachusetts Gazette, 
 "ceases everywhere except in this province." "I shall not 
 fail to exert myself," wrote a warm patriot in Plymouth to 
 Adams, * to have as many towns as possible meet, but fear the 
 bigger part of them will not. They are dead; and the dead 
 can t be raised without a miracle." This Adams did not be 
 lieve, yet even he could not but admit that "the people are at 
 present hushed into silence." His cousin, John Adams, wrote : 
 They are still and quiet at the South and at New York they 
 laugh at us. Hardly a year before Bunker Hill, he wrote : 
 "I am of the same opinion that I have been for years, that 
 
98 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 there is not spirit enough on either side to bring the question 
 to a complete decision. . . . Our children may see revolutions 
 and be concerned and active in effecting them, of which we 
 can form no conception." There was, indeed, no general feel 
 ing in favor of resistance in 1772, and, until Bunker Hill was 
 fought, not even the leaders dared to believe the colonies would 
 resist. 
 
 Samuel Adams and those about him, however, did not lose 
 heart. They had long been prominent in Boston affairs, had 
 usually controlled the town-meeting, and were well acquainted 
 with the leading spirits of the surrounding towns. Their plan 
 was bold : I wish we could rouse the continent, wrote 
 Adams. Still, he dared not hope for the reality: "If our de 
 sign (for committees) succeeds, there will be an apparent union 
 of sentiments among the people of this province, which may 
 spread through the continent." Clearly, no general spirit of 
 armed resistance was apparent to him in 1772. In November 
 of that year, Adams and his supporters succeeded finally in 
 carrying a vote by a very narrow majority through a thinly- 
 attended Boston town-meeting for the appointment of a com 
 mittee to correspond with other towns and "state the rights 
 of the colonies." Thus did the men who really began the 
 Revolution obtain a small grant of authority from their timor 
 ous and grudging supporters. Most of the members of this 
 Boston Committee, which set the torch to the bonfire, are little 
 known, and outside of Adams, Otis, Warren, and Quincy, were 
 not men of the first ability nor of social standing or wealth. 
 John Adams, Faneuil, Hancock, Gerry, Paine, as yet declined 
 to countenance so radical a step. The Tories scoffed at the 
 Sons of Belial who came together and asked each other, 1 1 What 
 can we lose? Peradventure by our craft we may gain some 
 thing." "And so Samuel, the Publican (Adams) and Wil 
 liam, the Scribe (Cooper) . . . with other the sons of Belial 
 set themselves to oppose Francis, (Bernard) the Governor, 
 . . . and drew much people after them and the land was dis 
 quieted. " Within a few months, the Committee had clearly 
 proved the existence in a good many towns of a considerable 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 99 
 
 number of men ready to resist, and, on the strength of that, se 
 cured a much more definite grant of authority from the Boston 
 Town-meeting. 
 
 But the movement lacked numbers and needed an oppor 
 tunity to rouse the people by some dramatic act of defiance. 
 In 1770, an attempt of the roughs of the water-front to "bait" 
 the redcoats had resulted in a scattered involuntary fire from 
 the comrades of the men assaulted. There is no reason to be 
 lieve that the affair was anything more than one of the ordi 
 nary rows then common in garrison towns ; but Adams and his 
 ilk put great pressure on the governor to remove the troops 
 and utilized the funeral of those killed for a tremendous 
 demonstration. Sober second thought told the Bostonians that 
 the soldiers were innocent, but Adams and his friends seized 
 upon the "Massacre" as the first blood spilt in the war they 
 were predicting and held services of commemoration which 
 naturally became the occasion for inflammatory denunciations 
 of English rule. 
 
 When, however, came from England news of the Tea Act 
 of 1773 and the determination of the ministry to make the fate 
 of the cargoes consigned to the four principal ports a test 
 of the spirit of the colonies, Adams realized that the golden 
 opportunity was at hand. A general grievance had been pro 
 vided which by a miracle enabled Adams to put behind his 
 new plea for resistance to England the old established habit 
 of eluding the Navigation Acts. The campaign against the tea 
 was worked up by the various committees with the greatest as 
 siduity in newspapers, meetings, and alehouses, and the coun 
 try strewn with placards. The consignees in Charleston, S. 
 C., resigned at the request of a public meeting. But the con 
 signees in Boston refused to resign. The Town-meeting voted 
 executive power into the hands of the Committee of Corre 
 spondence, which called in the committees of the neighboring 
 towns, and sat "like a little senate," wrote the disgusted 
 Hutchinson. The tea-ships arrived on November 28, 1773, and, 
 after every expedient to have them sent back or to prevent 
 the landing of the tea had failed, the Committee called a great 
 
100 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 meeting to take action. Opposition to violent measures was 
 expected and in case the meeting refused to authorize the 
 destruction of the tea, a large band of men, whose identity is 
 still unknown, were ready, disguised as Indians, to take mat 
 ters into their own hands. After a long and stormy session 
 had proved the opposition too strong, the signal was given; 
 the * Indians rushed out of the warehouse in which they were 
 concealed, whooping as they hurried toward the harbor. The 
 audience at the meeting and a large part of the population 
 who were not at the meeting rushed after them, and from 
 wharves and warehouses, passively watched the " Indians," 
 silently but rapidly, dump the tea into the harbor and dis 
 appear. 
 
 As a demonstration, the Tea Party was an overwhelming 
 success and produced precisely that impression of organized, 
 concerted, popular action which Adams had long been most 
 anxious to give. The identity of the opposition of the years 
 1760 to 1772 with the older phase to which the English had 
 long since become accustomed had effectually concealed from 
 them what had been slowly coming to a head in America. 
 The passivity of the great majority of the people, the lack of 
 united action and of concerted effort, of numbers and of educa 
 tion and wealth among the members of the Committees of 
 Correspondence had very naturally led the King, the ministry, 
 the mercantile and educated classes in England to conclude 
 that the movement was the work of a small faction of radicals, 
 whose stand was disapproved by the vast majority of the peo 
 ple. That the vast majority of the American people could 
 heartily disagree with Samuel Adams and yet even more ve 
 hemently disagree with himself, seems never to have occurred 
 to George III. The English, in fact, greatly exaggerated the 
 numbers of their own supporters in America and belittled the 
 extent of the opposition to them. They supposed, as it is 
 rapidly becoming the fashion to assume now, that every man 
 not in favor of armed resistance was a Tory. From the clear 
 evidence of colonial jealousies, they concluded that active and 
 efficient cooperation between the colonies was out of the ques- 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF, RE&ISTANC/E 101 
 
 tion. The reception accorded the tea rudely shook this com 
 placency. George III declared that act a subversion of the 
 Constitution ; Lord North deemed it the culmiriation of rioting 
 and confusion, and Parliament solemnly voted it actual re 
 bellion. Indeed, the English at last saw that the Americans 
 objected to their acts and taxes, not because they were un 
 just, but because the Americans intended never to recognize 
 any such relationship to England as those acts and taxes as 
 sumed to exist. 
 
 To take no action was to lose the colonies without an effort 
 for their retention, to sanction a revolution. Tyranny was 
 not to the taste of George III; but a supine surrender of 
 what he fully believed were the rights of Empire was as little 
 to his liking. The intentions of some Americans were clear, 
 but he could not yet learn that more than a handful had taken 
 any decided stand or that the colonies were ready to act to 
 gether. General Gage returned from America and privately 
 assured him that they will be lions whilst we are lambs ; but 
 if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly prove very 
 meek." The repeal of the Stamp Act, concluded the King, 
 4 was a fatal compliance." So, in the Coercive Acts of 1774, 
 England took "the resolute part," closed the Port of Boston 
 to injure its trade ; annulled the Massachusetts Charter and in 
 stituted government by men appointed from England; pro 
 vided for the trial in England of men accused of treason, and 
 erected a new province of Quebec that robbed all the colonies 
 of the lands west of the Alleghenies whose value they had just 
 come to realize. The die is now cast, wrote George to Lord 
 North, "the Colonies must either submit or triumph." 
 
 Had Samuel Adams himself dictated the English measures, 
 he could not have devised any better calculated to rouse the in 
 different and lukewarm to the necessity for action or which 
 would have given him and his colleagues greater prestige and 
 authority. He made excellent use of the varied motives now 
 working in his favor: strong State patriotism, love of self- 
 government, and belief in States sovereignty, even if it in 
 volved a breach with England ; the hatred of the Boston mob 
 
102 TKE.RI.SE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 for the troops quarteued there; the traditional opposition to 
 the revenue officers; the traditional determination not to pay 
 enough money to the English officers to render them independ 
 ent of the colony. The Boston Committee had promptly arro 
 gated to itself in 1773 executive powers and now began in 1774 
 a persistent attempt to create and mold public opinion, and 
 to concert and execute measures of resistance. It collected 
 powder, lead, and muskets; instituted companies of minute- 
 men, who drilled more or less regularly; and appointed 
 watchers and messengers to carry word of the movement of 
 troops to the districts threatened. With the annulling of the 
 old Charter, the Boston Committee became the only body 
 capable of acting with consent of the people without directly 
 exposing all its members to the penalty of high treason. It 
 openly took upon itself the government of the State, the sup 
 plying of Boston with provisions, local administration, and 
 the organization of revolt. 
 
 Nothing remained but to convince the men around Boston 
 that the only course left them was open resistance. Parlia 
 ment furnished it in the Act for the exclusion of the colonies 
 from the Newfoundland Fisheries. Salt cod was the chief 
 staple of New England s trade with the rest of the world, and, 
 if they were excluded from the principal source of supply, the 
 New England colonies would be ruined whether the foreign 
 sugar islands were open or closed to colonial trade. The news 
 of this Act arrived on April 2, 1775, and Adams and his fol 
 lowers at once saw that the decisive factor had appeared and 
 was in their favor. From that moment, they determined to 
 force the issue, confident that Massachusetts would support 
 them. In full consciousness of the strength and excellence of 
 the new organization, rather than in any spirit of prophesy, 
 Joseph Warren wrote on April 3, 1775, "America must and 
 will be free. The contest may be severe; the end will be 
 glorious. We would not boast, but we think, united and pre 
 pared as we are, we have no reason to doubt of success. 
 
 General Gage soon provided an admirable opportunity for 
 a demonstration. Despite the activity of Adams and his Com- 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 103 
 
 mittees, there were few places in New England and few in 
 the other colonies where their adherents were really in the 
 majority and determined to fight. There were still fewer 
 places where any preparations for armed resistance had been 
 actually made. But along the highroad from Boston to Con 
 cord, the shire town of Middlesex County, and the market 
 town for the whole district around Boston, were a series of 
 towns where Adams s propaganda had met the most en 
 thusiastic response of any place in America. An overwhelm 
 ing majority of the men were determined to fight, had been 
 organized into companies and provided with arms, a consider 
 able store of which, with powder and lead, had been collected 
 at Concord. In the previous February the British had seized 
 cannon at Salem ; in March had captured cartridges and can 
 non-balls that were being smuggled into Boston in candle-boxes 
 and hay-wagons; and though fights with the populace were 
 averted by the narrowest of margins, the fact was beyond dis 
 pute that no outbreak had taken place. But when General 
 Gage determined to send his troops to Concord on the night 
 of April 18, to seize the stores collected there, he thrust his 
 men into the one place in all America where adequate prepara 
 tions for their reception had been made. 
 
 The alarm was spread by the people themselves and reached 
 Lexington and Concord far ahead of the messengers, of whom 
 only John Dawes reached Concord. At two in the morning, 
 more than a hundred minute-men were waiting on Lexington 
 Common, but no one came, the night was cold, and they dis 
 persed. At three the alarm was in Concord. Five o clock 
 found about a hundred minute-men, armed with muskets, 
 assembled again on Lexington Common and they soon saw 
 the red-coated column approaching. Both they and the Eng 
 lish seem to have been somewhat non-plussed, and some mo 
 ments passed in indecision; but a company of the red-coats 
 was detached from the column, which, without waiting, started 
 for Concord. The company deployed on the green and fired a 
 volley at the minute-men, who returned a few scattered shots 
 and then dispersed, carrying their wounded. The company 
 
104 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 fell back into the column and the British marched on to Con 
 cord, where they met an unexpectedly stout resistance. The 
 minute-men actually drove back into town a small detach 
 ment who were guarding a bridge, and followed them with a 
 persistence that astonished the British. After some powder 
 and shot had been destroyed, the British officers, who had 
 been strictly ordered not to rouse the country, determined to 
 return to Boston. A large body of Americans returned with 
 them, annoying them with a deadly flanking fire from the 
 little hillsides fringing the Boston road, but not offering 
 enough resistance to draw upon them an attack in force. 
 The British column, we now know, voluntarily returned in 
 obedience to orders; the minute-men could not have driven 
 them from the field had they chosen to stand their ground; 
 but the minute-men and the countryside deemed it a retreat 
 before superior force. The effect was incalculable; recruits 
 poured into the camp in the Cambridge marshes; the other 
 New England States promptly started their militia for Boston. 
 Most of the accounts which spread through the colonies were 
 false, but glorious ; the British army had been driven into 
 Boston and was there besieged! The news "will plead with 
 all America," wrote Mrs. John Adams in May, "with more 
 irresistible persuasion than angels trumpet- tongued. " 
 
 The more completely to invest Boston, the project was 
 adopted by the patriots of erecting a redoubt upon the high 
 est part of Charlestown Hill, the whole of which was then 
 known as Bunker s Hill. On the sixteenth of June, a body of 
 several hundred men under Colonel Prescott marched across 
 Charlestown Neck and began a redoubt on the lower of the 
 two hills, and that nearer the water, since called Breed s Hill. 
 From a military point of view, the error was great : the Eng 
 lish fleet, anchored off the Neck, could have cut off their re 
 treat and compelled their surrender to the regiments, who 
 could easily have been landed in the rear of the entrenchment, 
 which was wholly commanded by the hill on which the monu 
 ment now stands. All this was seen by Gage and Howe, but 
 was cast aside in favor of a demonstration. They would land 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 105 
 
 in front of the redoubt and rail fence stuffed with hay, and 
 show the farmers and the colonies in general that resistance 
 was hopeless even when the British voluntarily gave the farm 
 ers every possible advantage. Up the slope, with flags fly 
 ing, went the British line; down again in haste it came. 
 Twice the assault failed, and then was successful largely be 
 cause the farmers, finding their ammunition low, began to 
 retreat. They were allowed to escape unmolested by the as 
 tonished regulars. The country was electrified. The most 
 diverse reports went broadcast about the numbers engaged, 
 the casualties, and the narrative of the action. Many blamed 
 the patriots for fighting at all. John Adams accurately 
 summed up contemporary opinion: "Considering all the dis 
 advantages under which they fought they really exhibited 
 prodigies of valour. But Bunker Hill, from a military point 
 of view a crushing defeat for the Americans, was a moral vic 
 tory of the first importance. A miracle had happened: the 
 farmers had stood their ground, unabashed by the line of red 
 coats. Bunker Hill "instantly convinced us," wrote Ezra 
 Stiles, President of Yale College, "and for the first time con 
 vinced Britons themselves that Americans both would and 
 could fight with great effect." 
 
IX 
 FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 
 
 THE hostilities at Lexington and at Bunker Hill had been the 
 work of the Committees of Correspondence and their adher 
 ents, and not that of a regularly constituted State or local 
 government, and, even if the people of Massachusetts did 
 finally accept responsibility for what had been done, nothing 
 was clearer to the leaders in the other colonies than that they 
 themselves had not been and would not be in any way obli 
 gated even by such action. Their relations to Massachusetts, 
 to each other, and to England were still to be decided by such 
 notions of law and expediency as careful consideration 
 should show to be important. At the same time, the strong 
 sentiment in favor of supporting the gallant stand of the 
 Massachusetts men caused the leaders throughout America 
 promptly to begin the thorough discussion of ways, means, 
 and methods. 
 
 They soon found themselves seriously at odds over the 
 most expedient method of securing English recognition of 
 American claims. One party declared war inexpedient and 
 a settlement agreeable to America easily obtainable by negoti 
 ation and passive resistance, while their opponents insisted 
 upon armed resistance as the only means of convincing Eng 
 land of the generality and seriousness of American opposi 
 tion. The former and larger party stood upon familiar 
 colonial ground and espoused methods which had long been 
 successful, and to it naturally flocked the conservatives and 
 the timid, afraid of compromising themselves and of thus 
 endangering their lives or property. Their opponents insisted 
 that some sort of legalization of what had been done by the 
 institution of a definite revolutionary organization was im- 
 
 106 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 107 
 
 perative, not only to make resistance effective, but to give the 
 movement a legal status which would enable its supporters to 
 claim the rights of belligerents and permit them to recruit 
 their ranks from those whom the fears of confiscation and exe 
 cution would otherwise hold passive. The anxiety of the very 
 men who had fought at Lexington to free themselves of lia 
 bility by denying that they had " resisted" at all warned 
 Adams and his friends of what was otherwise to be expected 
 even from the boldest. Indeed, without assuming a definite 
 object of some kind for which to fight, without in some way 
 defining their future legal relations to England and to each 
 other, it was clear that no general cooperation of colonies or 
 individuals was to be expected. It was highly probable that, 
 unless some public pledges sufficiently definite to make diffi 
 cult the desertion of the common cause were soon obtained, 
 some States, if not the majority, would make their peace with 
 England individually and leave the few to bear the brunt of 
 the mother-country s displeasure. 1 The greatest obstacle in 
 the way of resistance soon proved to be the exceedingly di 
 vergent notions about the future relations of the various 
 States in America to each other, the sort of cooperation 
 needed, the kind of central administration required. 
 
 The obvious inadequacy of the existing arrangements, ad 
 ministrative and military, caused at once the greatest per 
 plexity and concern. The committees of correspondence, 
 which were now pretty generally spread throughout the 
 country, were at most empowered only to investigate, corre 
 spond, and suggest, and could not claim to have been author 
 ized by local or State governments to commence a revolution. 
 In several colonies, they had been unable to secure any open 
 recognition at all and were voluntary associations of men, en 
 tirely extra-legal, whose organization would certainly not con 
 fer upon them or their abettors the belligerent status so ob 
 viously desirable. In Massachusetts, to be sure, the rescind 
 ing of the colonial charter had furnished the Boston Com- 
 
 1 The Journals of the Continental Congress and Force s American 
 Archives are full of material on this point. 
 
108 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 mittee of Correspondence an opportunity to oppose the British 
 officials with the open approval of the populace, and this 
 Adams had interpreted as a legalization of the Committee s 
 work. The English government would certainly not agree 
 with him on that point, and it was by no means sure that the 
 people of Boston would if their movement failed of instant 
 success and prompt support elsewhere. Outside Massachu 
 setts, the authorities of the several States had clung to their 
 charters and had held carefully aloof from the committees and 
 their propaganda. 2 Nor did the people of the colonies in 
 general manifest clearly any desire for independence of Eng 
 land. "Until after the rejection of the second petition of 
 Congress in 1775," wrote John Jay, "I never heard an Ameri 
 can of any class or any description express a wish for the 
 independence of the colonies." Not only was there in June 
 1775, no definite State or national organization pledged to op 
 position to England, which could not easily have been dis 
 owned, but there was apparent no sentiment in favor of the 
 creation of such a body or bodies. 
 
 The Continental Congress could not claim any such posi 
 tion. It represented the radical elements in the various States 
 rather than the organized governments. Indeed, many of the 
 delegates, both in 1774 and 1775, had been appointed by the 
 committees of correspondence without even a pretense of elec 
 tion by the people. Some States were not represented at all, 
 and others were only partially represented. The Congress 
 was in truth a body of ambassadors from confessedly extra- 
 legal associations and possessed no status which the States in 
 America or the Crown in England would in any w r ay be com 
 pelled to recognize. Further, it was by no means certain that 
 the majority of Americans favored a central organization of 
 any kind. 3 
 
 2 This whole subject has been treated by Agnes Hunt, Provincial Com 
 mittees of Safety. Much evidence is in Force s American Archives. 
 
 3 The student should in particular read the anxious debates in Con 
 gress in the fall of 1775 and spring of 1776 upon the formation of a 
 new government and note the direct testimony of the reluctance of the 
 people to act. Most of the authorizations to members of Congress in 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 109 
 
 What Lexington and Bunker Hill had not been able to ac 
 complish was consummated by the rejection of the Olive 
 Branch Petition by George III in the summer of 1775, and 
 after the arrival of the news there was in the fall of 1775 a 
 very general acquiescence in or tacit acceptance of the revolu 
 tionary organization already in existence, though the leaders 
 were keenly alive to the fact that this sort of recognition 
 pledged neither States nor individuals to the continuance of 
 the war. New executive officers were chosen in Massachusetts 
 in defiance of the English statute of 1774; but in most States 
 the actual business of the country was still transacted through 
 the colonial governmental structure. If the voice had become 
 the voice of Jacob, the hands were still those of Esau. The 
 nearly universal acceptance of the members of Congress in 
 Philadelphia by the people or the popular choice of new mem 
 bers soon gave that body a quasi-legal status as a congress of 
 ambassadors and enabled it to act with something approach 
 ing legality or regularity as a central organ of some inde 
 scribably vague variety. The appointment of Washington as 
 Commander-in-Chief of the army at Boston in July 1775, and 
 the presence of various officers and regiments from several 
 States in that army was more definite evidence of coopera 
 tion between the States for resistance, and enabled Congress 
 to claim in the fall of 1775 support in nearly all sections of 
 the country. But no definite general action had been taken; 
 no formal sanction of resistance had been given by States or 
 people. Their approval referred rather to past than to future 
 action. The people in the States expected to take further 
 action when they thought it necessary ; the States intended to 
 reserve their approval of further resistance and the legaliza 
 tion of cooperation until they should make up their several 
 minds; they reserved complete right to recall their citizens 
 from the army or from Congress whenever they should deem it 
 necessary. 
 
 This uncertainty crippled no branch of the revolutionary 
 
 favor of independence carefully omitted instructions on the question 
 of further organization. 
 
110 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 fabric as much as it did the Congress. In the nature of 
 things, the latter possessed no definite grant of authority. 
 Above all, it must not alienate any section of its supporters, 
 for nothing would so quickly ruin the movement as the open 
 defection of some strong State. Congress must, therefore, 
 find the definition of its powers in the instructions of its mem 
 bers rather than in the needs of the moment. It must 
 somehow steer the middle course between the radicals, who 
 threatened to leave the movement if more was not promptly 
 done, and the conservatives who threatened to desert if one 
 step more was taken. The Congress must follow rather than 
 lead; it must do what seemed likely to be approved rather 
 than what was expedient or necessary. 4 The administrative 
 difficulties of the Revolution must be more thoroughly under 
 stood if we are to realize how splendid an achievement our 
 independence is. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of permanent cooperation seemed 
 to contemporaries almost insurmountable, and attracted more 
 attention abroad than any single aspect of the situation. The 
 distances sundering the States had effectually prevented rapid 
 or frequent communication and had produced almost as great 
 
 * Every page of the Journals of Congress proves only too clearly the 
 truth of this statement. See, for instance, the attempt to deal with 
 the pressing problem of deserters in Feb. 1777, and the obvious inade 
 quacy of the resolve passed to solve the difficulty as they saw it. "An 
 obstinate partiality to the habits and customs of one part of this con 
 tinent has predominated in the public councils and too little attention 
 has been paid to others. ... It has been my fate to make an inef 
 fectual opposition [in Congress] to all short enlistments, to colonial 
 [i. e., Statel appointment of officers and to many other measures, which 
 I thought pregnant with mischief; but these things either suited with 
 the genius and habits or squared with the interests of Some States, 
 that had sufficient influence to prevail [in Congress] and nothing is 
 now left but to extricate ourselves as we ll as we can." Robert Morris 
 to Washington, Dec. 23, 1776. MS. letter, quoted in Sparks s Washing 
 ton s Writings, IV, 237, note. 
 
 "It is a fact too notorious to be concealed that Cfongress] is rent 
 by party that much business of a trifling nature and personal concern 
 ment withdraw their attention from matters of great national moment 
 at this critical period/* Washington to Mason, March 27, 1779. Wash 
 ington s Writings, Ford s ed., VII, 383. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 111 
 
 a lack of acquaintance between parts of America as between 
 America and England. Indeed, many more Americans had 
 been in London than had traveled in the colonies, and the 
 constant receipt of letters, papers, and books from the mother- 
 country had kept each colony more keenly aware of what went 
 on in England than it was of what happened in its own vi 
 cinity. In fact, the States were contiguous only on paper and 
 were really separated by great stretches of wilderness, sowed 
 with rivers and bogs and almost devoid of roads. Actually, 
 they were independent of each other as well as of England, 
 and there was not as yet sufficient pressure of circumstances 
 to make cooperation seem imperative rather than merely desir 
 able. The possibilities of agreement, moreover, seemed slight. 
 To most Americans, the superficial differences of customs and 
 religion were more striking than were the great fundamental 
 similarities which attracted the attention of the leaders and 
 gave them confidence in the ultimate outcome. New England 
 was Congregationalist, Virginia Episcopalian, Pennsylvania 
 Quaker; and the religious disputes, in particular those grow 
 ing out of the threatened severance of relations with the 
 Church of England in case the States should attempt actual 
 independence of the mother-country, were serious obstacles 
 for a time in the way of a permanent organization. The 
 old traditional disputes had been revived: Pennsylvania and 
 Maryland, Maryland and Virginia, New Jersey and New 
 York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, South Carolina and 
 Georgia had long cherished grievances against each other and 
 now lost no opportunity to pursue the quarrel. Then, a cen 
 tury of development had allowed certain colonies to outstrip 
 the others in size and wealth; had created the jealousies be 
 tween the large and small States which were in 1787 so sig 
 nificant. All these differences had long prevented the adop 
 tion of any scheme of central government in colonial America 
 and they seemed still to present almost insuperable obstacles 
 to permanent cooperation. 
 
 They were, however, less serious than the social differ 
 ences. The fact that the Atlantic coast was everywhere ac- 
 
112 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 cessible from the sea and was well-furnished with deep par 
 allel rivers had early produced a pretty general settlement 
 of the coast regions and the lower reaches of the rivers all 
 along the seaboard. Subsequent development had pushed 
 this long thin line of settlement westward, until there ex 
 isted in 1776 a fringe of thoroughly established towns and 
 counties along the coast and a wider belt inland where con 
 ditions were still those of the frontier. Between the two 
 districts there had always been a certain antagonism, based 
 on the inevitable dependence of the interior upon the coast 
 for the sale of its own produce and for its supplies of salt 
 and manufactured goods. The frontier, being therefore 
 nearly always in debt to the coast, resented keenly the lat 
 ter s economic position and assumption of social superiority. 
 Thus developed the distinction between the settled communi 
 ties and the frontier, between the East and the West, be 
 tween the creditor and debtor communities, which is one of 
 the most fundamental lines in American life and one of the 
 oldest. 
 
 At this time, however, it was less a dividing line between 
 States than a cleft in every State, tending to create social 
 distinctions and foment internal discord. It tended to coin 
 cide in each State with the line of rich and poor, creditor 
 and debtor, and made it difficult to institute strong govern 
 ment in the States themselves; and particularly stood in the 
 way of the adhesion of the States as a whole to any scheme 
 of strong central government, because of the determination 
 of the debtors to oppose the development of governmental 
 machinery likely to facilitate the collection of debts. The 
 Revolution was not only a war between England and Amer 
 ica, not only a struggle of political parties in both countries, 
 but a civil war in America, some of whose aspects were those 
 of a social war of classes. To this many of the most char 
 acteristic manifestations of the Revolution were partially due 
 the early mob violence, the opposition to English adminis 
 tration, the treatment of the Loyalists. To it are due most 
 of the aspects of the critical years just previous to the adop- 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 113 
 
 tion of the Constitution. Like every great event in his 
 tory, the Revolution was a struggle of many motives and many 
 interests, and was concerned not only with the authority of 
 England over America, but with the relations of Americans 
 to each other in the several States and in the central govern 
 ment. 
 
 At just this juncture, when in the winter of 1775-76 every 
 thing hung in the balance, when energetic united action 
 seemed improbable, and defeat for Massachusetts unless 
 promptly supported seemed certain, the union between the 
 revolutionary movement and the war between debtor and 
 creditor gave a mighty impulse to open resistance by secur 
 ing the adhesion of large numbers of men who had hitherto 
 held aloof. Naturally enough, among the more adventurous 
 and radical spirits, who had at first flocked to the commit 
 tees, had been men who had not so much to lose that fears 
 of confiscation weighed heavily upon them. A farmer could 
 easily enough retrieve the loss of his acres by moving on 
 and taking up a new claim. The men who had held back had 
 been not only the conservatives, but the merchants and the 
 creditor class, in general men who were likely to lose heavily 
 by the interference of the outbreak of hostilities with the 
 regularity of trade. Such an alignment of debtor and cred 
 itor was natural enough and has always appeared at the be 
 ginning of great wars. It was probably as little in evidence 
 during the Revolution as in any period of change in his 
 tory, but it certainly played a significant part. Indeed, so 
 largely did the debtor class preponderate in the early move 
 ments that, until the adhesion of Hancock, Washington, 
 Franklin, John Adams, and other men of wealth and sta 
 tion became known, it was widely claimed in England and 
 America that resistance was merely the work of a crowd 
 of disorderly men who refused to pay their debts or who had 
 nothing to lose. 5 
 
 6 The evidence is too voluminous to be cited in so brief a book and 
 will be found literally in all directions. An example or two must suf 
 fice. Johnston, one of the North Carolina radicals, wrote to a friend 
 
114 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Then, when the tacit recognition of the Revolution by the 
 people permitted the extension of organization, the ablest 
 and most prominent men were at once drawn into the serv 
 ice of the States, of the central administration, or of the 
 army, and local government fell into the hands of the 
 most radical and least experienced men connected with the 
 movement. Nor were their acts likely to be questioned or 
 their discretion hampered from above, as they well knew. 
 The men at the helm in the State had staked their all upon 
 success and were not receiving such universal support as to 
 make them willing to quarrel with the local leaders for being 
 too outspoken or too energetic in maintaining the cause. 
 Graver business, too, prevented really adequate supervision of 
 the local committees, whom the exigencies of the situation 
 thus invested with literally absolute, unrestricted authority. 
 
 The men into whose hands this vast power fell were for 
 the most part debtors and they promptly began to use it 
 against all who had for a variety of reasons not yet openly 
 joined the Cause. John Adams and others have recorded 
 opinions that not more than a third of the people openly 
 espoused the movement, but the great majority of those who 
 held aloof were by no means British sympathizers. "Some 
 are [hostile] from real attachment to Britain," said a letter 
 written by a secret committee of Congress; "some from inter 
 ested views, many, very many, from fear of the British forces, 
 some because they are dissatisfied with the general measures 
 
 in December 1776, that the members of the Constitutional Convention 
 of North Carolina who had the least pretensions to be gentlemen were 
 regarded with suspicion by the others (who were in the majority) and 
 who were "a set of men without reading, experience, or principle to 
 govern them." The members of the first legislature he characterized as 
 "fools and knaves, who by their low Arts have worked themselves into 
 the good graces of the populace." North Carolina Records, X, 1041; 
 XI, 504, 627 ; and elsewhere. The crew of an American war vessel were 
 thus described: "His people really appear to me to be a set of the 
 most unprincipled abandoned fellows I ever saw." American Archives, 
 Fourth Series, III, 1378, 1658. (1775.) 
 
 If such was the testimony of patriots, one can readily imagine the 
 opinions of loyalists and Englishmen. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 115 
 
 of Congress, more because they disapprove of the men in 
 power and the measures in their respective States." The 
 "Patriots," however, dubbed all these men "Loyalists" and 
 began to deal with them all as professed enemies of the Cause. 
 Avowed supporters of England and English officials were 
 promptly driven out of the district, their property confis 
 cated, and such as were captured were subjected to indigni 
 ties and such physical abuse as tar and feathering. The 
 timid soon discovered, therefore, that the consequences of not 
 abetting the Revolution were more tangible and quite as 
 terrifying as those of opposing England, and the committees 
 of correspondence thus convinced very large numbers of peo 
 ple that George III was a tyrant. 
 
 But the exercise of authority grew by what it fed on and 
 demanded new victims. The ease of employing this new 
 weapon to pay off old scores and to further selfish interests 
 was too great for many to resist the temptation. Thus self- 
 interest and the spice of hatred and traditional antipathy 
 between the debtors and creditors gave the Revolution a 
 mighty impulse and the deeds done in the name of Liberty 
 committed many thousands to its cause by methods which 
 only eventual success could condone. 6 A good many men 
 
 The minister of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a patriot, gives the 
 following account in his Diary of 1776: "April 9. I hear of tumults 
 and disorderly practices; stupidity, hardness of heart, atheism, and 
 unbelief prevail. The British ministry breathe out cruelty against the 
 colonies still. . . . July 24. A number of people gathered together, 
 some dressed like Indians with blankets, and manifested uneasiness 
 with those that trade in rum, molasses, sugar, etc. I understand that 
 a number went to Merchant Colton s and have again [note this signifi 
 cant word] taken away his goods. I don t see the justice or equity 
 of it. Many don t approve of it, but have not resolution enough to 
 interpose and endeavor redress. . . . Nov. 30 Military Co. called to 
 gether at a minute s warning to go wherever called. People don t 
 appear forward. . . . Our soldiers begin to return that enlisted for a 
 stated time, and people seem engaged to get money, and I fear by op 
 pression and unjust measures." Hart, American History Told by Con 
 temporaries, II, 45G, 457. 
 
 A bibliography of the loyalists and their sufferings is in C. H. Van 
 Tyne, American Revolution, 338-340. Particularly interesting is Samuel 
 Curwen s Journal and Letters. 
 
116 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 of wealth were promptly declared loyalists and their prop 
 erty seized and distributed, although they protested that they 
 were not English supporters at all. Imitations of the Tea 
 Party gave excuse for the robbing of stores and warehouses; 
 local regulations and even state laws required the payment 
 of coin by loyalists to patriots and the acceptance of de 
 preciated paper currency at its face value from patriots in 
 exchange for goods. The property of all the exiles, volun 
 tary and involuntary, was at once distributed. In time, this 
 war of the debtor upon the creditor class culminated in that 
 union of the propertied class throughout the country in 
 favor of strong government which was largely responsible 
 for the adoption of the Constitution. In the meantime, this 
 onslaught upon the creditors pretty generally brought about 
 their adhesion to the Revolution or their organization against 
 it. After 1776, the loyalists were in the minority in New 
 England; in the South, they were in the minority along the 
 coast and in the majority in the interior; while in the Mid 
 dle States they equaled if they did not outnumber the pa 
 triots. Thus, throughout the country, the existence of a 
 stanch opposition to the Revolution, in many districts thor 
 oughly successful, became evident. 
 
 It has been difficult for posterity to realize that a con 
 siderable portion of the people did not support the Revolu 
 tion; it has been even more difficult for us to realize that 
 their opposition to the movement was based upon differences 
 of opinion for the most part American in their origin and 
 effect, which did not in the least indicate a desire for Eng 
 lish rule or a dislike of American independence. The op 
 position was the normal result of the civil war in America. 
 
 The issue raised by the war, as contemporaries saw it, 
 was not as much the desirability or possibility of independ 
 ence of England upon this the agreement was so general 
 as hardly to admit of debate or require argument but of 
 the desirability and expediency of obtaining that independ 
 ence by means of a central administration whose very ex 
 istence would necessarily deprive the States of some of their 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 117 
 
 cherished sovereignty. Not loyalty to England, but States 
 sovereignty was the formidable obstacle in the way of the 
 Revolution preventing permanent cooperation. Many and 
 many a man seriously feared the results of a victory over the 
 British won by Washington at the head of an army, which 
 might then be strong enough to erect a central government 
 more powerful, and therefore more obnoxious, than the British 
 government had ever been. States sovereignty and State 
 independence were the supremely desirable things and the 
 great majority had no more intention of sacrificing them to 
 erect a revolutionary organization in America than they had 
 of submitting to the rule of George III. 
 
 Independence meant, as Paine phrased it, "a continental 
 form of government (which) can keep the peace of the 
 continent and preserve it inviolate from civil war." Sig 
 nificant words, these ; significant, too, his omission of all 
 mention of England. John Adams, writing to his wife in 
 April 1776, defined independence as government in every 
 colony, a confederation among them all, and treaties with 
 foreign nations to acknowledge us as a sovereign State, and 
 all that." Of a nation in our sense of the word, composed 
 of individuals and governed by a central administration, 
 superior in obligation to the State governments so far as 
 the individual was concerned, there seems to have been little 
 talk. The idea, if it occurred to many, seems not to have 
 been seriously discussed. The "continental form of govern 
 ment" meant one which provided explicitly for the sovereignty 
 of thirteen separate States. Some of the States declared 
 themselves independent of England in the spring of 1776 ; the 
 rest afterwards followed suit, while there seems to be good 
 reason to believe that the County of Mecklenburg, N. C., 
 declared itself independent as early as May 1775. 7 
 
 The expediency of any central government, the exact form 
 of the new government, its probable powers, its relation to 
 the States, the necessity or desirability of forming new State 
 
 7 Hoyt, Mecklenburg Declaration. The Resolves of May 31 are un 
 doubtedly genuine; the document of May 20 is now generally rejected. 
 
118 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 governments, all these were really the issues behind the 
 question of independence, which was so widely and actively 
 discussed throughout America from the summer of 1775 to 
 the summer of 1776. Public meetings thrashed it over ; dele 
 gates traveled the length and breadth of the States to learn 
 the trend of opinion; and a pretty general conclusion was 
 reached in the States by the people themselves in June 1776, 
 in favor of a general declaration of independence of Eng 
 land by the States as sovereign entities. 8 
 
 Congress really registered the opinion of the country in 
 Lee s famous Resolutions and the even more notable docu 
 ment drafted by Jefferson to embody them. On July 2nd, 
 Congress adopted the principle of independence; on July 
 4th, it discussed, amended, and accepted the document pre 
 pared by the Committee, and referred it back to those gentle 
 men for final verbal revision. The document, with which 
 we are familiar, was completed by the committee some time 
 during the night of July 4th and 5th and was printed and 
 published next day by order of Congress. The signing of 
 the document was an afterthought; the full delegation of 
 some States had not been present on July 4th and there was 
 some fear that subsequent misfortunes might set the various 
 States seeking loopholes through which to escape equal re 
 sponsibility. Most of the signatures were appended on Au 
 gust 2nd, though a few were affixed as late as November. 9 
 
 The Declaration of Independence was a statement of the 
 
 s The evidence has been printed by J. H. Hazelton, The Declaration of 
 Independence, Its History. 
 
 The Journals of Congress are quite explicit on all these points. 
 John Adams believed that July 2 would be the day celebrated. Mellen 
 Chamberlain was the first to explain how July 4 came to b"e the day. 
 The secretary of Congress when he came to write up the Journal saved 
 himself the labor of copying the text of the Declaration by pasting into 
 the Journal under July 4 one of the printed copies of the document 
 with all the signaturas appended which had been issued in the autumn 
 of 1776 to give it publicity. When the Journal was printed afterwards, 
 this printed copy with the names was included in the official account 
 of the proceedings of July 4 as historians and the general public re 
 ceived it. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 
 November 1884. 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 119 
 
 evident fact that the American colonies were in reality and 
 long had been independent of England; that they had gov 
 erned themselves in the past without assistance and could 
 do so in the future; that their interests were too different 
 from those of the mother-country for them to accept her 
 decisions in regard to policy. The Declaration of Independ 
 ence was also unquestionably a verdict in favor of a central 
 organization of some sort, and might even be argued to have 
 declared some such government essential. But it was an 
 even more explicit affirmation of the point most important 
 to Americans in 1776 the absolute sovereignty of the in 
 dividual States over their own citizens and their complete 
 independence of each other. The capitalization of the title 
 was itself freighted with meaning: "A Declaration by the 
 representatives of the united States of America, in Congress 
 assembled." The phrases of the document, which followed 
 the long preamble, were even more explicit: "The Repre 
 sentatives of the united States of America, 1 "by authority 
 of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 
 declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought 
 to be Free and Independent States. 10 
 
 The plunge once taken, the solemn pledge of the independ 
 ence of the individual States of each other and of the central 
 government once passed, the business of permanent organi 
 zation began. Naturally enough, the lines of policy already 
 laid down by the opposition to England were followed, and 
 such permanent action as was taken at once was local and not 
 national. Some of the States had already formed new govern 
 ments; the others began to make constitutions in the sum 
 mer and fall of 1776. That there might be no excuse for 
 misinterpretation, most of them explicitly declared their in 
 dependence of all other authority in the world in the pre 
 ambles of the new constitutions. The Pennsylvania Con 
 vention expressed its approval of the Declaration of Inde- 
 
 10 This quotation is from the parchment engrossed copy in the De 
 partment of State at Washington. The word "United" in the last 
 clause is omitted in several of the manuscript copies. 
 
120 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 pendence and went on to declare "this, as well as the other 
 United States of America, free and Independent. The Con 
 necticut Assembly voted "that this Colony is and of right 
 ought to be a free and independent State." The power of 
 the people, the necessity of their confirming the work of the 
 conventions, a strong bi-cameral legislature, a weak executive, 
 the separation of powers, these other legacies from the colo 
 nial period definitely shaped the form of the new State 
 governments. Experiments were tried, and, in these suc 
 cessive State constitutions, each of which attempted to in 
 clude the good points of those already in operation and to 
 avoid the unsuccessful expedients, we see gradually taking 
 form the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Congress set to work in 1776 upon a plan of central govern 
 ment, and, in the meantime, appointed various new com 
 mittees to struggle with the obvious administrative questions 
 whose solution was imperative. These were chiefly military 
 or connected with supplying the army and navy with neces 
 sities. -Ambassadors to the chief European nations were 
 promptly appointed : Franklin to France ; Adams to Holland ; 
 Lee to England; Jay to Spain. The framework of a tem 
 porary central administration was thus erected. Gradually 
 the Marine Committee, under the able guidance of Robert 
 Morris, assumed chief place, and began to develop a system 
 of administration through agents in the principal ports which 
 soon became adequate for most purposes. These Continental 
 Agents, as they came to be known, were primarily appointed 
 to receive and forward to the army the supplies brought 
 from Europe or captured by privateers, but they soon were 
 busy with various types of work and formed a network of 
 officials throughout America upon whom Congress more and 
 more was forced to depend and who became a connecting 
 link not only between the administration at Philadelphia 
 and the States in America, but between Congress and the 
 Ambassadors and agents abroad. 
 
 From the first, the importance of recognition by the Euro 
 pean nations was appreciated. The knowledge that it could 
 
FIRST ATTEMPTS AT PERMANENT ORGANIZATION 121 
 
 not come until America had definitely declared the purpose 
 of the war and pledged itself to independence had been a 
 prime factor in securing the consent of the timid to the 
 Declaration of Independence. Somewhat to their dismay, 
 the leaders were informed that the Declaration was not re 
 garded in Europe as sufficient to entitle the United Colonies 
 to recognition. Franklin had been despatched to France to 
 obtain recognition and an alliance, but wrote that fears of 
 the inability of Washington s army to cope with the English 
 and doubts as to the stability, permanence, and efficiency of 
 the alliance between the States were nearly insuperable ob 
 stacles to the conclusion of a treaty. Congress was still only 
 a body of delegates, whose decisions were at any moment 
 likely to be reversed or disavowed by the sovereign States, 
 a body therefore limited to those decisions which it had 
 reason to believe would not be repudiated. This lack of a 
 definite grant of authority, the entire lack of certainty that 
 their commands would be obeyed, vitally weakened the central 
 government at a moment when the exigencies of the war 
 required prompt and decisive action. It was naturally not 
 a body upon whose solemn pledge the European govern 
 ments would rely. 
 
 The defeat at Long Island, the disaster at White Plains, 
 the continued loss of position after position during the sum 
 mer of 1776 and Washington s retreat across the Jerseys 
 upon Philadelphia in the fall only too clearly weakened 
 support at home and rendered aid from abroad unlikely. 
 Indeed the continued existence of the army was problem 
 atical, and the battle of Trenton was fought on December 
 25th, 1776, in order to use the army before it should melt 
 away. 11 That overwhelming success put new life into the 
 
 n "The present exigency of our affairs will not admit of delay. . . . 
 Ten days more will put an end to the existence of our army." Wash 
 ington to the President of Congress, Dec. 20, 1776. See also the letter 
 of December 24. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., V, 113; 124-5; 
 127; 129. "The militia must be taken before their spirits and patience 
 are exhausted." Reed to Washington. Reed, Life of Joseph Reed, 
 I, 273. 
 
122 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 army and into Congress and convinced the English and the 
 French that their first conclusions had been mistakes. "Mr. 
 Washington" had arrived to stay. The failure of the Amer 
 icans to do more than hold their own in the spring of 1777, 
 the failure to adopt some form of central government to take 
 the place of the anomalous multiple executive at Philadelphia, 
 and the invasion of Burgoyne from Canada, all had a most 
 unfavorable effect upon opinion at home and particularly 
 abroad. No nation was anxious to recognize a movement 
 likely at any instant to be crushed; to make terms with a 
 central government which was as yet confessedly a make 
 shift and which seemed each month liable to dissolve from 
 internal dissensions; or to sign a treaty with a number of 
 States which were obviously unable to agree upon as funda 
 mental a point as the expediency of having a central govern 
 ment powerful enough to enforce upon them all a common 
 agreement or decision. 
 
 The surrender of Burgoyne in October 1777, decided 
 nearly all the outstanding questions. The Congress at Phila 
 delphia adopted the Articles of Confederation in November; 
 in December, the French expressed their willingness to recog 
 nize the new government and to sign a treaty of alliance; 
 in January, the English began to draw up measures of com 
 promise and treaties of peace. Parliament and King were 
 willing to yield anything short of independence. The matter 
 had, however, now gone too far for compromise; the Amer 
 icans had agreed upon a new central government from which 
 much was expected; they were offered an alliance with the 
 most powerful nation in Europe, England s oldest and bitter 
 est foe. They considered the successful conclusion of the 
 war to be mainly a question of time. Congress, therefore, 
 rejected the English offers without much hesitation, and ac 
 cepted the alliance with France. Many and many a dark 
 day was still to dawn, when even the stoutest heart was 
 destined to quake from fear that all was lost; but from the 
 spring of 1778, the ultimate outcome of the war seems really 
 never to have been in doubt. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 
 
 THE winning of the Revolution long concealed the essential 
 truth about its military aspects. When historians and patri 
 otic speakers considered its trend at its twenty-fifth and 
 fiftieth anniversaries, the fact that we had won proved to 
 them conclusively that our victory was due to superior mil 
 itary ability. It was to them inconceivable that the success 
 ful conclusion of a great war, fought for so high a stake 
 as the independence of a continent, should have been ac 
 complished by any less decisive factors than the best general 
 and the most numerous army. The " survivors of Lexing 
 ton, Concord, and Bunker Hill, who appeared in 1825 on 
 the occasion of Webster s memorable oration, which itself 
 "made" history, were also sufficiently numerous to cause men 
 to believe irresistibly that we must have had a large army 
 upon the field. Moreover, the victory, besides demonstrating 
 our military efficiency, was naturally supposed to prove that 
 the history of the war was the tale of a triumphant march 
 toward the goal of independence, of which their fathers had 
 been proud, whose glories the sons must venerate with en 
 thusiastic and sincere devotion, and whose reverses could only 
 add to the martyristic halo already shrouding the patriots 
 who fought in it. 
 
 So strong indeed is the predisposition of every loyal Amer 
 ican to accept these conclusions as true, that historians have 
 long been afraid to emphasize the real aspects of the war 
 for fear of being charged with disloyalty and a disposition 
 to destroy patriotic ideals. No serious student now denies 
 that we won the war with an army much less numerous and 
 efficient than the British force and with generals certainly 
 
 123 
 
124 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 not comparable to great European leaders like Caesar and 
 Cromwell. Indeed, we lost, with some striking exceptions, 
 every battle of note. Lexington, Concord, 1 Bunker Hill, 
 Long Island, Brandywine, Germantown, Camden, Guilford s 
 Court House, were all defeats, and in the battles we did win, 
 Trenton, Bennington, Saratoga, Yorktown, the Americans out 
 numbered the English. The glories of victory over Burgoyne 
 are somewhat diminished by the knowledge that some six or 
 seven thousand British, without adequate provisions or am 
 munition, were surrounded in the woods by some twenty 
 thousand Americans well supplied with food and powder and 
 constantly reinforced from the surrounding countryside. 
 During the campaigns, the English invariably marched where 
 they pleased, and, except at Saratoga, the Americans retreated 
 before them or followed. 2 From the military point of view, 
 as C. F. Adams and others have shown, 3 the Revolution is 
 disappointing to the student and patriot alike. Nor were 
 the English ever driven out of the country ; 4 they ended the 
 
 1 In the technical military sense, the side which remains in posses 
 sion of the field is the victor and there can be no question of the ability 
 of the British to have remained as long as they liked on either field. 
 The country was overjoyed because the Americans had not been ex 
 pected even to attempt resistance. 
 
 2 Note for instance the war from Long Island to Trenton ; the cam 
 paigns of Howe against Philadelphia; the campaign of Cornwallis in 
 the South. Washington stated in a circular letter to the States, dated 
 Oct. 18, 1780, when the American army was stronger and better disci 
 plined than at any previous period of the war, that "the enemy [are] 
 at full liberty to ravage the country wherever they please." 
 
 sC. F. Adams, Studies Military and Diplomatic, 1775-1865. (1912.) 
 The evidence is well summarized and the foot-notes contain an adequate 
 list of authorities. 
 
 *The fact itself is patent: the British army occupied New York and 
 other sections until after the Treaty of Peace. Washington had made 
 up his mind as early as 1780 that the Americans alone could not drive 
 them out. "I should not advise to calculate matters on the principle 
 of expelling [the British] without the cooperation of the French navy. 
 ... I imagine we must of necessity adopt the principle of a defensive 
 campaign." Washington to Baron Steuben, Feb. 8, 1780. Writings of 
 Washington, Ford s ed., VIII, 194. "You know our inability to expel 
 them unassisted, or perhaps even to stop their career." Sparks s Wash 
 ington s Writings, VII, 200. Again at 206. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 125 
 
 war, not because they were defeated, but because they were 
 convinced of the impossibility of ever holding the country 
 without subduing it, and of the impracticability of trying to 
 conquer and hold in subjection a land of continental dimen 
 sions, three thousand miles distant from their own source of 
 supplies. 
 
 If we add to this a picture of the American army at Cam 
 bridge when Washington took command, armed with pitch 
 forks and clubs, and without powder for such guns as they 
 did have ; of the army, naked, hungry, and shivering at Valley 
 Forge, while the Pennsylvania farmers carried their produce 
 into Philadelphia to exchange for British gold ; 5 of the whole 
 sale desertion of companies and regiments at critical mo 
 ments; 6 of the intrigues to injure Washington s reputation 
 by allowing him to be defeated and so to secure his removal 
 and to appoint Lee or Gates in his stead; we shall under 
 stand better the gloomy forebodings which filled the leaders 
 letters all through the war. 7 The real atmosphere of the time 
 is not triumph but despair. "I have seen without despond 
 ency even for a moment/ wrote Washington to George 
 Mason, as late as March 27, 1779, "the hours which America 
 have [sic] stiled her gloomy ones, but I have beheld no day 
 since the commencement of hostilities that I have thought her 
 liberties in such eminent danger as at present. . . . Where 
 
 5 On this whole topic see L. C. Hatch, The Administration of the 
 American Revolutionary Army. (1904.) The trade with the British 
 soon became extensive and open. "While our army is experiencing 
 almost daily want, that of the enemy in New York is deriving ample 
 supplies from a trade with the adjacent States . . . which has by de 
 grees become so common that it is hardly thought a crime." Washing 
 ton to the President of Congress, Nov. 7, 1780. Sparks s Writings of 
 Washington, VII, 286-7; and a longer and more explicit statement on 
 p. 401. 
 
 "The militia, who come in, you cannot tell how, go, you cannot tell 
 when, and act, you cannot tell where, consume your provisions, exhaust 
 your stores, and leave you at last at a critical moment." Washington 
 to the President of Congress. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., V, 
 115 (Dec. 20, 1776) ; also VIII, 290, 292, 503, 506. An instructive 
 document is the report of a committee of Congress on deserters in Feb., 
 1777. Journals, Ford s ed., VII, 115-118. 
 
 T For instance, Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., VIII, 503-4. 
 
126 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 are our men of abilities? Why do they not come forth to 
 save their country ? Let this voice, my dear friend, call upon 
 you Jefferson and others do not ... let our hitherto noble 
 struggle end in ignom y." 8 Is it likely that George Wash 
 ington would have written as strongly as this to as prominent 
 a man as Mason and named a man like Jefferson if the re 
 sponse from the country had been as spontaneously enthusi 
 astic as the older accounts assume? "I have seen in this 
 world," wrote John Adams, "but a little of that pure flame 
 of patriotism which certainly burns in some breasts. There 
 is much of the ostentation and affectation of it. " 9 These 
 words from the men in America who certainly should have 
 known the facts are of great significance. The Revolution 
 was not a time when the exaltation of continuous victory and 
 the sense of superiority buoyed up the American leaders in 
 campaigns of constant success, but a time when the keen 
 knowledge of the army s weakness, 10 of the lukewarmness of 
 the people, 11 and the bitter realization of the ability of the 
 British general to march whither he would made even Wash 
 ington despair of a favorable outcome of the war, long after 
 Trenton and Saratoga had been won. He remembered, as we 
 have too often forgotten, that the men who fought at Bunker 
 Hill were anxious to conceal their presence; that Parker vig 
 orously denied having fired at Lexington upon the British at 
 all ; that the victory at Trenton had been since deprecated in 
 Congress and his own generalship seriously questioned. The 
 
 s Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., VII, 382. 
 
 Familiar Letters, 214. August 18, 1776. This was written a little 
 more than a month after the passage of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 10 Washington periodically doubted until 1781 whether the army 
 would be in existence three months hence. 
 
 11 A French traveler thought that "there is a hundred times more 
 enthusiasm for the Revolution in the first cafe" you choose to name at 
 Paris than there is in all the United States together." Stedman, 
 American War, I, 387. "The enemy are daily gathering strength from 
 the disaffected," Washington wrote on Dec. 20, 1776. Writings of 
 Washington, Ford s ed., V, 114. Also pp. 124-5. "The contest among 
 the different States now is not which shall do most for the common 
 cause but which shall do least." Washington to Fielding Lewis, July 
 6, 1780. Ford s ed., VIII, 335. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 127 
 
 Revolution was a time of defeat and despair, and Washington 
 least of all believed that the final victory was due to the win 
 ning of campaigns by a ragged and ill-disciplined army over 
 a well-equipped and thoroughly disciplined force. He well 
 knew that many factors contributed to the final result. 
 
 Yet the difficulties of the situation, far from robbing Wash 
 ington and his aides of the glory that has been so long ac 
 corded them, only increases and intensifies it. The laurels, 
 given a leader whom all conditions favor, whose army is 
 strong, whose countrymen throng round him with joy, are 
 in no way comparable to the crown to be awarded the general 
 who wins his war without a strong army and in the face of 
 the hostility and suspicion of his countrymen. Washington 
 and his generals won the war by the use of the weapons 
 they did possess, which were amazingly effective, despite the 
 fact that some of them appeared in military annals for the 
 first time and others were hardly military at all. So far 
 as it can be true that any one man ever did win a war, 
 George Washington won the Revolution single-handed. He 
 did not so much lead the American people, as drag them 
 after him to a victory and an independence which they had 
 not entirely made up their minds to seek. Scientific research 
 has heightened, not diminished, the reputations of the leaders. 
 
 Unquestionably we won the Revolution because the Eng 
 lish did not push the war in 1775 and 1776. Possessed of 
 an immensely superior force, well-equipped and highly dis 
 ciplined, Lord Howe dallied around Boston and New York 
 when he might have been laying waste New England and 
 the Middle Colonies without any danger to himself. The 
 reasons for his inaction were at the time as little understood 
 in England as in America. A tract called A Succinct Re 
 view of the American Contest, printed in London in 1778, 
 blamed generals and ministers severely. General Howe had 
 not prosecuted a war at all, declared the author, but had 
 merely attempted "to determine a military wager between 
 him and Mr. Washington, whom he, at the head of a limited 
 and small body of English, had undertaken to fight, with all 
 
128 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the Americans together in any part of America that Mr. 
 Washington should choose; and that, to give the Americans 
 fair play, he had obliged himself to do nothing that should 
 obstruct their assembling. " The British, he complained, had 
 respected the property of the Americans who took the field, 
 and had not interfered in the least with the occupations of 
 those who stayed at home. His brother on board Howe s 
 fleet had written that two thousand men landed in Virginia 
 11 would easily lay waste the whole province, but it seems to 
 hurt the Americans without loss or danger to ourselves is 
 not the present system of politics." Had Howe taken the 
 field in this spirit our ragged and ill-disciplined army, which 
 Washington kept in existence only by the greatest of ex 
 ertions, must soon have been destroyed. Indeed, as General 
 C. F. Adams has shown, only Howe s slowness prevented its 
 complete annihilation at Long Island. The control of the sea 
 would have enabled him to land troops on every side of the 
 American position and would have made impossible the escape 
 by sea of any who slipped through his cordon on land. The 
 total lack of both a continental military and administrative 
 machine when the war began; the jealousies of the States; 12 
 the refusal of the militia to serve outside their State; their 
 enlistment for six weeks or six months only; the lack of 
 powder and shot; the quarrels in Congress, must all have 
 proved fatal to us 13 but for this forbearance of the British. 
 
 12 "Unless the bodies politic will exert themselves to bring things 
 back to first principles correct abuses and punish our Internal Foes 
 inevitable ruin must follow. . . . Our Enemy behold with exultation 
 and joy how we labor for their benefit," Washington to Mason, March 
 27, 1779. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., VII, 382. "One State 
 will comply with a requisition from Congress; another neglects to do 
 it; a third executes it by halves; all differ either in the manner, the 
 matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up 
 hill and ever shall be. ... We shall ever be unable to apply our 
 strength or resources to any advantage. ... I see one head gradually 
 changing into thirteen." Washington to Joseph Jones. Ibid., VIII, 
 304, May 31, 1780. 
 
 is "Nothing but the supineness or folly of the enemy could have 
 saved us from [ruin]." Washington, circular letter to the States, Oct. 
 18, 1780. Ibid., VIII, 503. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 129 
 
 It has often been called folly but was really based upon a 
 most careful study of conditions. 
 
 The English view of the American situation is not con 
 tained in the speeches of Burke or Chatham nor in the tyran 
 nical notions of George III and Lord North about repre 
 sentation, but in the ideas of the latter about the factors in 
 America which had produced the revolt. The King, the min 
 istry, and the educated classes were firmly convinced that 
 the movement was the work of a small faction, which was 
 not supported by the majority of the people. That the colo 
 nies should forget their own jealousies and differences long 
 enough to unite was to George improbable, and that the few 
 leaders should be able to weld together permanently such 
 inconsistent elements was unthinkable. The weakness of the 
 malcontents, the stanch loyalty of a large majority to Eng 
 land, and the jealousies of the States would soon end the 
 struggle, if only the English army did not by plundering 
 and marauding force the waverers into opposition and com 
 pel them in very truth to defend their own firesides. Given 
 time and a little assistance at precisely the right moments, 
 the loyalists in America would themselves crush out this 
 selfish uprising. Furthermore, a military conquest of Amer 
 ica by an English army was highly inexpedient if harmonious 
 relations with the colonies were to be eventually restored. 
 George and his advisers were anxious to retain the allegiance 
 of the colonists, and were well aware that men who had 
 been excited to the point of armed resistance by the mild 
 acts Parliament had just passed were certain to be antago 
 nized for long years by the burning of their homes and the 
 death of their loved ones. The King was aware that a strong 
 minority in the American Congress favored peace at any 
 price, that a strong party in his own Parliament and ministry 
 also favored conciliation, and that the American army was 
 barely kept alive by the most desperate expedients. 14 The 
 
 I* "They [the British] believed that when one army expired, we 
 should not be able to raise another; undeceived however in this ex 
 pectation by experience, they still remain unconvinced, and to me 
 
130 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 pressing of the war, then, until it should become perfectly 
 clear that peaceable overtures were futile and the loyalists 
 too weak to overpower the patriots, was the most certain 
 method of promoting the very thing tie war was being 
 fought to prevent, the loss of the colonies* allegiance. The 
 English must win the war without alienating the Americans. 
 A victory obtained in any other fashion would be as deadly 
 as a defeat. Throughout the first two years of the war, 
 therefore, the English ministry expected to end the war as 
 much by "compromise" or negotiation as by a successful 
 campaign. Lord Howe was to win a decisive victory if he 
 could and the sooner the better; but he was not to allow 
 "Mr. Washington" to disturb the forces working in Amer 
 ica for a peaceful settlement, nor was he to take any risk 
 of disturbing them himself, without a practical certainty 
 of ending the war by a crushing defeat of the Americans. 
 
 Thanks to this politic forbearance, we were given the time 
 necessary to evolve an army and a central administration out 
 of nothing. The natural difficulties of the situation were 
 enormous. Powder, shot, arms, clothing had to be imported 
 and were not only difficult to obtain but exceedingly difficult 
 to distribute when secured. As the British controlled the 
 sea, everything had to be carted overland, and this difficulty 
 of communication proved at times literally insuperable. The 
 lack of good currency, the lack of credit due to the absence 
 of faith in the successful outcome of the war, prevented any 
 general acceptance of the colonial paper money for food and 
 such few supplies as could be had in America. Despite all 
 difficulties, however, by 1778, when the English took up the 
 war in earnest, Yon Steuben had drilled the army into some 
 thing like efficiency; Nathanael Greene had put the quarter- 
 evidently on good grounds, that we must ultimately sink under a sys 
 tem which increases our expense beyond calculation, enfeebles all our 
 measures, affords the most inviting opportunities to the enemy, and 
 wearies and disgusts the people. This has undoubtedly had great in 
 fluence in preventing their coming to terms and will continue to operate 
 in the same way." Washington, circular letter to the States, Oct. 18, 
 1780. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., VIII, 505. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 131 
 
 master s department on its feet; Robert Morris had organized, 
 through the Marine Committee of Congress, a series of Conti 
 nental Agents in the important ports who had developed a 
 method of exchanging products, by which the army was sup 
 plied with what they received from Europe and from the 
 English supplies seized by American privateers. Washington 
 had learned from experience to avoid his first blunders and to 
 take advantage of the natural forces fighting for us, as well 
 as of the French army and navy who soon appeared on the 
 scene. Indeed, without their aid and the money and arms 
 Franklin secured in Europe, it is probable the Revolution 
 would still have failed; even the tact and influence of Wash 
 ington could not have kept an army in the field longer with 
 out arms and money from abroad. 15 
 
 The strategical geography of the eastern Atlantic coast 
 plus the three thousand miles of ocean were almost as deci 
 sive factors in our favor. The North Atlantic is always 
 difficult for sailing-ships, and at that time a month or six 
 weeks was considered a quick passage. The English general, 
 therefore, knew when he began the campaign in the spring 
 that three months at least must elapse under favorable con 
 ditions before he could receive instructions or assistance. He 
 also knew that the preparation of an army for the voyage 
 was a long task, needing two months or more; for the beef 
 had to be killed and salted; the grain bought, carried to 
 the sea-coast, ground, and baked into bread; the soldiers en 
 listed, their clothes made, their guns provided, powder and 
 shot prepared. To allow himself to be defeated or out- 
 manoeuvered in the early summer meant the possibility of 
 annihilation before help could arrive. Howe and Clinton 
 campaigned therefore in the fall when the coming of winter 
 would naturally limit Washington s ability to take advantage 
 of possible successes. After all, they were to win battles 
 if they could, but at all costs to keep an army in the field. 16 
 
 See Washington s letters during 1780. 
 
 ! "Yet it is a fact, they [the British] are as much afraid and cau 
 tious of us as we can be any of us of them." Col. Smallwood s report 
 
132 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Both protested and Howe complained energetically that the 
 army he had was not in the least adequate for the military 
 occupation of the continent. In truth, he and his generals 
 soon discovered that the Atlantic seaboard lacks a strategic 
 spot like that of the Netherlands, which, when taken, opens 
 the gates into several countries and menaces half Europe. 
 They found instead a seat of war a thousand miles long, 
 intersected by many large rivers whose courses lay parallel 
 to each other, thus cutting the country into large sections and 
 making long overland marches most difficult. The English, 
 at first, thought Boston the strategic point, but were soon 
 disabused: it did not help them to hold a foot of land out 
 side the lines of their own fortifications. Prolonged resi 
 dence in New York and Philadelphia at last convinced them 
 that there was no charmed spot in America whose possession 
 ensured the conquest of the whole. Instead they found their 
 armies constantly out of touch with each other, often on their 
 own resources, and were, so far as they could see, no further 
 advanced toward the conquest of the continent by all their 
 marching and countermarching than when they began. As 
 early as the fall of 1776, Howe realized the truth and wrote 
 home that 10,000 men in New England, 20,000 in New York, 
 10,000 in the South, and an additional army of 10,000 men 
 to operate against Washington would be necessary to finish 
 the war. 17 He was laughed to scorn by the English ministry 
 who knew that the total American forces in the field did not 
 number 10,000, who were divided among several armies and 
 were all likely to go home at any moment. When the course 
 of events reluctantly brought them to the same conclusion 
 in 1781, they gave up the struggle, 18 for the maintenance 
 
 to the Maryland Council of Safety, Oct. 1776. Quoted in H. B. Car- 
 rington s Battles of the American Revolution, 233. 
 
 17 H. B. Carrington, Battles of the American Revolution, 254, 279. 
 
 is "That one great point [of Howe s plan] is to keep us as much 
 harassed as possible with a view to injure the recruiting service and 
 hinder a collection of stores and other necessaries for the next cam 
 paign, I am as clear in, as I am of my existence." Washington to the 
 President of Congress, Dec. 20, 1776. Writings of Washington, Ford s 
 ed., V, 113. This would end "the British hope of subjugating this 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 133 
 
 of a permanent army of 50,000 men to keep America in 
 subjection was too expensive a proposition to be thought of. 
 After all, they reflected, if Adam Smith was right, the Amer 
 ican trade, which was really the only benefit they could 
 secure from the possession of the colonies, would come to 
 them anyway. 
 
 While the length of the seat of war and its intersection by 
 large rivers furnished the Americans with problems in trans 
 portation and in the maneuvering of armies fully as difficult 
 as those the English experienced, these factors immensely 
 reduced the discrepancy between the size and discipline of 
 the armies. The discipline of troops who cannot reach you is 
 unimportant; and the fact that England possessed greater 
 resources in men and money was neutralized by the difficulty 
 the Atlantic interposed in the way of their utilization. The 
 two parties were by no means as ill-matched for a long strug 
 gle as at first seems. There were, moreover, numerous nat 
 ural factors which left the balance enormously in the Ameri 
 cans favor and which in the long run as much as any single 
 factor contributed to bring about the result. 
 
 The very fact of the British army s discipline and organi 
 zation became a hindrance the moment they left the open 
 fields about the Hudson and Delaware and advanced into 
 the wilds of Lake George and the hill-country of North 
 Carolina. A couple of thousand farmers in their shirt-sleeves 
 and without any artillery and baggage would straggle across 
 fields, scaling fences, penetrating woods and losing little if 
 anything of their efficiency in the process: they had little in 
 fact to lose, for the only method of fighting they understood 
 called for men behind trees and stone walls and not arrayed 
 in line of battle. A British column, on the other hand, could 
 not advance without roads, for the trampling of many feet 
 and the wheels of the artillery and baggage-wagons soon 
 
 continent either by their arms or their arts. The first, as I have before 
 observed, they acknowledge is unequal to the task; the latter I am 
 sure will be so if we are not lost to everything that is good and virtu 
 ous." Ibid., VII, 389. 
 
134 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 rendered even a dry field a quagmire. Fences, rivers, woods 
 were insurmountable obstacles. Burgoyne spent days on the 
 march south from Canada in 1777 building roads and bridges 
 in order that he might advance at all, and consumed in 
 reaching the Hudson as many weeks as Schuyler s men had 
 used days. Inasmuch as few roads in America were suffi 
 ciently well made to stand the travel of an army, the Amer 
 icans possessed a positive advantage over the English in 
 maneuvering, which would have given them victory after 
 victory, had not the very lack of organization that helped 
 them on the march been a fatal deficiency on the field of 
 battle. The British, therefore, could rarely be dislodged, but 
 could always be eluded. After the first two years, the Amer 
 ican generals thoroughly appreciated this fact and kept the 
 campaigns in territory which offered the English the maxi 
 mum difficulty. European strategy, which assumed the ex 
 istence of roads to march upon and level, unobstructed fields 
 to manceuver upon was useless to a general conducting a cam 
 paign which was really a series of contests with the country 
 itself " Almost every movement of the war in North 
 America," wrote General Howe, "was an act of enterprise 
 clogged with innumerable difficulties." 
 
 Then appeared the necessity of supplying the armies with 
 food. Here too the very factors about which Washington at 
 first chiefly complained were the Americans salvation. Their 
 armies were, except for the few regiments of regulars under 
 Washington himself, nothing but collections of minute-men, 
 who assembled at the news of the British approach, bringing 
 powder and shot and food enough for ten days or a fort 
 night. When any distance had to be traversed, they marched, 
 like the North Carolina detachment en route northward, driv 
 ing a herd of cattle before them with sacks of meal across their 
 backs, milking the cows and killing the steers as need dic 
 tated, with the belief that the herd would last as long as the 
 march. Naturally the speed of the march was limited to the 
 slow pace of the cows. Once on the field they worried the 
 English column as long as their supplies lasted and then went 
 
WHY WE W T ON THE REVOLUTION 135 
 
 home, leaving the task of defense to the minute-men of the 
 pext county ; and, inasmuch as they were all equally innocent 
 of tactics and discipline, Burgoyne or Cornwallis found him 
 self constantly face to face with a fresh body of men, quite 
 as efficient as those who had just gone home. Desertions and 
 short enlistments in fact worked little permanent injury to the 
 American cause. On the other hand, the fact that the Eng 
 lish forces consisted of regular troops whose identity could 
 not change, whose food must be supplied them, brought all 
 the British generals into contact with formidable problems. 
 The difficulties were great enough in the settled parts of the 
 country, because enough food was not always for sale; but 
 when the campaign was carried into the wilds of the Hudson 
 and the hills of the Blue Kidge, Burgoyne or Cornwallis found 
 that the sagacious Schuyler or the wily Greene had either 
 carefully collected all the food or led him where there was 
 none to collect. Nor could the British generals cheerfully sit 
 down to roasted sweet potatoes as Marion did, or cabbage 
 and bacon with Washington. They traveled with their wines 
 and scorned the homely but nutritious dishes of cornmeal 
 mush, and the peas, beans, and turnips to which the Ameri 
 cans were accustomed; such food, declared one irate officer, 
 was fit only for swine. The soldiers, too, refused such fare 
 and grumbled and became mutinous if the grog ran short. 
 Before the Saratoga and Southern campaigns were over, how 
 ever, they were all glad to eat anything they could get. 
 
 In addition, the rough ground on which the Americans of 
 fered battle puzzled the English, and the American generals, 
 quickly noting this trouble, began soon the systematic use of 
 hills, fences, woods, and field entrenchments for the first time 
 in organized warfare. Nor were they ashamed to do what the 
 English thought cowardly "hide" in ditches and behind 
 walls ; nor to do what the English declared contrary to civilized 
 warfare, pick off sentries and troops on the march. Gates 
 at Boston was extremely indignant to find sharpshooters in 
 the Cambridge marshes 1 shooting at his officers walking on the 
 ramparts for a little fresh air, and Burgoyne at Saratoga was 
 
136 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 vastly annoyed at the constant popping of guns through the 
 night which disturbed his slumbers and at the cannon-balls 
 that swept his dinner from the table. But the Americans 
 were not playing a game, where among the forces on the other 
 side were also mercenaries, like the Hessians, and where 
 neither army was, therefore, desirous of exposing the other to 
 any risks not unavoidable. They were fighting to win and 
 considered any means legitimate that would gain the end in 
 view. Instead of being taught in the European style, that 
 the musket was too inaccurate a weapon to be of use except for 
 volley-firing, and that therefore anything more than an ap 
 proximate aim was valueless, Morgan s sharpshooters were ac 
 customed to a style of fighting where they had to kill their man 
 or be killed themselves. 
 
 The tactics of the Americans, however, were not nearly so 
 deadly in effect as the result of the rough ground on the 
 British tactics. There were no orders in the manual for climb 
 ing fences or for sending parts of the column around opposite 
 sides of the same boulder, and the formations of the regulars 
 were usually so disorganized by the obstacles nature had left 
 in their path that the weight of the charge had been expended 
 before the moment of impact. The equipment of the British, 
 complete and admirable for a European campaign, was also 
 a positive hindrance in America. The red woolen shirts, the 
 heavy fur or felt hats, the heavy knapsacks and boots were 
 not intended for a hot July day with the thermometer at 
 ninety degrees. Burgoyne ordered a body of heavy dragoons, 
 men so heavily equipped that they were meant always to ride, 
 to march on foot through the hills and fields of southern Ver 
 mont in midsummer. By the time they reached Bennington 
 they were exhausted from the heat of their clothing plus the 
 heat of the sun and were in no condition to fight a battle 
 with Colonel Stark and his men clad only in jeans and shirt 
 sleeves. 
 
 The most puzzling thing to the English, however, became, 
 as the war progressed, the willingness of the Americans to lose 
 the battles. They had expected the "farmers" to run at the 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 137 
 
 first fire, and the Americans had entertained similar anticipa 
 tions. The patriotic joy over Concord and Bunker Hill 
 brushed aside what seemed minor features, such as the fact 
 that the English voluntarily withdrew to Boston and that 
 Bunker Hill was a great defeat, in its elation over the fact 
 that the minute-men had dared to follow the English into 
 Boston, and had compelled the regulars to dislodge them from 
 behind the rail fence. No one at the time thought either 
 battle accomplished anything, but nearly every one enter 
 tained the wildest expectations of future prowess. Long Is 
 land and White Plains, however, convinced Washington and 
 Greene that pitched battles were undesirable except as demon 
 strations of the American determination to resist. They per 
 fectly well understood that the most essential thing was to 
 keep an army in the field until aid could come and until the 
 natural factors working in our favor should become effective ; 19 
 they well knew that in every pitched battle they risked losing 
 the cause without a proportionate chance of winning it. They 
 realized, too, that the English did not dare injure them too 
 much and that conquest attained by laying waste the country 
 was not to be feared. Whatever might be done as an ex 
 ample of possibilities, there would be no general campaign on 
 such principles. They came in fact to see that so long as the 
 army remained intact, the loss of the battle involved merely a 
 shift of position. Greene reduced the losing of battles to a 
 science in his operations in the South in 1780. Bealizing that 
 a third of his raw army would run at the first fire, 20 he 
 
 i "On our side, the war should be defensive (it has even been called 
 a war of posts) that we should on all occasions avoid a general action, 
 nor put anything to risk, unless compelled by a necessity into which 
 we ought never to be drawn. . . . Experience has given her sanction. 
 . . . Being persuaded it would be presumption to draw out our young 
 troops into open ground against their superiors both in number and 
 discipline, I have never spared the spade and pickaxe. I confess I 
 have not found that readiness to defend even strong posts at all haz 
 ards, which is necessary to derive the greatest benefits from them. . . . 
 The wisdom of cooler moments and experienced men have decided that 
 we should protract the war if possible." Washington to the President 
 of Congress, Sept. 8, 1776. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., IV, 392. 
 
 20 The militia seems always to have been unsteady. "Every measure 
 
138 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 placed them in the first rank with orders to fire one volley be 
 fore they ran or the second rank would shoot them. The sec 
 ond and third ranks, placed at wide intervals, were to let the 
 fugitives through, and when the English appeared, offer some 
 resistance themselves, and then retreat before they themselves 
 were harmed. The third rank, composed of experienced 
 troops, would cover the flight of their less enthusiastic com 
 rades. The battle would always be lost, but ten miles up the 
 road, Greene would find his army quite as before, save for the 
 breath lost in running. Thus a blow was struck at the British 
 without danger to himself, Cornwallis was led further and 
 further from his source of supplies in the fleet cruising along 
 shore, was decoyed into the hills where there was little if any 
 thing to eat, and further and further north toward the gen 
 eral field of action where Greene could expect some support. 
 The whole campaign is a marvelous example of how wars 
 can be won without good armies and without winning 
 battles. 
 
 After six years of fruitless operations, each of which found 
 the Americans better equipped and drilled, more strongly 
 placed, and with a better administration and a larger body of 
 supporters, the English came to the conclusion that, to suc 
 ceed, a conquest of the country must be executed with the ut 
 most severity by an army double in number their total force 
 then in the field and that a huge army of occupation must then 
 be left behind. Such a price was out of the question, and 
 there were serious doubts in London whether the payment even 
 of that price would attain the object of the war. To conquer 
 America at the point of the bayonet would effectually put an 
 end to all harmonious relations. The Treaty of Paris signed 
 in 1783 recognized the independence of the thirteen States, and 
 
 on our part, however painful the reflection is from experience, is to be 
 formed with some apprehension that all our troops will not do their 
 duty." Washington to the President of Congress, Sept. 8, 1776, Ibid., 
 p. 391. "The militia fled at the first fire"; they are "incapable of mak 
 ing or sustaining a serious attack." Washington, circular letter to the 
 States, Oct. 18, 1780. Ibid., VIII, 506. See also the emphatic state 
 ments in letters of 12 and 15 September 1780. 
 
WHY WE WON THE REVOLUTION 139 
 
 handed over to them the continent south of the Great Lakes, 
 east of the Mississippi, and north of a rather indeterminate 
 line very nearly that of the present southern boundary of 
 Tennessee. 
 
XI 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 IN 1781, John Adams, then Minister to Holland, prepared a 
 pamphlet called Twenty-six Letters to explain to European 
 bankers that the astonishing but entirely desirable result of 
 the war had been to enrich and strengthen the thirteen States. 
 The number of men was, he declared, scarcely impaired; the 
 resources of the country barely touched; the economic de 
 velopment of the older communities had not been retarded; 
 the westward march had continued at an even more rapid 
 pace. "America, notwithstanding the war, daily increases in 
 strength and force." "America could indubitably maintain a 
 regular army of twenty thousand men forever. Subsequent 
 investigation has amply confirmed these observations. The 
 highest estimate of population in 1760 put the figure well 
 under two millions; the first census of 1790 estimated it at 
 four millions. There was not even a forswearing of luxuries, 
 if the observation of contemporaries is trustworthy. 1 "The 
 extravagant luxury of our Country, wrote Franklin in 1779, 
 * * in the midst of all its distresses, is to me amazing. When the 
 difficulties are so great to find Remittances to pay for the 
 Arms and Ammunition necessary for our Defence, I am as 
 tonish d and vex d to find upon Enquiry, that much the 
 
 i "I could demonstrate, to every mind open to conviction, that in less 
 time, and with much less expense than has been incurred, the war 
 might have been brought to the same happy conclusion, if the resources 
 of the continent could have been properly drawn forth; that the dis 
 tresses and disappointments, which have very often occurred, have in 
 too many instances resulted more from a want of energy in the con 
 tinental government than a deficiency of means in the several particular 
 States." Washington, circular letter to the Governors of the States, 
 June 8, 1783. 
 
 140 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 141 
 
 greatest Part of the Congress Interest Bills come to pay for 
 Tea, and a great Part of the Remainder is ordered to be laid 
 out in Gewgaws and Superfluities. * At least as much tea was 
 being bought as before the war, an amount, he thought, not 
 short of 500,000 a year. "Five Hundred Thousand Pounds 
 Sterling annually laid out in defending ourselves, or annoy 
 ing our Enemies, would have great Effects. With what Face 
 can we ask Aids and Subsidies from our Friends, while we 
 are wasting our own Wealth in such Prodigality ? " 2 Wash 
 ington complained bitterly and repeatedly of the farmers who 
 declined to sell grain to the American army and carted it to 
 Philadelphia and New York to sell it for British gold. 3 He 
 wrote of " officers, seduced by views of private interest . . . 
 to abandon the cause of their country. 4 * If I were to be 
 called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men, from 
 what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I would in one 
 word say, that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to 
 have laid fast hold of most of them ; that speculation, pecula 
 tion, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the 
 better of every other consideration and almost every order of 
 men. 6 The spirit of venality, wrote John Adams, is the 
 most dreadful and alarming enemy America has to op 
 pose. ... I am ashamed of the age I live in." 6 
 
 Nor is the seeming inconsistency of this most striking result 
 of the war hard to reconcile with our earlier notions of the 
 result. The picture of war which naturally rises before our 
 eyes depicts murder, pillage, and general desolation. An 
 army would, of course, devour everything. During the Revo 
 lution, however, the armies were at no time large and, there 
 fore, were not unduly burdensome to the community in the 
 
 2 The Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, A. H. Smyth, VII, 
 391, 291. See also pp. 83, 258, 408. 
 
 3 See supra, p. 125, note. See also Connecticut Public Records, I, 528 ; 
 Rhode Island Records, VII, 388; Delaware Session Laws, May 20, 1778. 
 
 * Writings of Washington, Sparks s ed., V, 305, 312, 313, 322, 351; 
 VI, 168. 
 
 5 Writings of Washington Ford s ed., VII, 388. 
 e Familiar Letters, 232. 
 
142 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 strictest sense of the words. Both realized that pillage or 
 foraging would throw many waverers into the ranks of their 
 enemies, and, from motives of policy, both conducted the war 
 with a view to avoiding all possible cause of complaint from 
 non-combatants. Indeed, far from being a hardship to the 
 Americans, the presence of the British army was a positive 
 blessing. For the first time in colonial history, a large and 
 steady market for the produce easily raised in America was 
 located at the fanner s very door; and the British paid him 
 not in bills on London which turned out to be bad, or in de 
 preciated silver or in paper currency, but in gold at sterling 
 rates. Probably there was more actual coin in America in 
 1783 than ever before. 7 The farmers charged war prices, sold 
 more than ever before, and waxed rich as the war continued, 
 especially in the Middle States where the British occupation 
 lasted several years. The American armies also paid, and 
 their paper promises were not long afterwards funded at par. 
 Business was good during the Revolution ; the community un 
 deniably grew wealthy. 
 
 At the same time, many and many an individual suffered 
 severely. English privateers captured the merchants vessels; 
 committees of correspondence confiscated the estates of exiles 
 and loyalists, and compelled merchants to accept the nearly 
 worthless paper money from the patriots at a tariff which in 
 many cases amounted to the confiscation of the goods. "Per 
 sons who refused to sell their lands, houses, or merchandize for 
 nearly worthless paper were stigmatized as misers, traitors, 
 forestallers, and enemies of liberty. . . . Stores were closed 
 or pillaged; and merchants were mobbed, fined, or impris 
 oned, 8 tarred and feathered, or ridden on rails. The war 
 automatically suspended the collection of debts owed by Ameri- 
 
 7 "Tho* the public treasury was so very poor and distressed, yet 
 the States were really overrun with an abundance of cash : the French 
 and English armies, our foreign loans, Havanna trade, etc., had filled 
 the country with money, and bills [of exchange] on Europe were cur 
 rently sold at 20 to 40 per cent below par." Peletiah Webster, Political 
 Essays, 267. Philadelphia, 1791. 
 
 s Bullock, Monetary History of the United States, 66. 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 143 
 
 cans abroad, 9 and, as these liabilities far exceeded in amount 
 the money which foreigners owed Americans, the country 
 as a whole was again made richer by the war, for no arrange 
 ment was ever subsequently made to liquidate any consider 
 able part of the pre-revolutionary debts. Of course, the debts 
 owed the loyalists and exiles were promptly repudiated or 
 confiscated. In all these ways, very considerable amounts 
 of property changed hands, and made many individuals much 
 richer than before at the expense of a comparatively small 
 number of other individuals. The transfer from loyalist to 
 patriot, of course, in no way lessened the total assets of the 
 community, while the repudiation of foreign debts actually 
 added great sums to the community s wealth. 
 
 The general fall of values and the equally general rise in 
 prices coupled to the existence of large amounts of depreciated 
 currency suggested to many of the unscrupulous, whose ex 
 istence in past epochs is a constant source of amazement to 
 many who are familiar with the existence of that type of 
 man to-day the payment of debts incurred at the old scale 
 of prices in the new paper money. Guardians and trustees 
 accounted in paper for the funds entrusted to them in specie, 
 and thus were able to embezzle the greater part. "For two 
 or three years," wrote Witherspoon, "we constantly saw and 
 were informed of creditors running away from their debtors, 
 and debtors pursuing them in triumph and paying them with 
 out mercy ! The lack of a suitable medium of exchange thus 
 deprived all people dependent on a salary or on a fixed income 
 from investment of the great bulk of their fortunes. Every 
 one, too, in whose hands paper money depreciated in value 
 lost considerable sums. These indirect consequences of the 
 
 e There was no reason why it should have done so, save that most 
 Americans believed themselves no longer liable because political inde 
 pendence would effectually prevent collection through the English courts 
 or by English law, and naturally, until the war was over, no new 
 system for collection would be erected. The general sentiment in favor 
 of repudiation of public and private debts was overwhelmingly strojig 
 in 1783. With these difficulties the Confederation struggled feebly and 
 in vain. 
 
144 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Revolution certainly brought distress to many, who usually 
 least deserved it, but who were on the whole best able to bear 
 it. 
 
 During the Revolution, then, the general resources of the 
 community were enormously increased by agriculture and 
 commerce; the war destroyed little and added appreciably to 
 the wealth of the country and to its store of gold ; the wealth 
 was redistributed and in general equalized among individuals, 
 very much to the advantage of those who had been poor, 
 very much to the detriment of those who had been rich. The 
 latter seem to have been the ones really to suffer from the 
 war, and were chiefly loyalists and in many cases exiles. 
 They and the foreign and domestic creditors of Congress and 
 of the States paid for the Revolution, for the confiscated prop 
 erty was never restored, and most of the original holders of 
 the Revolutionary debt sold their bonds or certificates at heavy 
 loss, when the very general repudiation of the Revolutionary 
 indebtedness at the end of the war convinced them that the 
 debt would never be paid and that they would do well 
 to sell before the evidences of their loans lost all market 
 value. 
 
 The Revolution had been a war between England and 
 America, between parties in England and between parties in 
 America, and the issue had been the institution of a central 
 administration in America sufficiently powerful to enforce the 
 new policy which Parliament had adopted for the creation of 
 a greater Britain. Something more had divided parties than 
 the bare question whether or not England should play a part, 
 decisive or otherwise, in the settlement of questions in 
 America. The immediate result of the American victory was, 
 therefore, something more than the decision that the two 
 countries should hereafter be separate and that Americans 
 should formulate policy for themselves without British assist 
 ance or interference. In England, the American victory was 
 a victory for the peace party who had throughout declared 
 the policy on which the war had been conducted a mistake. 
 The winning of the war gave control in America to the 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 145 
 
 radicals, to the anti-national party, opposed on principle to 
 the adoption of the English notion of strong central govern 
 ment. It also immensely strengthened the anti-national party 
 and weakened in numbers, in wealth, and in the proportion 
 of capable and educated men amongst them, the creditor 
 and conservative parties which believed in strong govern 
 ment. 
 
 The number of loyalists expatriated was probably about 
 one hundred thousand, most of whom had been people of 
 culture and property, who had normally counted on the side 
 of law, order, and justice. Very considerable amounts of 
 property had also been changed during the war by both 
 political and economic forces from the hands of the conserva 
 tives to those of the radicals. The proportion of educated 
 men in the country was not as large as it had been ; the total 
 wealth of the conservative class was far less than before. 
 The radical party had not only gotten into the saddle in 
 State, town, and county, but had possessed itself in all proba 
 bility of the bulk of the movable property, and was anxious 
 to continue conditions which worked so greatly to its ad 
 vantage. 10 The party of strong government and especially of 
 national government, as we understand it, had been com 
 pletely vanquished by the party of loose government and of 
 States rights. The victory of the radicals in the civil war, 
 in fact, was too complete, as was soon to appear. 
 
 Had the Revolution, however, decided the various issues 
 over which it had nominally been fought? Had it proved 
 England wrong in all her contentions, shown George III to 
 have been a bloodthirsty tyrant and Lord North an oppressor ? 
 Were the loyalists all traitors and was their property forfeit ? 
 The radicals insisted with vehemence that victory had demon 
 strated the truth of all their contentions, legal, historical, 
 
 10 "It is more consistent with the views of the speculators various 
 tribes of money-makers and stock-jobbers of all denominations to con 
 tinue the war for their own private emolument without considering 
 that their avarice and thirst for gain must plunge everything, includ 
 ing themselves, in one common ruin." Washington to George Mason, 
 March 27, 1779. Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., VII, 382. 
 
146 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 political, and ethical. The legacy of the Revolution was a 
 hatred of England and of English ways which for many dec 
 ades colored all policies and politics. 
 
 The war had been fought with England over an issue of 
 administration and organization. It had been a war to main 
 tain the superiority of State governments over any central 
 government, a war to prevent the erection of a central 
 government, a war to support a distinctly anti-national policy. 
 To the radicals, therefore, the winning of the Revolution de 
 cided that the States were supreme and a central government 
 inexpedient. Were the patriots who had fought and bled for 
 the independence of their own particular States to admit that 
 the war had succeeded and had vested in King Congress the 
 powers of King George ? If so, they had exchanged a tyrant 
 three thousand miles away, who was, after all, slow and stupid, 
 for a many-headed hydra at their very doors, insatiable in its 
 demands for money and authority. For what, then, had they 
 fought? Again, the w r ar had been waged to prevent the ex 
 ercise by any central authority of the right of taxation and 
 the right to control commerce. Had not the winning of the 
 war definitely vested the exclusive exercise of these powers in 
 the several States, and as definitely decided once and for all 
 that no central government ought ever to possess them ? If the 
 Revolution had not settled the issues in these ways, what had 
 it decided ? Nothing ? 
 
 Nevertheless, the Revolution actually decided none of the 
 great questions out of which it had arisen. It decided merely 
 that England and the conservatives in America should have 
 no share in their decision. The anti-national party assumed 
 the direction of policy and was not slow to announce and ap 
 ply its characteristic remedies to the solution of all difficulties. 
 Were the men who had won the Revolution unable to cope 
 with the problems of freedom? The key they applied to all 
 perplexities was the old colonial conception States sover 
 eignty. Neither the Revolution itself nor any specific act 
 done during it or because of it seemed to the radicals to have 
 created a nation or to have even established the desirability 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 147 
 
 of creating one. 11 "It seems certain that at no time during 
 the Revolution was there a stronger desire for national unity 
 than for the continued sovereignty of the several States. 12 
 The central government was to be rather a common mouth 
 piece, a sort of formal head, a convenient method of express 
 ing the decisions of the States, than a government empowered 
 to act for them. 
 
 During the war, the States had one and all exercised the 
 familiar attributes of sovereignty. 13 Virginia made and rati 
 fied a treaty with France; established a clerkship of foreign 
 correspondence; sent over an agent to various countries to 
 borrow money and buy arms ; negotiated formally with Spain 
 for a war loan; sent George Rogers Clark into the West to 
 take possession of the land in the name of the Commonwealth 
 of Virginia. Nine of the States built navies of their own and 
 all enlisted armies ; all of them struck coins and issued paper 
 money; most of them regulated commerce by the imposition 
 of tariffs and of embargoes. These powers they continued to 
 exercise after the Articles of Confederation had been formally 
 ratified in 1781 and after the Treaty of Peace had been signed 
 in 1783. Neither one event nor the other, to the thinking of 
 the men in control of the State governments, produced any 
 change in the relation of the States to each other or to a cen- 
 
 11 "A selfish habitude of thinking and reasoning leads us into a fatal 
 error the moment we begin to talk of the interests of America. The 
 fact is, by the interests of America we mean only the interests of 
 that State to which property or accident has attached us. Thus a citi 
 zen of Philadelphia, when he harangues on the rights and liberties of 
 America, is not aware the while that he is merely advocating the rights 
 and liberties of Pennsylvania. And our fellow-citizen here, . . . lead 
 him to the westernmost banks of the Hudson . . . and his heart is as 
 cold and unconcerned as to the interests of Kouli Khan or the Nabob 
 of Arcot." New York Packet, August 30, 1784. Quoted by McMaster, 
 History of the People of the United States, I, 136. 
 
 12 Van Tyne, The American Revolution, 177-8. 
 
 13 C. H. Van Tyne has given an admirable resume" of the evidence in 
 the American Historical Review, XII, 529-545. See also the selections 
 quoted in Hart s American History Told by Contemporaries, III, 124- 
 137. Even a casual reference to any source of the period will hardly 
 fail to be rewarded with significant examples. 
 
148 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tral government. Congress was to assume the position which 
 the radicals had desired George III to occupy: that of as 
 sisting and advising the several States. Indeed, there was 
 little disposition to admit in America that the Declaration of 
 Independence had done more than enounce the actual condi 
 tion of affairs or that the war had accomplished more than 
 the prevention of the unwarranted extension of authority pro 
 posed and attempted by England. The States were still 
 sovereign as they always had been; in their several hands 
 rested the solution of the difficulties, and they believed them 
 selves as capable of deciding upon and executing such meas 
 ures as their own welfare and safety demanded as they had 
 already been for a century and more. That the growth of 
 the country during the preceding century and even during 
 the war had made some common action and agreement indis 
 pensable, only a few individuals seem to have grasped. 
 
 The solution proposed by the radical anti-national party 
 was, therefore, simplicity incarnate, the States should in 
 dividually deal as they thought best with such matters as 
 seemed to them to require action, and should signify to Con 
 gress what action they deemed necessary in questions re 
 quiring cooperation. There seems to have been a rather gen 
 eral expectation that the remedies for the various .difficulties 
 would evolve themselves from circumstances, for no action 
 was taken on most questions. 
 
 The fear that the Americans would be excluded from the 
 West India trade and the Newfoundland fisheries had been 
 one of the motive forces of the Revolution. The war over, 
 most men seem to have expected that the old status would be 
 reestablished and that the Americans would continue as be 
 fore to smuggle at will, unhampered now by English revenue 
 officers and administrative restrictions. They had fought to 
 obtain that privilege, and, having won the war, was the sug 
 gestion to be credited that the prize was not theirs ? 
 
 The pay of the army which had won the war was some 
 years in arrears, and the officers and men, who had been 
 held together by promises of prompt payment upon the sue- 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTION 149 
 
 cessful conclusion of the war, were already manifesting some 
 thing more than impatience at the non-fulfilment of the 
 promises. The interest payments on the debts incurred dur 
 ing the war by Congress and by the several States were al 
 ready overdue, and in many cases payment of the capital had 
 been promised on the successful completion of the war. A 
 uniform and stable currency was desperately needed to re 
 place the worthless paper which no longer circulated at all. 
 In addition, the Treaty of Peace contained promises made by 
 Franklin and other ambassadors, concerning the payment of 
 the debt, public and private, the restoration of the property of 
 loyalists, the repeal of the acts passed during the war which 
 deprived the latter of all rights, legal or social, in the com 
 munity, and the prompt adjustment of the boundary diffi 
 culties in the West. 
 
 Incredible as it may seem, the anti-national, States -sover 
 eignty party was in favor of disbanding the army without pay 
 and without the fulfilment of one of the many promises made 
 to both officers and men. The army very naturally refused 
 with considerable heat to disband and remained in the neigh 
 borhood of Philadelphia for some years, grumbling and threat 
 ening Congress, while the States blithely continued to disre 
 gard their obligations to the men who had actually fought the 
 war. Inasmuch as none of the various creditors, foreign or 
 domestic, possessed any method of exacting payment of the 
 principal or the interest of the Kevolutionary debt, the 
 radicals calmly repudiated all their obligations and declined to 
 vote a penny to Congress for any such purpose, or indeed for 
 any purpose at all. 14 To cap the climax of this policy of 
 
 14 On Nov. 5, 1786, Washington wrote Madison a description of con 
 ditions in New England as reported to him by General Knox, who had 
 been sent by Congress to investigate the situation. "Among other 
 things he says: Their creed is, that the property of the United States 
 has been protected from the confiscation of Britain by the joint exer 
 tions of all; and therefore ought to be the common property of all; 
 and he that attempts opposition to this creed, is an enemy to equity 
 and justice, and ought to be swept from off the face of the earth. 
 Again : They are determined to annihilate all debts, public and private, 
 and have agrarian laws, which are easily effected by the means of 
 
150 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 laissez-favre, none of the States executed the solemn promises 
 of the Treaty of Peace and enough were always opposed to 
 any action on the part of Congress to prevent fulfilment by 
 the Confederation. From whatever motive, whether from 
 policy or from preoccupation with other problems, nothing 
 whatever was done. The consequences of this universal appli 
 cation of the anti-national remedy of States sovereignty to 
 the difficulties confronting America were all too soon appar 
 ent. "How melancholy is the reflection," wrote Washing 
 ton to Madison on November 5, 1786, that in so short a space 
 we should have made such large strides towards fulfilling the 
 predictions of our transatlantic foes! * Leave them to them 
 selves and their government will soon dissolve. Will not 
 the wise and good strive hard to avert this evil? Or will 
 their supineness suffer ignorance and the arts of self-inter 
 ested, designing, disaffected and desperate characters to in 
 volve this great country in wretchedness and contempt ? " 15 
 
 unfunded paper money, which shall be a tender in all cases whatever. " 
 Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 81-2. 
 p. 82. 
 
XII 
 THE CRITICAL PERIOD 
 
 FROM the war, the radicals had expected great things. Once 
 the shackles of the tyrant had been struck off, Liberty would 
 ensure her admirers happiness and prosperity. Yet, with the 
 Treaty of Peace scarcely signed, with the policy of the thirteen 
 new sovereigns barely promulgated, and the perpetuity of 
 the new Confederation between them little more than de 
 clared, it became only too apparent that the country was 
 worse off than it had been before. Whatever might be the 
 theoretical merits of the new type of government, certainly 
 its practical results were disastrous. The policy of laissez- 
 faire, of disregarding problems, simply did not work. The 
 army refused to disband and continued to live in the vicinity 
 of Philadelphia to the great discontent of the farmers of the 
 district. The difficulties resulting from the lack of a stable 
 currency grew steadily worse and not better. The failure to 
 pay the interest or principal of the old debt made impossible 
 the borrowing of money. The English were by no means will 
 ing to dispense with the fulfilment of the promises in the 
 Treaty of Peace about the western lands, while the all-impor 
 tant trade privileges in the West Indies and off Newfoundland 
 could not be obtained by a weak and discredited government, 
 which had thus far defaulted every payment and broken every 
 promise. 
 
 The pressure of national, State, and local issues for settle 
 ment was great in 1783 and was growing obviously greater; 
 the economic and social problems demanding honest and sin 
 cere effort were numerous. The chief difficulties were, how 
 ever, two : the lack of honest, able, consistent administration 
 in the States and in the central government, and the existence 
 
 151 
 
152 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 of the first commercial crisis, due partly to the economic tangle 
 caused by the war, but largely to the lack of a reliable medium 
 of exchange either with Europe or between the various States. 
 In fact, the difficulties were economic rather than administra 
 tive, were indeed superficial rather than fundamental, and 
 resulted from administrative carelessness and inefficiency, 
 from the policy of repudiation and of ignoring vital prob 
 lems. The truly fundamental difficulties lay in the economic 
 position of the States in relation to each other, to the West 
 Indies, and to Europe. Nor would the administrative de 
 ficiencies alone have been so serious had they not coincided 
 with the commercial crisis. All the difficulties, temporary and 
 fundamental, economic and administrative, were accentuated, 
 magnified, and multiplied by the attempts of the radicals to 
 solve them. Before peace was a year old, it was clear to the 
 leaders and was constantly becoming apparent to a larger 
 and larger section of the community, that the radical solution, 
 based on the theoretical and administrative contentions over 
 which the war had been fought, was a hopeless and irredeem 
 able failure. 
 
 The economic crisis was the result of production far in 
 excess of local needs coupled with a very general lack of ade 
 quate means of exchange and distribution. As has already 
 been explained, the Atlantic coast produced chiefly staple 
 goods cod-fish, lumber, flour, horses, for which no adequate 
 market existed in other colonies, which were (except for to 
 bacco) too bulky to ship to Europe, and which would usually 
 be sold only in the West Indies. At the same time, the manu 
 factured articles, upon which the Americans depended and 
 which they bought so largely, must come from Europe. We 
 were then in the extremely unfortunate economic position 
 of producing what we could not consume and what the 
 makers of the only articles we really wished to buy would not 
 accept in exchange. The prosperity of the new sovereign 
 States was absolutely dependent upon the ability to sell in the 
 West Indies and to purchase the sugar and molasses which 
 Europe so greedily bought. A principal incitement to re- 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 153 
 
 sistance in 1775 had been the knowledge that all the West 
 India sugar islands together barely furnished the Atlantic sea 
 board with an adequate market for its growing volume of 
 produce, and that the exclusion of the Americans from the 
 foreign sugar islands and the restriction of their trade to the 
 English sugar colonies would prevent the further expansion 
 of American trade, if it did not immediately glut the market 
 and send prices tumbling. To retain the freedom of trade 
 with all the West India Islands, English, French, Spanish, 
 Dutch, and Danish, had been the best reason for the refusal to 
 obey the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act of 1764, and the 
 English administrative regulations, and was one of the really 
 cogent reasons for fighting the war at all. 
 
 Apparently, the Americans had expected their victory to 
 result in a more complete freedom of intercourse with the rest 
 of the world, and they learned with scarcely feignable as 
 tonishment that they had lost their rights in the English sugar 
 islands and in the cod-fisheries off the Grand Banks without 
 gaining any rights in the sugar colonies of other nations. 1 
 They found that they had no rights anywhere; that every 
 American vessel in the West Indies was seizable by virtue of 
 some European regulation; the English proposed to allow no 
 ships to trade with their colonies except English vessels, and 
 the American ships were now "foreign." The loss of their 
 rights on the Grand Banks in particular was a heavy blow 
 to the New England states, the more severe because it had 
 apparently not been foreseen; it robbed them at a stroke of 
 their staple for export and hence stopped their trade at its 
 source. The Americans had fought the war to avoid com 
 mercial ruin; had won it, and found themselves doubly and 
 trebly ruined, worse off for exchange than they had ever been 
 before. 
 
 During the war, the armies had eaten and utilized an ap 
 preciable part of the produce of the country; the smuggling 
 trade had been briskly plied to the West Indies and the war 
 prices had helped to lessen the distress. But the astonishing 
 
 i Charming, History of the United States, III, 408-413. 
 
154 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 prosperity of the country during the war and the good 
 market at home had stimulated production, and the output in 
 the last years of the war and immediately after was far too 
 great to find vent through the smuggling trade. America 
 was producing more than could be sold at a profit, and pros 
 perity itself caused a fall of values and of prices and resulted 
 in a widespread distress which the Americans could not at 
 all comprehend. The old system of exchange with Europe 
 and between the various States had been completely dislo 
 cated by the war. The English privateers and cruisers had 
 captured many merchantmen and had thus preceptibly weak 
 ened the American merchant marine. Many prominent mer 
 chants, whose ability and experience had made the complex 
 round of voyages a profitable and adequate outlet for Ameri 
 can produce, had been exiled, robbed of their property and 
 position, and their places were either not yet filled or were 
 occupied by nouveaux riches quite incapable of rendering the 
 same service. 
 
 To reestablish the old routes proved to be unexpectedly dif 
 ficult. The very general failure of American merchants, 
 whether from inability or design, to meet their obligations in 
 England contracted before the war, caused a not unnatural 
 reluctance on the part of the English houses, who had lost 
 heavily, to reopen old accounts or accept new, and deterred 
 others from engaging in American exchange. From the 
 numerous loyalists and exiles in London came tales of robbery 
 and confiscation which made even speculators pause before 
 trusting Americans. Nor was the English ministry willing 
 to concede the Americans as successful revolutionists the very 
 terms which the latter had rejected in 1778. They listened 
 coldly to the proud colonists who had disdainfully tossed one 
 side, as if of no value, their unlimited privileges under the 
 Navigation Acts, and who were now suing for some very lim 
 ited rights in the West Indies and off the Grand Banks. 
 The English deeply resented the American attitude towards 
 the mother-country, and were especially indignant over the 
 really unjust and tyrannical treatment meted out to the loyal- 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 155 
 
 They were hardly in a mood to grant favors. More 
 over, as long as the States obstinately refused to accede to the 
 continued requests of Congress to fulfil the terms of the 
 Treaty of Peace, and as long as the Congress was only too 
 obviously helpless to execute what it had solemnly agreed to 
 perform, what reason was there to sign new treaties or even 
 to discuss further arrangements which would still depend for 
 validity upon the honorable intentions of the Americans? 
 Administrative reform in America was an indispensable pre 
 requisite to the securing of such terms from England as would 
 relieve the economic pressure on the new States. 
 
 Administrative reform and a change in policy were also in 
 dispensable if trade between the States was to be reestab 
 lished. Nothing more prejudicial to it could well be con 
 ceived than the legislation passed during and just after the 
 war. The States seemed indeed to be animated by the deter 
 mination to injure each other as much as possible and to pre 
 vent interstate commerce by every means in their power. 
 Port regulations, embargoes, tariffs were passed by State after 
 State, discriminating against their neighbors and frequently 
 admitting English ships and English goods on more favorable 
 terms than American. 2 Inasmuch as few of the States were 
 in any position to deal directly with Europe and were ordi 
 narily compelled to export their produce by a series of ex 
 changes in various American ports, the difficulties sown in the 
 way of commerce by these contradictory and hostile acts can 
 be easily imagined. Most merchants soon came to realize that 
 the enforcement to the letter of the proposed English acts, 
 whose stringency had been alleged as adequate cause for re- 
 
 2 "Massachusetts, in her zeal to counteract the effect of the English 
 navigation laws, laid enormous duties upon British goods imported 
 into that State; but the other States did not adopt a similar measure; 
 and the loss of business soon obliged that State to repeal or suspend 
 the law. Thus when Pennsylvania laid heavy duties on British goods, 
 Delaware and New Jersey made a number of free ports to encourage 
 the landing of goods witlfin the limits of those States; and the duties 
 in Pennsylvania served no purpose, but to create smuggling." Jedidiah 
 Morse, The American Geography, 1789. Quoted in Hart s Contem* 
 poraries, III, 136-7. 
 
156 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 volt, would in all probability have injured trade far less. 
 Why then, merchants began to ask, had the war been fought 1 
 Who had benefited from it? 
 
 Nor was there a common medium of exchange in America 
 by means of which trade was facilitated between the States. 
 There had never been any considerable amount of coin in the 
 country, and the British and French gold paid by the armies 
 had been quickly hoarded or had flown away to Europe. 
 Paper money in vast amounts had been issued by Congress, 
 and each State had its own peculiar variety. The bulk of it, 
 in Ramsay s phrase, "gently fell asleep in the hands of its 
 last possessors." Men exchanged the actual cloth and shoes 
 and grain and meat as in the Middle Ages before a money 
 economy existed. However adequate this might be for local 
 trade, it meant the complete disappearance of the budding 
 commercial structure which seemed so important to Ameri 
 cans. Yet, without agreement among the States, without 
 authority in the central government, how was a uniform cur 
 rency to be had? Administrative reform in America was 
 from this point of view also indispensable. 
 
 Another pregnant cause of the commercial crisis lay in 
 the general dislocation of business by the attitude of the 
 radicals and the debtors towards property, the courts, and 
 the collection of debts. When the first loyalists had left 
 New England with Howe in 1776, and when the confiscation 
 and distribution of their estates had whetted the appetite 
 for more, a pretty general indictment of "loyalists" had 
 taken place all over the country, and large amounts of prop 
 erty had changed hands. The outbreak of hostilities had 
 naturally reacted unfavorably on business; the sale of con 
 fiscated property, paper money, and the like had produced 
 a vast amount of speculation and gambling in land, certifi 
 cates, and loans which had also discouraged legitimate busi 
 ness. 8 Not only was it suspected that much robbery and con- 
 
 s "Paper currency . . . operated in the most powerful and malignant 
 manner. . . . Every sordid passion of man was stimulated to the most 
 vigorous exertion. Wealth, for such it seemed to the fancy, was ac- 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 157 
 
 fiscation had been thinly covered with the allegation of loyal- 
 ism, that men had been exiled and brutally treated because 
 they were rich or creditors of many of the mob that dealt 
 with them, but the passage of acts by the legislatures con 
 doning such offenses, the practical repudiation of the pre- 
 revolutionary debts owed to English merchants, the evident 
 unwillingness of the radicals to agree that the Revolutionary 
 debt was a valid obligation, the evident liking for paper money 
 and the imposition of heavy penalties for its refusal, all 
 caused the more serious to fear lest this occasional misdoing 
 should be organized and legalized by the new State govern 
 ments. As the months elapsed and became years, these fears 
 became greater instead of less, and were amply confirmed by 
 the determination in Rhode Island to provide * cheap money 
 and plenty of it, by the use of force throughout the States 
 to prevent the courts from collecting debts. "We are fast 
 verging," wrote Washington, "to anarchy and confusion. " 
 "I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the 
 war," declared Jay. "If faction should long bear down law 
 and government, tyranny may raise its head and the more 
 sober part of the people may even think of a king ! 
 
 While throughout America a crisis was apparent and the 
 
 quired with an ease and rapidity which astonished the possessor. 
 The price of labor and of every vendible commodity rose in a moment 
 to a height unexampled. Avarice, ambition and luxury saw their 
 wishes anticipated. ... It soon became impossible for upright men to 
 determine whether their bargains were honest or oppressive. . . . The 
 general sense of right and obligation, in buying and selling, was gradu 
 ally lowered; and the pride of making good bargains, a soft name for 
 cheating, gradually extended. Whatever was not punishable by law 
 multitudes considered as rectitude. . . . The existing government was 
 peculiarly unhappy. All regular public functionaries lost during this 
 period either the whole or a great part of their proper efficacy. In 
 their stead, committees of inspection and correspondence assumed an 
 extensive control over both the public and private affairs of their coun 
 try. The powers of these bodies were undefined, and therefore soon 
 became merely discretionary. Yet they were the tribunals by which 
 almost every cause was decided. In most instances they were composed 
 of men, unlearned in law and unskilled in public business. . . . Very 
 many and very great evils were actually produced by this government." 
 Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, IV, 369-371. 
 
158 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 friends of decency and order feared for the worst, nowhere 
 did the radicals succeed as well as in Massachusetts, and in 
 no State would their success have excited more alarm either 
 among its own people or in other States. Massachusetts had 
 so long been the largest Northern State; its wealth and con 
 servatism, its virtue and honesty, had already become so com 
 monly accepted as unalterable, that the outbreak of Shays s 
 Rebellion in the western part of the State in the fall of 1786 
 1 caused the people of less orderly and stable States to believe 
 that the deluge was near. The lawyers had for some time 
 been assailed in Massachusetts as "pickpockets" and "blood 
 suckers" because they were aiding creditors to recover the 
 debts due them ; but these ebullitions of temper became serious 
 when conventions met in various towns, voted lawyers a griev 
 ance, and demanded their abolition. At Hatfield, a conven 
 tion voted to abolish the court of common pleas, which meant 
 the abolition of the machinery for the collection of debts and 
 for the recovery of land. It also declared in favor of an im 
 mediate issue of paper money and against the granting of any 
 money to Congress. Mobs prevented the sitting of the lower 
 courts in several counties, and Shays with nearly six hundred 
 armed men prevented the session of the Supreme Court at 
 Springfield. For some weeks, he and his disorderly crew 
 terrorized Massachusetts but were finally scattered by militia 
 from Boston. Our distress was so great, said Smith, speak 
 ing of this time in the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, 
 "that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that 
 looked like a government. * Such acts had occurred before 
 and during the Revolution, the North Carolina Regulators in 
 1770 being an especially noteworthy case, but in 1786 the 
 crisis seemed to have come. Most men concluded that the 
 alternative lay between a strong central government and 
 anarchy. 
 
 It was only too patent that the States had been unable to 
 cope with the difficulties and would never be able satis 
 factorily to solve them, because the problems were not local 
 * Elliott, Delates, II, 103. 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 159 
 
 but general, and required for their solution unified 
 action based upon a unanimity of opinion. Thirteen States 
 could not negotiate for fishing rights off Newfoundland or 
 privileges in the West Indies, though both were directly or 
 indirectly necessary for the welfare of all. From bitter ex 
 perience it was clear that the States could not be induced 
 individually to vote money to pay the army and to meet the 
 obligations of the Confederation. The thirteen might 
 conceivably agree upon uniform tariff regulations and upon a 
 uniform currency, but surely a negotiation conducted through 
 " ambassadors " in Congress was the most roundabout and 
 cumbrous method of reaching such an agreement. Had the 
 States not been so violently at odds with each other, some 
 thing might have been done. Had there been any alignment 
 of States by which the large and the small could have com 
 bined or the States with western lands have united against 
 those without, something might have been achieved through 
 sectional governments. But the accident of geography and 
 of settlement had made us, as Gerry happily said, " neither 
 the same nation nor different nations. 6 The large States 
 were not contiguous and were also at odds over the western 
 lands; the small States were hopelessly separated from each 
 other by the territory of the large States, were neither all 
 with or without western lands and other obvious local inter 
 ests. In all, the line of debtor and creditor, of patriot and 
 loyalist, was sharp, and men were even beginning to complain 
 of an opposition of interests between the Northern and the 
 Southern States. The vital difficulty was that no two of these 
 lines coincided; that the country was not divided geographic 
 ally into sections, vertically into creeds, parties, or interests, 
 horizontally into classes. Each tiny group in every State 
 hoped to secure timely assistance from its sympathizers in 
 other States. There was no basis on which the jarring inter 
 ests could divide: they must perforce unite and somehow 
 work out together a livable compromise. 
 
 Nor should we forget the powerful incentive to strong cen- 
 
 e Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 302. 
 
160 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tral government furnished by the growing belief among the 
 conservative, orderly, propertied classes that they were in 
 the numerical minority in every State, and could escape de 
 struction only by a union of their forces and by the assistance 
 which a strong central government could lend any individual 
 State-government which should be too hard pressed. Private 
 interests seemed likely to be more injured by the continued 
 complete sovereignty of the States than they could possibly 
 be by even sweeping and dictatorial authority in the hands 
 of a central government. If only a government could be es 
 tablished whose policy would be the payment of the debt and 
 of the army, the fulfilment of the promises in the Treaty of 
 Peace, and adequate provision for foreign trade, it could 
 rally to it the creditors and moneyed men throughout 
 America. 
 
 It was, however, clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the 
 existing Congress did not and could not, under any such docu 
 ment as the Articles of Confederation, occupy any such posi 
 tion or furnish any such protection. The Congress in fact 
 merely multiplied the difficulties and accentuated the differ 
 ences between the States, because it could only reflect the divi 
 sions of the States themselves. To most of the leaders, it was 
 clear that States sovereignty and its corollary, a weak central 
 government, was the root of the trouble and made it in 
 soluble. "The great and radical vice in the construction of 
 the existing Confederation, " declared Hamilton, "is the prin 
 ciple of Legislation for States or Governments in their Cor 
 porate or Collective capacities and as contradistinguished 
 from the individuals of which they consist. " 6 The very at 
 tempt to discuss the general issues in thirteen different places 
 and to record the conclusion in a fourteenth was in itself a 
 problem of the first magnitude. "The world must see and 
 feel," wrote Washington in 1785, "that the Union or the 
 States individually are sovereign as best suits their purposes ; 
 in a word, they are one to-day and thirteen to-morrow. 7 
 
 e The Federalist, XV. 
 
 7 Marshall, Life of Washington, II, 97. 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 161 
 
 "The confederation appears to me to be little more than a 
 shadow without the substance." 8 "If you tell the legisla 
 tures they have violated the treaty of peace and invaded the 
 prerogatives of the confederacy, they will laugh in your 
 face." It was facetiously said that the Americans had out 
 done the Trinity by making the thirteen one while leaving the 
 one thirteen. 
 
 The Confederation, in fact, was a league of friendship 
 and amity rather than a government. The central body was 
 really a multiple executive unable to act of itself, and com 
 pelled to wait instructions from its numerous masters before 
 it could act at all. So long as the vote was taken by States, 
 and State delegations disagreed or were absent, there were 
 always States who were able to claim that they had not con 
 sented to this or that resolution and were therefore not bound 
 by it. Although the lack of authority over commerce and of 
 the power of direct taxation were almost insuperable obsta 
 cles in the way of efficient administration, the chief trouble 
 if any one thing among so many could be claimed to be 
 the stumbling block of offense was the inability of the Con 
 federation to compel the States to observe any "law" upon 
 any subject, however indifferent or minute. "They (the 
 Congress) may make war," wrote Jay, "but are not empow 
 ered to raise men or money to carry it on. They may make 
 peace, but without power to see the terms of it observed. 
 They may form alliances, but without ability to comply with 
 the stipulations on their part. They may enter into treaties 
 of commerce, but without power to enforce them at home or 
 abroad. They may borrow money but without having the 
 means of repayment. They may partly regulate commerce, 
 but without authority to enforce their ordinances. They may 
 appoint ministers and other officers of trust, but without 
 power to try or punish them for misdemeanors. They may 
 resolve, but cannot execute, either with despatch or with se 
 crecy. In short, they may consult, and deliberate, and rec- 
 
 s Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XT, 1. 
 
162 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 ommend, and make requisitions, and they who please may 
 regard them." 9 
 
 Two things, each in itself insignificant, indicate how help 
 less and powerless was this Confederation. During the last 
 two or three years of its life, there was not money enough 
 in the treasury to provide the secretary with the pens, ink, 
 and paper needed to keep a record of its deliberations! 
 Since the close of the war, the army, still unpaid, had lin 
 gered in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and one day a 
 small band of about eighty men escaped from their officers 
 and marched on Philadelphia to demand their pay from Con 
 gress. Into the city they marched and to Liberty Hall, 
 where, after some shouting and disorder, they threw stones 
 through the windows. Not a hand was raised to protect the 
 central government, and the members of Congress ignomini- 
 ously crawled out of the windows or escaped through the back 
 door and fled across the river to Trenton. That was indeed 
 a spectacle which confirmed the worst fears of Americans 
 and the predictions of Europeans. "To be more exposed in 
 the eyes of the world," wrote Washington, "and more con 
 temptible than we already are, is hardly possible. 10 
 
 The remedy, as the leaders saw, lay in the institution of 
 a central government possessed of powers for direct taxation 
 and the regulation of commerce and with a sanction of force 
 behind it of sufficient weight to insure obedience to its or 
 ders. Men like Peletiah Webster propounded in pamphlets 
 which attracted wide attention various forms which such a 
 solution might take. From the growth of the last century 
 and, indeed, of the last generation, had emerged compelling 
 facts arguing the expediency and profitableness of union. 
 Rapid emigration, westward movement, the general prosperity, 
 had certainly quadrupled the number of people in America 
 in 1700, and had easily doubled the population since 1760. 
 From this growth inevitably resulted a degree of propin 
 quity which had never before existed. When the colonies were 
 
 9 Ford, Pamphlets on the Constitution, 67. 
 
 10 Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 77. 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 163 
 
 merely little groups of people scattered along a thousand 
 miles of sea-coast, separated by long miles of wilderness de 
 void of roads, and dependent on tedious sea voyages for inter 
 communication, it was easy for them to maintain their sov 
 ereign independence of each other; there were few interests 
 or antagonisms in which they affected each other s welfare 
 vitally. Nature had separated them and made them thirteen 
 and not one. But in 1783 the States impinged upon each 
 other, at least along the coast, and forced upon each other 
 the consideration of this matter and the decision of that. 
 The lack of natural barriers between them, of geographical 
 divisions of the Atlantic coast, the fact that they all occu 
 pied contiguous sections of the same watershed, drained by 
 parallel rivers, gave them, whether they would or no, cer 
 tain common problems which had to be settled either by dis 
 cussion or by force. Partly because of the accident of set 
 tlement, partly because of the ignorance of geography and of 
 the sort of entity desirable for a single State, the colonial 
 charters had accentuated these facts by making the important 
 rivers the boundaries between the States. New Hampshire 
 and Massachusetts were separated by the Merrimac ; New York 
 and New Jersey by the Hudson ; Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
 New Jersey by the Delaware ; Virginia and Maryland by the 
 Potomac; South Carolina and Georgia by the Savannah. By 
 law and custom, they owned together the only common roads 
 into the interior before the days of railroads, and normally 
 therefore came into contact with each other the moment the 
 area of settlement attained any dimensions at all. Even 
 where there were no disputes as to what the boundary was, 
 the common use of the rivers made necessary some sort of a 
 general consensus of opinion as to the rights of each State 
 in the natural highways. 
 
 On the whole, too, by reason of the common economic de 
 pendence of the whole Atlantic coast upon Europe for manu 
 factured articles and of the total lack of a medium of ex 
 change with Europe, the interests of all the States were sure 
 to be furthered or injured together by the sort of relation- 
 
164 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 ship now to be established with foreign nations. The fact 
 that economic conditions forced all the States to trade with 
 each other and with Europe via the West Indies gave them 
 the most powerful of possible common ties, a strong self-in 
 terest which could best be preserved or extended by a gen 
 eral agreement and common action. If the New Englanders 
 could not fish off the Grand Banks, how could they buy Penn 
 sylvania flour or Virginia tobacco? Common action, a gen 
 eral agreement as to rights and policies were clearly the best 
 methods of furthering and protecting the economic interests of 
 individuals and of the several States. 
 
 Moreover, the jealousies of the various States of each other, 
 the fact that nearly all of them were at loggerheads with 
 more than one of their neighbors, made them equally un 
 willing to leave the settlement of the more obvious problems 
 to the States most nearly concerned. For all, the free navi 
 gation of the rivers without militating and conflicting regula 
 tions and preferential duties was most advantageous, and 
 seemed wholly impossible unless the common highways could 
 be handed over to a central government which might arbitrate 
 and represent equally the claims and interests of all. 
 
 But the western territory between the Alleghanies and the 
 Mississippi, ceded by England in the Treaty of Peace, pre 
 sented the greatest difficulty. It was quite clear before the 
 ink on the treaty was dry that the separate States would not 
 be able to settle this question by agreements with each other. 
 Before the war, settlers from Virginia and North Carolina 
 had begun pushing over the mountains, and, after the war 
 had begun, Patrick Henry, as Governor of Virginia, had di 
 rected the " conquest" of the land north of the Ohio by a 
 Virginia "army" under Clark. One of the old charters was 
 then exhumed whose plausible interpretation vested in Vir 
 ginia the title to the whole interior of the Continent north 
 of 36 30 . Whereupon, New York produced a claim to the 
 same extensive district on the ground that it was the property 
 of the Iroquois tribes, and was therefore included in the 
 grants to the Duke of York by Charles II. From Connecticut 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 165 
 
 and Massachusetts came loud cries of protest and claims to 
 the whole northern part of the Missisippi Valley based upon 
 their own charters. That the acceptance of any one claim 
 excluded the other three was undoubted. If their respective 
 claims were valid at all, they were mutually exclusive. 
 
 The other nine States, however, resisted vehemently any 
 attempt at compromise which should divide the property be 
 tween the four. The solid cause of their opposition came 
 from the fact that some of them had already smaller terri 
 tories than these four States and that the existence of all the 
 remainder would be vitally endangered by such an extension 
 of the territory of a few. Rhode Island and Maryland feared 
 conquest or absorption. Had not Plymouth and New Haven 
 already been swallowed by Massachusetts and Connecticut? 
 New Jersey declared herself a cask tapped at both ends by 
 New York and Pennsylvania and therefore certain to be dry. 
 Nor were such fears slow to produce arguments from history, 
 law, and expediency. All the charters on which these claims 
 were founded had long since been specifically revoked; the 
 Proclamation Line of 1763 had definitely restricted the 
 thirteen coast colonies to the eastern slope of the mountains; 
 if the acts of the English Crown were to decide the question, 
 the four claims were undoubtedly all bad. Furthermore, had 
 not the Treaty of Peace ceded the land in question to the 
 thirteen States in common? Had anything been said about 
 the revival of charters or the extension of existing boundaries ? 
 
 So evident was it that no division of the territory could be 
 devised satisfactory to the four principals, and that no reten 
 tion of it by any of them on any terms would be counte 
 nanced by the rest of the States, that the claims of the four 
 were finally ceded to the shadowy central government. Thus 
 the territory between the mountains and the Mississippi be 
 came common property and its existence aided immensely the 
 cause of union and of strong government. From one source 
 and another had come tales of the wonderful fertility of the 
 land, of the incalculable value of its trading privileges, while 
 a good many of the legends so influential in encouraging the 
 
166 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 early explorers showed a surprising vitality and persistence. 
 The new land was valuable, and every State began to take 
 thought about the proper method of ensuring the safety of 
 its interests in the common property. 
 
 Finally, union was as eminently possible as it was desirable. 
 Throughout America the population was substantially homo 
 geneous. The Teutonic stock and the Protestant religion easily 
 predominated; the English common law was universally ac 
 cepted; State and local government were essentially alike in 
 form and in operation. There were no fundamental geo 
 graphical, economic, racial, religious, or institutional obstacles 
 to be overcome. The difficulties were superficial, not funda 
 mental, matters of form and detail, not matters of substance. 
 Indeed, adequate administrative regulations and corporate 
 honesty alone were needed to remedy a situation which seemed 
 to superficial observers desperate. From the pens of keener 
 men we have words which indicate that the situation was as 
 thoroughly understood in Europe as in America. "The re 
 flections which I have just had the honor of submitting to 
 you, 7 wrote a European envoy, " scarcely conform to the 
 vague and exaggerated reports with which almost all the Eu 
 ropean and American publications are flooded in regard to the 
 situation of the United States. They confound the uncer 
 tainty of a people which has not yet chosen its form of stable 
 and permanent government with disorder and internal an 
 archy, but this uncertainty is only felt abroad or in their 
 political discussions without affecting in any way the tranquil 
 lity and industry of the citizens. If one studies ever so little 
 the general prosperity, individual comfort, the well-nigh in 
 conceivable growth of all parts of the republic, one is tempted 
 to believe that this one has taken the longest strides towards 
 opulence and formidable power. " 
 
 The convention which drew up the Constitution grew out of 
 the attempts of Maryland and Virginia to settle their private 
 disputes by conference and compromise. After a thorough dis 
 cussion of the situation, the delegates of both States agreed 
 that the adequate solution of their peculiar quarrels involved 
 
THE CRITICAL PERIOD 167 
 
 the decision of too many other interstate quarrels to admit 
 of the attainment of a satisfactory conclusion by themselves 
 alone. Accordingly, the several States were invited to send 
 representatives to Annapolis to discuss the various issues with 
 a view to permanent settlement. Five States responded, whose 
 delegates abandoned any attempt at agreement and coun 
 seled the summoning of a general convention at Philadel 
 phia to amend the Articles of Confederation. The sugges 
 tion was at once adopted by a majority of the States and 
 the others soon named delegates. The Federal Convention 
 which met in 1787, therefore, like most other important 
 actions taken during the period, was the result of separate 
 State action and not of an act of the central government. 
 The claim of the Southern leaders in later days that the 
 States, and not the nation, made the Constitution was thus 
 far historically true. 
 
XIII 
 THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 THE wisdom of the members of the Constitutional Conven 
 tion, which sat at Philadelphia from May to September of 
 1787, was in no respect more conspicuous than in their deter 
 mination to debate thoroughly and agree upon the basic 
 principles of constitutional law upon which the government 
 they suggested must be founded. They recognized, further 
 more, the truth of Montesquieu s contention that successful 
 governments were founded upon and must be consonant 
 with the economic and social conditions of the time and 
 could not be based merely upon theory or precedent. 
 American political democracy was consciously based upon 
 the economic and social equality which the members of the 
 Constitutional Convention saw existed in this country. While 
 they examined with great care every form of government 
 the world had known and gave particular attention to the 
 Greek, Roman, and Dutch Republics, they concluded that 
 the circumstances in America in 1787 were without prece 
 dent and that the results of previous attempts at democracy 
 were therefore without value. The English government many 
 of them admired, and the subtlety of its working they all 
 understood; but Hamilton stood practically alone in claim 
 ing that any of its elements could be profitably copied in 
 America. 1 The members of the Convention, in fact, fell back 
 upon colonial experience and the experiments of the States 
 in forming their constitutions during the Revolution for 
 most of the detailed provisions of the Constitution. Presi- 
 
 i For Hamilton s views, see Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 158; for the 
 contrary opinions of Wilson, Madison, Pinckney, and others see Ibid., 
 I, 50, 51, 98, 225, etc. 
 
 168 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 169 
 
 dent, Senate, and House, the separation of powers, the pre 
 dominance of the legislature, the weakness of the executive, 
 they tried to copy from American experience. But these 
 details, the purely formal elements of the new government, 
 were not its vital forces. 
 
 First and foremost in importance stands the fact that 
 the Constitution founded a democracy in which all men should 
 be equal before the law and in which the people should be 
 sovereign. This was indeed merely the legal recognition 
 of an existing fact. In wealth, in birth, in education, in 
 privilege, men w r ere already on the same footing in every 
 colony : the affirmations of the Declaration of Independence, 
 the vital words of the Preamble of the Consitution were, 
 as their form indicated, simply statements of existing facts. 
 "Equality is as I contend the leading feature of the U. 
 States. " "A system must be suited to the habits and genius 
 of the People it is to govern, and must grow out of them/ 
 declared Pinckney. "After all there is one, but one great 
 and equal body of Citizens composing the inhabitants of this 
 Country among whom there are no distinctions of rank, and 
 very few or none of fortune. For a people thus circum 
 stanced are we then to form a Government. . . . These are 
 I believe as active, intelligent, and susceptible of good Govern 
 ment as any people in the world. 2 
 
 With this equality of condition, the travelers, already 
 numerous, had been charmed. A French traveler, De 
 Segur, expressed his surprise at the absence of the extremes 
 of luxury and poverty to which he was accustomed in Europe. 
 "A\l the Americans whom we met wore clothes of good 
 material. Their free, frank, and familiar address, equally 
 removed from uncouth discourtesy and from artificial polite 
 ness, betokened men who were proud of their own rights 
 and respected those of others. " To Lafayette s astonishment, 
 the inn-keeper and his wife usually sat down with him at 
 table, and conversed with him intelligently on a great variety 
 of subjects. He saw no magnificent mansions, with powdered 
 
 2 Hunt * Madison * Xotes, I, 225; 229-231. 
 
170 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 lackeys at the door, rode in no splendid coaches, drawn by 
 prancing steeds (though there were fine equipages in the 
 colonies), but found everywhere houses of wood or brick, 
 simply made, gleaming with clean white paint, and furnished 
 inside with a frugal elegance and an excellent taste which 
 even the fastidious Frenchman was compelled to confess were 
 admirable. The Comte de Segur was enthusiastic over the 
 scenery and equally loud in his praise of the settled portions 
 of the country. "Sometimes I was admiring a lovely valley, 
 carefully tilled, with the meadows full of cattle; the houses 
 clean, elegant, painted in bright colors, and standing in little 
 gardens behind pretty fences. Abundance, comfort, and ur 
 banity everywhere. " Everywhere he found cleanliness, 
 everywhere he found a plenty of the hearty wholesome fare 
 which in Europe was then unknown to the lower classes. In 
 Prance, many of the peasants of 1787 were eating bread 
 made out of chestnuts and acorns ground fine and mixed 
 with bran. Even the middle class was glad to get rye bread, 
 while fresh meat was a luxury known only to the rich. But 
 in America, the farmer, the laborer, and the carpenter, as 
 well as the merchant and the great planter, sat down daily 
 to a dinner of fresh meat and wheat bread, and not in 
 frequently, as Howe tells us in his diary, 3 such luxuries as 
 green peas or strawberries and cream, which had already 
 become characteristic American dishes. 
 
 Next to the equality of conditions, the simplicity, honesty, 
 and genuineness of life seem to have caused most remark. 
 "Simplicity of manners," declared Lafayette, "the desire to 
 oblige, and a mild and quiet equality are the rule everywhere. 
 "The inhabitants, each and all/ wrote the Comte de Segur, 
 "exhibited the unassuming and quiet pride of men who had 
 no master, who see nothing above them except the law, and 
 who are free from the vanity, the servility, and the preju 
 dices of our European societies." Life was free; the neces 
 sities of life being easily secured, all were equal and treated 
 
 s The Diary of John Rowe (Massachusetts Historical Society Pro 
 ceedings, Second Series, X, 147. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 171 
 
 each other like brothers. Education was widespread: most 
 of the people could read, and many could write an excellent 
 hand. The old dames schools had done well in New Eng 
 land and had spread education, albeit neither very deeply 
 nor very accurately, over the whole community. In the 
 Middle States, the ability to read and write was common 
 and in the South universal among the planters. Further 
 more, there is nothing more interesting to note in the mental 
 attitude of colonial Americans than the belief, firmly planted 
 in the mind of each boy, that with work and diligence he 
 could become anything he wanted to be. Witness the youth 
 ful Franklin. He desired to become an author. No sooner 
 said than done : he took Addison as a model ; he set to work 
 rewriting the Spectator; and soon began to send contributions 
 to his brother s newspaper, whose excellence attracted at 
 tention. Falling out with his brother, he did not set out 
 for some place ten miles distant, but for Philadelphia, half 
 across the country; and, becoming dissatisfied with prospects 
 there, sailed for England. He had no money; he had no 
 guardian but his own sublime self-confidence; but he neither 
 hesitated nor doubted. Thirty years later he retired from 
 active business, a wealthy man for life. 
 
 This American, at once so frugal and so honest, was vehe 
 mently interested in politics. Even the servants read the news 
 papers, remarked one observer. Yes, and understood them 
 too, added another. All classes of the community talked 
 politics in season and out of season. Nor were they inter 
 ested merely in personalities about the governor or gossip 
 about the love affairs of his daughter. A brief perusal of 
 the Centinel or the Gazette will show the modern reader 
 that our ancestors read with avidity essays, constitutional 
 arguments, histories of trade, summaries of English and colo 
 nial legislation. This habit of reading and the subsequent 
 discussion of tangled questions was of great value in train 
 ing the Americans for the great experiment of democratic 
 government on which they were embarking. 
 
 But in this life and in their politics they were self-centered. 
 
172 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 A Massachusetts man lived for Massachusetts, not for Eng 
 land nor for Virginia. He was patriotic but not to any 
 united organization called either the British Empire or the 
 United Colonies. His ignorance of affairs in Europe and 
 even in other colonies was colossal. The Comte de Segur ex 
 changed opinions with the keeper of the inn where he put 
 up for the night, who called himself a Colonel, and discoursed 
 at great length on campaigns and farming. De Segur, stating 
 in turn that his father was a general and a minister of State, 
 was astounded to perceive that the Colonel did not at all 
 realize what the rank of General and office of Minister of 
 State implied in France. Outside of trade, the American 
 cared only for politics; outside of the local politics of his 
 own community, he understood little, though ready to dis 
 cuss anything with anybody. 
 
 In the hands of such a people, the makers of the Consti 
 tution placed the sovereignty, the right to decide in the last 
 resort all issues of importance. After long and heated dis 
 cussion, no Bill of Rights was included and no direct state 
 ment made that the supreme power was vested in the people 
 themselves. The argument which carried the day was that 
 of James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, to whose keen logical 
 mind and deep understanding of the situation we owe much 
 of the shape of the great document. The preamble to ~the 
 proposed Constitution," said he, " We, the people of the 
 United States, do establish, contains the essence of all the 
 Bills of Rights that have been or can be devised." The 
 people alone made it; the people alone might change it; the 
 people in making it surrendered no jot or tittle of their 
 power ; they remained superior to the Constitution. Further 
 more, by writing "the People of the United States" and not 
 "the peoples of the United States," the new government was 
 necessarily made a government where a body of individuals 
 and not a union of States was sovereign. "A Union of the 
 States," said King, "is a Union of the men composing them 
 from whence a national character results to the whole. * 
 
 * Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 186. The preceding part of King s 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 173 
 
 The new government would have jurisdiction over every man 
 in America, the lack of which had been, to the thinking of 
 the Convention, the old Confederation s greatest defect. 
 There was, too, in the minds of the leaders no doubt that 
 the sovereignty of the States which had caused during the 
 Revolution and Critical period so much suffering to every one 
 would be a thing of the past. The wholesale repudiation of 
 debts, the coining of money, making of tariffs to exclude 
 trade from the next State, raising of armies, building of 
 navies and more, were explicitly forbidden, and the wording 
 of the preamble took away the sovereign power of the States 
 as clearly as words could. Indeed, the first drafts of the 
 preamble had read, "We, the people of New Hampshire, 
 Massachusetts," and so on, enumerating the States. The 
 words finally adopted were indeed, as Wilson said, a whole 
 treatise on sovereignty. 
 
 The States were to be related to the national government 
 through the people. Wilson explained at length "the two 
 fold relation in which the people would stand, 1, as Citizens 
 of the General Government, 2, as Citizens of their particular 
 State. . . . Both Governments were derived from the people 
 both were meant for the people both, therefore, ought to 
 be regulated on the same principles. . . . The General Govern 
 ment is not an assemblage of States, but of individuals for 
 certain political purposes it is not meant for the States, 
 but for the individuals composing them." 5 The people, 
 therefore, organized in sections formed the States; the same 
 people viewed as a whole, not as parts, were the basis of 
 the national government. The value and importance of the 
 
 speech is enlightening. "He conceived that the import of the term 
 States, Sovereignty, national, federal had been often used and ap 
 plied in the discussions inaccurately and delusively. The States were 
 not Sovereigns in the sense contended for by some. . . . They could 
 not make war, nor peace, nor alliances, nor treaties. ... If the States 
 therefore retained some portion of their sovereignty, they had certainly 
 divested themselves of essential portions of it. If they formed a Con 
 federacy in some respects they formed a Nation in others." 
 B Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 233-4. 
 
174 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 States was not lost sight of. " Without their cooperation," 
 Ellsworth reminded the Convention, "it would be impos 
 sible to support a Republican Government, over so great an 
 extent of Country. . . . The largest States are the worst 
 governed. ... If the principles and materials of our Govern 
 ment are not adequate to the extent of these single States ; 6 
 how can it be imagined that they can support a single Govern 
 ment throughout the U[nited] States. The only chance of 
 supporting a General Government lies in grafting it on that of 
 the individual States." 7 
 
 But only the ultimate power was placed in the hands of 
 the people. They were given only three legal duties. They 
 were to choose the representatives directly; they were to 
 vote for the electoral college, which would choose the Presi 
 dent and for the state legislatures which were to choose the 
 Senators; they were to vote either directly or by special con 
 ventions upon all amendments to the Constitution. But in 
 no other way and at no other time should they in any way 
 themselves participate in administration or legislation. They 
 should not govern ; they should not even constantly direct the 
 hands which governed for them. They should choose a 
 President, who, once inaugurated, would possess in himself 
 absolute discretion in the performance of the executive work 
 entrusted to him. During his term of office, no one should 
 control him or dictate to him; he should be supreme. The 
 people, his masters, might at the end of his term censure him 
 for what he had done ; they might refuse to let him act again 
 for them; but they should not legally prevent him during 
 his term of office from acting at any time as he thought fit. 
 Similarly, in the hands of Congress was placed the whole 
 legislative power; and in the hands of the judges, the whole 
 judicial power. Each branch was delegated its power by 
 the people; each would be responsible to the people at the 
 end of its term, but during that term the framers intended 
 that each should govern for the people. The share of the 
 
 e That is, are not capable of governing a single State. 
 7 Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 234. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 175 
 
 people should be ultimate, not immediate ; they should control 
 the broader aspects of policy, not dictate the details of meth 
 ods and means. 
 
 Nor did the framers understand that they placed this sover 
 eignty in the hands of the male citizens over twenty-one 
 years of age. By a general agreement, the federal suffrage 
 was left in the haiids of the States, who were to regulate it 
 by regulating their own. There was not then, and never had 
 been, in any State or colony, manhood suffrage. A property 
 qualification had been nearly universal; oaths of fidelity or 
 allegiance had been common; while throughout New Eng 
 land a man s moral and religious character had been closely 
 scrutinized before he had been granted a share of political 
 power. It was indeed true that the amount of property 
 was not usually difficult to amass, nor the degree of spiritual 
 excellence impossible of attainment; neither birth nor pre 
 vious condition was a permanent bar. Any man might be 
 come qualified for the suffrage; but it was nevertheless a 
 fact in 1789, not much questioned or remarked upon, indeed 
 accepted as axiomatic, that the democracy viewed by the 
 framers of the constitution was limited to men of property, 
 education, and good character. Not till about 1840 did the 
 words "People of the United States" place the sovereignty 
 in the hands of the male majority which now has it. The 
 franchise was in 1789 a privilege conferred by the State on 
 deserving citizens; and the lack of it was not supposed to 
 imply the slightest right to disobey the authorities. Bills 
 of Rights and Constitutions conferred no such privileges. 
 
 It was fully recognized that if the Federal Government 
 must govern for the people, its executive arm should have 
 sufficient power to act. The President s term of four years 
 they believed too short to enable him to encroach upon the 
 people s liberties. But that the Convention could not pos 
 sibly enumerate or even foresee the powers which would in 
 the future need to be in the hands of both President and 
 Congress was freely admitted and the form of the Constitu 
 tion was in large measure due to the decision, early reached, 
 
176 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 to sketch only the broad outlines of the government and its 
 powers, and permit executive, legislature, and judiciary to 
 read into its broad clauses the authority which the exigencies 
 of State might render imperative. "The vagueness of the 
 terms," said Mr. Gorham, " constitutes the propriety of 
 them. We are now establishing general principles, to be ex 
 tended hereafter into details which will be precise and ex 
 plicit." 8 The Convention contented itself, therefore, with 
 enumerating the obviously necessary things which the Presi 
 dent and Congress must do, and in broad terms conferred 
 upon them respectively the executive and legislative power. 
 It is this aspect of the Constitution, as its framers foresaw, 
 which has made it possible for us to live under it for a 
 century and a quarter with so little radical change. It is 
 at present the oldest written fundamental law in the world. 
 The framers were, however, alive to the fact that such 
 great powers, so vaguely stated, must be controlled. They 
 adopted the doctrine of the separation of powers, so highly 
 praised by Montesquieu, as the basis of the relations of 
 the departments with each other. "It has been agreed on 
 all hands," said Mason, "that an efficient Government is 
 necessary : that to render it such, it ought to have the faculty 
 of self-defense ; that to render its different branches effectual, 
 each of them ought to have the same power of self-defense. 9 
 To fetter the three departments more than this would be to 
 sacrifice unduly the efficiency of administration, they thought. 
 A further safeguard they found in the fact that the prob 
 lems most vital in the daily life of the community were both 
 explicitly and implicitly left in the hands of the States or 
 the local town or county governments: there would not be 
 many things which the Federal government could do which 
 could much interfere with or directly injure the private citi 
 zen. The different conditions in various parts of the country 
 which needed to be met in widely divergent ways made the 
 division of the country into States very fortunate, and they 
 
 s Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 366. 
 *Ibid., I, 235. 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 177 
 
 were anxious not to interfere with what they considered so 
 happy a circumstance. In addition, the population of about 
 four million souls was still very much scattered over the 
 Atlantic seaboard in little groups separated still by the 
 wilderness at more or less frequent intervals. A few people 
 in Maine, a few in New Hampshire, and a pretty thoroughly 
 settled district in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecti 
 cut, then a considerable fringe of settlements along the Hud 
 son and Mohawk, and along the Delaware, around Chesa 
 peake Bay and along its rivers, then a gap till the North 
 Carolina settlements came into view, then another gap until 
 South Carolina and its rice and cotton fields came above 
 the horizon to the south-bound traveler. The largest town 
 of the infant country was Philadelphia with some 75,000 
 souls. New York in 1776 possessed some 2500 buildings, and 
 they pastured cows along lower Broadway. The chief prob 
 lems were local, not national, and must be dealt with by the 
 States, not by the Federal government. "Were not this 
 great country already divided into States," wrote Jefferson, 
 "that division must be made, that each might do for itself 
 what concerns itself directly and what it can so much better 
 do than a distant authority. . . . Were we directed from 
 Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon 
 want bread." 10 These same facts, coupled with the rival 
 ries already conspicuous between the States, would prevent 
 the Federal government from encroaching upon them and, 
 what was better, prevent them from encroaching upon the 
 legitimate powers of the Federal government. 
 
 How to put power into the hands of so many people with 
 out allowing them to abuse it and destroy the national gov 
 ernment and themselves too, seemed to the members of the 
 Convention their greatest problem. That the people were 
 honest and capable of deciding the great issues of State wisely 
 after due deliberation, few doubted. In the long run, they 
 would do right, but the problem of securing sufficient time 
 for them to deliberate and make up their minds was the 
 
 10 Memoir, I, 70. London, 1829, 
 
178 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 difficult issue. The Convention finally concluded that one 
 duty of the Federal government would be to stand between 
 the people and the consummation of their first passionate 
 desire. The Constitution should be a restraining document, 
 which should create an engine capable of preventing the peo 
 ple from having their way for a number of years. Far from 
 its being intended that the government should facilitate the 
 expression of the popular will, it was in fact shaped so as to 
 make difficult the fulfilment of popular desire. "Why has 
 government been instituted at all?" asked Hamilton in the 
 famous fifteenth paper of the Federalist. " Because the pas 
 sions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and 
 justice without constraint." To some extent this determi 
 nation to restrain the people caused the Convention to omit 
 mention of explicit powers as granted Congress, which it 
 seemed dangerous to put firmly in the people s hands. As 
 Chief Justice Marshall later phrased it, "That power might 
 be abused was deemed a conclusive reason why it should not 
 be conferred." 
 
 But the framers were by no means satisfied with omission. 
 To give the Senate a check on both House and President, 
 they made the term of senators six years, and made it a 
 permanent body of men, by allowing two-thirds to hold over 
 at each election and therefore making it impossible for the 
 legislatures to choose more than a third of the Senate at 
 any one time to carry out some particular wish of the peo 
 ple. The House of Kepresentatives which the people elected 
 was given a term of only two years, partly to render it more 
 responsive to the people, partly to allow the President, who 
 sat for four years and the Senate, two-thirds of which would 
 still be sitting, to control it more easily. If all three agreed 
 upon some measure, it would be clear that the nation wanted 
 it and ought to have its way. But if any considerable op 
 position existed in the country, enough of it would be re 
 flected in Congress to prevent agreement. When all three 
 did not agree, there was to be no method legally provided 
 for putting pressure upon the dissenters. Whether Presi- 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 179 
 
 dent or Senate opposed, the highest duty of that branch 
 to the people consisted in maintaining its firm front until 
 a new election could be held and the people could once more 
 indicate their desires. In four years at the most, the Presi 
 dent and Senate could be brought into agreement with the 
 House of Eepresentatives, and if the people were decided 
 enough in their opinion to maintain it for four years, nothing 
 further could or ought to be done to prevent them from 
 having their way. To the end that this arrangement should 
 not cripple the efficiency of the Federal government, how 
 ever, the executive power was placed unreservedly in the 
 President s hands: the existing law should be enforced 
 promptly and efficiently in any case; new laws should be 
 enacted, new policies adopted, only after due deliberation. 
 The routine administration was made easy; the adoption of 
 new legislation was consciously made as difficult as possible. 
 After four months of anxious debate, from May to Sep 
 tember 1787, the Convention submitted its work to the coun 
 try, requesting that the document should be ratified by con 
 ventions or by popular vote in each State, and that when 
 nine States had accepted it, it should go into operation as 
 binding upon those who ratified it. A long and bitter cam 
 paign was fought in State after State. The old " Patriot 
 party" of 1775 led by Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Me- 
 lancthon Smith of New York, and George Mason of Virginia 
 felt that the Constitution sacrificed all that the Revolution 
 had been fought to win. 11 "Who authorized them to speak 
 the language of We the People, instead of We the States?" 
 cried Henry. 12 "I stumble at the threshold," declared Sam 
 uel Adams, "I meet with a national government instead of 
 a federal union of sovereign States. 13 The very strong 
 
 11 The Constitution was the "triumph of the legitimate successors of 
 the Anti-Revolutionary party of 1775." Judge Chamberlain in Papers 
 of the American Historical Association, III, No. 1. 
 
 12 Speech in the Virginia Convention. Elliott, Delates, III, 22, 29, 
 44, 521-522. "Even from that illustrious man who saved us by his 
 valor, I would have a reason for his conduct." 
 
 is Samuel Adams to R. H. Lee. Lee s Life of R. H. Lee, II, 130. 
 
180 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 objection was also raised that the Convention had exceeded 
 its authority. It had been directed to amend the Articles of 
 Confederation and had proposed a wholly new scheme of 
 government. Nor were men slow to remark that 73 members 
 had been elected, of whom nearly a third never attended 
 and of whom scarcely more than half (39) signed the final 
 document. The boasted unanimity was absent. Detailed ob 
 jections of all kinds appeared. In Massachusetts, New York, 
 and Virginia the fight was particularly fierce. A series of 
 essays called the Federalist written by Hamilton, Madison, 
 and Jay, published in New York but widely read throughout 
 the country, were instrumental in convincing the people of 
 the expediency of the new constitution, which was finally 
 adopted by eleven States in the fall of 1788. 
 
 The first elections, held in January 1789, caused a succession 
 of disagreements in various States, which for a time threat 
 ened to prevent the choice of a Congress or of presidential 
 electors in time to meet on March 4, the date when the old 
 Congress of the Confederation was formally to dissolve. The 
 presidential electors, however, finally did meet; the news 
 quickly spread that George Washington and John Adams 
 had been elected President and Vice-President respectively; 
 but when March 4 dawned, there was no President-elect in 
 New York to be inaugurated, because the votes had not been 
 officially counted and the President not yet officially elected. 
 Furthermore, there were not enough members of either the 
 House or the Senate in the city to form a quorum to count 
 the votes; the Assembly Hall was still in the carpenters 
 hands; and Washington and Adams both declined to leave 
 home until they should be officially assured of their election. 
 It is most difficult for us to understand to-day the anxiety 
 and suspense of those weeks in March and April 1789, when, 
 with the old government legally dead, it was as yet more 
 than doubtful whether the new could be even formally put in 
 power. After weeks of alarm and speculation, a bare quorum 
 in both houses of Congress finally assembled on April 6, 
 more than a month after the date set for the inauguration 
 
THE CONSTITUTION 181 
 
 of the new President; the votes were counted; and a fort 
 night later, on April 30, Washington was inaugurated. Few 
 people remember now that in 1789 it was doubtful for 
 nearly two months whether men could be got together to fill 
 enough of the formal posts created by the new Constitution 
 to make it possible to begin the task of creating a new ad 
 ministration. As the Anti-Federalists derisively declared, the 
 old man" (Franklin) and "the two boys" (Madison and 
 Hamilton) were all wrong: the old roof had leaked but the 
 new one was not even on the building. "If the system can 
 be put in operation without touching much the pockets of 
 the people," wrote Washington to Jefferson, "perhaps it 
 may be done; but, in my judgment, infinite circumspection 
 and prudence are yet necessary in the experiment. 14 
 
 Fisher Ames has left us a touching picture of Washington 
 at this time. Just after the inauguration, "I was present 
 in the pew (at church) with the President and must assure 
 you that, after making all deductions for the delusion of 
 one s fancy in regard to characters, I still think of him with 
 more veneration than for any other person. Time has made 
 havoc upon his face. That and other circumstances not to be 
 reasoned about, conspire to keep up the awe which I brought 
 with me. He addressed the two Houses in the Senate Cham 
 ber; it was a very touching scene and quite of a solemn 
 kind. His aspect grave almost to sadness; his modesty, ac 
 tually shaking; his voice deep, a little tremulous, and so low 
 as to call for close attention; added to the series of objects 
 presented to the mind and overwhelming it, produced emo 
 tions of the most affecting kind upon the members." In 
 the inaugural address Washington had said: "The preser 
 vation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the 
 republican model of government, are justly considered as 
 deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment in 
 trusted to the hands of the American people." Such were 
 the hopes and aspirations, such the sense of responsibility, 
 with which the fathers began work under the Constitution. 
 
 i* Washington to Jefferson, August 31, 1788. Writings of Washing 
 ton. Sparks, IX, 426-7. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINIS 
 TRATION 
 
 WERE it not for our after-knowledge and the realization that 
 the difficulties to be remedied were for the most part super 
 ficial and curable, the immediate success of the new govern 
 ment would be as astonishing to us as it was gratifying to 
 its contemporaries. But the Constitution was not, as the 
 vast majority assumed, the cause. The secret lay in the 
 changed economic conditions, in the disappearance of the com 
 mercial stringency by the operation of economic factors on 
 which governments and constitutions had no influence. Of 
 this Washington was well aware. "It was indeed next to a 
 miracle," he wrote in 1790, "that there should have been 
 so much unanimity in points of such importance among such 
 a number of citizens, so widely scattered, and so different 
 in their habits in many respects, as the Americans were. Nor 
 are the growing unanimity and increasing good-will of the 
 citizens to the government less remarkable than favorable 
 circumstances. . . . Perhaps a number of accidental circum 
 stances have concurred with the real effects of the government 
 to make the people uncommonly well pleased with their situ 
 ation and prospects." 1 
 
 Chief among these, he placed the natural reaction from a 
 long period of business depression and confusion, and the 
 result of the frugality and economy which hard times inevi 
 tably inculcate. "I expect that many blessings will be at 
 tributed to our new government which are now taking their 
 rise from the industry and frugality into the practice of 
 which the people have been forced from necessity. I really 
 
 i Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 459. 
 
 182 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 183 
 
 believe that there never was so much labor and economy to 
 be found before in the country as at the present moment. . . . 
 All these blessings (for all these blessings will come) will be 
 referred to the fostering influence of the new government. 
 Whereas many causes will have conspired to produce them." 2 
 
 Among the "many causes" clearly belongs the very great 
 development of the country during the previous generation, 
 the doubling of the population, the vast increase in the 
 number of acres under cultivation, in the number of ships 
 being built, in the volume of produce seeking a market. A 
 French traveler declared that "on the whole, it is difficult 
 to conceive the state of increase and the prosperity of this 
 country after so long and calamitous a war." Then, at the 
 very moment when America had more to sell than ever be 
 fore, a new market for grain, naval stores, and all sorts of 
 staple crops was opened in Europe by the outbreak of the 
 French Revolution and the resulting wars. For the first 
 time in history, the Atlantic coast was able to export directly 
 to Europe on advantageous terms. Moreover, the gener 
 ality of the European war after 1793 deprived most of the 
 continental shipping of its neutral status, exposed it to 
 capture and the cargoes to confiscation, and thus left the 
 American merchant marine the only considerable neutral fleet 
 on the ocean. The really extraordinary impulse to trade and 
 navigation from these sources did not manifest itself clearly 
 in 1789, but followed closely enough upon the inauguration 
 of the new government to cause the people, as Washington 
 had predicted, to ascribe the resulting prosperity to its oper 
 ations. Economic forces thus gave the new government time 
 to formulate its plans and to establish the administration on 
 a permanent basis without being so much hampered by the 
 exaggerated expectations of the people and the demand for 
 immediate results as Washington and Hamilton had antici 
 pated would be the case. Moreover, as Hamilton very 
 clearly saw, the great development during and since the Revo 
 lution proved the country unquestionably solvent and un- 
 
 2 Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 279. 
 
184 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 doubtedly very prosperous. It demonstrated conclusively 
 that the evils were more apparent than real, superficial rather 
 than fundamental, and of a nature which administrative 
 regulations could easily obviate, if only public confidence 
 could be long enough secured to give them the thorough, 
 honest trial which would be indispensable to final success. 
 If his plans for the opening of trade channels, for the pro 
 vision of a medium of exchange, and for the funding of the 
 debt could be actually accepted, and better foreign relations 
 could be established by diplomacy, the moneyed and prop 
 ertied class would be firmly bound to the new government 
 by the solid chain of interest and the stability of the new 
 regime therefore assured. While the immediate success of 
 the new administration was clearly due to fortuitous eco 
 nomic factors, which could neither have been foreseen nor 
 controlled, its permanent success was due to the measures of 
 Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 The first session of Congress was mainly occupied with 
 the establishment of the skeleton of a central administration, 
 the creation of four departments, state, treasury, war, and 
 judiciary; and with such questions as salaries, territorial 
 government, Indians, post-offices, federal courts. The second 
 session, in 1790, was devoted to the discussion and adoption 
 of Hamilton s great measures for the permanent solution of 
 those vital problems which had caused the adoption of the 
 Constitution. Of these unquestionably the most important 
 was the refunding of the entire debt of the Revolutionary 
 governments, state and central. Hamilton declared in favor 
 of paying the entire indebtedness of every sort and variety 
 at par: the certificates constituted a valid legal claim on 
 the new government for the sums mentioned in them; if 
 they were not valid for the whole sum, he did not believe 
 them legally valid at all. It was imperative to establish the 
 credit of the new government at once and enable it to borrow 
 money to meet the probable crises of the future. It was 
 no less imperative to tie to the government the moneyed 
 men and the creditor class by giving them a personal in- 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 185 
 
 terest in its continuance and in the future of the Federalist 
 party. Refunding had a political as well as a financial 
 purpose. Hamilton s study of English politics had convinced 
 him that the men of property exerted more political influ 
 ence than any other class and that the union of financial 
 and commercial interests in the new Federalist party would 
 go far to produce that consensus of opinion and union of 
 political sentiment which the new government so obviously 
 needed. If the citizens who held the debts of the govern 
 ment were promised payment at par of debts which they had 
 expected would never be paid at all, there would be little 
 doubt of the ability of the new government to maintain 
 itself. 
 
 To the objections of the Anti-Federalists and opponents 
 of assumption, Hamilton returned convincing answers. Al 
 though the debt looked large, it was not too large to be 
 paid. Nor was its history to be taken into account; it was 
 a legal obligation and should be treated accordingly. Any 
 attempt to compromise by payment on the basis of a scale 
 graduated to the previous market values of the securities 
 would be fatal to the prime object the refunding was meant 
 to accomplish, the establishment of the government s credit 
 both at home and abroad. To many this attitude seemed 
 foolhardy and unnecessary. Was it not commonly acknowl 
 edged that the bonds and certificates had depreciated in value 
 to almost nothing, and had often been originally issued at 
 a rate far below par? The government would thus pay 
 even more than the original holder had loaned. Was it not 
 even truer that all the certificates had changed hands, so that 
 the original holder would not get the profit Hamilton pro 
 posed to allow, while a man not at all entitled to the gratitude 
 of America would calmly pocket the difference between the 
 small sum he had paid and the value of the certificates at 
 par? This argument was strengthened by the knowledge 
 that speculators had been busy for some months buying up 
 certificates in the country districts, imposing on the igno 
 rance and credulity of such original holders as still retained 
 
186 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 their evidences of indebtedness. The trade in securities in 
 the larger cities was brisk and prices went up and down 
 with rapidity according to the news from Congress. Hamil 
 ton was rewarding speculation and encouraging gambling, 
 vociferated his opponents. 
 
 The really bitter debates took place over the assumption 
 of the States * debts. Would the country be able to bear 
 the ruinous taxation which would be necessary to pay the 
 interest? Was account to be taken of what had already 
 /been paid by the States? Some had paid much; others had 
 paid a little; most had paid nothing. Were the honest then 
 to be taxed for the payment of all the debts of the dishonest, 
 when the share paid by the latter of the honest States debts 
 would be proportionately smaller? Again, was it wise to as 
 sume a burden whose size no one knew? There were indeed 
 no reliable figures to show what the outstanding indebtedness 
 of the States was and it seemed almost impossible to draw a 
 wholly accurate line between the revolutionary and pre- 
 revolutionary debts. Several States were heavily involved 
 as a result of paper-money crazes and land-bank schemes dur 
 ing the colonial period, and these debts the other States were 
 vehemently opposed to assuming. The debates were acrimo 
 nious in the extreme : taunts over the relative suffering during 
 the war; threats of secession if the debt was not assumed, 
 threats to leave the union if it was, were hurled back and 
 forth with vehemence. A bargain was finally struck at a 
 little dinner-party given by Jefferson whereby the capitol was 
 located at Washington as the Anti-Federalist forces and the 
 Southern States wished and the debt was assumed as the Fed 
 eralists and the Northern States desired. 
 
 The debt of the United States totaled, with the arrears of 
 interest, about fifty-four millions of dollars. Of this, about 
 twelve millions, principal and interest, was owed abroad and 
 was paid at once in full by the proceeds of a new loan. The 
 domestic debt of forty-two millions was to be funded by the 
 exchange of the old certificates at face value for the new 
 bonds at par. No one was to be compelled to -make the ex- 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 187 
 
 change, but Hamilton believed the terms at which the new 
 bonds were offered were sufficiently advantageous to result 
 in the voluntary exchange of the bulk of the debt, and that 
 the government would be able to buy up the rest in the 
 market. Each creditor received a certificate equal to two- X 
 thirds of his indebtedness which bore interest at six per cent 
 at once, and a certificate for the remaining third bearing in 
 terest at six per cent after 1800. The device reduced the 
 interest paid on the whole debt to four per cent, but con 
 cealed the fact from the public. New bonds to the extent of 
 twenty-one and one-half millions were to be exchanged for 
 the States indebtedness at par, but only about eighteen mil 
 lions were ever applied for. To these creditors were given 
 three certificates, one calling for interest at six per cent at 
 once, and one for interest at three per cent at once, and a 
 third for interest at six per cent after 1800. By these de 
 vices the total debt was refunded, paid off, or bought up, and 
 the annual interest charge reduced from nearly five millions 
 to something over two. The national revenue and the west 
 ern lands were pledged for payment of principal and in 
 terest. 
 
 The refunding was a great success. Within three years, the 
 bulk of the domestic debt had been converted; the interest 
 payments which had seemed so huge in 1790 were easily met 
 by the revenue from the customs; and the government was 
 even able to show a small surplus six years out of the first 
 ten, with one year in which expenses and receipts exactly bal 
 anced. Unquestionably, the Federal government was solvent 
 and its credit has never since been questioned. By 1835, 
 the whole national debt had been paid off. And all had been 
 accomplished smoothly, quietly, and with practically no ob 
 jection on the part of the people. The necessity of not 
 burdening the people with taxes at the first was clearly ap 
 preciated by Washington and Hamilton. During the colonial 
 period and the Revolution, the people had paid few or no 
 taxes except to their own local town or county government; 
 the State governments had needed little money. Hamilton 
 
188 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 insisted that the people must never see a United States tax- 
 collector; that they must pay indirectly by customs and ex 
 cise, and would then never realize what the amount was. 
 This tradition has been on the whole followed ever since with 
 unquestioned success. 
 
 The army was paid off in full either in money, in bonds, 
 or in grants of western land. Measures for the complete ful 
 filment of the terms of the Treaty of Peace were undertaken. 
 A national revenue was at once created by the imposition of a 
 tariff on imports. The adoption of the Constitution and the 
 establishment of the new administration had abolished at once 
 the State tariffs on exports and imports, had made discrimi 
 nating duties favorable or hostile to any locality impossible, 
 had given all the free use of the rivers and roads, and had 
 assured the citizens of every State the same civil and com 
 mercial privileges in every State as in their own. This free 
 dom of intercourse and the abolition of restrictions went far 
 to remove the artificial obstacles in the way of the growth of 
 trade and of the complete rehabilitation of the credit of State 
 and Federal government. 
 
 Some paper or token money had yet to be made, which 
 would pass currently in America but not in Europe, possess 
 a standard value, and be kept in circulation. A sufficiently 
 large amount in notes must be issued to furnish the neces 
 sary medium for private and government business, without 
 running the risk of depreciation on the one hand because of 
 the size of the issue, or of the undue scarcity on the other 
 hand which would be certain to result, if the merchants or 
 the government held any considerable quantity of it for even 
 a few weeks. As at the present day, money "flowed" from 
 the coast cities to the interior to move the crops and usually 
 came back again in exchange for manufactured goods, leav 
 ing the inland districts pretty well denuded of currency for 
 local business or for government taxes until the next year. 
 Nor must the government collect the money in payment of 
 taxes and custom-dues unless it could immediately return 
 it to circulation. 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 189 
 
 Hamilton s solution was the first Bank of the United States, 
 chartered finally by Congress after a bitter fight over the con 
 stitutionality of the measure, with a capital of ten millions, 
 and a monopoly for twenty years. A mint was established at 
 the same time to standardize the coinage and emit such specie 
 as could be obtained, but the real currency was to be the notes 
 of the Bank, which the latter was to be allowed to issue to an 
 amount not exceeding its capital, and which were to be legal 
 tender for most debts due the government and for all private 
 business. Branches were to be established in convenient 
 cities to enable the Bank to become the government agent in 
 different parts of the country. The stock was subscribed in a 
 hurry and was at once regarded as a good investment. Ac 
 cording to the provisions of the law, one-fifth of the capital 
 stock, two millions, was subscribed by the government in its 
 own six per cent bonds ; one-fifth, two millions, was paid in by 
 the public in specie; and the remaining six millions by the 
 public in United States six per cent bonds. The public and 
 the government, of course, hoped that the dividends on the 
 stock would exceed the six per cent interest which the Bank 
 itself got from the government bonds it received in exchange 
 for stock ; the Bank expected by the loan of the two millions 
 in specie plus the six per cent interest on the eight millions 
 of bonds to make a good profit and to be enabled to declare 
 dividends. Such indeed was the result. The public duly 
 paid in the two millions in specie, which became of course an 
 asset of the Bank. The latter promptly loaned the money to 
 the government at a fair interest and the government too 
 had an ample account from which to meet its first bills. The 
 government then deposited the two millions with the Bank as 
 the government s agent and the Bank also had the specie to 
 use. The Bank then loaned it out to the public, who returned 
 it to the Bank with interest or paid it to the government for 
 taxes. Of course, most of the specie never left the Bank s 
 vaults, and the transactions were really performed by means 
 of notes, checks, or entries on the books of the Bank, but 
 the knowledge that the specie was there gave the note issue 
 
190 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 stability and this careful utilization of the same small stock 
 of specie by the government, the Bank, and the public, kept 
 it in constant circulation, prevented hoarding, and thus en 
 abled it to meet the country s needs. The existence of the 
 branches and the fact that the Bank was the government s 
 agent, permitted the transaction of the business of the distant 
 sections of the country without the actual transfer of specie 
 and notes from one locality to another and thus left most parts 
 of the country constantly supplied with an adequate amount 
 of currency. By means of the Bank, the government had 
 induced the public to finance the central government during 
 the first years when it must otherwise have borrowed di 
 rectly sufficient money to meet its pressing needs. The suc 
 cess of the expedient made money for the Bank, the govern 
 ment, and the public, and allowed the government to control 
 the currency and prevent stringency or depreciation far bet 
 ter than it could have through the Treasury itself. 
 
 One thing more remained to be accomplished before the 
 permanent success of the central government could be as 
 sured, the vast majority of the people must be brought to 
 believe in its expediency and desirability. Washington had 
 fought the Eevolution; Franklin had financed it; Madison 
 and Wilson had framed the Constitution ; Hamilton had put it 
 into operation. It remained for Thomas Jefferson to con 
 vince the great majority of the people of its excellence and to 
 reconcile them to the existence of a central government which 
 was something more than a name. 
 
 The Constitution, as John Quincy Adams later truthfully 
 said, had been " extorted by grinding necessity from a re 
 luctant people." Nothing short of the vivid fear of anarchy 
 and a possible resort to kingship reconciled many of the 
 leaders to the new government, and it may be safely claimed 
 that the people as a whole understood the subtle legal and 
 constitutional points involved as little as they usually have 
 comprehended similar facts at other epochs of history. After 
 we strip away from the Revolution the preconception built 
 around it by the struggles of the Civil War, we begin to 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 191 
 
 realize that it was an anti-national movement, in the sense 
 in which we now use those words. It was a solid protest by 
 thirteen States against the encroachment of England upon 
 their individual sovereignty. It was fought to prevent the 
 institution of a central administration; its success caused the 
 institution of the league of amity between the several States 
 known as the Confederation, whose chief point was the in 
 alienable and imperishable sovereignty of each State. With 
 the Constitution, on the other hand, the people had adopted 
 nationalism as we now conceive of it, the principle of a union 
 between individuals, which made the people as a nation su 
 perior to all the States and the central government superior 
 to any State in its obligation upon the individual. We have 
 too long discussed sovereignty and States rights with rela 
 tion to a definite document and have laid too little stress upon 
 the fact that the full-blown doctrine of States rights is anti- 
 national, because it denies the existence, the desirability, and 
 the expediency of a truly national government. 3 If there was 
 no nation in existence in 1776 and in 1783, if the people were 
 unswervingly loyal to the old colonial notion of States sov 
 ereignty until the eve of the adoption of the Constitution, 
 it will be apparent that the adoption of that document did 
 not disabuse them at once of the notions they had so long 
 cherished nor by some occult operation deprive them of their 
 preference for local authority. Whatever the legal effect of 
 the preamble of the Constitution was, whatever the leaders 
 of both Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties conceded it 
 to be, the people as a whole little appreciated the full signifi 
 cance of its adoption and assumed that they had done little 
 
 3 "I am sure," said Patrick Henry, opposing the Constitution in the 
 Virginia Convention, "they [the framers] were fully impressed with 
 the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, instead of a 
 confederation. That this [the Constitution] is a consolidated govern 
 ment is demonstrably clear; and the danger of such a government is, 
 to my mind, very striking. . . . States are the characteristics and the 
 soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this com 
 pact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the 
 people of all the States." Elliott s Debates, III, 21, 22. As a national 
 government, Henry opposed it. 
 
192 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 more than remodel the old Congress and permit it to regulate 
 trade, impose taxes, and pay off the debt. 
 
 Miracles had been promised and expected; on the whole 
 miracles happened; but the most marvelous of things become 
 dulled after a thorough acquaintance. Soon the vast majority 
 forgot how much the new Federal government had accom 
 plished, began to clamor for what it could not do, and became 
 dissatisfied. From the Revolution the majority had inherited 
 a hatred of England and an admiration for France, which 
 was much heightened by the outbreak in the latter country of 
 the Revolution and by the proclamation of democratic ideas, 
 which the Americans readily assumed were identical with 
 their own. Because the English promptly disavowed the 
 principles of the French Revolution, and because the Federal 
 ists wished to wait for the institution of firm government in 
 France before recognizing the new Republic, the Anti-Federal 
 ists concluded that the administration was English, * monarch 
 ical, and dominated by l a corrupt Treasury Squadron. 
 
 The attempt to live under the new Constitution had revealed 
 the need of definition, and the discretion and latitude of in 
 terpretation allowed Congress and the President alarmed the 
 Anti-Federalists ; the excise and other new taxes they thought 
 obnoxious ; the prompt suppression of the Whisky Rebellion in 
 western Pennsylvania augured a strength in the new govern 
 ment dangerous to the sovereignty of the individual States. 
 Jay s proposed treaty with England in 1794 furnished the 
 occasion for the outbreak of as virulent an attack upon the 
 administration and its motives as has been seen in this country. 
 All things considered, the terms he secured from England 
 were favorable ; they were, however, so far below the expecta 
 tions of the people that the outcry was immediate : the Feder 
 alists had sacrificed America to the British interest. In fact, 
 the prompt success of the Federalist measures plus the unex 
 pected changes in the economic situation had suddenly re 
 moved the " grinding necessity" which had extorted the Con 
 stitution from the reluctant majority. 4 The panic was over 
 
 * "The great number of new and elegant buildings which have been 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 193 
 
 and the more timid as well as the more venturesome began 
 to wonder whether things had not gone far enough. 
 
 The Anti-English, Anti-Federalist, anti-centralization move 
 ment found its leader in Thomas Jefferson, who really repre 
 sented the majority whom Hamilton was seeking to rule. His 
 early experience in Virginian politics and long residence on 
 the frontier had brought him into contact with the sort of 
 citizens who formed the majority in America; his long resi 
 dence in France as ambassador had familiarized him with 
 Rousseau s ideas of theoretical democracy and with their en 
 thusiastic reception abroad. Soon after his return to America 
 and his entrance into the Cabinet, he became acutely conscious 
 of the antagonism between his notions of right and expediency 
 and those of Washington and Hamilton, and, as well, ap 
 preciated the all-important fact that the latter were at 
 variance with the majority of the people. He soon resigned 
 from the Cabinet and went into open opposition. He sensed 
 his own agreement with the people and began consciously to 
 organize the Anti-Federalists and to prepare the way for the 
 overthrow of the Federalists at the coming presidential elec 
 tions. Through newspapers which he subsidized, through 
 public meetings, private letters, and all other available 
 methods, he carried on a systematic campaign to discredit the 
 Federalist leaders and their policies in the eyes of the people. 
 The arrival of the envoy of the new French Republic, Citizen 
 Genet, gave Jefferson an admirable opportunity, and he con 
 trived to raise a good many other issues which put the Federal- 
 erected in this Town [Boston], within the last ten years, strike the eye 
 with astonishment, and prove the rapid manner in which these people 
 have been acquiring wealth. The revolutionary situation of Europe, 
 has made them the most exclusive [extensive] Carriers of the Powers 
 at War with Great Britain their extensive Fisheries and Lumber 
 Trade, with a great surplus of Provisions and other staple commodities 
 for exportation, which they have been permitted, almost without re 
 straint, to carry to Great Britain and her Islands, have filled them 
 with that Wealth the operative effects of which are so visible in every 
 direction, that they cannot fail to strike the eye of even a superficial 
 observer." John Howe to Provost, May 5, 1808. American Historical 
 Review, XVII, 78-9. Howe was sent by the Lieutenant Governor of 
 Halifax to view and describe conditions in the United States. 
 
194 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 1st administration apparently in the wrong and so rendered it 
 unpopular. 
 
 Even had the Federalists been supported at the first 
 by a clear majority of the people, and even if their 
 majority in the first Congresses and their victory in the first 
 presidential elections had not been partially due to a 
 disposition to give the men who had secured the adoption of 
 the Constitution a fair chance to put it into operation, Jef 
 ferson would have had little difficulty in defeating them 
 eventually, because they soon disagreed with each other over 
 vital policies. Hamilton, with all his brilliance and ability, 
 had not the tact needed to handle men who disagreed with 
 him; the difficulties were enhanced by the attitude of Jef 
 ferson and his subsidized press; and Hamilton was compelled 
 to resign from the Cabinet and direct the government s busi 
 ness from outside. While Washington remained President, 
 this was not difficult, but the inauguration of Adams at once 
 made trouble, for Adams personally distrusted Hamilton and 
 was angry at finding his own Cabinet officers seeking counsel 
 from Hamilton which he felt they should have asked of him. 
 The rift in the Federalist party grew greater and greater ; the 
 rivalry for the leadership of its parts began to be keen; Jef 
 ferson had now perfected his organization and drew first the 
 people and then the leaders over to his side. 
 
 The presidential election of 1800 was even unnecessarily de 
 cisive: the Federalist support simply disappeared. John 
 Adams in a rage appointed as many officers as he could be 
 fore the third of March 1801, made John Marshall Chief 
 Justice of the Supreme Court, and left Washington in high 
 dudgeon. From the victory flowed surprising results, but 
 none more astonishing than the complacency with which the 
 Anti-Federalists began to employ the powers which they had 
 so often denounced. Once in office, they found that the Con 
 stitution could be as easily interpreted to perform what they 
 thought right as it could to do what they thought wrong. 
 Jefferson, too, furnished a rule of interpretation which gave 
 general satisfaction, though its illustrious framer did not in- 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION 195 
 
 variably observe it. The Federal government should be "the 
 American department of foreign affairs"; the strictest pos 
 sible construction should be placed upon the broad phrases of 
 the Constitution; the Federal government should do only 
 what was absolutely necessary, never what seemed merely de 
 sirable; all else should be left to the States. On the whole, 
 declared Jefferson, the less government the better. With the 
 Constitution, thus interpreted, the vast majority were thor 
 oughly well suited, and in general the talk about the wicked 
 ness and undesirability of central government disappeared. 
 Jefferson had performed the very great service of reconciling 
 the people to their own Constitution, of fostering that gen 
 eral consensus of opinion that the central government was a 
 good thing and that its form and policy were about right, 
 without which in the long run no government can exist. He 
 did it by interpreting the document in the light of the peo 
 ple s ideas instead of by the notions of its framers. 
 
XV 
 
 THE WAR OF 1812 
 
 ONE great difficulty we meet in studying the long period be- 
 between the adoption of the Constitution and the outbreak of 
 the Civil War in 1861 lies in the necessity of remembering 
 that the colonial issues were not completely settled in 1789 
 and did not then give way to entirely new issues around which 
 subsequent events group themselves. The unity of American 
 history is found rather in the identity of issues throughout 
 our growth and development. The Revolution, the Constitu 
 tion, and the victory of the Anti-Federalists had not definitely 
 settled anything more than the two cardinal but none the less 
 elementary facts, that England was not to interfere with our 
 internal relations, and that a central government of some 
 strength ought to be maintained. Still pressing for solution 
 were the really fundamental difficulties, our commercial re 
 lations with European nations and with their colonies, an 
 economic difficulty of the first magnitude which the Revolu 
 tion had only intensified; the relations of the States to each 
 other and to the central government, the national issue; the 
 powers of the central government, what sort of a central gov 
 ernment did we want, the constitutional issue. 
 
 The Revolution had declared us politically independent of 
 Europe, and the men of 1776 had apparently supposed that 
 the winning of the war would free us from all the disagree 
 able commercial chains which bound us so closely to England 
 and to her West India colonies. The Confederation had been 
 the anti-national solution of the relations of the States to 
 each other and had been put into effect by the radical party 
 which had won the Revolution. Out of the economic crisis 
 and the failure of the radicals to cope with it had grown the 
 
 196 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 197 
 
 union of the conservative and propertied elements which had 
 made possible the formulation and adoption in the Consti 
 tution of a distinctly national solution of the struggle between 
 the States. Yet it was apparent, before the Constitution was 
 adopted, that the national solution by no means satisfied every 
 one and was eminently distasteful to a majority which grew 
 in size and vehemence every year. The War of 1812 was the 
 culmination of a period of unrest and dissatisfaction which 
 had its real beginnings in the Anti-Federalist approval of the 
 Whisky Rebellion and their opposition to the Jay Treaty. It 
 was, like the Revolution, a struggle between forces in America 
 as well as a war between England and America. Its causes 
 were the same fundamental difficulties which had led to the 
 Revolution and which were to lead to civil war in 1861: on 
 the one hand, the economic dependence of this country on 
 Europe, and, on the other, the fact that the States in America 
 were neither one nation nor different nations, had neither the 
 same interest nor different interests, were not independent 
 but interdependent. 
 
 To the apparent surprise of the Americans, the Treaty of 
 1783 excluded them promptly from the English West India 
 Islands and from the Newfoundland fisheries and gave them 
 the status of foreigners, with absolutely no rights at all under 
 English legislation and no privileges whatever under any 
 other nation s regulations. Temporary arrangements, highly 
 unsatisfactory to American merchants, had been made before 
 1789 with several countries, but the Federalist administra 
 tion had quickly seen that better terms were essential and 
 had sent Jay to England to negotiate a treaty. After weary 
 months of argument, he was able to secure some agreement in 
 regard to the evacuation of the western lands and other mat 
 ters not regarded in America as imperative, but upon the vital 
 matter of commercial relations and respect for our shipping 
 on the high seas, so little was conceded that the Senate in high 
 indignation rejected that clause of the treaty altogether. At 
 the same time, considering the almost universal American 
 hostility towards England, our failure to fulfil our earlier 
 
18 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 treaty obligations, the very general laudation of the French 
 Revolution and of what the English deemed anarchistic senti 
 ments, England was hardly to be blamed for displaying some 
 reluctance at making substantial and valuable concessions 
 which we were scarcely in a position to requite, and which 
 really amounted to nothing less than the voluntary restora 
 tion on England s part of that complete freedom of inter 
 course which the States had long enjoyed as colonies and had 
 so lately rejected with contumely as something quite worth 
 less. Were the English then to forget that the Revolution had 
 happened, to swallow our affronts and insults without resent 
 ment? 
 
 Moreover, the Jay Treaty episode was scarcely begun be 
 fore circumstances had entirely altered the situation and every 
 year made more inexpedient the resumption by England of 
 the earlier status quo, even had pride and a natural resent 
 ment against disloyal subjects not continued to influence the 
 English decisions. By 1800 the new facts were appallingly 
 clear. Since the outbreak of the French Revolution and more 
 especially since the beginning of the general European war in 
 1793, a market for American staple products had appeared in 
 Europe, and a demand for neutral ships to handle the carry 
 ing trade. Both had redounded to the benefit of the United 
 States, had caused our export trade to revive, had furnished 
 us with the much needed medium of exchange with Europe, 
 and had given an impetus to the growth of our merchant 
 marine which made it a factor on the sea to be reckoned with. 
 While the statistics are not perhaps very reliable, it seems 
 reasonably clear that within a decade after 1792 the tonnage 
 of American shipping increased five hundred per cent, from 
 two hundred thousand tons to one million tons. England 
 awoke to the existence of a new commercial rival whose oper 
 ations threatened to interfere more and more every year with 
 her monopoly of the carrying trade. Nor was it unnatural 
 for her to conclude that we were allies of France and there 
 fore pledged to her own destruction. We were making our 
 chief profit out of supplying her enemies with food and out 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 199 
 
 of carrying their trade in our neutral vessels from one point 
 to another under the very noses of her cruisers. Fuel was of 
 course added to the flames by the discovery that the old plan 
 to annex Canada, which had been so prominent among the 
 early movements of the Revolution, 1 was still alive and was 
 received with great favor in the West and North. In 1789 and 
 in 1804 something more than talk was on foot, though it was 
 not and is not clear how far the matter went. 2 Should the 
 English also supinely surrender Canada? 
 
 Accordingly, the English proceeded to treat us as they had 
 treated other commercial rivals and fought us with the self 
 same weapons which had been so efficacious against the 
 French, Dutch, and Spanish. They proclaimed at once the 
 right to search all vessels on the high seas for contraband 
 goods and refused as before to accept the doctrine that neutral 
 ships make neutral goods. Everything going to France was 
 contraband. In the West Indies and off Newfoundland the 
 British cruisers did their best to enforce strictly the now 
 doubly obnoxious provision of the old Navigation Acts and 
 were more successful than ever before. The treatment ac 
 corded American vessels in English ports and American 
 
 1 The attempts to obtain Canada during the Revolution are con 
 veniently summarized by J. H. Smith in Our Struggle for the Four 
 teenth Colony, New York, 1907. Franklin s letters and the Journal of 
 the Continental Congress contain pregnant and interesting information. 
 
 2 Interesting material on the situation just previous to the War of 
 1812 is to be found in the secret reports of John Howe, an Englishman 
 sent to the United States in 1808 to report upon conditions, popular 
 and official opinions and intentions, to the Lieutenant Governor of 
 Halifax, Sir George Provost. He made a very careful and thorough 
 investigation and reported very fully upon what he saw and heard. 
 "But, they say, we can take the British Provinces of Canada, Nova 
 Scotia, and New Brunswick; ... all the Military preparations in this 
 Country can only have references to the British Colonies. ... It is 
 amusing to hear them talk here of the extreme facility with which they 
 can possess themselves of the British Provinces." Howe to Provost, 
 from Washington, Nov. 27, 1808. "The Conquest of Canada they con 
 template as a matter perfectly easy; and whenever they speak of it 
 they build much on the disposition of the Canadians as friendly to 
 them. . . . Men of all parties think if a War should ensue that the 
 Conquest of these Colonies is certain. * Howe to Provost, May 19, 1809. 
 American Historical Review, XVII, 342-3; 354. 
 
200 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 sailors from the confiscated ships was captious and offensive. 
 In the Mississippi Valley, the English still held important 
 posts and incited revolts among the Indians. 
 
 But most obnoxious of all from the American point of view 
 was the so-called right to arrest English deserters wherever 
 they could be found and the defense of the operations of the 
 press-gang. The English notion had always been that a man 
 born in England would always be an English subject; they 
 had always declined to recognize any oaths or acts of his as 
 a valid release from his responsibility to England. To prove 
 a man of English birth or to have been an English citizen was 
 to prove he was still one. This notion of indefeasible al 
 legiance therefore denied the right of an Englishman to take 
 an oath of allegiance to the United States which would consti 
 tute a valid severance of his connections with England ; it was 
 tantamount to a refusal to recognize the citizenship of a very 
 large number of Americans in 1800, who had no intention 
 whatever of returning to England and felt nothing but hatred 
 for that country. Here was of course a subject on which com 
 promise was hardly possible : the right of the United States to 
 protect its citizens was clearly infringed by the refusal of 
 England to admit that large numbers of Americans were 
 citizens of the United States at all. 
 
 The necessity for action on the part of the United States 
 was particularly clear because of the operations of the Eng 
 lish press-gang. The British navy was chiefly manned by 
 conscripts and by men forced into the service by questionable 
 methods. The press-gang from a battleship would go ashore 
 in any town it happened to be near, whether in England or 
 elsewhere, and seize by main force the sturdy-looking men 
 it met, carry them off to the ship, and compel them to serve 
 as sailors. Poor pay, bad food, strict discipline, degrading 
 punishment, as well as the prospect of being killed in battle, 
 made the service highly distasteful to Englishmen and par 
 ticularly onerous to the unfortunates "pressed" into it. De 
 sertions were therefore common and it was certainly true that 
 many an American merchant-ship was manned by British de- 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 201 
 
 serters and that many and many an American citizen was a 
 deserter from the English navy, who sought to save himself 
 from the severe penalties for desertion by forswearing his al 
 legiance. To cope with the difficulty, the English cruisers 
 landed a press-gang in the various ports they called at and 
 seized on sight and without investigation every man they 
 thought looked like an English sailor. They also stopped 
 American merchantmen on the high seas or in American har 
 bors, lined up the crew, and selected those they thought were 
 British deserters. Had they not also availed themselves of the 
 opportunity to collect all likely-looking men without regard 
 to their previous history or origin, the American case would 
 still have been incontestable. There is no doubt that, by 1812, 
 many men born in America, who had never set foot in Eng 
 land, had been thus forced into the British service. Had the 
 English been willing to confine themselves to the merchant 
 marine, the situation would not have become so intolerable. 
 But the victories of Nelson made them even more arrogant 
 than before and caused the detention of United States war 
 ships from which American citizens were taken and compelled 
 to serve in the British navy. 3 A clearer insult to this country 
 could hardly be conceived than this refusal to recognize the 
 citizenship of the men enlisted in its official navy under the 
 United States flag. 
 
 The growing tensity of English relations only made more 
 apparent the divergence of opinion in the United States and 
 stimulated the local discord which had for a time been ended 
 by the success of the Federalist administrations. Scarcely 
 had the loss of American privileges in the West India Is- 
 
 3"! am informed, by a gentleman on whose information I think I 
 can rely," wrote Howe to Provost, "that when she [the famous frigate, 
 Constitution,] was paid off here [at New York] and her men discharged, 
 there was not twenty American sailors belonging to her, that her whole 
 crew with the exception of a few other foreigners, was entirely com 
 posed of British seamen." June 7, 1808. American Historical Review, 
 XVII, 86. Such information naturally encouraged the English govern 
 ment to continue the search. Nor were they displeased to learn from 
 Howe that the majority of the people he met in New England admitted 
 the justice of the English claims and acts. Ibid., 89. 
 
202 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 lands and in the fisheries been apprehended than talk of dis 
 union and secession began in the Mississippi Valley. The 
 people who had settled west of the mountains had come to 
 realize that the Mississippi was the only possible outlet for 
 their commerce and that the mouth of the river, and hence 
 control of its navigation, was in the hands of Spain. They 
 believed the Spanish anxious to close the river to American 
 trade, and they so well appreciated the mutual advantages, 
 both to the Spanish and to the Atlantic States, of the estab 
 lishment of intercourse between the Spanish West India colo 
 nies and the Atlantic coast, that they were afraid Congress 
 would allow Spain to close the Mississippi in exchange for 
 commercial privileges in the Spanish West Indies. As early 
 as 1786 this notion was current in the West, and, after the 
 new Constitution had vested in the central government power 
 to regulate commerce and to deal with western lands, the 
 malcontents in Kentucky and Tennessee became sure that 
 such was the design. 4 Negotiations were opened with the 
 Spanish at New Orleans and at St. Louis, 5 and the Virginia 
 and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 were somehow connected 
 with the agitation for secession. 6 With this western senti 
 ment, the Southern States largely sympathized, and the Anti- 
 Federalists all over the country were disposed to complain 
 vigorously of English insolence and encroachment and to de 
 clare themselves in favor of no compromise and of an insist 
 ence upon demands to which England clearly would not 
 accede. 
 
 In New England, on the other hand, and in mercantile 
 circles all along the Atlantic coast, there was a disposition 
 to insist less and negotiate more. Some sort of agreement 
 with England was far more essential to them and their busi- 
 
 * Writings of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 239; 240 note. Tyler s 
 Life of Henry and Rowland s Life of Mason. 
 
 8 The Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, has a valuable collection 
 of manuscript material on this subject. Houck s Missouri contains 
 material from Spanish archives. 
 
 6 Writings of Jefferson, Ford s ed., VII, 263, 281, 290 note. Jeffer 
 son s counsel against secession prevented further action. 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 203 
 
 ness than it was to the interior and western districts, and 
 they realized far more adequately the impossibility of dic 
 tating terms to England, and the very great difficulty under 
 the circumstances of obtaining from her a working com 
 promise, that would give them a part of what they hoped ulti 
 mately to obtain. The mercantile community was therefore 
 in favor of minimizing the disputes over the right of search 
 and impressment, which militated against individuals rather 
 than against the country as a whole and on which no com 
 promise was possible, in the hope of obtaining some rights of 
 navigation which would certainly redound to the benefit of 
 the vast majority of Americans. The loud talk of reprisal 
 upon English ships, the insistence upon reparation for in 
 sult, the general hostile tone assumed toward England, the 
 laudation of France and everything French, these the New 
 Englanders well knew only made more and more difficult the 
 arrival at any agreement. 7 Even after the overt outrage 
 against the Chesapeake in 1807, they hotly protested against 
 anything being done likely to rouse the hostility of England. 8 
 And now came in 1800, like a bolt from the blue, the news 
 that Spain had ceded Louisiana to France. How large a ter 
 ritory it was, how far west it extended, what the character 
 of the land was, no one knew, and few had more than the 
 vaguest ideas about it; but one thing all apprehended; the 
 
 7 "On general politics," Howe reported, "they appear more disposed 
 to blame their own Government than ours. . . . The irritation against 
 Great Britain is fast wearing off and the most anxious wish appears to 
 be a renewal of the Commercial Intercourse between the Countries. . . . 
 They feel how necessary her [England s] friendship is to their pros 
 perity." American Historical Review, XVII, 79-80. Boston, May 5, 
 1808. From New York he wrote on May 31, of the feeling in Connecti 
 cut: "Here they speak upon the subject [the Embargo] with a degree 
 of boldness that astonished me, and many of them even lamenting pub 
 licly that ever they were separated from Great Britain." Ibid., 83. 
 
 s The Chesapeake affair is frequently mentioned by Howe, who con 
 cluded that the majority in New England took a stand against their 
 own government. At Philadelphia he found a celebration of the anni 
 versary of the affair, made to excite the people against England. "But 
 it is by all discreet, well-disposed persons here (and this body I am 
 happy to say is very numerous) looked upon with disgust." June 22, 
 1808. Ibid., 94. 
 
204 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 cession included New Orleans and the control of the Missis 
 sippi, and the diplomatic world promptly exhausted itself in 
 surmises as to its purpose. Jefferson and his Cabinet, in 
 common with most thinking men in the country, felt that the 
 event in any case portended danger for the United States. 
 "It completely reverses, " wrote Jefferson to Dupont in Paris, 
 "all the political relations of the United States, and will form 
 a new epoch in our political course. . . . There is on the 
 globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural 
 and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the 
 produce of three-fourths of our territory must pass to market." 
 To these fears succeeded the apprehension that England 
 might seize Louisiana herself and thus unite the Gulf and the 
 St. Lawrence by means of the Mississippi. Nor was there 
 much doubt in Washington that the attempt of either France 
 or England to establish a new empire would be promptly 
 followed by the revolt or secession of the settlers in the 
 Mississippi Valley from the United States and their adhesion 
 to the new empire. Too many pledges of their readiness to 
 join the Spanish had already been given to cause Jefferson 
 to hesitate long. The crisis was, he wrote, "the most im 
 portant that the United States have ever met since their in 
 dependence 9 and which is to decide their future character 
 and career." 10 An embassy was despatched to France to 
 purchase enough land at the mouth of the river to place its 
 navigation definitely in the control of the United States. 11 
 Napoleon, however, offered to sell the whole tract, moved per 
 haps by secret information of Jefferson s opinion that the at 
 tempt of France to use that land must force the United States 
 to ally with England. For fifteen millions of dollars, Loui 
 siana was sold. "The sale," said Napoleon, "assures forever 
 the power of the United States and I have given England a 
 rival who sooner or later will humble her pride." "To-day," 
 proudly wrote the United States Minister to France, "the 
 
 Note this significant use of the plural. 
 10 Writings of Jefferson, Ford s ed., VIII, 203; 209, 210. 
 id., VIII, 206. 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 205 
 
 United States take their place among the powers of the first 
 rank." 12 
 
 The immediate effect was to bring to an abrupt termina 
 tion the plots for the creation of revolutions in the Missis 
 sippi Valley, and to make possible the settlement of the diffi 
 culties with England without risking the secession of the 
 western States and Territories. The victory of the English 
 over the French and Spanish at Trafalgar in 1805, the al 
 most immediate decision to enforce strictly the prohibitions 
 of the Navigation Acts and to stop direct trade between the 
 West Indies and Europe, followed by the war of decrees in 
 which the English and French effectually blockaded all trade 
 throughout the world so far as paper proclamations could 
 do it, all forced the United States to undertake negotiations 
 for a settlement. How hard-pressed the government was is 
 clear from the treaty negotiated with England in December 
 1806. The Americans were to be allowed to carry goods to 
 Europe from the West Indies by paying a duty upon them 
 to England, and, unless the United States at once resisted the 
 measures of Napoleon, the treaty would be void. Jefferson re 
 jected it at once. Further decrees militating against Ameri 
 can trade appeared in 1807 ; the frigate Chesapeake was fired 
 upon by the English ship Leopard and three American citi 
 zens and one English subject were seized from her crew. 
 Congress had already prohibited the importation of English 
 goods or colonial produce after certain dates, and now in 1807 
 an act forbade American vessels to sail for foreign ports. 
 The most vehement opposition to this Embargo at once 
 became evident in New England and most shipping-centers; 
 the act was evaded and even the Enforcement Act of the next 
 year was unavailing to do more than cause open resistance to 
 Federal authority along Lake Champlain and the proba 
 bility of armed revolt in New England. The policy was ob 
 viously injuring Americans far more than the English or 
 French, who openly exulted over the folly of the Embargo; 
 
 12 Note again this significant use of the plural in connection with the 
 United States. 
 
206 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the act was therefore repealed. After a long series of fur 
 ther attempts at legislation and negotiation, and after the re 
 ceipt of further insults from the English, war was declared in 
 1812. 13 
 
 The new policy was the result of the passing of the control 
 to a new set of political leaders Clay, Calhoun, and later, 
 Webster. They demanded the "extortion" from England of 
 favorable terms; the "avenging" of the slights and insults 
 the United States had suffered; the conquest of Canada and 
 the exclusion of the English from the continent. 14 But, with 
 out adequate preparation for defense or offense on land, 
 without a numerous and powerful navy, without money or a 
 definite method of obtaining it, success was hardly possible. 
 Indeed, the same factors fought for us and against us as in 
 the Revolution: the simple difference was that Washington 
 and Greene had understood what those factors were and had 
 used them with consummate skill; the men of 1812 seem 
 hardly to have been conscious of their existence. The dis 
 tance which separated us from England, the size of the 
 theater of war, which had made it impossible for her to con 
 quer us, made even more impossible the successful prosecu 
 tion of an offensive war by the United States against Eng 
 land. To be sure, she was engaged in a life and death struggle 
 with Napoleon and could hardly spare ships and armies 
 to fight the United States effectively at the same time. If 
 a decisive rapid attack could have been delivered upon 
 Canada by a large and really efficient army, Canada might 
 have been conquered, and the width of the Atlantic and the 
 wild character of the land would probably have prevented 
 reconquest by England. But the prime cause of the war and 
 its only justification was impressment, the right of search, the 
 
 is Howe wrote to Provost in 1809: "Mad as Parties are in America, 
 I do not think that a Majority of the Population wish a War wilh 
 Great Britain. The warmest among them will frankly own, they do 
 not see any benefit they could obtain by it." American Historical Re 
 view, XVII, 350. 
 
 i* See in particular Clay s speeches during the session of 1813. An 
 nals of Congress, 12 Congress, 2 session, especially pp. 667-676. 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 207 
 
 attainment of commercial privileges in Europe and in the 
 West Indies, the recognition of American ships as neutral 
 carriers, and the concession of a privileged status to all neutral 
 shipping. The conquest of Canada and the destruction 
 of British frigates could not conceivably put sufficient pres 
 sure on England to compel her to grant these demands of the 
 United States. The war was foredoomed to failure and the 
 winning of a few brilliant naval victories could not conclude 
 the issue in our favor. 
 
 It was even more definitely decided against us by the out 
 break of "civil war" in America. Ever since it had become 
 apparent after the signing of the Treaty of 1783 that the com 
 mercial question had not been settled, the mercantile com 
 munity and New England as a whole had more and more ve 
 hemently opposed the hostile attitude towards England as 
 sumed by the majority, and had more and more consistently 
 declared for a policy of conciliation and the securing of such 
 terms as could be had. The election of Jefferson had con 
 vinced the Federalists in New England that little was now 
 to be expected from the central government and that their 
 dearest hopes and most important interests would be sacri 
 ficed to the clamor of the mob. The purchase of Louisiana, 
 the rejection of the various treaties framed with England 
 between 1803 and 1812, the Embargo and non-intercourse 
 legislation convinced them as the years went on that their 
 expectations were only too certainly being realized. "We 
 have a country governed by blockheads and dunces," the 
 brother of the President of Yale College told the students; 
 * our children are cast into the world from the breast and for 
 gotten ; filial piety is extinguished. 
 
 "The principles of our Revolution," wrote Pickering to 
 Cabot in 1804, 15 "point to a remedy a separation. . . . 
 The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, 
 and interests with those of the South and West. ... I do not 
 
 !5 This whole subject of secession and nullification in New England 
 has been well covered by Henry Adams in Documents Relating to New 
 England Federalism. 1800 to 1815. Boston, 1877. 
 
208 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 believe in the practicability of a long continued union. The 
 Northern Confederacy would unite congenial characters, and 
 present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the 
 Southern States, having a similarity of habits might be left 
 to manage their affairs in their own way." Not only did 
 the Federalists not believe one nation desirable or possible; 
 they were perfectly sure that none existed. Indeed, upon 
 the existence of three nations or groups of interests, they 
 based their plans and by this "fact" they justified their pro 
 posed secession. The annexation of Louisiana "was oppress 
 ive to the interests and destructive to the influence of the 
 Northern section of the confederacy," wrote John Quincy 
 Adams describing this plan years later, "whose right and 
 duty it therefore was to secede from the new body politic 
 and to constitute one of their own." The New England 
 States, which found the Union very much to their interest in 
 1860, quite forgot at that time that they had themselves es 
 poused and believed constitutional and patriotic the same ideas 
 which the Southerners were then promulgating. 
 
 Hamilton s decision against the scheme, the discovery that 
 the immediate fears concerning the shift of influence to the 
 South and West were not realized, checked the secession move 
 ment in 1804. In 1807 and 1808, the disastrous effect of the 
 Embargo on New England revived it ; armed rebellion seemed 
 almost certain, but the danger was averted by the repeal of 
 the act and by the expectation of relief from the renewal of 
 trade. When war was declared upon England in 1812, New 
 England determined to wait no longer. While the new con 
 federacy was being organized and the movements concerted 
 which should make its secession final and successful, passive 
 resistance of the old colonial type was offered to the commands 
 of the Federal government. The New Englanders declined to 
 put their troops under command of United States officers, re 
 fused to allow them to serve outside the United States and 
 in some cases outside their own borders. In all these States, 
 loans were authorized and troops equipped for their own de 
 fense, an example followed in 1814 by New York, Pennsyl- 
 
THE WAR OF 1812 208 
 
 vania, and Virginia. New England was then the moneyed 
 community and from its resources the Federal government 
 had expected to finance the war. The New Englanders de 
 clined to loan money to the government and instead gave aid 
 and comfort to the enemies of the United States, supplying the 
 English fleets and armies with beef and fuel 16 and even with 
 the specie to pay the troops. 17 At the crucial moment of the 
 war, two weeks after the English had sacked Washington, one 
 week after they had occupied parts of Maine, the State mili 
 tia of Massachusetts, 70,000 well-equipped and drilled men, 
 was withdrawn from the armies of the United States. Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut followed suit and the three entered 
 into bonds for mutual defense. Meanwhile, behind closed 
 doors, the Hartford Convention was elaborating a new con 
 stitution and concerting measures for the independence of the 
 New England States. The "civil war" in America was not 
 yet over ; the anti-national feeling was yet strong ; the vision 
 of a single nation was as yet seen only by a few individuals ; 
 but a great advance had been made towards nationalism. The 
 old talk of the necessity of the independence and sovereignty 
 of each separate State had disappeared; the thirteen sover 
 eigns had been reduced to three the East, the South, and 
 the West. The development of the country and propinquity 
 were doing their work slowly but surely. 
 
 The seriousness of this crisis has not been fully enough 
 recognized. For some weeks, the fate of the union hung in 
 the balance, for not only was New England clearly ready to 
 secede, but there were grave fears in Washington that the 
 Mississippi Valley would either attempt to secede or would 
 offer its allegiance to England, fears which found ample con- 
 is "Supplies of the most essential kinds find their way not only to 
 British ports and British armies at a distance, but the armies in our 
 neighborhood with which our own are contending, derive from our 
 ports and outlets a subsistence attainable with difficulty, if at all, from 
 other sources. * Madison, Special Message to Congress, Dec. 9, 1813. 
 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I, 540-1. 
 
 IT So the British authorities in Canada reported to England. See the 
 quotations from manuscripts in the Canadian Archives in Henry Adams, 
 History of the United States, VII, 146. 
 
210 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 firmation in the news that an English army had been des 
 patched to New Orleans. 18 There could scarcely be any 
 other reason for such an expedition than the expectation of 
 winning a great domain with the assistance of the inhabitants. 
 The fate of the United States was at stake in the winter of 
 1814 and 1815; the anti-nationalist movement seemed this 
 time certain of success and the creation of two new confed 
 eracies more than probable. At the critical moment came the 
 news of the signing of the Peace of Ghent with England and 
 of the victory of Jackson over the English at New Orleans. 
 The rejoicing was extreme, not in the least because the Treaty 
 of Peace accorded us the favorable terms which the war had 
 been undertaken to extort, but because the sectional strife in 
 America had been decided in favor of the Federal govern 
 ment. 19 The rebellions had been crushed without actual war 
 fare; the union had been preserved without the memory of 
 deadly combat to stand in the way of reconciliation. The 
 Hartford Convention dissolved; the talk of secession died a 
 natural death ; New England and the West tried to act as if 
 nothing had been intended, and the various parties and in 
 terests returned to Congress to debate the common problems. 
 Nothing had been settled; the cause of dissidence was still 
 present ; but for the moment the solution by force or by seces 
 sion was definitely abandoned by every one. When it was 
 next mooted, the development of the country had transferred 
 the seat of discontent to the South. 
 
 is Howe found in 1809 that "Great apprehensions are excited for the 
 Safety of Louisiana. A part of the new Levee of 6000 men has been 
 sent to that Quarter." American Historical Review, XVII, 349. 
 
 is So great was the anxiety in 1808 that Howe concluded that the 
 Federal government would declare war with England as a last desperate 
 expedient for holding the union together. "And if our Government 
 [the British] should not be disposed to let them out of their own Trap 
 [the Embargo], and the Government of America should continue their 
 present system, not a doubt can be entertained, but that a separation 
 of the Eastern States will ensue. If the answer of our Government 
 should not meet the wishes of the ruling Party, they will then endeavor 
 to preserve the Union by plunging the Country into a War with Great 
 Britain, in hopes that a sense of common danger, will excite a unanim 
 ity, they will have no other means of effecting." Ibid. 
 
XVI 
 "THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 
 
 THE "War of 1812 scarcely improved the commercial rela 
 tions of the United States with Europe, but it had a profound 
 influence on our history because it gave American statesmen 
 for the first time a clear conception of the fact that our 
 fundamental difficulties were economic and not political or 
 administrative, issues to be solved by the plow and the loom 
 rather than by the sword. The end of the war in 1815 
 happened practically to coincide with the close of the Na 
 poleonic wars in Europe and the natural resumption of peace 
 ful pursuits on the continent. Thus disappeared, in a mo 
 ment, as it were, the market for American food-stuffs and 
 naval stores and the opportunity for American ships in the 
 carrying trade. Great as had been the dangers and serious 
 as had been the obstacles in the way of the complete utiliza 
 tion of the opportunity by Americans, many fortunes had 
 been built upon it and a really flourishing mercantile marine 
 had been developed. The resumption of manufactures on the 
 continent was a great blow to the English manufacturers, 
 whose business had flourished, not only because of the In 
 dustrial Revolution and the use of the new machinery, but 
 also because the state of war had left them the only manu 
 facturers in Europe, and had given them, despite the mili 
 tating regulations of Napoleon, almost a monopoly of the 
 European market. With the return of peace, their market 
 largely disappeared, a large surplusage of production resulted, 
 prices accordingly fell rapidly, and English goods at low rates 
 flooded the American market. The disappearance of our mar 
 ket abroad both during the continuance of the Embargo and 
 after the close of the war left the American merchants with 
 
 211 
 
212 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 a large variety of produce which they could not sell and re 
 vealed to the eyes of even the blindest the fact that there was 
 no home market for what we produced. The flood of English 
 manufactured goods and the practical lack of anything else 
 on the American market made it equally clear that we did 
 not produce much of anything which we ourselves needed. 
 We were utterly dependent upon Europe to buy what we had 
 to sell and to produce for us what we wished to buy. And 
 Europe was three thousand miles away and was subject to 
 wars and commercial crises! 
 
 The period, which began with the institution of the Fed 
 eral government in 1789 and closed with the War of 1812, 
 had been one of unusually rapid economic development in 
 America, and had produced an entirely new alignment of in 
 terests in the country. A distinct entity had begun to form 
 in the South concerned with the growing of cotton, another 
 in the North chiefly busied with the manufacture of cotton 
 cloth, and a third to the West intent upon the conquest of the 
 wilderness by the plow as rapidly as possible. 
 
 Cotton had been found by Columbus and had been used by 
 the early colonists sufficiently to cause it to be enumerated 
 by the Navigation Act in 1660 as a marketable commodity, 
 but it had never rivaled tobacco, indigo, or rice as a great 
 staple crop. A great variety of circumstances, juxtaposited 
 by chance, united to make it the long-sought medium of ex 
 change between America and Europe, the valuable commodity 
 the demand for which in Europe should increase as fast as 
 the ability of America to increase its rate of production. The 
 pre-revolutionary non-importation agreements and the attempt 
 to find a substitute for woolens first called attention to it. 
 Then came the invention in England of machinery for spinning 
 and weaving cotton; and the accident of fashion created a 
 demand for the new cloth. At or about the same time (1786), 
 the first crop of the sea-island cotton, grown near Charleston, 
 B. C., was marketed, and the extraordinary length and the 
 soft and silky quality of its fiber was first appreciated. It met 
 at once with favor and within a few years was selling for a 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 213 
 
 dollar and even two dollars a pound. Cotton came as a god 
 send to the South. The Southerners were seeking a new staple 
 crop, for the indigo industry had depended on the English 
 bounty for its profit and had therefore been ruined by its 
 discontinuance in 1775. The rice-cultivation was limited to 
 the swamp lands of South. Carolina and Georgia ; and the Eu 
 ropean demand for American tobacco was always distinctly 
 limited, since America did not produce the finest grades. Cot 
 ton therefore promptly attracted attention and was tried in 
 many districts, and just as the planters had found that the 
 upland cotton was filled with seeds so difficult to remove that 
 the process destroyed both fiber and profit (the sea-island cot 
 ton was easy to clean), Eli Whitney invented a simple ma 
 chine with which even an ignorant slave could rapidly cleanse 
 huge amounts from seeds. The European demand, the new 
 machinery to use the fiber, the gin to clean it, the need for 
 a new Southern staple crop, all combined to make cotton 
 within twenty years the greatest asset the South had and the 
 most important single product of the Atlantic coast. 9,000 
 bales were produced in 1791; 211,000 were grown in 1801; 
 and at the close of the war of 1812, 458,000. 
 
 Cotton made slavery profitable and therefore permanent. 
 In 1789, it had been the rather general sentiment that slav 
 ery was likely to die of inanition and that its extension was 
 hardly likely. In 1815, it was beyond question that a great 
 and a permanent interest of the South had appeared which 
 it did not share with other sections of the country. 
 
 As definite an interest, and one as obviously local, had ap 
 peared in New England and in the middle States. The Em 
 bargo, followed by the War of 1812, had compelled America 
 to do without English goods and the high prices manufactured 
 goods commanded had stimulated the production at home of 
 cotton and woolen cloth, some pig-iron, glass, pottery, and a 
 few other articles. Of all these industries " created" by the 
 war, the most successful was cotton-spinning. In 1805, 4,500 
 spindles were at work; the imposition of the Embargo raised 
 the number to 31,000 in 1809 and to 87,000 in 1810, while 
 
214 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the war resulted in an expansion to 130,000 spindles. Where 
 1,000 bales of raw cotton had been used in 1805, 90,000 bales 
 were being consumed in 1815. Slater at Pawtucket had in 
 troduced the new English machinery for spinning, and Lowell 
 had instituted near Boston, in some of the first true factories 
 in the world, power looms for weaving cotton cloth. All 
 through New England, abundant water-power and unremu- 
 nerative agriculture produced conditions favorable for manu 
 factures. The new industries spread rapidly. Apparently 
 the war had created industries and a new sectional interest 
 as definite in its needs as the "peculiar institution " in the 
 South. 
 
 Moreover, a third section had grown over night, as it were, 
 in the Mississippi Valley. By 1815, on the great prairies 
 where the Iroquois had so long hunted, where in 1783 had 
 been only a few scattered hamlets and a few daredevil ad 
 venturers, were four fully organized States, Kentucky, Ten 
 nessee, Ohio, Louisiana, and five territories nearly populous 
 enough for admission as States. The band of settlement had 
 spread westward from the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys into 
 the old Northwest Territory, from Virginia and North Caro 
 lina through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 Missouri, southern Illinois and Indiana, and west from 
 Georgia and South Carolina into the rich river-bottoms of 
 the Gulf country where cotton was most profitable. This 
 last section became soon an integral part of the South, bound 
 to it by an identity of interests, but the more northern dis 
 tricts found themselves above the cotton-belt and west of 
 the mountains, shut off in the great river valley with char 
 acteristic problems of their own. The provision of adequate 
 facilities of transportation by means of roads, canals, turn 
 pikes, was seen at a very early date to be the most difficult 
 problem, upon whose solution rested the possibility of an im 
 mediate development and utilization of the land. Unless the 
 crop could be moved south or east, there was no purpose 
 in raising more than the individual needed for his own 
 sustenance. But the crop could not be moved and exchanged 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 215 
 
 for manufactured goods without money, and of that the 
 West had little and was never able to retain for long what 
 little it did obtain. Compared to these, the more immediate 
 problems of the division and allotment of land, the institu 
 tion of administration, the taxation of undeveloped land, 
 the provision for schools and universities were simple and 
 were rapidly and on the whole admirably dealt with. 
 
 The net result, however, was the creation of three distinct 
 and varying interests. Calhoun in an interview with Ham 
 mond in 1831 thus accurately described the situation. "He 
 then spoke of the three great interests of the Nation, the 
 North, the South, and the West. They had been struggling 
 in a fierce war with each other, and he thought the period 
 was approaching that was to determine whether they could 
 be reconciled or not so as to perpetuate the Union. He was 
 of the opinion that they could. The interest of the North 
 was a manufacturing and protecting one, that of the South, 
 Free Trade, and that of the West was involved in the distri 
 bution of the lands and Internal Improvements." This 
 "fierce war" of which Calhoun spoke occupied the period 
 from 1815 to 1840 to the practical exclusion of every other 
 subject and to some extent has persisted throughout American 
 history and is still of consequence. In this guise, the civil 
 strife in America went on. 
 
 The great influx of English manufactured goods, which 
 poured into the country in 1815 and 1816, drove the American 
 cotton and woolen goods off the market. Under any circum 
 stances, the new factories could scarcely expect to produce 
 as cheaply as the English merchants could export goods, and 
 certainly were helpless in competition with English goods 
 sold actually at a sacrifice because of the overproduction. 
 The cry went up from the new manufacturers: having cre 
 ated us by the Embargo and the war, you must now pro 
 tect our infant industries. The logic of facts seemed un 
 deniable. Before the war, no manufactures; after the war, 
 flourishing industries; the Embargo and the war had been 
 equivalent to a protection of 100% ; therefore protection 
 
216 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 could create industries, and by protective tariffs American 
 industries could be enabled to compete successfully with un 
 derpaid foreign labor. The argument of course was applied 
 to the encouragement of industries, necessary to the country, 
 sure to be profitable if started, but whose rise was prevented 
 by superficial and artificial difficulties of a nature to be readily 
 overcome by the imposition of a duty on the foreign prod 
 uct equivalent to the difference between the cost of manu 
 facture in America and that in Europe plus the cost of 
 freight. The essential point is that no permanent causes 
 hindered the development of the industry, though it is only 
 fair to add that the enthusiastic supporters of the tariff 
 scouted the notion that there was an industry which could 
 not profitably be pursued in the United States. 
 
 A low tariff had been imposed in 1789 and had proved its 
 value as a money-getter by providing a sufficient revenue 
 to meet the expenses of the new administration. Indeed, 
 previous to 1860, the tariff provided nearly the whole Federal 
 revenue. In 1816, a tariff was imposed, however, with the 
 intention of protecting the new manufactures; the duties 
 were all raised and new duties on textiles were imposed, 
 amounting to about twenty or twenty-five per cent of the 
 value of the article. An agitation against the high tariff 
 was at once begun in the South and in many of the interior 
 districts, which had depended entirely on Europe for manu 
 factured goods and which still depended on finding a market 
 abroad for the great staples, tobacco, cotton, and rice. To 
 their thinking, the new scheme was intended to force them 
 to pay for the development of manufactures in the East, to 
 compel them to renounce their own particular interest, which 
 lay of course in complete freedom of trade, and particularly 
 in the ability to bring back into the country as large an 
 amount of goods as possible in return for the product they 
 exported. This they complained was unfair; the interest of 
 one section was favored at the expense of the interest of 
 another. 
 
 In 1820 and in 1824, Clay and others fought valiantly 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 217 
 
 for "the American system." of encouraging home manu 
 factures, and in the end their logic won the day. "We 
 have shaped our industry, our navigation, our commerce, " 
 Clay told the House in 1824, 1 "in reference to an extraordi 
 nary war in Europe, and to foreign markets which no longer 
 exist. . . . Whilst we have cultivated with assiduous care our 
 foreign resources, we have suffered those at home to wither 
 in a state of neglect and abandonment." "We have seen 
 that our exclusive dependence upon the foreign market must 
 lead to still severer distress, to impoverishment, to ruin. We 
 must give a new direction to some portion of our industry. 
 We must speedily adopt a genuine American policy. Still 
 cherishing the foreign market, let us create also a home 
 market, to give further scope to the consumption of the 
 produce of American industry. Let us counteract the policy 
 of foreigners, and withdraw the support which we now give 
 to their industry, and stimulate that of our own country. . . . 
 The creation of a home market is not only necessary to 
 procure for our agriculture a just reward for its labors, but 
 it is indispensable to obtain a supply of our necessary wants. 
 If we cannot sell, we cannot buy. . . . We must naturalize 
 the arts in our country ... by adequate protection against 
 the otherwise overwhelming influence of foreigners." 
 
 That the protective tariff was likely to burden the South 
 and West, Clay clearly appreciated and a distinctive part of 
 the "American system" was the open recognition of the 
 necessity of protecting the special interests of all three sec 
 tions. "Now our people," he declared, "present the spec 
 tacle of a vast assemblage of jealous rivals, all eagerly rush 
 ing to the seaboard, jostling each other in their way, to 
 hurry off to glutted foreign markets the perishable produce 
 of their labor. The tendency of that policy, in conformity 
 to which this bill is prepared, is to transform these competi 
 tors into friends and mutual customers, and, by the reciprocal 
 exchange of their respective productions, to place the con- 
 
 i This and other valuable papers and speeches on the tariff will be 
 conveniently found in Taussig s State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff. 
 
218 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 federacy upon the most solid of all foundations, the basis 
 of common interest. " " Our confederacy comprehends within 
 its vast limits great diversity of interests, agricultural, plant 
 ing, farming, commercial, navigating, fishing, manufactur 
 ing. No one of these interests is felt in the same degree 
 and cherished with the same solicitude throughout all parts 
 of the Union. Some of them are peculiar to particular sec 
 tions of our common country. . . . Here, then, is a case for 
 mutual concession, for fair compromise. ... It sacrifices the 
 interest of neither section to that of the other; neither, it 
 is true, gets all that it wants, nor is subject to all that it 
 fears." 
 
 The peculiar interest of the South had already been a 
 subject of great concern and recognition of its seriousness 
 had already been ample. Profit from cotton cultivation was 
 even thus early seen to depend upon the ability of the planter 
 to shift his slaves from the fields partially exhausted by 
 successive crops to new virgin soil where the proportionate 
 return for the labor was enormously greater. So great was 
 it, that the Southerners regarded in the light of a calamity 
 the arrival of the day when the supply of virgin land should 
 be exhausted and the cotton-culture should be forced to be 
 come intensive instead of extensive. By 1819, the whole of 
 the land east of the Mississippi available for cotton had al 
 ready been settled sufficiently to be divided into States and 
 admitted to the Union. The resort thither of planters was 
 seen to be progressing at a rate which would within a decade 
 or two exhaust the supply of the very best land. West of the 
 river in the great domain of Louisiana, the southern corner 
 had early been settled and admitted to the Union, and now 
 in 1819 a second great State, Missouri, was knocking for 
 admission. 
 
 The question of the extension of slavery was not at the 
 time, however, of as momentous consequence as the preser 
 vation of the balance of power between the particular interests 
 in Congress. The House, whose members were proportioned 
 among the States according to population, was already con- 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 219 
 
 trolled by the States which found staple crops unprofitable 
 and which could therefore not be expected to defend either 
 free trade or slavery. In the Senate, where the States were 
 each represented by two members, the balance between the 
 slave and free States were exactly even, and had always 
 been so, due to the admission of the new States in pairs, one 
 free and one slave. Now Maine and Missouri had both ap 
 plied for admission, and, should both be admitted as free 
 States, the South would at once be in the minority and 
 the sacrifice of its agricultural interests to the manufactures 
 of the East seemed to be an almost certain result of the 
 loss of political equality. 2 The difficulty was frankly recog 
 nized; the right of the South to sufficient power to protect 
 itself, conceded. But the principle itself that the interests 
 of the three sections of the country were mutually antag 
 onistic, and destructive of each other, and that only a balance 
 of power between them in the national government could 
 
 2 This was a notion long familiar and had been stated in 1811 with 
 great force and clarity by Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts in a notable 
 speech in the House of Representatives. The admission of Louisiana 
 would be, he claimed, "nothing less than [the exercise of] a power, 
 changing all the proportions of the weight and influence possessed by 
 the potent sovereignties composing this Union. [Note this acceptance 
 of States sovereignty by a Massachusetts man.] . . . This is not so 
 much a question concerning the exercise of sovereignty, as it is who 
 shall be sovereign. . . . The Proportion of the political weight of each 
 sovereign State, constituting this union depends upon the number of 
 the States, which have a voice under the compact. [Hayne used this 
 same word to designate the Constitution in 1830.] ... I hold my life, 
 liberty and property, ... by a better tenure than any this national 
 government can give. . . . We hold these by the laws, customs, and 
 principles of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Behind her ample 
 shield, we find refuge and feel safety. . . . With respect to this love 
 of our union, concerning which so much sensibility is expressed, I have 
 no fear about analyzing its nature. There is in it nothing of mystery. 
 ... I confess it, the first public love of my heart is the Commonwealth 
 of Massachusetts. There is my fireside; there are the tombs of my 
 ancestors. . . . The love of this union grows out of this attachment to 
 my native soil and is rooted in it. I cherish it because it affords the 
 best external hope of her peace, her prosperity, her independence." 
 This will be destroyed when the western States are admitted, for they 
 will outnumber the original States. Hart, Contemporaries, III, 410-414. 
 
220 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 preserve the Union was felt to be fraught with the greatest 
 danger for the welfare of all. That the question should be 
 not simply an issue of morals or of rival institutions but 
 of the political power of great sections of the country whose 
 interests seemed to be and certainly were assumed to be 
 irreconcilable, was seen to contain possibilities which caused 
 all to fear for the future. "The words civil war and dis 
 union are uttered almost without emotion," wrote Clay, 3 
 while Cobb of Georgia predicted that the Northern men 
 had "kindled a fire which all the waters of the ocean cannot 
 put out, which seas of blood only can extinguish. 4 Clay 
 even predicted the establishment of new confederacies, while 
 John Quincy Adams entrusted to his diary thoughts regard 
 ing the desirability of dissolving the union and reorganiz 
 ing it "on the fundamental principle of emancipation." As 
 to civil war, he went on, "so glorious would be its final 
 issue, that as God shall judge me, I do not say that it is 
 not to be desired. 6 Almost calmly, Northern and South 
 ern men considered the dissolution of the "confederacy" 
 and decided that end not undesirable. Not yet was there 
 anything approaching an agreement that the existence of 
 one government, of one nation composed of all the individuals 
 in America, either existed or could exist or ought to exist. 
 The loyalty of men to their States had been transferred 
 to their sections ; it was yet to be transformed into allegiance 
 to the country as a whole. 
 
 The difficulty was compromised in 1820 by the admission 
 of Maine as a free State, of Missouri as a slave State, and by 
 the division of the Louisiana Purchase into two zones, one, 
 north of 36 30 , which should be free territory, and one 
 south of that line which should be slave territory. 
 
 The West had yet to receive its share of the compromise 
 and clamored for Internal Improvements. In 1808, Gal- 
 
 s Private Correspondence, 61. 
 * Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 2 Sess., I, 1204. 
 
 a Memoirs, IV, 531. Sea also Writings of Jefferson, Ford s d., X, 
 1*7. 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 221 
 
 latin, whose financial ability had gone far to make the Anti- 
 Federalist regime successful, recommended a Federal system 
 of roads and canals to open up the great areas in the Mis 
 sissippi Valley. These would obviously be of great value if 
 proper facilities of transportation could be provided. As 
 yet, however, their inhabitants did not themselves possess 
 sufficient capital to promote so costly an undertaking. The 
 benefit would really redound to the country as a whole and 
 furnished reason for the adoption of a policy of Internal 
 Improvements by the Federal government. To the declar 
 ation that sufficient powers were not vested in Congress by 
 the Constitution, answer was made that the right to charter 
 a bank and to purchase Louisiana were not explicitly men 
 tioned either. There was a general feeling that the develop 
 ment of the Southwest and of the Ohio Valley by Federal 
 money would be a discrimination in favor of those States 
 against the East; but to prove that roads and canals were 
 necessary was to establish, to the satisfaction of the western 
 men, the constitutionality of the power to build them. Was 
 the Constitution made only for the eastern States? In 1817 
 and 1818, projects were introduced in Congress by Calhoun 
 and Clay for a comprehensive system of internal improve 
 ments and in 1818 the national road from Cumberland on 
 the Potomac to Wheeling was finished; but nothing further 
 was done till 1825, when Adams approved of a broad project 
 and over two millions of dollars were voted for the building 
 of roads in the West. A plan was also mooted to distribute 
 the lands reserved to the Federal government in the western 
 States to settlers at fifty cents an acre instead of the rate 
 of two dollars and a half already established. 
 
 The appropriation of money for internal improvements 
 and the tariff of 1828, which raised the duties so much that 
 it was promptly dubbed the Tariff of Abominations, roused 
 the South to indignation. Calhoun became spokesman and 
 in his "Exposition" tried to demonstrate that the tariff 
 and the internal improvements were responsible for the low 
 price of cotton and the high price of other commodities. The 
 
222 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tariff stole the profit of the cotton-crop by compelling the 
 planters to pay a duty on the goods they bought with the 
 proceeds abroad ; the indirect taxes of the government further 
 depleted their incomes to furnish the money to build roads 
 in the West. The attempt of the government to foster the 
 interests of the other sections was injurious to the South. 
 In South Carolina plans were made to "nullify" the ob 
 noxious Federal laws by an appeal to the reserved powers 
 of a sovereign State. 
 
 In reality, the general commercial crisis of the period fol 
 lowing the close of the Napoleonic wars was the cause of 
 most of the difficulties in the South. The demand for cot 
 ton in Europe was not as great as before because the overpro 
 duction of the earlier years had been succeeded by retrench 
 ment; the production of cotton at the South had however 
 increased by leaps and bounds and the supply was there 
 fore greater, though the demand was smaller; a great drop 
 in price was inevitable. On the other hand, manufactured 
 goods had been abnormally cheap in the South because of 
 the overproduction in England, the resumption of manu 
 facture in Europe, and the growth of industries in New 
 England. The supply in this direction had far exceeded 
 the demand and had consequently reduced prices. The re 
 duction of the output in Europe necessary to restore the 
 normal balance between the demand and the supply had 
 begun, however, by the time the tariff of 1824 was passed; 
 had raised the prices on manufactured goods considerably, 
 and the increase was of course attributed by the South en 
 tirely to the tariff, whose avowed purpose had been to in 
 crease the price of foreign goods in America. Furthermore, 
 in the States just north of the cotton-belt, in the tobacco- 
 belt, the border States, as they came to be called, Virginia, 
 Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, slavery was no 
 longer as profitable as it had once been, and the commercial 
 crisis had accentuated the planters troubles until plans were 
 actually proposed in Virginia for the purchase and deportation 
 to Africa of the surplusage of slaves. 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 223 
 
 To the excited Southerners, the union, the existence of the 
 Federal government, seemed solely responsible for their ills. 
 Did it not allow the North and West to pass the tariff? 
 Did not the Constitution recognize and legalize this sacrifice 
 of the interests of a part and that too without possibility 
 of immediate redress by legislative methods? Of what value 
 was such a union? "I consider the Constitution a dead 
 letter," declared John Randolph. in the House of Represent 
 atives in 1824. "I have no faith in parchment, sir. ... If 
 you draw the last shilling from our pockets, what are the 
 checks of the Constitution to us? A fig for the Constitu 
 tion! . . . There is no magic in the word union." The 
 President of South Carolina College was cheered when he 
 said in a public meeting that the time had come to calculate 
 the value of the Union, and Webster later declared himself 
 convinced in 1828 that the plan for a Southern Confederacy 
 had been generally received with favor by the Southern 
 leaders. Was that whither the United States was tending, to 
 separation into two confederacies? When the value of the 
 Constitution was calculated was there nothing but a piece 
 of parchment, and no magic in the word union? 
 
 Senator Hayne of South Carolina had delivered a power 
 ful speech in the Senate in favor of the old anti-national 
 view of the central government. He obviously looked upon 
 the union as a question of present and even temporary 
 expediency, " nothing more than a mere matter of profit and 
 loss, complained Webster ; not as the embodiment and repre 
 sentative of a great and glorious nation but as a connection 
 between the States whose beneficial operation was sufficiently 
 doubtful to require constant and careful inspection of its 
 working in order to determine the expediency of its longer 
 continuance. When he declared the Constitution "a com 
 pact" to which the States were the parties, he denied that 
 the Constitution had created a nation or that one existed. 
 The States were sovereign, he insisted, had always been 
 sovereign and had never in any way explicitly or implicitly 
 parted with their sovereignty; and were therefore, as parties 
 
224 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 to the compact, obviously capable of judging whether the 
 compact for the creation of a central government had been 
 observed and whether or not it was expedient to continue 
 under it. The nature of the general government as defined by 
 its own Constitution made it incapable of coercing a State 
 which solemnly and advisedly declined longer to obey the 
 Federal statutes. If the Federal government were to be 
 allowed to interpret the Constitution and decide upon the 
 extent of its own powers, the sovereignty, independence, and 
 liberty of the States would disappear, and the United States 
 would be, what its framers had never intended it to be, an 
 entity in and of itself superior to the States, which would 
 then be bound to obey its behests. To say that the Consti 
 tution prevented the Southern States from nullifying the 
 recent oppressive acts of the Federal government would 
 mean that those States had no resource against tyranny, save 
 armed rebellion. 
 
 He appealed to the founders of the Republic, to the de 
 bates of the Constitutional Convention, to the Virginia and 
 Kentucky Resolutions. His was, he claimed, the historical 
 Republican doctrine, "first promulgated by the fathers of 
 the faith," whose triumph in 1800 had "saved the Consti 
 tution at its last gasp." "Give us the Constitution of 
 Jefferson," he exclaimed, "give us the federal compact of 
 independent sovereign States, . . . the Constitution of 1787 
 as its framers meant it and constructed it, and we shall deem 
 ourselves satisfied and safe." That Hayne had accurately 
 described the idea of the Constitution held by the majority 
 of people in most districts since 1789 it was difficult to deny ; 
 that upon those assumptions every section of the country had 
 planned secession and nullified Federal measures was equally 
 incontestable; but, if such were the truth, it was equally 
 clear that no nation existed in America nor could be created 
 so long as a powerful section of the community stood ready 
 to contest the expediency and desirability of its existence. 
 Hayne took his stand upon precedent and history, upon 
 present expediency, and made the welfare of individual States 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 225 
 
 his criterion of the excellence of union. To his thinking, 
 unless absolute unanimity of opinion existed, unless every 
 State were convinced that its interests were furthered by 
 the federal bond as it would itself have advanced them 
 had it been wholly independent, the union was inexpedient. 
 
 Webster, in his great speech in reply, delivered early in 
 the year 1830, took his stand upon the Constitution as it 
 was, not as it had been thought to be; the document itself, 
 he said, would clear all controversies. He took as his test 
 of expediency the welfare of all the States and insisted 
 that the welfare of each individual State would be better 
 served by union than by disunion. Above the States, he 
 placed the nation: the Constitution was not a compact be 
 tween States, sovereign entities, but a supreme and funda 
 mental law created by the people of the whole country, 
 making of them one nation. "The truth is ... the people 
 of the United States are one people. . . . The very end and 
 purpose of the Constitution was to make them one people 
 in these particulars; and it has effectually accomplished its 
 object. ... It is the People and not the States who have 
 entered into this compact, and it is the people of all the 
 United States. " "Webster took the highest possible ground 
 and declared that a nation already existed, had long existed, 
 and that the sovereignty of the States had been surrendered 
 by the adoption of the Constitution. He thus decided in the 
 negative all the issues Hayne had raised. The Federal govern 
 ment and the State governments were both limited in power; 
 both were founded by the people, and controlled by them; 
 but of the two, pending further action of the people, the 
 Federal government was supreme. Upon it, through the 
 Constitution, the people as a whole had conferred the right 
 to decide all disputes as to the meaning of the Constitution. 
 Secession and nullification by any State were under the 
 Constitution impossible. "Sir, the very chief end, the main 
 design for which the whole Constitution was framed and 
 adopted was to establish a government that should not be 
 obliged to act through State agency or depend on State 
 
226 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 opinion or State discretion." From the Union had resulted 
 safety at home, "national, social, and personal happiness." 
 In his peroration, he pronounced as a rallying cry for the 
 men of his own day and of a later generation, the flaming 
 words "dear to every true American heart" "Liberty and 
 Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 For the first time, the great majority of Americans saw 
 what their Constitution actually said; for the first time they 
 realized that it proclaimed the creation of one nation; for 
 the first time under impressive circumstances, a man of promi 
 nence boldly proclaimed the actual existence of a nation, de 
 clared himself proud of it and eloquently argued for its 
 "continuance." The vision of nationality was seen; it had 
 now to be realized. 6 
 
 It was even doubtful whether it would not be at once 
 authoritatively denied. The jubilation in New England 
 found no echo in the South. What attitude President Jack 
 son would take was not known. At a great banquet to cel 
 ebrate the birthday of Jefferson, a series of toasts was ar 
 ranged to put the issue squarely before the President and to 
 force him to declare himself for one nation or for a compact 
 of sovereign States. Amid breathless silence, Jackson pulled 
 his lank form erect and gave his toast : * * Our Federal Union. 
 It must be preserved." 
 
 6 The truth of this statement can scarcely be better demonstrated 
 than by quoting the conclusions of one of the keenest foreign observers 
 who ever visited this country. Alexis de Tocqueville described what 
 he saw and heard here in 1834-5. "We ought not to confound the 
 future prospects of the republic with those of the Union. The Union 
 is an accident, which will only last as long as circumstances are favor 
 able to its existence; but a republican form of Government seems to 
 me to be the natural state of the Americans. . . . The Union exists 
 principally in the law which formed it; one revolution, one change in 
 public opinion might destroy it forever; but the republic has a much 
 deeper foundation to rest upon. ... It was impossible at the founda 
 tion of the States, and it would still be difficult to establish a central 
 administration in America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too 
 great a space, and separated by too many natural obstacles, for one 
 man to undertake to direct the details of their existence. America is 
 therefore preeminently the country of provincial and municipal govern 
 ment." Democracy in America, I, 425-6. London, 1875. 
 
"THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 227 
 
 The advisability of national government had been argued, 
 its expediency questioned; statements freely made that a 
 second confederacy was far preferable to a national bond; 
 but there was little doubt that the North agreed with Web 
 ster and stood for one nation and rejected the notion of 
 two. 
 
 Characteristically, the difficulty was compromised. Where, 
 in 1824, the policy of the satisfaction of all interests had been 
 espoused, Jackson pronounced himself in favor of the re 
 striction of Federal powers and refused to assist any interest. 
 States rights and nullification he declined to recognize. 
 South Carolina must submit to Federal authority. 
 
 At the South there was no desire to force the issue at 
 this time; they felt sure of obtaining what they asked by 
 some simpler method than a test of strength. For the South 
 had control of the Federal government and was growing 
 so fast in wealth and strength that an equally rapid develop 
 ment of the North seemed hardly possible. There was little 
 to gain, they thought, by actual secession and the conces 
 sion of a victory to Webster in the forum did not seem mate 
 rially to affect the real issue. The talk of secession was there 
 fore dropped. 
 
 To remove the most obvious grievances, the high tariff 
 was repealed and a low one adopted; the internal improve 
 ments which the West demanded were declared unconsti 
 tutional. As the West and South both objected to the ex 
 istence of the United States Bank and attributed to its 
 manipulations the scarcity of currency in their territory and 
 their condition as debtor communities, the Bank was also 
 declared unconstitutional, an "un-American monopoly," and 
 was brought to a sudden end as a governmental agency by 
 the removal of Federal deposits in 1833 to certain selected 
 State banks. The government declined to renew the char 
 ter, and completely changed the fiscal policy of Hamilton. 
 Finally, after various expedients had been tried and rejected, 
 an independent Treasury was established in 1843 into which 
 the government s funds were to be paid, where they were to 
 
228 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 be conserved, whence the currency was to be issued and 
 controlled, and by which, in general, the fiscal business of 
 the government was to be transacted. If the advocates of 
 nationality had now a theoretical victory in the forum, the 
 anti-nationalist party had shorn the Federal government of 
 such national functions as it had been discharging and had 
 in large measure reversed many of its most important poli 
 cies. Webster might be right as to what the Constitution 
 said; but States sovereignty would be safe until the people 
 as a whole should read the document through his spectacles 
 and should elect an administration to enforce his reading of 
 its provisions. 
 
XVII 
 JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 
 
 IT is not possible in so brief a sketch as this to do more than 
 advert to the significant constitutional development of the 
 period from 1789 to 1829 during which the warp and woof 
 of American democracy became thoroughly established, but it 
 is essential at least to enumerate the conspicuous elements 
 which practice introduced into the original concept. 
 
 The democratic institutions which to-day exist in the United 
 States are too firmly knit into the "bone and gristle" of 
 the nation and are too clearly adapted to our conditions to 
 have been " created" by any one document or by any one 
 man. Because certain definite stages of development became 
 perfectly clear at certain epochs, because certain men were 
 largely responsible for informing the public mind of the 
 conditions actually existing and for directing its choice of 
 a remedy, we have been in the habit of writing about Hamil- 
 tonianism, Jeffersonianism, arid Jacksonianism. In reality 
 the theories and concepts, the administrative machinery by 
 which we have actually been governed, are too complex and 
 too numerous to have been produced by anything short of the 
 slow growth of the community. "It is a great mistake," 
 said Mr. Mercer in the Constitutional Convention, "to sup 
 pose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United 
 States. It is the men whom it will bring into the Government 
 and interest in maintaining it that is to govern them. The 
 paper will only mark out the mode and the form. Men are 
 the substance and must do the business. 1 The form of the 
 Constitution was evolved in the various State constitutions 
 made during the Revolution; the federal idea came from an 
 
 i Hunt s Madison s Notes, II, 165. 
 
 229 
 
230 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 attempt to find some solution for the economic difficulties 
 whose pressure was so seriously felt after the war was ended ; 
 the first administrative traditions were created by the pressure 
 of necessity and the genius of Hamilton. Jeffersonian democ 
 racy, on the other hand, was the product of the various at 
 tempts to interpret the actual document called the Constitu 
 tion; while Jacksonian democracy, in which we recognize the 
 final product of American genius, was caused by the growth 
 of the country, especially of the West, and by the attempt to 
 "live" democracy"?) 
 
 The Constitution of the United States is a very large docu 
 ment indeed and provides for the doing of many things not 
 foreseen by the framers of the "paper" and for the doing of 
 many things they saw would be necessary, in other ways than 
 those they deemed best. With the passage of the twelfth 
 amendment in 1801, the feature most admired by the framers 
 was practically abandoned. It had not been thought desir 
 able that the people should in any direct way influence the 
 selection of the President, and accordingly an electoral col 
 lege had been provided which the people should elect and 
 which should then calmly and deliberately vote for the fittest 
 man for the highest post, the candidate receiving the next 
 largest number of votes, indicated therefore in the electors 
 opinion as most desirable second choice, to become Vice-Presi- 
 dent. The electors were forced by the Constitution to meet 
 in the various States and to vote in absolute ignorance of 
 what was actually being done elsewhere. After the first two 
 elections, it became apparent that some sort of previous agree 
 ment among the electors would be essential to prevent a too 
 great scattering of the votes and the accidental choice by a 
 ridiculously small minority of some obviously unsuitable and 
 objectionable candidate. So completely successful was the 
 attempt at previous agreement in 1800 that Jefferson and 
 Burr received the same number of votes, no candidate received 
 a majority, the election was thrown into Congress, and an un 
 seemly scramble for votes ensued, in which Jefferson, whom 
 nearly every one desired for President, was almost defeated. 
 
JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 231 
 
 An amendment was at once passed providing that the electors 
 should vote for both President and Vice-President instead 
 of simply for President. The provision that the electors 
 should meet in their own States was not changed. 
 
 Despite the amendment, the desirability of a previous ar 
 rangement, generally understood, in regard to the fittest candi 
 date was still obvious. Otherwise, the electors voted in the 
 dark, practically threw the State s vote away, and permitted 
 the few States who would go to the trouble of a previous 
 agreement to elect any candidate they chose, without giving 
 the rest even a chance to vote against him. The right to de 
 feat a certain candidate was soon seen to be as significant, 
 and perhaps of more practical importance, than the right to 
 select the man really preferred. It had been the habit in the 
 various States from the earliest times to nominate candidates 
 for executive positions in a caucus, composed of the members 
 of the legislature, which met for the purpose after the regu 
 lar session was over. The voters in the towns and counties 
 could not spare the time to come to the capital and found it 
 much more satisfactory to vote for or against certain men, 
 whom their representatives from the legislative caucus told 
 them were being voted on elsewhere, than it was to vote at 
 random. This flourishing institution, the caucus, long famil 
 iar to all the members of the first Federal congresses, was at 
 once employed to solve the self -same difficulty, and to its de 
 liberations we owe the choice of Madison and Monroe. The 
 electors were not compelled to vote for the caucus candidate ; 
 but it was safer, for he invariably received enough votes to 
 elect. Other candidates were frequently put into the field, 
 men of excellent character but not widely enough known to 
 cause that sort of unanimous decision as to their fitness which 
 had been responsible for the choice of Washington and Jeffer 
 son. Indeed, by 1820, it was seen that no candidate, how 
 ever admirable, would stand any chance in opposition to the 
 caucus candidate without the same definite previous agree 
 ment, scrupulously observed, to vote for him in enough States 
 to command a majority in the electoral college. The congres- 
 
232 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 sional caucus had been invoked to prevent haphazard voting 
 and had literally taken the choice of President away from 
 the electors and put it into the very hands deemed most unfit 
 by the f ramers of the Constitution, into the hands of the legis 
 lature. 
 
 As each successive election more and more clearly demon 
 strated the power of the caucus and the fact that its nomina 
 tion was equivalent to election, the advantages which would 
 result from its manipulation were appreciated by the less 
 scrupulous. In 1820, Crawford, a politician of unsavory 
 reputation and little ability, nearly secured the nomination, 
 and the news thoroughly frightened and aroused the country. 
 The fact that the people did not directly elect mattered little, 
 for the electors had for years never used their prerogative 
 of choice and had nearly always voted as directed by their 
 constituents. The people were really robbed of their right 
 to choose. 
 
 To break the power of the caucus, to restore the right of 
 selection to the people (a right which it had already been 
 forgotten had been thought most undesirable by the framers 
 of the Constitution), an attempt was begun in 1822 to ob 
 tain by previous announcement and hard work a sufficient 
 consensus of opinion in favor of some one man to enable him 
 to defeat the next candidate of the caucus. Clay was nomi 
 nated by the legislature of Kentucky two years before the 
 election of 1824 and was soon only one of sixteen or more 
 candidates, all nominated in a similar way, among whom 
 Jackson was clearly most popular with the masses. The 
 caucus, by this time thoroughly unpopular, was thinly at 
 tended in 1824 and nominated Crawford and Gallatin. Jack 
 son, Adams, and Clay had all been nominated independently 
 by friends in most of the States and something like a real 
 vote by the people on all the candidates for President took 
 place. Jackson, Adams, Crawford, and Clay all received a 
 considerable vote in the order named, but none had sufficient 
 for a choice, and Congress was after all to choose between 
 them. A great deal of excited discussion and the passing 
 
JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 233 
 
 of promises between Adams and Clay finally made the former 
 President. Mr. Clay s adherents were strong in the House 
 of Representatives and he was able to control enough votes 
 to decide the matter in Adams s favor, with the understand 
 ing, faithfully observed by Adams, that Clay should become 
 Secretary of State. The result was loudly denounced by 
 Jackson s supporters; the people had been again defrauded. 
 Jackson had received easily the largest popular vote and a 
 plurality in the electoral college, and had been " robbed" of 
 his rights by the "corrupt deal" between Adams and Clay. 
 War to the death was declared; the most elaborate arrange 
 ments yet made preceded the election of 1828 and Jackson 
 was triumphantly swept into the presidential chair. 
 
 While he received nearly double the number of votes in 
 the electoral college that Adams did, the estimated popular 
 vote showed something approaching equality, and the number 
 of States in which the vote had been close was sufficient to 
 give the opposition hope of reversing the result. The caucus 
 was dead indeed, but it was even more apparent than ever 
 that if the minority were to prevail or the majority maintain 
 their position, both must organize even more carefully than 
 before. The amount of labor involved in the method of 
 nomination pursued in Jackson s case was so great that it 
 seemed hardly likely to succeed again, and much more likely 
 to reproduce the situation of 1824 and throw the election 
 into the hands of Congress. The campaign of 1832, there 
 fore, saw in the field a new organization, nothing more nor 
 less than a caucus or convention chosen by the people ex 
 pressly for the purpose of nominating a candidate and of 
 formulating a policy. The name " National Republicans" 
 was adopted, Henry Clay nominated for President, and the 
 first party "platform" or policy announced. The Democrats 
 promptly followed suit and by a similar convention nominated 
 Jackson again. 
 
 Thus originated the two great national parties, whose in 
 fluence has dominated Federal politics ever since and which 
 are the most important part of the machinery designed by 
 
234 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Jackson and his supporters to make effective the new demo 
 cratic maxim, the direct rule of the people. As Calhoun put 
 it, "Let the people have the power directly." Needless to 
 add, no idea had been further from the minds of the framers 
 of the State and Federal constitutions. Colonial democ 
 racy had been a limited democracy where the fit acted for the 
 unfit; it had favored indirect influence by the majority, and 
 had allowed the people in Federal government even less actual 
 participation than in State government, restricting their 
 share to the choice of the presidential electors, of representa 
 tives, and of the State legislatures which elected the sena 
 tors. Indeed, the electors had been by no means infrequently 
 chosen by the legislatures prior to the Jacksonian regime. 
 Jackson proclaimed the right of the people to direct influence 
 in local, State, and Federal government and, whether or not 
 as a direct result of his campaign, certainly universal man 
 hood suffrage became the slogan in the States, and of course 
 the States, having in their hands the provisions for the Fed 
 eral suffrage, promptly projected manhood suffrage into Fed 
 eral politics. 
 
 Herein Jacksonian democracy differed from Jeffersonian 
 democracy. Jeffersonian democracy had laid stress upon the 
 proper scope of central government, upon the proper in 
 terpretation of the Constitution, upon the relation of the in 
 dividual to the central government rather than upon the 
 definition of * * the people. On the whole, its august founder 
 had been content with the limitations upon the suffrage com 
 mon at the time and had felt that local and State govern 
 ments were in their existing condition almost ideal. He had 
 been concerned with guarding the individual from the new 
 colossus, Federal government, had been anxious to limit its 
 province as much as possible, with the idea that the less di 
 rection the individual received from without, the better; the 
 freer he could be from all interference beyond what other 
 individuals had a right to exert by an appeal to the judiciary, 
 the better it would be for him and for the community. 
 Could the strict interpretation of constitutions and laws be- 
 
JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 235 
 
 come an actuality, all desirable results would follow. That 
 elaborate machinery would be necessary to enable the people 
 even formally to participate in elections and to influence the 
 policy of the State, he declined to believe. After all, 
 it must be remembered that the form of Jeffersonian democ 
 racy was largely due to the fact that it was a reaction from 
 the Hamiltonian notion of a strong centralized administra 
 tion which should effectively correlate and direct the energies 
 of the individuals who composed the community. 
 
 Similarly, Jacksonian democracy was a revolt against the 
 machinery which had been developed to express a decision 
 for the people. The people could act directly, must act di 
 rectly, and needed no mediator. It was not Jackson, how 
 ever, so much as Webster who gave the idea immediate cur 
 rency and stability by showing a delighted and astonished 
 public that their own Constitution vested in the people, in 
 the new Jacksonian sense, the ultimate power of decision. 
 "It is, Sir," said Webster in that famous reply to Hayne of 
 1830, the people s Constitution, the people s government, 
 made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to 
 the people. " Upon Hayne, he cast the stigma of maintain 
 ing a notion repugnant to democracy, that the States and not 
 the people were sovereign. The subtleties of Hayne s doc 
 trine he brushed aside ; its historical defense he ignored with 
 magnificent assurance, conscious that for the first time the 
 American people would see that States rights was in essence 
 undemocratic and contrary to the notion of the supremacy of 
 the people as individuals. That it was also an anti-national 
 doctrine, he declared with eloquence, but this the people did 
 not as yet grasp. It is this reading of the new Jacksonian 
 democracy into the Constitution, the realization of what the 
 words of the document actually said, the failure to know that 
 he was not using the words "the people" in the sense com 
 mon in 1789, that made Webster s 1830 speech a landmark 
 in our constitutional history. 
 
 States sovereignty was undemocratic! The notion so com 
 pletely harmonized with the interests and desires of the New 
 
236 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Englanders that it was caught up at once and became the 
 basis of their political thinking. Behind the ideal of na 
 tionalism, "Webster had definitely placed Jacksonian democ 
 racy and a reading of the Constitution whose cogency and 
 accuracy it was impossible to deny. Historical evidence, quo 
 tations from the fathers, all were and always will be futile 
 against Webster s dramatic, eloquent reading of the words 
 of the document. Moreover, Webster made the word 
 " union " synonymous with nationalism, and made national 
 ism equivalent to strong central government, all of which he 
 asserted was provided by this same democratic Constitution. 
 Yet the idea of union was less potent in causing the popu 
 larity of the speech than the proof that the Constitution it 
 self already contained the idea of democracy and popular 
 rights, the proof that Jackson was right and the caucus 
 wrong. Jefferson had been able to show the anti-nationalists 
 that the Constitution could be read in their sense and that the 
 grant of power did not necessarily presume its abuse or even 
 its use. It had remained for Jackson and Webster to prove 
 that the Constitution explicitly enthroned radical democracy : 
 that the interpretation of the document and of the powers 
 granted by it rested not with the States or with the Federal 
 officials but with the electorate. 
 
 Along with this fundamental change in the notion of who 
 were the people went the development of legislative, admin 
 istrative, and judicial forms and traditions. The House of 
 Representatives was soon after 1789 forced by the exigencies 
 of the situation to develop the committee system, the rules 
 for restricting debate, and the enormous power of the 
 Speaker, which really to-day have taken from the House it 
 self the power of legislation. As the Constitution was the 
 work of Madison and Wilson, as the executive departments 
 were the creation of Hamilton, so the machinery by which 
 legislation is actually made in the House was distinctly the 
 work of Henry Clay. In the Speakership, the Rules of the 
 House, and the Committee System, Clay has left an endur 
 ing mark upon our national institutions. He made the 
 
JACKSONIAN DEMOCBACY 237 
 
 Speaker of the House more powerful than the President and 
 raised that office to a height it has never lost. By 1830, too, 
 the transfer of the preponderance of legislative power from 
 the House to the Senate, which has made the latter what it is 
 to-day, the balance wheel of our legislative fabric, was well 
 under way. 
 
 The real Constitution of the United States by which we 
 live was largely written by Chief Justice Marshall during 
 his long term of office from 1801 to 1835. The interpre 
 tation of the broad phrases and inclusive wording intention 
 ally placed in the document by the framers to enable it to 
 be adapted to the exigencies of times and occasions was a 
 difficult task under any conditions. It was essential that 
 something more than a few specific decisions should be made ; 
 the general rules for the consistent interpretation of the 
 document under all conditions had to be developed, tested, 
 and applied to a sufficient variety of cases to provide the 
 country with the definite body of constitutional precedents 
 which alone could give the individual that degree of personal 
 and civil liberty the Constitution guaranteed him. In par 
 ticular the clause concerning the powers of Congress required 
 most careful treatment. It was at once obvious that only a 
 tithe of the powers which Congress must actually exercise 
 had been enumerated and that only a liberal interpretation 
 of these clauses would permit the Federal government to legis 
 late outside a very narrow range indeed. Jefferson and 
 Madison had declared for the strictest possible construction 
 and the unconstitutionality of every power not explicitly 
 granted. Marshall, however, as Chief Justice, possessed an 
 authority to interpret the Constitution which was denied 
 the President, and the Constitution itself made his decisions 
 binding law. To him we owe the doctrine of implied powers 
 which permits Congress to legislate upon all subjects "neces 
 sary and proper" for compassing the ends for which the 
 Federal government was instituted. Under this aegis the 
 most important work of the Federal government has been 
 done. The decisions of Marshall are actually as much a part 
 
238 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 of the law considered binding in the United States as if they 
 had been solemnly adopted by the Constitutional Convention 
 in 1787. 
 
 The movement for the extension of the direct control of the 
 people spread with extraordinary rapidity in the decades fol 
 lowing the election of Jackson. In the States, manhood suf 
 frage was generally adopted; the appointment of executive 
 officers pretty thoroughly abandoned in favor of election for 
 short terms; the terms of legislators generally reduced in 
 length; and the separation of powers, long since adopted in 
 theory, actually instituted in practice. Scarcely were these 
 changes completed than the first of the great waves of immi 
 gration reached the eastern States and created new condi 
 tions in State and especially in city government. Soon the 
 registration laws and laws fixing the qualifications for voters 
 were being altered to admit these newly arrived members as 
 citizens after shorter and shorter periods of actual residence, 
 until, by the outbreak of the Civil War, boss rule, with its 
 accompanying graft and corruption, had become thoroughly 
 established in State, municipal, and local government in most 
 parts of the country. 
 
 In Federal government, a new rule concerning executive 
 officials had been instituted by Jackson, patterned on Jef 
 ferson s half-hearted measures in the same direction. "To the 
 victors belong the spoils" was the slogan of the army of office- 
 seekers who stormed Washington in 1829. There was no 
 doubt a plausible defense: the chief executive must have 
 around him "friends of the people, " who would execute his 
 commands according to the spirit as well as the letter in which 
 they had been given. Washington s and Adams s unsuccess 
 ful attempts to create a Cabinet from warring elements had 
 early caused the general acceptance of the necessity of 
 harmony in the immediate circle of the President; but Jack 
 son was the first actually to put into operation the principle 
 of the "clean sweep" throughout the Federal offices. Thus 
 the spoils system entered American politics and became speed 
 ily one of its best accepted maxims, whose literal fulfilment 
 
JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 239 
 
 was invariably demanded by the impatient cohorts and rarely 
 denied. 
 
 The period between 1815 and 1840 was a great formative 
 period when protective and compromise principles were 
 adopted; when legislative, judicial, and executive traditions 
 assumed the form they still retain; when manhood suffrage, 
 appointive officers, and city bosses were changing vitally the 
 aspects of democracy as the earlier generations lived it. 
 Lastly and by no means least, it had been a period in which 
 the bud of national consciousness had been bursting into 
 flower among the people themselves. A new nation was 
 slowly evolving; and here and there an individual, seized 
 with the consciousness of the great developments gradually 
 unfolding, began to express in no doubtful tongue his notion 
 of what that national spirit was and ought to be. Among 
 those who influenced popular thinking, Daniel Webster again 
 stands foremost with his great orations on the Pilgrims and 
 on the Battle of Bunker Hill. He created a new conception 
 of the colonial period and of the Revolution, national in its 
 scope and expression, which was caught up into the school- 
 books children were given to read and on which men who 
 later fought in the Northern armies were nourished. Weems 
 had already produced eulogistic biographies of Washington, 
 Franklin, and other notables, whose ready sale showed the 
 growing popular taste for literature glorifying the endeavors 
 of the men who had been conspicuously nationalists, working 
 not for a single State s welfare but obviously for the good of 
 the whole country. By 1850, the literature of American his 
 tory had been further enriched by Irving s dramatic tale of 
 Columbus, by Bancroft s intensely " patriotic" and national 
 istic description of the history of America to the adoption of 
 the Constitution. Sparks s editions of the writings of the 
 Revolutionary fathers were also intentionally prepared to in 
 culcate a love of the country as a whole and an admiration 
 for the men who had worked for our union under one govern 
 ment as well as for our independence from England. The 
 poets of New England, Lowell and Longfellow especially, gave 
 
240 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 voice to this growing sentiment of admiration for our national 
 welfare. So far as the new country had any literature, it was 
 written by Northern nationalists, a fact significant in explain 
 ing the strong sentiment in favor of nationalism in the North 
 in 1860. 
 
 Of an identity distinct from other races, the individual 
 American became acutely conscious about 1830. Truth to 
 tell, an idea that we were different from and better than 
 other people was not unknown in colonial days and became 
 common during the Revolution ; but it was then almost certain 
 to reflect as much local pride and satisfaction as a sense of 
 difference between Americans and Europeans. Until 1830, 
 the feeling of a difference between Americans was still too 
 keen to allow it to become apparent that the people of the 
 whole coast had really begun to think of themselves as Ameri 
 cans rather than as inhabitants of certain States. "With this 
 acute consciousness of racial difference came at first an 
 arrogance and a conceit which we find only too faithfully re 
 flected in the pages of travelers. The American insisted upon 
 the instantaneous recognition of the superiority of his coun 
 try, and its institutions, literature, and culture, over all 
 other countries and their qualities and graces. Crude, rough, 
 ill-mannered as this spirit seemed to the sensitive Dickens, it 
 is nevertheless to the historian unmistakable evidence of the 
 dawning of a truly national consciousness, of the disappear 
 ance of the harsh lines which had kept the people so sepa 
 rated from one another throughout the colonial period. To 
 be sure, nothing like definitive agreement or a consensus of 
 opinion on any subject had been attained, except on the one 
 fact that America was different from and therefore better 
 than Europe; and until a clear consensus of opinion should 
 reach a point at which the community as a whole became con 
 scious that it existed, until it was no longer a matter of ideal 
 ism but a plain inevitable fact, no nation, in the modern or 
 ganic sense of the word, could or would exist. Still, all-un 
 conscious, the nation had begun to try to think, act, and be 
 lieve. 
 
XVIII 
 THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 
 
 THE economic forces in operation in 1830, which were swiftly 
 producing south of Mason and Dixon s line and of the Ohio 
 River conditions more and more widely divergent from those 
 north of it, are all connoted by the single word cotton. 
 And cotton connotes slavery. In 1789 neither cotton nor 
 slavery were factors of prime consequence ; in 1815 both were 
 clearly of growing importance and were seen to be potentially 
 capable of great extension. By 1830, the increasing demand 
 for cotton, the ease with which the South had been able to 
 meet it, the astonishing profits, proved to the dullest minds 
 that in cotton the United States had at last found the medium 
 of exchange with Europe which it had so long lacked, and 
 which with every decade was becoming more and more ade 
 quate. Indeed, many and many an excited planter and New 
 England merchant saw in cotton the means of freeing the 
 country from its long economic dependence upon Europe. 
 They were ready to teach their children, in the words of De 
 Bow, "to hold the cotton plant in one hand and the sword in 
 the other, ever ready to defend it as the source of commercial 
 power abroad and through that of independence at home." 
 
 The most obvious result of the cotton-culture had been to 
 render slavery extremely profitable and to put an end to the 
 talk at the South of the desirability of its abolition which had 
 been so common in Virginia and in South Carolina between 
 1815 and 1825. The vast increase in the cotton crop from 
 about four hundred fifty thousand bales in 1816 to one million 
 bales in 1826, over eighty per cent of which was promptly 
 exported of course greatly increased the exports of the 
 United States and facilitated exchange with Europe. In- 
 
 241 
 
242 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 deed, in the palmiest days of the old pre-revolutionary smug 
 gling-trade, the ease and profitableness of trade with Europe 
 had never been so great. The loss of the West Indian trade be 
 came each year of less consequence, and, as the country devel 
 oped, it became clearer and clearer to Americans that the West 
 India market, even if it had continued open to them, would 
 have been inadequate to consume the whole swelling volume 
 of produce. Thankfully, they realized their deliverance when 
 the abolition of slavery by England in 1833 ruined her West 
 India sugar plantations and hence destroyed at one blow the 
 original source of the commercial prosperity of the Atlantic 
 coast. The problem of our relations to the West Indies had 
 solved itself. There was now no recourse save cotton. 
 
 The cotton-culture had also trebled the value of land and 
 of slaves at the South. It was a method of cultivation pe 
 culiarly adopted to the use of slave labor. The stalks of the 
 previous year s crop were first broken down; the field was 
 then laid off into beds by plowing a furrow between the old 
 rows and lapping on it from four to six other furrows, thus 
 leaving the field in ridges about four feet apart. After the 
 earth had been pulverized with a small harrow, and the 
 center of the ridge split with a plow, negro women sowed 
 cotton seed in the trench at the rate of about two bushels 
 per acre and the trench was closed by dragging a sort of 
 scraper over it. The young plants were thinned out with a 
 hoe, a laborious task, so as to leave two plants about a foot 
 apart, and, until the crop was ready to pick, the ground was 
 constantly hoed or stirred every twenty days. Picking, a 
 long and tedious rather than laborious occupation, consumed 
 months, and when it was over the field gang began to break 
 stalks and plow again the old field or to clear new fields of 
 weeds and underbrush. The simplicity of the work, the small 
 number and rudimentary character of the tools needed, the 
 constant but not exhausting labor all the year round, the 
 profitableness of organizing labor on a large scale and of 
 performing simultaneously the same task by great gangs of 
 slaves, all made the cotton-culture ideally fitted for the use 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 243 
 
 of forced labor. The expense of maintaining slaves in com 
 parative comfort was small in a warm climate where housing, 
 fuel, and heavy clothing were not essential, and where the 
 vegetable food abundantly provided by nature formed an 
 important part of the negroes diet. 
 
 Cotton, however, rapidly exhausted the land, and even vir 
 gin soil after two or three years cropping yielded a per 
 ceptibly smaller return. Since manure and fertilizers were 
 expensive and little understood and since new land was plenti 
 ful, it became customary to abandon a field after a few years 
 and move the gang of slaves to a new scene of operations. 
 From this grew a tendency towards large plantations of thou 
 sands of acres where several shifts of operations could be 
 made on the owner s territory, without leaving the general 
 neighborhood, and then permit a return to the first field, 
 which would have lain fallow long enough to recover its fer 
 tility. The profits, too, were indubitably greater from farm 
 ing on a large scale and great gangs of slaves owned by com 
 paratively few men were soon producing the bulk of the cot 
 ton crop. 
 
 The extraordinary profit in cultivating the richest bottom 
 lands compared to the more moderate returns from cropping 
 the uplands promptly sent the more adventurous and am 
 bitious into new districts and caused the rapid growth after 
 1830 of the territory along the Gulf of Mexico. A very large 
 superficial area was at once occupied: the land sales in the 
 five Gulf States in 1834 aggregated nearly three million acres ; 
 and in both 1835 and 1836, over five million acres. The rush 
 of capital to the district was equally marked; the number of 
 slaves owned there increased 86% in the decade after 1830, 
 while the production of cotton increased 163%. 
 
 From this expansion flowed results of consequence. The 
 preponderance of slaves and of wealth shifted from the At 
 lantic coast to the Gulf States. In 1790, Maryland and Vir 
 ginia had owned three-fifths of all the slaves in the country; 
 by 1840 about two-thirds of the slaves had migrated to the 
 Gulf States, and one-half of the total number were absolutely 
 
244 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 dependent on the cotton-culture. By 1850, nearly 80% of the 
 total number of slaves were in the cotton States. The value 
 of a good field-hand had risen from $200 in 1778 to $600 in 
 1836. Indeed, compared to cotton, tobacco, the staple crop of 
 Virginia and Kentucky, was not profitable enough to re 
 tain the slaves in the district, while in Tennessee and Mis 
 souri the profit of using slaves for agriculture was in no way 
 comparable to that of selling them to the cotton-planters. 
 Practically, the enormous success of the cotton-culture in the 
 Gulf States and the consequent high price of slaves made it 
 more profitable for the border States to breed slaves for the 
 Southern fields than to cultivate any crop themselves. "Vir 
 ginia is, in fact," wrote a Southern professor in 1830, "a 
 negro-raising State for other States." Cotton thus not only 
 perpetuated slavery in the cotton-belt where the slaves could 
 be profitably used for the actual production of the staple; 
 but it perpetuated it in the border States where it made the 
 slave himself a marketable and valuable commodity. "It is 
 believed," said Henry Clay in 1829, "that nowhere in the 
 farming portion of the United States, would slave labor be 
 generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to 
 raise slaves by the high price of the Southern markets which 
 keeps it up in his own." 
 
 Certainly, too, the cotton-culture made the South essen 
 tially agricultural and essentially an agricultural community 
 of one crop. As years went on, the amount of food raised 
 proportionately declined, the amount of manufactured goods, 
 even under the most liberal interpretation of that term, was 
 so very small that the cotton States practically depended on 
 the North, the West, or Europe for literally everything neces 
 sary for life. Other industry than cotton-culture and all sorts 
 of manufactures were dwarfed, discouraged, or prevented from 
 developing. Where in 1810 the total value of manufactured 
 goods south of Mason and Dixon s line compared to their value 
 north of that line had been about one-half, it was by 1840 only 
 one-third, and had sunk by 1850 to one-fifth. Some growth 
 there was, but relatively to the growth of manufactures at the 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 245 
 
 North, the South suffered an actual decline. The two sections 
 were developing in different directions and certainly those 
 geographical and geological conditions, which made the cotton- 
 culture so profitable in the South and which forced the North 
 into manufacturing and varied industry, are mainly re 
 sponsible for the contrast which plainly existed between them 
 in 1860. 
 
 A Southern historian has made a careful study of the con 
 dition of Alabama in 1850. Out of 750,000 people, there were 
 330,000 slaves, owned by 30,000 men, that is, by about seven 
 per cent of the white population. About three-fourths of 
 the total number of slaves, with nearly that same proportion 
 of the land, were owned by less than 10,000 white men, from 
 whose plantations came the great bulk of the cotton crop. 
 The profits can be guessed from the fact that the exports of 
 the State were valued at ten million dollars annually while 
 the imports were under a million. To New England and to 
 Europe, the State sent cotton; from the Northwest via the 
 Mississippi and the Gulf she drew bread and meat. Some 
 75,000 whites and as many negroes derived a livelihood from 
 manufactures, banking, and the professions. Until just be 
 fore the Civil War there was no attempt at an organized 
 public-school system. Alabama was a State of small towns 
 and villages, of scattered plantations, with no large cities 
 and little if any community life in the broadest sense. The 
 figures given by the census of 1850 for the South as a whole 
 prove theso conditions typical. There were 347,525 slave 
 holders in the South, and something over three millions of 
 slaves. "Of the large planters owning more than fifty slaves, 
 whose elegance, luxury, and hospitality are recited in tales of 
 travelers, over whose estates and lives has shone the luster of 
 romance and poetry, there were less than eight thousand/ 
 
 So striking and important a change in the aspect of 
 slavery, in its geographical extent and its economic position, 
 naturally provoked both North and South a vigorous and 
 eager discussion of its cause, its methods, its morals, its ex 
 pediency, and its justifiability. Societies for the abolition of 
 
246 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 slavery or for its limitation were old in America, had been 
 common both North and South in the decade following 1789 
 and in that following the commercial depression of 1816 ; but 
 the vital changes in the position and importance of slavery, 
 together with the general intellectual ferment which produced 
 as dissimilar movements as the Sunday-school, the Mormon 
 church, temperance and women s rights societies, roused a 
 section of the Northern people to agitate against slavery and 
 led to the formation of a new type of Abolition and Anti- 
 slavery societies by a new group of leaders, of whom the most 
 remarkable were Garrison, Parker, and Phillips. Their 
 propaganda, which seems to modern investigators to have 
 contributed little to the outbreak of the War in 1861, did 
 cause a searching of consciences and in particular of history, 
 the Scriptures, and the census. "What was the economic 
 status of slavery; was it profitable; was it fair, equitable, 
 just, ethical, moral; was it cruel, was it as good for the slave 
 as for the master? The discussion was carried on by both 
 parties with a furious intensity, with the uncritical use of so- 
 called "facts," and with that sentiment and prejudice which 
 are so certain to accompany the political discussion of any 
 moral issue. 
 
 While it is hardly profitable to-day to consider the detailed 
 arguments advanced by either side, it may be briefly pointed 
 out that the chief difference seems to have lain in the fact 
 that the Southerners lived with the negro and treated slavery 
 as an essentially practical economic question, while the North 
 ern men, by reason of their lack of actual contact with 
 slavery, were able to look upon it with a certain detachment 
 and to apply to its difficulties moral and ethical theories 
 drawn chiefly from their own widely different practical ex 
 perience. The planter believed that cotton could not be 
 grown without negroes and knew that history as well as the 
 Scriptures provided no other solution of the problem raised 
 by the juxtaposition of a superior and an inferior race ex 
 cept slavery. If any individuals then alive were to blame for 
 the existence of slavery at the South, he felt some share of the 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 247 
 
 blame ought to be borne by the New Englanders whose for 
 tunes had originally been based on the rum, molasses, and 
 slave-trade during the colonial times. That cruel treatment 
 of slaves occurred, he was willing to admit, but he claimed 
 that on the whole slavery at the South in 1850 was as humane 
 and considerate as it had ever been anywhere. Northern 
 opinion more and more came to lay stress upon the moral and 
 ethical issue, upon the claim that any slavery anywhere was 
 of itself wrong, inhuman, and cruel. It pointed out that the 
 trend of human development had been clearly toward the 
 emancipation of the individual, and that the enlightened 
 opinion of Western Europe in 1850 regarded the institution 
 with abhorrence and had everywhere abolished it. Both 
 sides employed many other arguments and illustrations whose 
 truth was stoutly challenged by their opponents. 
 
 The trouble about the argument was that the truth on one 
 side did not offset or answer the truth on the other. The 
 Southerner, quoting history and the Scriptures, declined to 
 listen to what he was told was the moral sense of the world. 
 Nor was the claim that slavery in the South was in general 
 humane and that no individuals then alive were in any way 
 to blame for its existence, at all satisfactory to the excited 
 Abolitionists who declaimed against it as a wrong in itself, 
 whose very existence proved it wrong. After the dark days 
 of the Reconstruction, it is hard to convince many sincere 
 men that most negroes were not happier and better cared 
 for under slavery than they have been since under freedom. 
 In fact, the South raised the issue of expediency: how could 
 we or can we do otherwise. The real difficulty was the ex 
 istence of millions whose actual ignorance and incapacity 
 made them economic slaves, literally unable to care for them 
 selves, and not to be made capable and industrious by fiat. 
 To this the Northern men replied that slavery simply meant 
 the perpetuation of this situation by making it legally, eco 
 nomically, and socially impossible for the children to rise 
 above the position their fathers and grandfathers had occu 
 pied. It was the clash between present and future expe- 
 
248 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 diency, a choice between the probable evils of emancipation 
 with which men then alive must cope, or the postponement 
 of the remedy for the evils of slavery to a future time. If 
 we confine ourselves strictly to the point of view of 1850, we 
 shall be likely to agree that humane, sensible, honest men 
 might find much that seemed cogent and convincing in either 
 argument and be able consistently to espouse that side with 
 ardor. 
 
 Meanwhile, north of Mason and Dixon s line and of the 
 Ohio River, in the districts popularly known as the North 
 and the West, an extremely different type of social eco 
 nomic structure was growing apace. Even before the Revo 
 lution, a difference in development between the North and 
 South had been remarked by casual travelers, and by the 
 inauguration of Jackson the contrast was striking; but 
 the following decades saw a truly stupendous growth 
 in the North of diversified industry and in the West 
 of more intensive scientific agriculture, whose reaction 
 upon the social and political life of the community was ex 
 ceedingly significant. It was not so much an increase in the 
 output of Northern factories and Western farms which at 
 tracted attention, though the doubling of the wheat and corn 
 crops and of the production of raw iron and the trebling of 
 the value of manufactured woolens and cottons were suffi 
 ciently interesting facts. The normally rapid increase of the 
 population, plus steady immigration, necessarily meant the ap 
 plication of more hands to the soil, enormous sales of land, 
 more acres under actual cultivation, and hence ensured a great 
 increase in total production. The remarkable fact was the 
 undoubted gain in efficiency, the proportionally greater return 
 from the investment of capital and labor than ever before; 
 the increasing variety of the output; the rapid rise of new 
 industries, and the steady development of a home market for 
 home products as well as the manufacture of domestic prod 
 ucts to supply the home demand. The North was not only 
 gaining on the South from the more rapid natural increase 
 of the white population ; it was gaining immensely by immigra- 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 249 
 
 tion year by year, especially after 1850 ; and it was utilizing 
 more of its natural resources more skilfully and adequately 
 than was the South. 
 
 This new efficiency was largely due to improved methods and 
 to the invention of new machinery to perform the manual labor 
 for which it was impossible to procure hands enough on the 
 Western farms. The cast-iron plow, the mowing-machine, 
 the horse-rake, the reaping- and threshing-machines, the horse- 
 cultivators and seed-sowers, all of which were in use by 1840 
 and all of which had by 1850 become practically universal in 
 the West, were enabling a few men to do the work of a hundred 
 hand laborers. And the North found that the increased output 
 of raw iron, the better pig iron produced by the new process 
 of smelting with anthracite coal provided the material out of 
 which busy hands in Northern factories could form the ma 
 chines needed by the West. Then, too, as the years passed, 
 improvements upon the old spinning- and weaving-machinery, 
 the sewing-machine, changes in factory organization, cheaper 
 machines due to cheaper iron and cheaper transportation, in 
 creased the proportionate output from the factories and re 
 duced the cost of production. 
 
 More people to be reached, living on a constantly greater area 
 of land ; more produce to be moved, more markets demanding 
 it, required and secured a tremendous improvement in the 
 facilities of transportation. In 1825, the Erie Canal connected 
 the Great Lakes with the Mohawk and the Hudson Rivers, and 
 was soon linked to a network of canals through the low water 
 shed separating the Ohio River system from the Lake system. 
 By 1840 grain traveled a thousand miles to the Eastern States 
 more cheaply and expeditiously than it could have been moved 
 a hundred miles a decade earlier. A vast acreage of land 
 hitherto inacessible became available and to it flocked the am 
 bitious. Soon canal lines were supplanted by the rapid growth 
 after 1840 of railroad trunk lines which made transportation 
 of all bulky goods still cheaper and greatly fostered the rapid 
 development of diversified industry. Cheap iron of constantly 
 better grade made possible better engines, larger cars, stronger 
 
250 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 rails, and enabled the railroads to haul longer trains of larger 
 cars, each with heavier loads, in less time at constantly dimin 
 ishing cost. As transportation became cheaper, districts were 
 able to send grain to market which had never before been able 
 to compete and were consequently able to afford manufactured 
 goods for the first time. The increased supply of food enabled 
 men in the East hitherto dependent on local supply to abandon 
 the farm for the factory and produce the articles the West 
 demanded. Yet, as food and clothes grew cheaper because of 
 the improved process and the development of transportation, 
 the profit to the individual seemed to increase on each trans 
 action, and the bushel of corn bought more manufactured 
 articles, and strange to say a yard of cloth or a pig of iron 
 bought more corn. It was as if some magician had waved 
 his wand and bade them all make one another rich. 
 
 As the economic fabric grew in size, it developed in strength 
 and complexity. Corporations of all sorts were formed; by 
 1860 a goodly number of labor unions attempting organi 
 zation on a national scale had appeared. Particularly evi 
 dent and gratifying were the increasing number of banks, the 
 swelling volume of deposits, and the extension of credit facil 
 ities in the East. The amount of capital seeking invest 
 ment had never been so great and proved the unquestioned 
 soundness of the country s development. Exchange through 
 London for trade between the States was long obsolete, and 
 the banking centers were really capable of handling all do 
 mestic business transactions. The complexity of the eco 
 nomic life of the North, the proportion of skilled workmen, 
 the variety of industries, as well as the stability of the 
 credit structure, were to be of the utmost consequence in 
 the waging of the Civil "War. Most significant of all, the 
 new development depended upon cooperation and was profit 
 able in proportion to the efficiency of that collective effort. 
 This the North clearly saw. In the South, on the other 
 hand, the individual was still isolated and was either un 
 conscious of the greater possibilities of a more complex social 
 life or hindered by adverse conditions from developing them. 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 251 
 
 In the social structure, too, occurred striking changes be 
 tween 1840 and 1860, utterly transforming the aspect of 
 Northern society. The population not only doubled but was 
 able to remain practically upon the same area which had 
 supported the previous generation. In earlier decades, no 
 more people could live together in a town or city than the 
 district could support, unless the ease of water transportation 
 and the nearness of a great source of supply enabled them 
 to import their food. But as the efficiency of the new farm 
 ing by machinery enabled a part to feed the whole, and as 
 the efficiency of the new factories made the labor of a part 
 sufficient to clothe the whole, a larger proportion of the com 
 munity than ever before was free to live where it pleased 
 and could rely upon the railroads to supply its wants. Thus 
 was made possible a new type of social unit, the modern 
 industrial city, devoted perhaps to the production of a few 
 articles and relying upon the outside world for all else. 
 Concomitantly, the cheapness of wood with which to build 
 houses, of coal to heat them, of gas to light them, of sewers 
 to drain them, of water-works to supply fresh water, made 
 the rapid growth of cities possible and freed these hundreds 
 of thousands of people, huddled upon the same spot, from 
 the old menaces of the plague and the scurvy. The com 
 munity had time to build cities and public works, and to 
 supply the multifold new economic wants which community 
 life in cities promptly created. It was becoming wealthy, 
 beginning to have traces of a leisure class, able to afford 
 systematically to develop its tastes in a variety of directions 
 not essential to existence but imperative for culture and 
 education. Theaters, magazines, books multiplied; the opera 
 and concerts became popular. Education received more care 
 ful attention and a considerable part of the swelling profits 
 were wisely invested in school buildings and equipment, and 
 the children could be, and were, left longer in school than 
 ever before. For those adults whose early opportunities had 
 not been great, the lyceum and the lecture courses provided 
 a variety of informing and instructive material. 
 
252 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 In the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, the gain in population 
 and wealth was proportionately more rapid than in the North, 
 and for the first time a truly complex social structure began 
 to develop west of the mountains. Naturally, it centered 
 round the lines of communication with the East; along the 
 great highway from New York through the Hudson and 
 Mohawk Valleys, along the shore of the Lakes to "the North 
 west, as the States northwest of Chicago were then called. 
 Naturally, it was most striking at the various gateways and 
 termini, New York, Albany, Buffalo, the Lake cities, Chicago. 
 New York and Chicago, the eastern and western termini of 
 the railroad trunk lines, of course benefited most. The older 
 centers in the West, Cincinnati and St. Louis, had owed their 
 prominence to their control of the river routes to the South 
 and were therefore outside the new field of development. A 
 shift in the balance of population and wealth took place be 
 tween the North and West, much to the advantage of the 
 West as a whole, and with it came a concomitant shift of 
 the balance of population and wealth in the West from the 
 Mississippi and Ohio River system to the Great Lakes and 
 the upper Mississippi. And Henry Clay had predicted in 
 1824 that Zanesville, Ohio, would become the emporium of 
 the West! 
 
 Why the only sectional line in American history, which 
 ever threatened to become permanent, should have begun with 
 the old boundary line run by Mason and Dixon between Mary 
 land and Pennsylvania and have continued along the Ohio 
 River and then have passed northwest through Missouri is 
 one of the most fascinating questions of American history, 
 and probably does not admit of a wholly determinate an 
 swer. 
 
 It is, however, a remarkable and suggestive fact that the 
 southern line of the great ice sheet, which at one time oc 
 cupied the whole northern half of this continent followed 
 very nearly Mason and Dixon s line, then followed the Ohio 
 River for half its course, passed across Indiana and Illinois 
 leaving a sizable section south of it (where " before the 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 253 
 
 War" many slaves hired from Kentucky were at work and 
 which were pro-slavery districts in most elections), and then 
 turned sharply towards the northwest, leaving most of Mis 
 souri to the south of it. The result of the existence of this 
 great ice sheet and of its melting was to create north of 
 this line a soil richer in chemical elements and hence more 
 fertile than that south of it. Much land south of this line 
 is still "dead soil" and only in the river bottoms, filled with 
 silt brought by the Mississippi from the upper valley, is 
 the soil extremely fertile. The southern half of the United 
 States is not capable of the same variety of crops as the 
 northern. Closely following this same line of the ice sheet 
 is the isotherm of an average annual temperature of 60 
 degrees, the belt just north averaging 50 to 60 degrees, and 
 that just south, 60 to 70 degrees. But the peculiarity of 
 America is that while the lines of winter temperature slope 
 southward and give the country between the Great Lakes 
 and the Gulf the range of temperature found in Europe 
 between the North Cape and the Sahara Desert, the summer 
 lines expand in both directions and produce greater extremes 
 of temperature in the northern half than in the southern 
 half or in European countries of the same latitude. The 
 temperature of the northern belt, like its soil, is far more 
 varied than that of the southern half, where only those crops 
 can be profitably grown that will thrive in a summer temper 
 ature of 80 degrees and above. In addition, the average 
 annual rainfall, so important to agriculture, is from 20 to 
 40 inches in the belt just north of the line of the ice sheet, 
 and from 40 to 60 inches in the whole district south of it. 
 More than 60 degrees annual temperature and more than 
 40 inches of rainfall is fatal to the profitable cultivation of 
 many agricultural products, and it is in the belt just north 
 of Mason and Dixon s line and of the Ohio River, that soil, 
 temperature, and rainfall create the most favorable con 
 ditions for agriculture. Consequently, the bulk of the most 
 highly developed land, and nearly all the wheat and corn 
 land will be found to-day, as in 1860, north of the line. 
 
254 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Soil, temperature, and rainfall prevent the growth of wheat 
 and corn at a profit in the South and do not permit the rais 
 ing in the North of staple crops like cotton, tobacco, rice, 
 and indigo, which can be profitably grown with slave labor. 
 The North was prevented by Nature, not by the superior 
 moral and ethical fiber of its people, from developing slavery 
 as an institution. These conditions were true in 1606 ; they 
 are still true in 1914: they are fundamental conditions which 
 have shaped and always will shape economic and institutional 
 life in this country. 
 
 One more fact is of consequence. As the great sheet of 
 ice melted, the Ohio and Missouri Eivers were formed by 
 the streams flowing along its edges into the cleft of the 
 valley ; there they united with the Mississippi, cutting a deep 
 channel between the low hills to the Gulf of Mexico. They 
 flowed, however, through a vast plain whose angle of in 
 clination was small, and, except at times of flood, their prog 
 ress was leisurely and wandering. In this country there 
 would be little water-power for manufacturing. On the other 
 hand, the mountains and rocky northern country created 
 swift rivers with many falls and rapids. All through New 
 York and New England the streams hurrying down the steep 
 hillsides and draining great mountain valleys made possible 
 the water-power upon which the early factories depended. 
 The use of steam as the chief motive power in manufactur 
 ing is very recent, and is wholly dependent upon coal as a 
 fuel. The water-power in the rivers enabled the north to 
 develop industries. The same rocky soil and mountainous 
 formation that made the rivers numerous and swift made 
 agriculture on a large scale difficult and unprofitable and 
 influenced the inhabitants to follow other occupations. The 
 climatic and geographical conditions, far more than inherited 
 tendencies or natural ambition, explain the rapid develop 
 ment of manufactures in the North in the half-century pre 
 ceding the Civil War. The lack of water-power and the 
 profitableness of great staple crops made the South pre 
 dominantly an agricultural country. 
 
THE TWO DIVERGING SECTIONS 255 
 
 Similarly the geographical and economic fabric influenced 
 decisively the political institutions of each section. The cold 
 winters in the North made agriculture impossible for many 
 months, necessitated the storing up of provisions and led 
 the people living inland to huddle together for company, 
 for sharing the food and fuel in time of scarcity, and for 
 defense against the Indians and French. The shipping and 
 fishing industries similarly encouraged the formation and 
 growth of towns. These factors naturally explain the for 
 mation of closely knit cooperative centralized institutions in 
 the North; it was convenient and expedient so to live. In 
 the South, it was as clearly convenient and expedient to 
 live otherwise. Tobacco in colonial times, like cotton after 
 the Revolution, required vast areas of new land, for the 
 crops quickly exhausted the soil and the science of fertili 
 zation was not then understood. Each planter owned, there 
 fore, a tract equivalent to a whole New England town 
 ship, in the middle of which he usually lived with a few 
 white overseers and a large gang of slaves. He tilled only 
 a part of his estate each year and was constantly moving 
 from one field to another. Summer and winter were alike 
 to him so far as food, shelter, and communication went; 
 there was nothing to make him dependent on other planters, 
 or to make close political association necessary. The great 
 plantations were therefore organized into counties in the 
 loosest fashion. The necessary functions of government were 
 reduced to a minimum by the small number of whites and 
 their comparative isolation. The common business was 
 largely judicial or financial and could be performed with 
 ease by one or two men. Only on the plantations was ex 
 tensive authority in daily use; the population which most 
 needed to be controlled, tried, fined, and legislated about was 
 not the planters but the slaves, and it was inevitable that 
 nearly plenary authority should be vested in the master. 
 Centralized control was a physical impossibility : each planter 
 must govern his own plantation and receive from the county 
 aid and assistance in cases of special difficulty. The State 
 
256 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 would settle disputes between planters; it could not under 
 take to govern the community for the planters. 
 
 In the seventy years following the adoption of the Consti 
 tution the North developed industry; the South, cotton; the 
 North became wholly free; the South chiefly slave. Where 
 in the North, something like centralized government was a 
 necessity and the object of cooperation was to secure a posi 
 tive result, in the South the best government was, as Jeffer 
 son said, the one which did the least, which interfered only 
 in the last resort. States rights had therefore for the 
 Southerner a solid foundation in the experience of the com 
 munity. The benefits of union, that is of cooperation, had 
 to the Northern man an equally firm basis in experience. In 
 the North, free labor, diversified industry, seemed to be the 
 very price of existence; in the South, great staple crops 
 grown by slaves or at least by unfree labor seemed equally 
 inevitable. To the Northern man slavery was an abstraction, 
 an excrescence on the life of the community ; to the Southern 
 man, it was as necessary as the soil. That in another part 
 of the country the factors, accepted in each as axiomatic, 
 not only did not exist but would have been positively det 
 rimental to the successful administration of public and 
 private business, neither North or South fully realized. 
 
 The Civil War was the result of a misunderstanding be 
 tween honest, sincere men, in which both were right and 
 both were wrong, and, it is far truer to add, in which 
 neither could be either right or wrong. Each did what the 
 conditions of life seemed to make inevitable, what its tradi 
 tions sanctioned, and its ideals counseled. 
 
XIX 
 
 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 BY 1835, the profits of cotton-culture were clear to the South 
 ern planters. Apparently the market was exhaustless; the 
 amount of profit obtainable from the labor of slaves on 
 virgin soil in the river bottoms was astounding; unless the 
 land most profitable to cultivate should be exhausted, or 
 the supply of slaves become insufficient to work it, there 
 seemed literally to be no dreams of wealth and power which 
 might not be realized. For the time being, the supply of 
 land and of slaves was ample, but the rapidity with which 
 the westward movement was progressing made the continu 
 ation of the same rate of growth improbable unless more land 
 could be obtained than was available in 1835. That the same 
 rate of growth must continue seemed to Southerners of the 
 time an axiom whose truth was too apparent to be disputed 
 by any fair-minded individual. To continue it, there must 
 be more land and more slaves. 
 
 The territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 
 was in 1835 already organized into States, the lands had 
 been allotted to private individuals, and the status of slavery 
 had been decided in a fashion which could not be altered. 
 To the north of the Ohio lay the vast plains called the 
 Northwest Territory, which had been organized by the famous 
 Ordinance of 1787, with a prohibition of slavery in the terri 
 tories and States to be organized out of it. By 1819, Ohio, 
 Indiana, and Illinois had been admitted as free States, and 
 the type of soil, the rainfall, and the climate made it certain 
 that the district was wholly unfitted for the growth of cot 
 ton. From every point of view, all the land north of the 
 Ohio was unavailable. 
 
 257 
 
258 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 The territory south of that river had been also ceded to the 
 Confederation by England in the Treaty of 1783, but without 
 a very definite agreement concerning the southern boundary. 
 Kentucky and Tennessee had been settled from Virginia and 
 North Carolina and had entered the Union as slave States in 
 1792 and 1796 respectively. The ownership of a district 
 roughly approximating the present States of Alabama and 
 Mississippi was, however, in dispute between England and 
 Spain, and the former agreed with the latter that if she could 
 make good her claim against the United States, the land should 
 be hers. Georgia also laid claim to the district by virtue of 
 her colonial charter. The difficulty was finally settled by 
 treaties in which the United States bought the Spanish claims 
 to the whole southern part of the United States, including 
 Florida. Mississippi and Alabama had already been settled 
 by Americans and were indeed admitted as States before the 
 Treaty of 1819 was finally ratified. Save Florida, there was 
 no land left east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio 
 which slavery had not already formally occupied by 1820. 
 
 There were, however, in the Gulf States great tracts of ex 
 ceedingly fertile lands in the hands of the powerful Indian 
 confederacies of the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws. After 
 the breaking of solemn treaties and unseemly and undignified 
 quarrels, which very nearly provoked armed defiance of Fed 
 eral authority by Georgia, the Indians were expelled from 
 their rich fields, and by 1835 had been located in what are 
 now Oklahoma and Indian Territory. Although the new area 
 thus opened to cotton was large, it was so promptly occupied 
 that before 1840, all the best cotton land south of the Ohio and 
 east of the Mississippi had again been allotted. 
 
 As early as 1819 when Missouri and Maine simultane 
 ously applied for admission, the status of the Louisiana 
 Territory was seen to be an issue of the first importance. The 
 southernmost part had become a slave State some years be 
 fore; it was natural that the district around the Missouri 
 River whither the rich fur-trade had drawn settlers should out 
 strip the rest of Louisiana in growth and should be large 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 259 
 
 enough for admission as a State when the rest of the pur 
 chase was scarcely settled at all. The Compromise of 1820 
 admitted Missouri as a slave State, and, while prohibiting 
 slavery in the broad plains north of Missouri s southern 
 boundary line, 36 30 , obviously left the river-bottoms of 
 Arkansas for future expansion. In 1820, the allotment to 
 the Indians of land south of 36 30 was not foreseen and 
 the Southerners felt that they had amply provided for all the 
 cotton land which could conceivably be needed for decades to 
 come. In fostering this feeling, the prevailing dense igno 
 rance of western geography played a prominent part. The 
 expedition of Lewis and Clark, sent by Jefferson to inspect 
 the new purchase, and the accounts of trappers and hunters 
 had given no accurate idea of how much land there was to 
 which the United States could rightly lay claim west of the 
 Mississippi. The general notion that it was practically un 
 limited was quite satisfactory to most men. But within 
 fifteen years, Arkansas was demanding admission as a State ; 
 the Indians had been assigned the rest of the Louisiana terri 
 tory west of Arkansas and south of the Missouri Compromise 
 line; and the development of the cotton-culture west of the 
 great river was clearly proceeding at so rapid a pace that the 
 limitation of production and the diminution of the degree of 
 profit hitherto obtained was certain unless new lands could 
 be promptly secured. 
 
 The obvious direction for such expansion was in the Gulf 
 of Mexico, either in Cuba and the islands or in the vast do 
 main of Texas, contiguous with the cotton States, along the 
 Gulf between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. About 
 this great estate, the United States had hitherto cared little; 
 it was included in the Louisiana Purchase, though the fact 
 was not understood in 1803 ; it was therefore left outside the 
 boundaries of the United States in the Treaty of 1819 with 
 Spain, and the omission aroused little comment except in Mis 
 souri. Indeed, few supposed we had a just claim to it or that 
 it was of any particular value. The efforts of the South 
 American and Central American colonies of Spain to obtain 
 
260 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 their independence about 1821 excited much sympathy in the 
 United States, evoked the Monroe Doctrine and practically 
 their protection by the United States from European aggres 
 sion. With equal promptitude appeared arguments in favor 
 of the annexation of one or more of them, especially of Cuba 
 and Mexico, to the latter of which Spain had ceded Texas. 
 Several attempts to annex Cuba and buy Texas were made be 
 fore 1830, but came to nothing. Meanwhile, several thou 
 sand Americans with slaves hurried to Texas and began rais 
 ing cotton ; at least two attempts were made by Americans to 
 set up an independent republic there; and their determina 
 tion to break the loose tie binding the territory to Mexico was 
 greatly strengthened by the emancipation of the slaves by the 
 Mexican Constitution of 1827. After several failures, the 
 Americans in Texas succeeded in establishing their independ 
 ence of Mexico in 1836 and secured recognition from the 
 United States and several European nations the following 
 year. 
 
 With so anomalous a status they were by no means satis 
 fied and ardently desired annexation. This, the discovery by 
 the Southern planters of the rapid exhaustion of available 
 cotton land led the latter to support with might and main. 
 The scheme was defeated in 1837. Now it became clear to the 
 Southerners that Texas as an independent State had only to 
 begin the direct importation of cheap negroes from Africa 
 to sell cotton at a price with which the high price of slaves 
 in the United States and the abolition of the slave trade 
 would prevent them from competing. In addition, the rapid 
 exhaustion of the virgin soil available in the Gulf States made 
 it also possible that the profit from cotton would be so re 
 duced that its cultivation in Louisiana and Mississippi might 
 no longer be profitable at all. The remedies were either an 
 nexation, which would impose permanently upon the Texans 
 the same restraints to which the Southerners themselves were 
 subject, or the repeal of the constitutional prohibition against 
 the slave trade. 
 
 The designs of the Southerners upon Cuba and Texaa 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 261 
 
 roused the suspicions of the Northern and Western men. 
 The anti-slavery and abolition movements were becoming 
 strong; anti-slavery petitions poured into Congress, where 
 they found a stanch and able advocate in John Quincy 
 Adams. What agitation and insistence had not been able to 
 effect in Northern minds, the obvious trend of Southern am 
 bition promptly accomplished. Was it after all right to 
 adopt a policy for the wide extension and development of an 
 institution, the logic for whose extension was by no means 
 as unanswerable as the arguments against interfering with it 
 where it already existed ? Did not the South intend to create 
 a new slave empire which would in time sweep into its maw 
 the whole Gulf of Mexico and whose size and wealth would 
 endanger the free States in the North? The fact that the 
 South controlled the chief medium of exchange with Europe 
 and the only medium since the destruction of the prosperity of 
 the English West Indian Islands by the abolition of slavery 
 in 1833 caused the Northern members of Congress to realize 
 that the commercial situation might effectually chain their 
 States to the chariot wheels of the new slave empire and that 
 it behooved them to look well before they sanctioned its de 
 velopment. But the fear, which seemed at the time well- 
 founded, of the annexation of Texas by England or France 
 and the consequent creation there of a rival State capable 
 of contesting with us the control of the Gulf and of the con 
 tinent, carried the day. In 1845, Texas was annexed by a 
 joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress. 
 
 The boundaries of the new State on the west and south had 
 not yet been settled with Mexico and the territory claimed by 
 the Texans, a broad band stretching up into the country be 
 tween the Nueces River and the Rio Grande was of im 
 mense size and probably of commensurate value. Its cession 
 by Mexico could certainly be secured by a little show of force. 
 The latter country was in the throes of an internal revolu 
 tion and could scarcely resist. War was declared in 1846 and 
 the United States armies soon defeated the ill-equipped and 
 badly disciplined levies of Mexicans. Webster and other 
 
262 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Northern men inveighed hotly against the war as unprovoked 
 and unjust aggression, and only in the South was popular 
 approval widespread and outspoken. Charges were made 
 that the President attempted to buy or annex the whole of 
 Mexico and was forced to renounce his plans by the refusal 
 of England and France to countenance the scheme. However 
 this may have been, a treaty was signed in 1848 which ceded 
 to the United States the enormous territory west of the Rock 
 ies, south of Oregon and north of the present Mexican bound 
 ary (except a tract in southern Arizona purchased in 1853), 
 fully a quarter of the present area of the United States. 
 
 At about this same time were concluded treaties with Eng 
 land which definitely settled the northern boundary, between 
 the United States and Canada, nearly the whole length of 
 which was in dispute. The real cause of the difficulty lay in 
 the lack of accurate information about the topography of the 
 interior at the time when the Treaty of 1783 and the Loui 
 siana Purchase of 1803 had been concluded. In the Northwest, 
 the United States claimed that Maine extended almost to the 
 St. Lawrence River, while the English declared the highlands 
 mentioned by the negotiators were far to the south and east. 
 In the West, it was found that the terms of the Treaty of 1783 
 were impossible of fulfilment, and, as well, that much land 
 which it had been evidently intended should belong to the 
 United States was outside its boundaries and that other land 
 it had not been intended to have was its property. Still fur 
 ther west, beyond the Rockies, was the great valley of the 
 Columbia River, which both England and the United States 
 claimed by virtue of title by discovery, and parts of whose 
 valley had been already occupied by trappers and settlers of 
 both nations. The western boundary was settled first, the 
 parallel of the Lake of the Woods being accepted as far as the 
 Rockies and a joint occupation of Oregon agreed upon. In 
 1842, the boundary of Maine was compromised, and in 1846 
 Oregon was divided by continuing the 49th parallel to the 
 Pacific. 
 
 In 1848, therefore, an enormous accession of territory had 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 263 
 
 just been made and its organization and status became a burn 
 ing question in Congress. Nor were the issues such as would 
 permit of postponement. The demarcation of the western 
 boundary of Texas was necessary in order to establish a gov 
 ernment over the disputed area, which was already occupied, 
 and in which the Texans had immediately begun to assert 
 their authority. In Oregon, the number and activity of 
 trappers and settlers, the immense value of the fur-trade, as 
 well as the need of authority of some sort for the preserva 
 tion of order, made prompt action in providing permanent or 
 ganization no less imperative. In California, gold was dis 
 covered, and in 1849 a rush to the new territory ensued of 
 such proportions that the regulations concerning the number 
 of inhabitants required for admission to statehood were prac 
 tically met at once. The prospecting stories which came back 
 were amazing. A gold-seeker died from starvation and ex 
 posure; his partner determined to give up as soon as he had 
 buried the body ; in digging the grave he turned up a nugget 
 of pure gold worth $40,000. A tramp, put off a wagon-train 
 because he had not paid his fare, wandered across the fields, 
 and literally stumbled over a nugget worth $2500. The idle, 
 the adventurous, the desperate all started for Eldorado and 
 formed a population particularly in need of strong govern 
 ment. 
 
 These problems, whose solution was so essential, were at 
 once discussed in the light of previous agitation and grouped 
 themselves with other grievances of the North and of the 
 South. The satisfactory decision of all seemed peculiarly 
 difficult. California, already clamoring for statehood, pro 
 posed to tolerate no negroes, free or slave; "California for 
 white men" was the slogan. Even the descriptions of casual 
 travelers in the arid plains of the great district then known 
 as New Mexico convinced the Southerners that cotton could 
 never be grown there and that the profitable use of slaves there 
 for any purpose was highly problematical. Apparently the 
 Mexican War had been worse than fruitless; it had added 
 enormous reaches of free territory without increasing the 
 
264 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 available cotton land at all. Again, the war had ostensibly 
 been fought to enforce the claims of Texas to the Rio Grande 
 as a southern boundary and its success was assumed by the 
 Texans to have guaranteed them the land in dispute. The 
 United States, however, found itself heir to the claims of 
 Mexico, and, when Congress began to realize how vast an 
 area was affected by the Texan claims and how strong the 
 Mexican case had been, it soon assumed the extraordinary 
 position of denying the rightfulness of the claims of Texas 
 to establish whose rectitude the war itself had been fought. 
 Here too the issue of slavery appeared. If the territory were 
 adjudged part of Texas, it would at once become slave terri 
 tory forever; if it were left a part of New Mexico, Congress 
 would then be able to consider its status. Strong objections 
 were at once manifest among the New Englanders to any set 
 tlement in favor of Texas. 
 
 Into this tangle of interests and prejudices were projected 
 three old issues on which the North was becoming evidently 
 more and more reluctant to allow the Southerners their way. 
 The argument of the Abolitionists had done much to rouse 
 feeling in the North, but had produced little effect compared 
 with the sight of a fugitive slave fleeing from his master and 
 pursued by United States marshals. If he was so happy in 
 slavery, taunted the Abolitionists, why did he prefer to risk 
 being torn to pieces by bloodhounds rather than stay with his 
 1 dear master " ? If the masters had the welfare and happiness 
 of the slave so much at heart, why did they pursue him with 
 hue and cry the moment he manifested unmistakably his dis 
 taste for slavery? The fact that the negro was valuable prop 
 erty, that he was to be returned as a strayed or stolen horse, 
 and was to be returned to forced labor under the lash moved 
 many a Northerner to expressions of pity and abhorrence 
 whom the impassioned utterances of Phillips had never 
 stirred. The fugitive was to him a living illustration, de 
 posited at his very door, of the evils of slavery. The co 
 operation of the Northern communities in the capture and re 
 turn of fugitives had been promised in all colonial agreements 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 265 
 
 between the States and occupied a prominent place in the 
 Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution. Congress 
 had more than once enacted legislation at the request of the 
 South which was believed at the time to be sufficiently strin 
 gent. After 1840, however, it became more and more difficult 
 to apprehend fugitives and it was well known that an * under 
 ground railroad" had been formed by the Abolitionists for 
 passing the fugitive secretly from house to house to the Cana 
 dian frontier. In Ohio and Indiana, where slave territory 
 was nearest Canada, the work was best organized and escapes 
 most numerous; but many fugitives were passed through 
 Philadelphia into New York and New England and so into 
 Canada. 
 
 To stop this obvious defiance of Federal statutes had long 
 been the object of the South, which was now clamoring for a 
 law so severe as to stop the escape of slaves. In addition, 
 some regularization or recognition was demanded of the 
 * * right of masters to travel through free territory with their 
 slaves or even to remain there permanently without losing 
 their "property." Slaves were thus held in most Northern 
 States before the ^War, and in Indiana and Illinois they were 
 even numerous, but the sentiment was growing rapidly in 
 favor of the English view that a slave brought into free terri 
 tory became at once free. To raise this point, the Dred Scott 
 case was at this time begun, whose decision on appeal by the 
 Supreme Court was so very momentous an incident in the 
 development of the crisis which led finally to hostilities. 
 
 But to many members of Congress no issue so imperatively 
 demanded settlement as the question of the continuance of 
 the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Must their de 
 bates be interrupted by the cries of auctioneers and of bidders 
 and the clanking of chains at the slave auction just behind the 
 Federal capitol ? In the District of Columbia, the slave-trade 
 had no reason to exist because there was no active use of 
 slaves for agriculture there; the powers to prohibit the prac 
 tice seemed to be vested in Congress, for the District could 
 plausibly be argued to be of different status from the rest of 
 
266 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the national domain. Its slave-trade was, said the more radi 
 cal, a standing and unnecessary insult to the North, kept in 
 existence by the South purely as a demonstration of her dom 
 ination over the Federal government. 
 
 The debates for the settlement of all these issues were long 
 and eminently able, and centered round the Wilmot Proviso 
 which proposed to exclude slavery from the Mexican acces 
 sions. The issue was boldly and plainly stated by the South 
 erners: the adoption of the Proviso would justify secession 
 by the Southern States from the Union. The legislature of 
 Virginia voted that rather than accept the Proviso the people 
 of Virginia would make * determined resistance at all hazards 
 and to the last extremity." Public meetings and conventions 
 throughout the South very generally expressed similar senti 
 ment, and at a great public banquet in South Carolina the 
 toast, "A Southern Confederacy" was received with great 
 enthusiasm. 1 A convention of the Southern States at Nash 
 ville resolved in favor of the lawfulness and constitutionality 
 of secession and was believed by many in the North to have 
 met to concert measures for forming a new confederacy in 
 case the North should not yield. It seems highly probable 
 that Calhoun counseled war in 1850 on the ground that 
 the provocation was sufficient, compromise merely a post 
 ponement of war, and the South more likely to prevail than 
 she would be later. Indeed, confirmation of this belief is lent 
 by the fact that even after the North yielded in 1850, the 
 newspapers in South Carolina and a convention assembled to 
 discuss the question were practically unanimous in favor of 
 secession with or without the cooperation of other States ; and 
 that in Mississippi the State campaign of 1851 was fought on 
 the issue of secession with Jefferson Davis as the secessionist 
 candidate for Governor and Foote as the candidate favoring 
 an acceptance of the Compromise of 1850. There can be 
 little doubt that many understood the alternative to be com- 
 
 i New York Tribune, April 25, 1849. "We firmly believe that there 
 are sixty members of Congress who this day desire a dissolution of the 
 Union and are plotting to effect it." Ibid., Feb. 23, 1850. 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 2C7 
 
 promise or secession, and that the feeling at the North in 
 favor of nationalism and union was stronger than the dislike 
 of slavery or of its extension. 
 
 The Compromise of 1850 was proposed by Clay, and, as 
 finally adopted, provided that California should become a 
 free State ; that the land claimed by Texas should be divided 
 and that State compensated for the surrender of a consider 
 able part of her claims by the assumption by the United 
 States of her indebtedness incurred while independent; but 
 that the rest of the land acquired from Mexico should be or 
 ganized into Territories without stipulation concerning slav 
 ery. Slavery in the District of Columbia was abolished in 
 exchange for a drastic fugitive-slave law. This provided 
 for a summary trial without jury (on the ground that every 
 Northern jury invariably freed the negro), threw the burden 
 of proof on the negro, and, where the owner had been com 
 pelled to prove the man his escaped slave, forced the accused 
 to prove himself a free man. Above all, the testimony of 
 slaves was excluded. It was "a law," said Emerson, " which 
 no man can obey or abet the obeying without loss of self-re 
 spect and forfeiture of the name of a gentleman." 2 
 
 The Compromise was carried by Clay and Webster, who 
 pleaded for union and peace, against Calhoun, Seward, and 
 Chase, who predicted war and secession. As Webster showed, 
 California was determined to be free and was too far away 
 to permit effective coercion; the South might well yield that. 
 The rest of the territory obtained from Mexico was prevented 
 by the laws of nature from becoming slave territory; it was 
 simply a gratuitous insult to the South for the North to in 
 sist upon excluding slavery from it by law. The North might 
 easily yield that. The Compromise of 1850 was an under 
 standing, an agreement, and never possessed nor was meant 
 to possess legal status. Specific provisions for the execution 
 of the agreement were passed in the form of six separate bills 
 during August and September, 1850. There was much ex 
 ultation throughout the country, and it was openly claimed 
 
 2 Cabot s Emerson, 578. 
 
268 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 that the issues had been settled for good and all: the South 
 was satisfied; the North was content. Indeed, during the 
 campaign of 1852, the perpetual observance of the existing 
 agreement was constantly promised and campaign orators 
 desecrated the name of the man who should again open the 
 issue of slavery. 
 
 But the handwriting was already on the wall, and there 
 were some who saw it. Surely, the States rights conven 
 tions, the approval of the right of secession, the Southern 
 elections hotly contested and carried by narrow margins in 
 favor of the Compromise, were sinister omens and boded ill for 
 its perpetuity. At the same time, none of these incidents 
 were invested by contemporaries with a tithe of the signifi 
 cance we now attach to them because talk of secession, nulli 
 fication, and actual dissolution of the union had been loud at 
 every crisis in our history, and men had become accustomed 
 to hearing every difficulty between the sections alleged as ade 
 quate cause for disunion. It was a truly ill omen that the 
 men who had made the Compromise, who had for nearly 
 forty years controlled the destinies of the country, had all 
 passed away before the settlement was two years old. John 
 Quincy Adams had died in 1848, and Calhoun had followed 
 him in 1850, murmuring * The South ! the poor South ! God 
 knows what will become of her!" Ben ton was defeated for 
 reelection in that same year and retired to private life ; Clay 
 and Webster both died in 1852 and it was universally felt 
 that the pillars of the State had fallen. The control passed 
 into the hands of younger men, Seward, Chase, Davis, 
 Douglas, on the whole, into the hands of the enemies rather 
 than the friends of the Compromise. It is one of the enigmas 
 of history that men should delude themselves into the belief 
 that the waters have been swept back with the broom of argu 
 ment at just the moment when the tidal wave, as yet a tiny 
 crest of white along the distant horizon, is rushing towards 
 them with the speed of a race-horse. 
 
XX 
 
 THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 
 
 ONE of the most significant facts in the history of the United 
 States is the growth in the North of the moral conviction that 
 slavery was wrong. The North had become pretty thor 
 oughly convinced by 1850 that the South meant to extend 
 slavery, but, until a clear majority of the people were agreed 
 that slavery was morally wrong, the decision of the South to 
 extend it still permitted discussion and made compromise 
 possible. Until it became clear to both sides that compromise 
 was impossible, a war could not result, and, for the historian 
 of the United States the all important fact to make clear is 
 the reason why two sections of the country fought each other 
 for four years. A disagreement, a fundamental cleavage in 
 the country, was clear in 1850 ; but disagreements, threats, sec 
 tional interests, a belief in the legality and possibility of 
 secession were as old as the country itself. No one consid 
 ered them in themselves dangerous, and the union had been 
 so many times on the brink of dissolution that men had almost 
 begun to believe it capable of withstanding all shocks and at 
 tacks. A change took place after 1850 in the attitude of the 
 North which treated the extension of slavery as a wrong, and 
 which led the North to demand from the South a definite 
 statement as to what the latter proposed to do about the ex 
 tension of that wrong. 
 
 In the very year in which the great Compromise was passed, 
 a book was written by a poor woman in southern Ohio which 
 became the most mighty ethical influence of the decade. 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin presented slavery to the North in a con 
 crete, dramatic story, every incident of which was intended to 
 convince the reader that slavery was wrong. Whether or not 
 
 269 
 
270 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the book was an accurate or fair picture of the institution is 
 of little significance compared to the fact that within a few 
 years a million and a half copies were sold to readers, an 
 overwhelming majority of whom believed the story true. Not 
 those things which are true, but those things which honest 
 and sincere men and women believe to be true, are the bases of 
 motive forces in history. Still, the North as a whole looked 
 and saw nothing ; it listened and read but was not convinced. 
 
 Now came three incidents which effectually roused the 
 North and which to the thinking of millions confirmed the 
 facts and pointed the moral lesson of Uncle Tom s Cabin 
 Kansas-Nebraska, the Dred Scott Decision, and the Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates. Books and speeches had left the North in 
 different and apathetic because only a fraction of the people 
 had been reached. The " Crime of Kansas" was writ high 
 upon the heavens for him to read who ran. 
 
 The vast stretches of the Louisiana Purchase to the west of 
 Missouri and of the territories of Iowa and Minnesota had 
 not yet been organized at all, and the stream of people surg 
 ing across the plains to California and Oregon now made 
 necessary some sort of territorial government, if only to pre 
 serve the peace. There was in this nothing disputable, but 
 the organization of the district instantly raised the question 
 of the status of slavery and evoked from the North the state 
 ment that the Missouri Compromise had consecrated that land 
 to freedom. It was evident to the South that, if this was 
 true, slavery was already circumscribed, and that the end of 
 its westward march and of its further development was al 
 ready in sight, for, with California free, Arkansas and Texas 
 already settled, and the Indians in possession of the only other 
 land south of 36 30 at all suitable for cotton, there was no 
 more new land for slave States and, short of the conquest of 
 Mexico, there never would be any. The danger so long 
 warded off was already upon them. The Missouri Compro 
 mise, the Southerners therefore argued, had been made when 
 circumstances were entirely different and would now have an 
 effect never intended by its framers. Headed by Douglas, 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 271 
 
 they demanded the opening of the unorganized territory to 
 slavery and alleged that the Compromise of 1850 abrogated 
 the Missouri Compromise, and that the latter had been never 
 valid at all, but had been void from the first because Congress 
 had no power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. 
 
 Here was an issue concerned with great men, with great 
 events ; with queries not merely political, moral, and religious, 
 to be decided by general principles, and an appeal to logic 
 and reason ; but with questions of fact upon which a definitive 
 understanding had existed among statesmen of all parties for 
 more than thirty years. The Northern men brushed aside 
 the constitutional subtleties regarding the invalidity of the 
 Missouri Compromise and declared the new bill the breach of 
 a compact considered sacred by a generation of statesmen. 1 
 Despite a storm of protest and argument, the Kansas-Ne 
 braska Bill passed, dividing the great area into two parts, 
 leaving the decision in regard to slavery to the vote of the in 
 habitants ( squatter sovereignty") and declaring the Mis 
 souri Compromise null and void. "It annuls all past com 
 promises with slavery/ insisted Sumner of Massachusetts, 
 "and makes all future compromises impossible. Thus it 
 puts freedom and slavery face to face and bids them grapple." 
 Chase of Ohio even more nearly touched the keynote of North 
 ern feeling. "You may pass it here/ he told the senators, 
 "it may become law. But its effect will be to satisfy all think 
 ing men that no compromises with slavery will endure, except 
 
 i It was not noted at the time and seems to have been hardly realized 
 since that the Compromise of 1820 had already been broken. The 
 western boundary of Missouri had originally been drawn straight 
 north in continuation of the meridian of the point at the end of the 
 southern line. This line crossed the Missouri River and left a tri 
 angular delta between it and the river, which of course did not form 
 at that time any part of the western boundary of the State, a large 
 and rich district coveted by the Missourians. According to the terms 
 of the Compromise, this was free territory, but in 1833 the Federal 
 government made a treaty with the Indians for the cession of that 
 district and by act of Congress made it part of Missouri. If this act 
 was or is legal, the Compromise of 1820 never had any legal status 
 beyond that accorded by men to any "gentlemen s agreement." Shep- 
 ard, Early History of Missouri, 111. 
 
272 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 so long a.s they serve the interests of slavery." The Bill 
 passed just before dawn, and, as the senators came down the 
 steps at the Capitol, the morning guns at the Navy Yard were 
 sounding the usual sunrise salute. The Democrats at once ex 
 claimed that they celebrated the victory just won. Chase 
 turned to Sumner and said solemnly : They celebrate a pres 
 ent victory, but the echoes they awake will never rest till 
 slavery itself shall die." 
 
 The excitement in the North was prodigious and the una 
 nimity of condemnation revealed a degree of agreement un 
 suspected. Douglas declared that he could have traveled 
 from Chicago to Boston by the light of his own burning ef 
 figies; one hundred and three ladies in an Ohio village de 
 nounced him as a second Judas Iscariot and sent him the 
 thirty pieces of silver for which they declared he had sold his 
 Lord. 
 
 Kansas had been opened to slavery ; the decision of the new 
 settlers who voted at the first territorial election would de 
 cide its status so far as slavery was concerned. Men from all 
 parts of the country joined in the rush to Kansas with the 
 avowed intention of voting on one side or the other. The 
 New England Emigrant Aid Society was formed to encour 
 age the resort of men opposed to slavery and an able man was 
 sent to Kansas to direct the cause of the Free-State men, as 
 they were soon called. From "Washington came a Pro-Slavery 
 man as governor, sent by the President of the United 
 States with definite orders to make Kansas slave territory. 
 When the time approached for the territorial election, at 
 which the question of the status of Kansas while a Territory 
 was to be decided, a rough, boisterous, unkempt mob of border 
 ruffians came over from Missouri, voted at the election, and 
 carried Kansas for slavery. There were about 2900 legal 
 voters in the territory; 5427 votes were cast for slavery, prov 
 ing to many Eastern men that slavery advocates intended 
 to make Kansas " slave" even if it were necessary to resort 
 to foul means to do it. 
 
 The Governor accepted the fraudulent votes as valid and 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 273 
 
 organized a Pro-Slavery legislature. The Free-State men pre 
 pared a constitution, elected a delegate to Congress by about 
 a hundred more votes than had been cast for the Pro-Slavery 
 delegate, and asked recognition from Congress as the true 
 majority in Kansas, entitled to govern the territory by any 
 proper interpretation of the recent act. Congress declined 
 to accept their claim and for a while considered requesting the 
 President to suppress them. Meanwhile, the Pro-Slavery men, 
 aided by a large mob from Missouri, advanced upon the 
 Free-State town of Lawrence, intending to sack it, but the 
 Free-State men were well armed and a truce was agreed to 
 by the leaders, cold weather arrived, and the "army" with 
 drew, carrying three dead bodies, one man killed by the 
 falling of a tree, one shot by his own guard, and a third 
 killed in a brawl. In Lawrence, one man alone protested 
 against the agreement not to fight, a tall, slender man with 
 a somber face, fired with intense earnestness, John Brown. 
 
 The Pro-Slavery men retired, avowedly but to await a better 
 opportunity. The sheriff a little afterward was in Lawrence, 
 and, a shot intended for some one else coming in his direc 
 tion by accident, he declared that the Free-State men had 
 attempted to murder him. He impaneled a grand jury which 
 indicted them all for murder, and the marshal gathered a 
 posse of some scores of men from Kansas and a thousand 
 or more ruffians, who came over the river from Missouri, 
 armed to the teeth and well provided with whisky. At 
 Lawrence no resistance was offered ; some arrests were quietly 
 made ; but the Missourians were not to be balked twice. The 
 town was thoroughly sacked on May 20, 1856. 
 
 Two days later, in the United States Senate, Charles Sum- 
 ner of Massachusetts delivered an eloquent and bitter ar 
 raignment of the Pro-Slavery attitude towards Kansas. To 
 wipe out the insult to the South, as he deemed it to be, Brooks 
 of South Carolina approached Sumner, writing at his desk in 
 the almost empty Senate Chamber, and struck him repeatedly 
 on the head from behind with a heavy cane till he fell from 
 his chair unconscious. The news of the sack of Lawrence 
 
274 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 and of the assault on Sumner reached the country almost 
 simultaneously and caused an outburst of indignation and 
 anger at the North such as had never been known before. 
 The newspapers came out with great black headlines, "The 
 Crime against Kansas/ "Bleeding Kansas," "Shrieks from 
 Kansas. The effect would have been immeasurably less pro 
 found had not the South openly declared the cause of the 
 Pro-Slavery men in Kansas that of the South itself, and if 
 it had not rejoiced at the assault upon Sumner, tendering 
 banquets to his assailant at which gold canes were presented 
 to him and his health toasted. 
 
 Whatever actually happened in Kansas, the North believed 
 that a premeditated design was being executed by fraud and 
 force to make Kansas slave. To secure the opportunity the 
 South had broken so sacred a compact as the Missouri Com 
 promise and had provided that the people who went to Kansas 
 should decide for or against slavery. But finding the majority 
 were Free-State men, ballot boxes had been stuffed, innocent 
 men slain, an unresisting town sacked by a drunken crew of 
 ruffians imported for the purpose. And such actions the 
 President and Congress of the United States had approved 
 by the high authority vested in them and behind these ruffians 
 had placed the sanction of Federal authority ! The President 
 had removed seriatim the Governors who declined to obey 
 his partisan orders to support the Pro-Slavery party with 
 Federal troops ; the Houses of Congress had declined to accept 
 the government formed by the numerical majority in Kansas. 
 To pass the enabling act they had been forced to descend to 
 perjury and fraud; to prevent the honest execution of their 
 own measure, they had been driven to deceit, arson, and 
 murder. They had been willing to allow the inhabitants of 
 Kansas to vote in favor of slavery; they had no intention 
 at all of recognizing as valid the vote against it. 2 
 
 2 "While the Nebraska Bill was pending, Judge Douglas helped to 
 vote down a clause giving the people of the Territories the right 
 to exclude slavery if they chose." Lincoln, speech at Beardstown, 1858. 
 Herndon, Life of Lincoln, II, 99-100. 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 275 
 
 The following month of June, 1856, saw the first national 
 convention of a new political party, the Republican party, 
 composed of men opposed to the extension of slavery. There 
 can be no doubt that its strength and unity were largely due 
 to the events in Kansas. Throughout the North had sprung 
 up during the preceding fifteen years groups of men, for the 
 most part fragments of the old Whig party, who were try 
 ing to organize an opposition to the ruling party, and most 
 of whom had made prominent in their platform a plank either 
 connected with liberty or with some form of opposition to 
 slavery. The movement to fuse them into one party had 
 begun in the Northwest and had been on the whole successful, 
 but was made positive and permanent by the spectacle of 
 "bleeding Kansas." In a great speech at Rochester, N. Y., 
 Seward struck the keynote of the campaign: "It is an ir 
 repressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces and 
 it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, 
 become either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a 
 free labor nation. ... I know and you know that a revolution 
 has begun. I know and all the world knows that revolutions 
 never go backwards." Fremont was nominated by the Re 
 publicans and ran on a platform which opposed the further 
 extension of slavery. Apprehension at the South was keen, 
 and preparations for secession, should he be elected, were 
 said to have been made. The Democrats elected Buchanan 
 President, but they carried only four Northern States and the 
 popular vote gave them only half a million votes more than 
 the Republicans. The moral feeling of the North that slavery 
 was wrong had attained effective political expression in a 
 strong new party pledged to prevent its extension. 
 
 Now came the pronouncement in 1857 of the decision of the 
 Supreme Court in the famous Dred Scott case. The issue 
 was essentially simple: Scott, a slave, had been carried by 
 his master into free territory, where he had long resided, and 
 whence he had then willingly accompanied his master back 
 into slave territory. The claim was that his residence in free 
 territory had made him free; but the case took such a form 
 
276 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 that the only issue for the court to decide was his status 
 at the time of the suit s institution. A majority of the judges 
 agreed that he was then a slave and hence unable to sue 
 in the courts, but disagreed entirely upon the reasoning by 
 which they reached that conclusion. The political signifi 
 cance of the case arose from the fact that some of the judges, 
 notably the Chief Justice, a Southerner, considered in his 
 opinion and pronounced in favor of the South upon the 
 multitudinous constitutional controversies regarding slavery. 
 That Taney acted with high-minded purpose in an attempt 
 to fend off possible war, is clear; that the South proclaimed 
 from the house-tops that the Supreme Court had decided for 
 all time in favor of slavery upon the legal issues, is also 
 clear; that the North utterly declined to accept the new 
 decision as of any validity, is beyond doubt at all. The 
 arguments of the judges roused the North far less than the 
 conclusions which the South drew from them and the signifi 
 cance the South was determined to give them. If Congress 
 had no power over slavery in the States, and if the decision 
 meant that it could not prohibit slavery in the Territories, 
 it had then no discretion at all ; it could act only to preserve, 
 extend, and protect slavery. Taney s opinion was soon con 
 densed into an aphorism which obtained great currency at 
 the North, that negroes had no rights which the white man 
 was bound to respect. 
 
 The Northern lawyers instantly pointed out that the de 
 cision of the court, which alone was of legal obligation, 
 concerned Dred Scott, and that the long arguments concern 
 ing the status of slavery were merely obiter dicta, which the 
 practice of centuries held to be of no legal obligation what 
 ever. But, even if these statements upon the general con 
 troversy were valid, there was no agreement among the judges 
 upon these points, and to declare the individual opinion of 
 the Chief Justice the decision of the court was a flat contra 
 diction of obvious facts. As if to give point to the argu 
 ments of the angry Northern lawyers, the Southern Demo 
 crats printed thousands of copies of Taney s opinion, dis- 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 277 
 
 tributed them as campaign documents, and openly taunted the 
 Kepublicans, demanding "Well, what are you going to do 
 about it?" Was it true, the Northern leaders asked each 
 other, that slavery could not be constitutionally restricted, 
 that this wrong was to be perpetuated despite them, was 
 protected by the Constitution itself and defended by Presi 
 dent, Congress, and Supreme Court? "Alas," lamented the 
 New York Tribune, "the character of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States as an impartial judicial body has gone ! 
 It has abdicated its just functions and descended into the 
 political mire. ... It has draggled and polluted the ermine 
 in the filth of pro-slavery politics." 
 
 Now came news in the fall of 1858 that out in the West, 
 the "little Giant," the great Douglas himself, had been bested 
 in a series of debates by a lanky, raw-boned Illinois country 
 lawyer, a mighty plain-spoken man, affectionately alluded to 
 by his admirers, as the "Tall Sucker," Abraham Lincoln. 
 What he said was startlingly clear and expressed what many 
 in the country had long been trying to say for themselves. 
 He was able to grasp both sides of the issue; to make every 
 allowance a fair-minded man could ask, but his statement 
 of the crux of the difficulty was illuminating and satisfying. 
 
 "I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people," 
 he told his audience at Galesburg. "They are just what we 
 would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist 
 amongst them they would not introduce it. If it did now 
 j exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This 
 I believe of the masses of the North and South. . . . When 
 Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for 
 the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When 
 it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult 
 to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and 
 appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for 
 not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all 
 earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do 
 as to the existing institution. ... I have no purpose, di 
 rectly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery 
 
278 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right 
 to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no 
 purpose to introduce political and social equality between 
 the white and black races. . . . But I hold that, not 
 withstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why 
 the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated 
 in the Declaration of Independence the right to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness. ... In the right to eat the 
 bread without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand 
 earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and 
 the equal of every living man." "To satisfy the Southern 
 ers," he said to a New York audience in 1859, "we must 
 cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. 
 And this must be done thoroughly, done in acts as well as 
 words. ... If it is right, we cannot object to its nationality, 
 its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist 
 upon its extension, its enlargement. All they ask we could 
 readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they 
 could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their 
 thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise 
 fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it 
 right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full 
 recognition, as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, 
 can we yield to them? ... If our sense of duty forbids 
 this, ... let us be diverted by no sophistical consequences 
 such as groping for some middle ground between the right 
 and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be 
 neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of 
 don t care on a question about which all true men do 
 care." 
 
 Lincoln s reputation spread; the East wished to hear him 
 and he spoke in many parts of the country, always to the 
 same purpose, always leaving behind him a deep impression 
 of his fairness, honesty, and sincerity. Above all, he was 
 a "plain man," who used plain language. If slavery was 
 right, why not extend it ? If slavery was wrong, why consider 
 its extension at all? How could one coolly propose to per- 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 279 
 
 petuate a wrong? Should the South be allowed to destroy 
 the Missouri Compromise, commit arson and murder in Kansas, 
 drag the judicial ermine in the mire, to extend and per 
 petuate a wrong? He gave the Northern people an ethical 
 test to apply to the situation which at last enabled them to 
 make up their minds. 
 
 At this juncture, a book written by a "poor white " in 
 North Carolina, The Impending Crisis of the South, raised 
 squarely the most significant issue of all, as was promptly 
 recognized both North and South. If slavery was so good 
 a thing, for u hose good was it? Helper emphasized with 
 relentless force the facts in the United States census, that the 
 direct benefits of slavery accrued to only a part of the whites 
 at the South; that the splendor, luxury, and culture of the 
 South, which had been so praised, were the possession of 
 a small minority of the whites, who ruled for their own 
 particular benefit six million whites and nearly four million 
 blacks. The problem, he showed, was not one of two di 
 mensions, concerned only with the master and his slave, but 
 one of the three dimensions, concerned with master, slave, and 
 the poor whites, the overwhelming majority of the white 
 people at the South, who had no vital interest in slavery 
 and no hopes of possessing any. Pitilessly he exposed their 
 poverty, their lack of economic, social, and political rights, 
 and demanded the abolition of slavery in the name of the ma 
 jority of the whites in the South, as the only means of restoring 
 to them their true freedom and privileges, as the only means of 
 providing a market for their labor and their produce. Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin had told of the wrongs done to the slave ; Helper 
 dwelt upon the wrongs done to the white man. Great piles 
 of the book became a familiar sight in Northern book stores; 
 the Kepublicans circulated it as a campaign document; the 
 Southerners further advertised it by their efforts to secure 
 its suppression. The query began to form in Northern minds : 
 is not this fear of discussion, this desire to prevent investi 
 gation and comment fathered by the knowledge that the 
 facts are not as favorable to slavery as they allege them to 
 
280 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 be? Had the poor whites in the South been able to read 
 and understand the book, it would have spelled the fall of 
 the slave-power. 
 
 Nor did the clamor at the South for the reopening of the 
 slave-trade fail to furnish Northern minds with corroboration 
 of the arguments of Lincoln and Helper. In 1858, a con 
 vention in Alabama gave its entire attention to the subject; 
 a general convention at Vicksburg in 1859 voted two to one in 
 favor of reopening the slave-trade, while in the legislature of 
 Louisiana bills were under consideration for the importation 
 of " black apprentices, 7 and some thousands of negroes were 
 actually smuggled into the country from Africa. The Charles 
 ton Mercury, one of the most influential papers in the South, 
 championed the cause ardently and declared that the decay 
 of cotton-culture in South Carolina was wholly due to the 
 prohibition upon the importation of slaves. 
 
 And now sounded through the land what many felt was 
 the voice crying in the wilderness, shouting the battle-cry 
 of freedom. A man came forward calling for action: 
 " These men are all talk what we want is action action!" 
 Men were needed, he said, who would " break the jaws of 
 the wicked and pluck the spoil out of his teeth." John 
 Brown nourished himself upon the avenging clauses of the 
 Old Testament and believed himself called to be the soldier 
 of the Lord, called to wreak God s vengeance upon the Pro- 
 Slavery men. He had been in Kansas and had murdered 
 men in cold blood in the name of Truth and Justice. Now 
 he believed that the knowledge among the slaves that a 
 haven of refuge existed in the mountains of Virginia, where 
 they would be protected by force from capture, would lead 
 to a general attempt to escape and perhaps to a slave insur 
 rection. The remarkable thing about Brown s raid is the 
 philanthropists of national repute whose support he secured, 
 and who provided him with money and arms. After all 
 has been said, there must have been something remarkable 
 about the man. The raid failed; he held the arsenal at 
 
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 281 
 
 Harper s Ferry for a few hours, and then was captured 
 by Federal troops. 
 
 The news of an attempt to rouse and arm the slaves caused 
 in the South a paroxysm of terror and a demand for justice 
 on the perpetrator and protection for the South from the 
 Federal government. The North was stirred as never before 
 by the sight of a man who voluntarily, cheerfully, laid down 
 his life for the principle that slavery was wrong. "The 
 cry of the oppressed," he said in prison, "is my reason and 
 the only thing that prompted me to come here/ "I feel 
 just as content to die for God s eternal truth on the scaffold 
 as in any other way." All his sins were forgotten in his 
 atonement. To the Northern Abolitionists, he was a martyr. 
 To them, the moment for the downfall of slavery was near, 
 a man had died for the cause! "This will be a great day 
 in our history," wrote the poet Longfellow in his journal 
 under the date of John Brown s execution, the date of a new 
 revolution quite as much needed as the old one. * Four years 
 later, when on the battlefield at Gettysburg, the last gallant 
 charge of Pickett s brigade faltered, broke, and fled, the 
 Union soldiers on Round Top swung their caps in the air 
 and chanted in mighty chorus, rolling out over the valley 
 filled with the flying and the pursuers, 
 
 "John Brown s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 His soul goes marching on." 
 
XXI 
 
 THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 
 
 ON a very momentous day in the annals of America a body 
 of representative men were assembled to discuss the most 
 vital issue of the time. In the chair was a man long 
 venerated for his probity and wisdom. The crisis in the dis 
 cussion of the critical issue had been reached; different 
 opinions had been hotly maintained by excited disputants; 
 and the matter then engrossing the minds of all was the cause 
 of so serious a disagreement. The speaker addressing the 
 assembly contended to use the words of the record that 
 the States were divided into different interests, not by their 
 difference of size but by other circumstances, the most material 
 of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from 
 the effects of their having or not having slaves. These two 
 causes concurred in forming the great division of interests 
 in the United States. It did not lie between the large and 
 small States: It lay between the Northern and the South 
 ern. ?1 Those words were spoken by James Madison in the 
 Convention which framed the Constitution of the United 
 States. The vital cleft of the country into North and South 
 is older than the Constitution, older than States rights, older 
 than the cotton-culture, older than the anti-slavery movement. 
 Later in the debate, Gouverneur Morris declared that this 
 distinction between the Northern and Southern States "is 
 either fictitious or real ; if fictitious, let it be dismissed and let 
 us proceed with due confidence. If it be real, instead of 
 attempting to blend incompatible things, let us at once take a 
 friendly leave of each other. 2 With him agreed Luther 
 
 1 Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 278. 
 
 2 Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 351. What eventually happened was 
 
 282 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 283 
 
 Martin of Maryland. "He was for letting a separation take 
 place if they desired it; he had rather there should be two 
 confederacies than one" founded on such principles as those 
 proposed. 3 James Wilson of Pennsylvania added that he 
 knew some respectable, earnest men who preferred three 
 confederacies, united by offensive and defensive alliances. 4 
 Such ideas, however, were far from new to the listeners. 
 Half the earlier schemes for central government had pro 
 vided for two, three, or even four confederacies. Nullifi 
 cation had appeared in the New England Confederacy when 
 Massachusetts and Plymouth were hardly more than a score 
 of years old. The right of secession had been openly pro 
 claimed in the debates upon the adoption of the Declaration 
 of Independence. 5 The infant nation, in fact, was suckled by 
 secession and nourished upon States rights. After the Con 
 vention had finished its work and the Constitution was before 
 the country for adoption, Cyrus Griffin wrote from New York : 
 "We are told that Mr. George Mason (of Virginia) has 
 declared himself so great an enemy to the Constitution that 
 he will heartily join Mr. Henry and others in promoting a 
 Southern Confederacy." 6 Indeed so true was this prediction, 
 that when the Virginia Convention had adopted the Constitu 
 tion, Patrick Henry was invited by the minority to become 
 President of a body to formulate plans for the formation of an 
 other Confederacy. Probably nothing but his refusal to 
 countenance it prevented its success. 7 
 
 foreseen. King said: "If they [the Southern States] threaten to sepa 
 rate now- in case injury shall be done them, will their threats be less 
 urgent or effectual, when force shall back their demands? Even in the 
 intervening period, there will be no point of time at which they will 
 not be able to say, Do us justice or we will separate. " Ibid., 345-6. 
 
 s Ibid., 356; 253. 
 
 *Ibid., 363. 
 
 5 It was said that the delegates of such States as did not agree to 
 independence must withdraw from Congress "and possibly their colo 
 nies might secede from the union." Quoted in Hazelton, Declaration 
 of Independence, 112. 
 
 Bancroft s History of the Constitution, II, 461. 
 
 i Rowland s Life of Mason, II, 274. The whole incident is fully 
 described. 
 
284 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Not only were those ideas old when the Constitution was 
 adopted, when slavery was believed to be dying a natural 
 death, and when the cotton-gin had not yet made cotton- 
 culture profitable in America; but in the succeeding gener 
 ations these notions were held by Northern and Western 
 States as well as by Southern. It is probably no exagger 
 ation to say that when the great debates over the admis 
 sion of Missouri in 1819 made clear for the first time the 
 depth of the cleft between the North and South, every State 
 in the Union had at some time within the preceding half 
 century nullified some law or threatened to secede. North, 
 South, West, East, had all planned secession before 1820, 
 before the issues and factors prominent in the later struggle 
 had unmistakably appeared. 
 
 In fact, the fundamental issues of the Civil War were old 
 and not new. They were fundamental in the broadest sense, 
 far transcending the influence or notions of any man or 
 group of men, or indeed of any single generation. They 
 were not produced by Calhoun, Davis, or Lincoln, and were 
 of a nature which, in fact, forbade their conscious creation 
 at all. No individual or body of individuals, no section of 
 the country was in this sense to blame for the Civil War. 
 It was, in the last analysis, the result of climate and of 
 geographical conditions as old as the Glacial period, which 
 began to exert their influence when the mammoth flourished 
 in Kansas and when the cave bear still suckled her young 
 in the Virginia mountains. We must very carefully separate 
 the difficulty which created the possibility of a disagreement 
 between two sections of this country from its own fundamental 
 causes and also from those particular manifestations of it 
 in the early nineteenth century about which men began to 
 argue. We have even then only approached the situation 
 where we find men drifting from disagreement into threats 
 and from threats into defiance, and we must still make 
 clear the specific factors and events which created two radical 
 parties who could see no solution except in war. And even 
 when we have found the cause of the determination to fight 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 285 
 
 we are still far from the actual casus belli over which the 
 fighting began. The technical casus belli, the firing on Sum- 
 ter, no doubt grew out of a disagreement on the constitutional 
 question of States rights; and the student will on this ground 
 agree with the position of Davis and of Stephens after the 
 War that States rights was the sole and only cause of the 
 War. The issue, however, which brought States rights to 
 the fore in 1860 was unquestionably slavery, and the student 
 can on this basis agree with Lincoln and many historians 
 that a difference of opinion over slavery really caused the 
 War. But if the student seeks the reasons why both slavery 
 and States rights were under discussion at all, he will see 
 that sectionalism, the existence in the country of two strata 
 widely differing in economic and institutional life, was the 
 real difficulty, and he will find its existence adequately ex 
 plained by the geographical and geological factors operating 
 in America for uncounted millions of years. These conditions 
 were found by the first settlers; they shaped colonial history 
 when the white slaves in the South outnumbered the black; 
 moulded the Constitution; produced tobacco, cotton, slavery, 
 and the War; and are still to-day actively fashioning the 
 issues of presidential campaigns. 
 
 The great events of American history have been attempts 
 to reconcile the outward political form of the government 
 with great existing economic and social facts. In 1776, the 
 States were in all but law and name independent of England ; 
 the Revolution merely brought the political situation into 
 conformity with the actual facts. In 1789, the Constitution 
 set up a relationship between the States on the whole in con 
 formity with their actual relations. But in the subsequent 
 decades were developed two great economic forces utterly 
 changing the situation ; and men began to argue whether the 
 superior economic power was the diversified industry of the 
 North or the growth of cotton by slaves. Slavery, cotton, 
 machinery, railroads, tariff, new territory, had been either 
 very minor factors or not dreamed of when the Constitution 
 was framed. Their constitutionality was therefore a most 
 
286 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 legitimate issue for debate, and the task of the Civil War was 
 the adjustment of the legal fabric of central government to 
 the obvious economic and territorial facts in existence. 
 
 At the same time that we recognize the fundamental char 
 acter of the cleft between the sections and the absolute neces 
 sity of some sort of decision upon the fundamental constitu 
 tional relations of new economic forces to the older economic 
 and political factors, we must not assume that their settle 
 ment by the arbitrament of arms was inevitable. Had the 
 country developed more slowly and less, as it were, by spas 
 modic spurts, the adjustment of forces would perhaps have 
 insensibly taken place in the course of their development. 8 
 The immediate cause of war was the impossibility of settling 
 the issues by compromise or agreement. For fully forty years, 
 the statesmen of the various sections successfully made com 
 promise after compromise. Indeed, the period between 1820 
 and 1860 ought perhaps to be studied less as the growth of 
 the war-spirit than as a time when the solitary object of all 
 parties was the avoidance of hostilities. But this prolonged 
 attempt to settle the fundamental relations of the two sections 
 was frustrated by the very rapidity of the country s growth. 
 No sooner had some compromise mutually satisfactory to all 
 been made with much rejoicing than the whole situation, 
 which it was intended to adjust, was entirely changed by the 
 appearance of unforeseen factors of sufficient importance to 
 produce a new situation, which raised the old fundamental 
 questions with greater insistence. The Constitution itself was 
 the first compromise and the only one to be lasting. The 
 Missouri Compromise was invalidated (though not made void) 
 
 s "The question of the relation of the States to the Federal govern 
 ment is the cardinal question of our constitutional system. At every 
 turn of our national development, we have been brought face to face 
 with it, and no definition either of statesmen or of judges has ever 
 quieted it or decided it. It cannot, indeed, be settled by the opinion 
 of any one generation, because it is a question of growth, and every 
 successive stage of our political and economic development gives it a 
 new aspect, makes it a new question." Woodrow Wilson, in the North 
 American Review, 187, 684. 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 287 
 
 by the astonishing growth of the cotton-culture and cotton- 
 manufacture. The "American System," which was to pro 
 vide for the interests of the various sections, was deemed 
 unsatisfactory in the South as soon as it was adopted be 
 cause of the severity of the commercial crisis in Europe just 
 previous to 1830, whose influence on the price of cotton the 
 South attributed solely to the tariff. The annexation of Texas 
 and the Mexican War added so little land suitable for cotton 
 to the existing area of the country that it was soon clearly 
 apparent to the Southern leaders that the Compromise of 
 1850 was on the whole a victory for the North. Indeed, the 
 extraordinary rapidity with which the available land in these 
 enormous areas was occupied and in some fashion utilized made 
 it literally impossible to foresee what the ensuing five years 
 growth would bring forward. 
 
 In 1860, the Southern leaders were still as sure as before 
 that there was unlimited wealth to be had by the develop 
 ment of the cotton-culture, but they were certain that the 
 degree of profit previously obtained would be inevitably re 
 duced by the lack of new lands of the most fertile type, and 
 by the enormous increase in the value of slaves from $600 in 
 1836 to $1400 in 1856. The reopening of the slave-trade would 
 solve the difficulty by promptly furnishing such cheap labor 
 that the fields already cropped and the less fertile soil in the 
 South not yet utilized could be tilled at an enormous profit. 
 The Constitution, however, stood squarely in the way of this 
 remedy, for it definitely conferred on the Federal government 
 the right, already exercised, to prohibit the slave-trade. New 
 land could not be provided because there was no more land 
 in the vast area of the United States which could be opened 
 to cotton into which cotton was likely to go and, while the 
 Southern States remained in the Union, there was no pros 
 pect of the annexation of land in the Gulf of Mexico. The 
 extension of the influence of the United States in the Gulf 
 and in Central America had been attempted in the decade 
 following 1850, but England and France had determinedly 
 interposed and had secured the signature of such treaties as 
 
288 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 practically forbade the United States to develop any vital 
 interests in the Gulf except in concert with them. Secession 
 would be a remedy and perhaps the only one. "I want 
 Cuba/ declared a Southern senator, "I want Tamaulipas, 
 Potosi, and one or two other Mexican states ; and I want them 
 all for the same reason for the planting and spreading of 
 slavery. And a footing in Central America will wonderfully 
 aid us in acquiring those states. . . . Whether we can ob 
 tain the territory while the Union lasts, I do not know; I 
 fear we cannot. But I would make an honest effort, and if 
 we failed, I would go out of the Union and try it there. 9 
 For, after the cotton States had split off from the Northern 
 States, whose industrial and maritime growth England found 
 dangerous to her supremacy, England might well look with 
 favor on the scheme of a Southern Empire for the growing by 
 slave labor in the Gulf of Mexico of that cotton on which the 
 prosperity of northern England so entirely depended. It 
 was the political tie, the Constitution, which was the greatest 
 incubus, and which saddled the suffering South with tariffs 
 and diplomatic difficulties. Nothing else stood in their way, 
 thought the Southerners; there were no economic, geograph 
 ical, or institutional barriers in the way of Southern great 
 ness and prosperity. It is this belief that the political bond 
 was the stumbling-block of offense which is at the root of the 
 belief in the possibility and expediency of secession. 
 
 Moreover, if the clash of arms was ever to come, it was 
 eminently clear to the Southern leaders that they must move 
 before the disparity in size of the North and South should 
 become more pronounced. In 1828, in 1845, in 1850, with the 
 Federal government really in their hands, with the wealth 
 of the South increasing at a phenomenal rate, with a retarda- 
 
 9 C. D. Drake, Union and Anti-Slavery Speeches, 184. Morton s 
 Southern Empire has much evidence pro and con (mostly pro) this idea 
 of expansion. "In the event of Southern secession, they contemplated 
 a magnificent Confederacy of slave-holding States, including Cuba, 
 Mexico, and Central America." Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 
 319. See his interesting account of the attempt of Lopez in 1850-51 to 
 seize Cuba, pp. 314 et seq. 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 289 
 
 tion of that growth hardly likely, there was little to be gained 
 by war which might not improbably be obtained by com 
 promise. It seemed certain that their chances would be bet 
 ter at some future time. Calhoun had indeed solemnly 
 warned the leaders in 1847 that the South was, in comparison 
 to the North, stronger then than it would ever be again, 10 
 but the growth of the following decade was needed to bring 
 that fact home to them. 11 The real genesis of the actual fight 
 ing is to be found in the history of the years 1854-1860. In 
 the debates over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854, a Vir 
 ginian had exclaimed in the House, "If you restore the Mis 
 souri Compromise, this Union will be dissolved," and from 
 all sides had risen derisive mocking shouts of Oh ! No ! " In 
 the spring of 1860, the shadow of the coming crisis had al 
 ready fallen athwart the floor of the House. The lack of new 
 territory from which to make slave States; the rapid growth 
 of new free States showed the Southerners that their con 
 trol of the Senate was tottering, and to lose it meant to them 
 the loss of the only benefit they derived from the Federal 
 union, the protection of their peculiar institution by the 
 Federal government. With the free States in control at 
 Washington, with Northern sentiment hostile to slavery, and 
 with public opinion strong against the enforcement of the 
 
 10 " Calhoun in a letter to a member of the Alabama legislature at 
 this time, said that instead of shunning we ought to court the issue 
 with the North on the slavery question ; that he would go one step 
 farther and force the issue on the North. We are now stronger, 
 relatively/ said Mr. Calhoun, than we shall be hereafter politically 
 and morally. " Hodgson, The Cradle of the Confederacy, 273. The 
 letter was not printed in Calhoun s Works. See also the quotations 
 from the address of a convention to the people of Alabama on the 
 danger of delay, pp. 331-2. 
 
 11 "All admit that an ultimate dissolution of the Union is inevitable 
 and we believe that the crisis is not far off. Then let it come now; 
 the better for the South that it should be to-day; she cannot afford to 
 wait. With the North it is different. Every day adds to her sectional 
 strength and every day the balance of power becomes less proportionate 
 between the two sections. In a few more years, . . . our doom will 
 be sealed." Charleston Mercury, Sept. 18, 1860. Sherman s Southern 
 friends told him the same. See the letters of W. T. Sherman. 
 
290 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Fugitive- Slave laws, every guarantee would disappear, and 
 Mason and Dixon s line would become in vtery fact the 
 boundary between two hostile confederacies. Nor did the 
 North fail to perceive the real issue: that the South dared 
 not risk longer delay. 12 "The fault of the free states in the 
 eyes of the South/ wrote Lowell in the Atlantic Monthly, 
 1 1 is not one that can be atoned for by any yielding of special 
 points here and there. Their offense is that they are free 
 and that their habits and prepossessions are those of free 
 dom. Their crime is the census of 1860. Their increase in 
 numbers, wealth, and power is a standing aggression. . . . 
 What they (the Southerners) demand is nothing less than 
 that we should abolish the spirit of the age. ... It is the 
 stars in their courses that fight against their system. 13 
 
 In 1860, the white population north of Mason and Dixon s 
 line and of the Ohio River was about twenty millions and 
 that south of the line about eight millions with four millions 
 of negroes : and during the past decade the North had grown 
 41% and the South 27%. Not only were the whites at the 
 North already more than double those at the South in num 
 ber, but they were increasing nearly twice as fast (the more 
 considerable part of the total Southern growth was among 
 the negroes), and a decade hence the disparity might not be 
 merely twice but thrice or even more! The census also re- 
 
 12 As early as Dec. 14, 1843, George Ticknor wrote from Boston to 
 Sir Charles Lyell, in London, "I would wait as a Northern man, because 
 it is for my interest. The South is growing weak, we are growing 
 strong. The Southern States are not only losing their relative conse 
 quence in the Union, but from the inherent and manifold mischiefs of 
 slavery, they are positively growing poor. They are falling back in 
 refinement, civilization, and power. EVery year puts the advantage 
 more on our side, and prepares us better to meet the contest . . . which 
 can never be other than formidable and disastrous." Life and Letters 
 of Ticknor, II, 218. On Nov. 27, 1860, he wrote again to Lyell: "The 
 cry is that the South is in danger, because the South is in the minority 
 and is weak; and they had better go out of the Union before they be 
 come weaker and more feeble by the constantly increasing power of the 
 free States." Ibid., II, 431. Ticknor gives this statement as something 
 currently known and understood in Boston. 
 
 13 January 1861. 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 291 
 
 vealed astonishing facts about the South which ill-compared 
 with its list of populous cities and thriving towns at the North. 
 In Alabama the census recorded fifteen towns, nine of which 
 had a population of less than a thousand; in Arkansas, two 
 towns; in South Carolina, three, besides Charleston, with 
 more than a thousand people. To the arguments of Helper 
 the census gave only too accurate and prompt confirmation. 
 Only 10,781 families owned as many as 50 slaves; 1733 men 
 owned the plantations on which more than 100 slaves were 
 employed. In Virginia, out of a million whites, only 114 
 owned more than 100 slaves. Less than two million whites 
 in the whole South were in any way concerned with slavery ; 
 over six millions neither owned slaves nor derived direct bene 
 fit from their labor. "That this body of three-fourths of 
 the white men of the whole South should have fought stub 
 bornly for four years to fasten on more completely bonds 
 which restricted them to every inferiority of life is one of 
 the most extraordinary facts of history. " Had not States - 
 rights feeling been so strong, had these poor whites not under 
 stood that the independent sovereignty of the States was at 
 issue, their adherence would scarcely have been given to the 
 new Confederacy. 
 
 The productivity of the two sections roughly divided on 
 Mason and Dixon s line was amazingly different and showed 
 clearly the results of the portentous development of varied 
 industry in the North and the unexampled growth of popula 
 tion in the district west of Pennsylvania and north of the 
 Ohio River. The South produced only one-eightieth of the 
 cheese and dairy products; one-quarter of the wheat, one- 
 fifth of the oats, one-tenth of the hay, and half of the corn ; 
 but two-thirds of the swine, five-sixths of the tobacco and 
 all of the cane sugar and cotton. The total value of the 
 manufactured products indispensable to varied industry- 
 agricultural implements, iron in all its forms, steam ma 
 chinery, coal, lumber, flour and meal, leather, all sorts of 
 cloth, boots, shoes, nails, paper, ink, and the like was valued 
 at the South at about seventy-five million dollars, about one- 
 
V 
 
 " 292 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tenth of the value of the products of the North. The grand 
 total of all Northern products, $1,730,330,000, was eleven times 
 greater than that of the South, $155,531,000. Two and one- 
 half times as many fighting men ! Eleven times the ability to 
 produce everything needed for the prosecution of a war ! 
 
 How could the Southern leaders with such facts staring 
 them in the face begin a war with the only district within 
 three thousand miles of them capable of supplying them with 
 the manufactured articles they must have or of buying the 
 only things they had to sell? Because they believed Cotton 
 was King ! For the best part of a century it had been dinned 
 into American ears that the one absolutely indispensable thing 
 upon which American prosperity rested was the possession of 
 a medium of exchange with Europe. Cotton had been the 
 only commodity the country had ever itself produced which 
 had in any degree proved adequate, and in 1860 it was nearly 
 fifty per cent of the total exports of the country and itself 
 exceeded by twenty-five per cent the total exports of the 
 North. In addition, the exports of manufactured goods 
 which the North did make were believed to be dependent on 
 the use of Southern cotton in the New England looms. With 
 the proceeds of the sale of cotton in New England and in 
 Europe, the South bought manufactured goods from New 
 England, iron from Pennsylvania, food from the West. The 
 Southern leaders could not credit, as a supposition even, that 
 the North could avoid bankruptcy in case a war should de 
 prive her at one blow of her raw material, her medium of ex 
 change with Europe, and her market for manufactured goods 
 in the South. And if the North could or would, was Europe 
 willing to allow a war between the North and South to bring 
 her looms to a standstill and turn the English and French 
 operatives into the streets to starve? Where else was nearly 
 ninety million dollars worth of cotton to come from? The 
 American market for European goods was by no means es 
 sential to European manufacturers; the raw material, cotton, 
 was indispensable. 
 
 That the South did not produce the necessities of life, much 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 293 
 
 less the essentials for the prosecution of a war, the leaders 
 well knew. But food, leather, salt, medicines, iron, arms, 
 lead, powder could all be secured in Europe in exchange for 
 cotton. The possibility of effective blockade or of real inter 
 ference by the Northern navy with the Southern freedom of 
 intercourse with Europe, the leaders scouted. They counted 
 definitely on the ease and rapidity of transportation. They 
 also expected the foreign nations to recognize the new con 
 federacy as an independent nation with promptitude and 
 despatch as soon as the alternative of recognition or no cot 
 ton was appreciated. 14 As for food, mules, lead, leather, 
 those could all be had in Missouri and in the Northwest, 
 which was tied fast to the South by the Mississippi and its 
 tributaries, and was effectually cut off from the Eastern 
 coast by the mountains. The West might hesitate and haggle 
 but in the end it would be forced by circumstances to join 
 the South. 15 The adherence of the West, and recognition 
 
 i* "The policy, or at least part of the policy of South Carolina is, 
 after staving off war by non-action, to hold back cotton omnipotent 
 cotton reduce the supplies in manufacturing countries stop the 
 thousands and tens of thousands of manufactories in the North and in 
 Europe until, by absolute force of circumstances, people will be driven 
 to acknowledge the independence of the Confederacy," Quoted from 
 the Baltimore American by the St. Louis Republican, Jan. 16, 1861. 
 
 is Mr. Uriel Wright in the Missouri Convention assembled to decide 
 upon secession, said in March, 1861 : "I see clearly that their [the 
 Southern leaders ] idea is to secure the breadstuff s and provisions of 
 the valley of the West, and get their manufactured goods from England. 
 There is the whole desire. That is the desire and that is the wish that 
 precipitated the cotton states into a revolution. It will be a formida 
 ble idea to meet in a readjustment. These people I mean the leaders 
 have been in earnest about this matter for a great many years. The 
 idea started in South Carolina under the dominion and power of such 
 minds as McDuffie, Calhoun, and Hayne. . . . Still, in spite of the 
 temptation the glittering temptation of a Southern Republic, whose 
 basis is cotton, and whose policy is free trade with Europe and pro 
 visions from us ... I am satisfied . . . that ephemeral power will 
 fade away into thin air." Journal of the Missouri Convention, 211. 
 
 Sam Tate, president of the Memphis and Charleston R. R., wrote to 
 a prominent official in Richmond on May 1, 1861: "There are no pro 
 visions in the South not enough for a full supply for 60 days. [And 
 this was May 1861!] How are we to get it? The Government at 
 Washington is making important arrangements to take St. Louis and 
 
294 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 from Europe; the commercial crisis in the North evoked by 
 the loss of the southern market, of cotton as raw material, 
 and as a medium of exchange with Europe; the strength of 
 the States rights party at the North, and of the Northern 
 democrats, would probably prevent the North from fighting 
 at all, and bring about a peaceful separation. In fact, the 
 Southern leaders were confident that the North would not 
 dare fight; it was widely reported that Jefferson Davis had 
 declared himself ready to drink all the blood that would be 
 spilled over secession. 19 The control by the South of the 
 Federal government would give them in the event of Lin 
 coln s election fully four months for actual preparation; 
 would enable the Secretary of War to move into the South 
 ern arsenals, where they could be seized, the supplies of 
 arms and powder owned by the Federal government, which 
 would thoroughly equip the first Southern armies put into 
 the field and deprive the Northern troops of the necessary 
 equipment. If still the war persisted, aid would come from 
 Europe by the time it was needed. 
 
 Constitutional, traditional, historical defenses were not 
 far to seek. Nullification, secession, States rights had been 
 commonly proclaimed in every part of the country too often 
 and too recently to allow a scintilla of doubt as to the le 
 gality of secession to linger in Southern minds. Indeed, the 
 belief in the validity of secession as a constitutional right was 
 so widespread at the North as to make it doubtful for months 
 
 close the Mississippi effectually against us from Cairo up. This cuts 
 off our last hope for a full supply of provisions and lead. By efficient 
 action now we can save the State of Missouri to the South and keep 
 open an outlet to an abundant supply of provisions. . . . The first thing 
 we know we will be out of powder, lead, and percussion caps. They 
 can be had through Cuba alone at this time." Rebellion Records, 
 Series IV, Vol. I, 276. 
 
 William G. Eliot, of St. Louis, wrote later: "I doubt if the South 
 ern Confederacy would have been attempted if the loss of that State 
 [Missouri] had been foreseen, and the plans of rebellion were as care 
 fully laid at Jefferson City (of which there is now proof) as at Charles 
 ton." C. C. Eliot, Life of W. G. Eliot, 163. 
 
 ie Personal Memoirs of V. 8. Grant, I, 178. Ed. of 1903. See also 
 Robin s Sherman, 56. 
 
THE CAUSES OF SECESSION 
 
 whether the people would support the Federal government, 
 if war should break out upon that issue. From the fathers 
 of the Revolutionary and Constitutional periods and in par 
 ticular from Calhoun s writings, Hayne s speeches, and the 
 incidents in South Carolina in 1828, the leaders of the South 
 drew ample confirmation and justification of the step. 
 
 When the decision to secede was really taken, it is impos 
 sible to demonstrate without defining more accurately what is 
 meant by secession. If we mean by secession the determina 
 tion to establish a second confederacy based upon slave terri 
 tory, the decision was taken in all probability some time just 
 previous to the Mexican War and was constantly in the minds 
 of the Southern leaders as a remedy to be applied with all 
 speed whenever the probability of the loss of their control 
 of the Federal government seemed imminent. Without that 
 control it was generally conceded that the Constitution and 
 all the statutes concerning slavery would be a dead letter at 
 the North, arid that, to continue the connection after that 
 moment, would be merely to expose the South to the definitely 
 hostile legislation which none of them doubted the North 
 would at once utilize Congress to pass. On March 4, 1850, 
 Calhoun solemnly stated the alternatives in the Senate: 
 "There should be an open and manly avowal on all sides as 
 to what is intended to be done. ... If you who represent the 
 stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them [the issues] on 
 the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the 
 States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. 
 If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so ; and 
 we shall know what to do when you reduce the question to 
 submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will 
 compel us to infer by your acts what you intend." 17 Con 
 ventions in the South in 1849 and during the subsequent dec 
 ade openly discussed the issue and as openly decided in favor 
 of the legality and expediency of secession. 18 State cam- 
 
 " Works of Calhoun, IV, 672-3. 
 
 i * Hodgson s Cradle of the Confederacy is wholly devoted to these 
 abortive attempts at organized secession before 1800. 
 
296 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 paigns were fought on the desirability of continuing longer 
 in the Union ; and the breach by the North of the Compromise 
 of 1850, the failure to observe the Fugitive-Slave Law, the 
 refusal to "repeal" the Missouri Compromise, to accept the 
 Dred Scott decisions, and the like, were continually brought 
 forward in State after State and in general conventions as 
 eventualities which would be regarded as the signal for seces 
 sion, as proof that Southern control of the Federal govern 
 ment was already lost. The election of 1856, like that of 1860, 
 was fought over the issue of union or disunion. Senator 
 Mason declared that in the event of the election of Fremont 
 "but one course remains for the South immediate, absolute, 
 eternal separation." Buchanan, the Democratic candidate, 
 wrote in a private letter, "I consider that all incidental ques 
 tions are comparatively of little importance in the presi 
 dential election when compared with the grand and appalling 
 issue of union or disunion. " 19 As in 1850, and later in 
 1860, the Southern leaders were assembled in 1856 concert 
 ing the final measures in case secession should become neces 
 sary. Soon after 1850, the numerous military academies 
 founded at the South and the resort to them of the youth of the 
 planter class was significant proof of Southern determination. 
 Secession was certainly not hatched in a corner; it was no 
 secret conspiracy. The intentions of the Southern leaders 
 had been solemnly and publicly announced so many times in 
 such open fashion that the North had really come to believe 
 them simply the cry of "Wolf, wolf." In actuality, the 
 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States 
 was merely the signal for secession, not its cause. At the 
 South this was well understood. "When, in the gray dawn, 
 the waiting crowds in the streets of Charleston saw on the 
 bulletins the complete returns and knew that Lincoln was 
 elected, a rousing cheer spontaneously rose to their lips for a 
 Southern Confederacy. 
 
 i See these and other quotations on this same point from most of 
 the leaders, collected by Mr. Rhodes in History of the United States, 
 II, 204-210; 227; and passim. 
 
XXII 
 SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 
 
 A MONTH or more before the presidential election of 1860, 
 a convention of Southern leaders was in session and the pro 
 cedure of secession was thoroughly discussed, if not definitely 
 agreed upon. It was apparent that each State must act indi 
 vidually and that formal action would take time; that the 
 North would fight the leaders did not believe; and active 
 preparation for that eventuality was postponed. In Alabama 
 and South Carolina, conventions were called and sat just 
 prior to election day to discuss the relations of the State to the 
 Federal government. Before noon of the day following the 
 election of Lincoln, the palmetto flag had been raised in 
 Charleston amid ecstatic cheers; the legislature was taking 
 measures for the military defense of the State ; and the Fed 
 eral officers had resigned. A convention was called for De 
 cember 17 to act upon the crisis. This was of course defiance, 
 and the leaders now proposed to wait until the attitude of the 
 President and of the North became clear. Buchanan, after 
 consultation with the Attorney General, made up his mind 
 and advised Congress when it met in December of his de 
 termination to take no active steps. He declared secession 
 unconstitutional and the election of Lincoln no valid excuse 
 for the active measures undertaken in South Carolina against 
 the Federal government, but he denied to both President and 
 Congress any right to oppose secession by force. Practically 
 this meant, and so the Southern leaders read it, that the 
 South had until March 4 to complete its plans and organiza 
 tion without interference from Washington. 
 
 The desire to achieve their purpose without war, the belief 
 that the North would in the end decline to fight, the practical 
 
 297 
 
298 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 certainty that they would not be actively opposed for several 
 months caused the Southerners to act deliberately and to 
 postpone for the time further overt measures. On December 
 20, South Carolina seceded and sent commissioners to "Wash 
 ington to treat with the Federal government. On January 5, 
 a caucus of Southern leaders met at Washington in which the 
 final measures were agreed upon. The States were advised 
 to secede individually, to arm the militia with the weapons 
 in the Federal arsenals and to seize the Federal forts in 
 their territory; and a general convention was called to meet 
 at Montgomery, Alabama, in February. With dramatic 
 speeches and defiant declarations that they had been wronged, 
 the Senators and Representatives of most of the Southern 
 States "seceded" from Congress during January; six States 
 adopted ordinances of secession during the same month and 
 seized the Federal forts, arsenals, supplies, and property 
 within their borders. There was much rejoicing; bells rung, 
 guns fired, and a general carnival in the streets. In some 
 States, the ordinance was solemnly signed before excited 
 throngs in the open air. 
 
 February was occupied with the organization of the seven 
 seceded States into a new confederacy. The delegates met on 
 February 4 and impressed A. H. Stephens as the "ablest, 
 soberest, most intelligent and conservative body" he had ever 
 been in. Within a few days, they agreed upon an amended 
 form of the Federal Constitution which explicitly provided 
 for States sovereignty, for the "delegation" of legislative 
 powers, and for the recognition of slavery as a permanent in 
 stitution. The President s term was made six years and he 
 was to be ineligible for a second term; the imposition of a 
 tariff and appropriations for internal improvements were ex 
 plicitly forbidden; and a serious attempt was made to intro 
 duce certain administrative reforms which the experience of 
 seventy years had shown to be desirable. On February 9, 
 Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens were chosen 
 temporary President and Vice-President, and were formally 
 inaugurated on the eighteenth, though the Constitution was 
 
 
SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 299 
 
 not ratified by all the States and did not become permanently 
 binding until March 11. Toombs became Secretary of State 
 and Walker, Secretary of War. 
 
 The real purpose of the new government and the " cause" 
 of secession were proclaimed by Stephens in a notable speech. 
 "The new Constitution," he said at Savannah, "has put at 
 rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar 
 institution, African slavery as it exists among us the proper 
 status of the negroes in our form of civilization. This was 
 the immediate cause of the late rupture and revolution. . . . 
 Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite 
 ideas : its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the 
 great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that 
 slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural 
 and normal condition. This, our New Government, is the 
 first in the history of the world, based upon this great phys 
 ical, philosophical, and moral truth. 1 
 
 Meanwhile, at the North and in the border States, Vir 
 ginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, all was consterna 
 tion, turmoil, hesitation. A feverish anxiety to compromise 
 and at all hazards avoid war was the dominant note. 
 Scarcely had the intentions of South Carolina become plain 
 when offers of compromise appeared in the North. Both 
 Houses of Congress promptly appointed committees to con 
 sider the subject and upon them were placed the most 
 prominent Northern and Southern men in each House. The 
 Senate Committee introduced the Crittenden Compromise 
 which provided for constitutional amendments to fulfil the 
 Missouri Compromise by the exclusion of slavery from the 
 Territories north of 36 30 ; to provide that when new States 
 were to be admitted, the people should decide upon the ques 
 tion of slavery or freedom ; but with a clause formally recog 
 nizing slavery as an institution entitled to protection by the 
 Territorial and Federal governments. The amendments fur 
 ther explicitly deprived Congress of any power to interfere 
 with the transportation of slaves to the Territories, or in any 
 
 i Putnam, Rebellion Record, I, Documents, 45. 
 
300 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 way to effect the status of slavery in the States where it ex 
 isted. Unless the Federal government returned the escaped 
 slaves, it should reimburse the owner for his loss. The House 
 Committee later proposed amendments safeguarding slavery 
 in the States, the repeal of the Personal. Liberty Laws, the 
 revision of the Fugitive-Slave Laws, and the admission of New 
 Mexico with or without slavery. Nor were the attempts at 
 compromise confined to Congress. Late in December a con 
 ference of the Governors of seven of the largest Northern 
 States met in New York and agreed to recommend to their 
 legislatures the repeal of the Personal Liberty Laws. Had it 
 been at all clear that this would have satisfied the South, every 
 Northern State would probably have been willing so to act. 
 The New York Legislature proposed to emancipate the slaves 
 at national expense and deport them to Africa. After the 
 publication of the Confederate Constitution, there was some 
 sentiment in the North in favor of a general adoption of 
 that document by the Northern States as the easiest way of 
 settling the difficulty. In February, a conference, called by 
 Virginia to discuss compromise, met at Washington, at which 
 delegates from all the Northern and border States were pres 
 ent. Toward the close of the month, it recommended to Con 
 gress a series of proposals similar to the Crittenden Com 
 promise, though somewhat less drastic in language. These 
 were discussed in the Senate and attempts were made to re 
 fer them to separate State conventions and even to a national 
 constitutional convention. 
 
 As it became more and more apparent that the formal pro 
 posals were not meeting with Southern approval, the North 
 ern leaders privately offered the Southerners in January to 
 pass at once an act organizing New Mexico as a slave State, if 
 the people of the district would vote in favor of it. This 
 was refused as inadequate on the ground that it did not cover 
 the territory hereafter to be acquired. In February, the 
 Northern congressmen offered to organize at once the rest of 
 the Louisiana Purchase without any provision regarding 
 slavery ; to pay for all fugitive slaves not returned ; to punish 
 
SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 301 
 
 drastically any repetition of John Brown s attempts to rouse 
 the slaves; to repeal ail state legislation inimical to the Fugi 
 tive-Slave Act. They even offered an amendment expressly 
 forbidding Congress to interfere with the status of slavery in 
 the States. 
 
 The reason for these frenzied attempts to meet the objec 
 tions alleged by the Ordinances of Secession is to be found in 
 the realization, now keen at the North, of the commercial bene 
 fits of the Federal union and, above all, the splendor of na 
 tionality. The vision, which had entranced the fathers of the 
 Republic and the framers of the Constitution, which Webster 
 had so eloquently described, had now become a general posses 
 sion. The North was utterly unwilling to renounce it in 
 favor of the older ideal of two confederacies. The calmer 
 minds, too, saw that the South was not unanimous upon the 
 issue of secession: that the overt acts had been the work of 
 the leaders and of conventions rather than of spontaneous agi 
 tation. The size of the vote against secession in several of the 
 States made many conclude (and among them, Seward) that 
 the numerical majority at the South was actually in favor of 
 Union. They saw also the lack in the South of the neces 
 sities for the prosecution of a war and they could not be 
 lieve that the leaders really proposed to try the issue of 
 arms. Another large section in the North believed sin 
 cerely in States rights , in the legality and validity of 
 secession, and declined to admit the existence of a power 
 in the Federal government to coerce a State. To them, un 
 less a compromise could be agreed upon, the destruction of 
 the Union was inevitable, for the South would secede beyond 
 a peradventure and leave the North no resource but to ac 
 cept its action. In the border States, this party was par 
 ticularly strong and the sentiment against the constitutionality 
 of coercion almost universal. 
 
 The Southern leaders seem, however, to have had from the 
 first no intention of compromising. Until all should be 
 ready, until they were assured that peaceful secession was 
 impossible, they were resolved not to push matters to the ex- 
 
302 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 treme, but they were equally determined not to yield short 
 of the complete legalization and protection of slavery. This 
 attitude was clear as early as November. * I am daily becom 
 ing more confirmed," wrote A. H. Stephens on November 30, 
 1860, "that all efforts to save the Union will be unavailing. 
 The truth is, our leaders and public men who have taken hold 
 of this question do not desire to continue it on any terms. 
 They do not wish any redress of wrongs ; they are dis-unionists 
 per se, and avail themselves of present circumstances to press 
 their objects." His opinion explains the formal statement 
 of the Southern Senators, made public on December 14, when 
 the arguments regarding compromise were as yet hardly be 
 gun in either House. "The argument is exhausted. ... In 
 our judgment, the Republicans are resolute in the purpose to 
 grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South." The 
 only remedy was the formation of a confederacy. On De 
 cember 22, Toombs of Georgia telegraphed his constituents 
 that he had put the test fairly and frankly, that the Repub 
 licans had decided against the claims of the South, and that 
 nothing was left but instant secession. This and other inci 
 dents soon convinced many that the South did not desire any 
 settlement other than separation. Lincoln too was against 
 compromise. "The tug has to come," he wrote, "and better 
 now than later." "A year will not pass till we shall have to 
 take Cuba as a condition upon which they will stay in the 
 Union." And indeed, the sober, thoughtful men of both 
 parties had long been coming to the opinion that "a proposi 
 tion which in effect requires either party to surrender its con 
 victions to act in direct opposition to its principles is not a 
 compromise." Reluctantly on March 2, the leaders in Con 
 gress conceded the final defeat of the only proposition which 
 had ever obtained much popular support, the Crittenden Com 
 promise. 
 
 Though compromise had definitely failed, it was by no 
 means clear that war would break out. The inauguration of 
 Lincoln passed off quietly, and the new President s address, 
 though firm and determined, was yet conservative in tone. 
 
 
SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 303 
 
 Nor during March did the situation outwardly change. The 
 drilling and arming went on at the South ; the clamor against 
 coercion continued at the North, where a few States only 
 mobilized their militia. Lincoln seemed as lacking in energy 
 and decision as had Buchanan. The reasons are not far to 
 seek. There were first of all dissensions in the Cabinet: 
 Seward, and Chase, Lincoln s rivals for the nomination, had 
 fully expected to take control of policy, and time was needed 
 to convince Lincoln of their intentions and for him to show 
 them conclusively who was actually President. A graver dif 
 ficulty lay in the harrowing doubt whether or not the North 
 would support the Government in an active policy of coercion 
 of the seceded States. As yet the border States, with Arkan 
 sas and North Carolina, had not seceded and their hostility to 
 a policy of coercion was only too manifest. Whether decisive 
 action caused them actively to join the new Confederacy, or 
 merely to decline to assist the Federal government, the result 
 would be equally disastrous. In the first eventuality, the new 
 Confederacy, thus strengthened, might conceivably be strong 
 :nough to win the war ; in the second, a great strip of neutral 
 territory would be interposed between the Northern and 
 Southern States, which would either prevent the Northern 
 armies from reaching the South or would compel them to oc 
 cupy the border States as if they were actually hostile terri 
 tory. Washington would be at once isolated from the loyal 
 States, and it seemed scarcely probable that the Union would 
 survive its capture. 
 
 Nor was it by any means clear that the North would sup 
 port a war. The New York Tribune, edited by Greeley, by 
 far the most influential paper in the East and the only paper 
 much read in the Northwest, had for months openly advocated 
 peaceful secession : Let the erring sisters go in peace. The 
 Mayor of New York had recommended the secession of that 
 city from the State and the opening of her ports to the world. 
 Late in January at a great public meeting in New York, a 
 very influential man declared against coercion and was wildly 
 led, while the Republican mayor of Philadelphia had 
 
 japplaude 
 
304 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 pronounced publicly, amid very evident expressions of ap 
 proval, against the hostility towards slavery. In March and 
 April, the municipal elections in the North showed heavy 
 losses from the Republican majorities of the previous fall. 
 In Boston, in the home of Anti-Slavery, the Twenty-ninth 
 Annual Session of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society 
 was broken up by a disorderly crowd and the Society next day 
 disbanded. Indeed, it became evident that secession had al 
 most produced a new alignment of parties. Until the attitude 
 of the majority in the North became clearer, Lincoln had no 
 intention of calling for troops. 
 
 Nor had Davis any intention of taking steps hostile to the 
 Federal government until it was definitely established that 
 negotiation, diplomacy, compromise, or whatever other forms 
 of mediation or adjustment were available, had been entirely 
 exhausted. The new Confederacy was of course desirous to 
 secure recognition of its independence and sovereignty with 
 out resort to arms, and apparently deemed such recognition 
 possible and probable, for in March commissioners appeared 
 in Washington who desired formally to submit credentials to 
 Seward and to discuss with him the relations of the two con 
 federacies." Seward declined to commit himself or the ad 
 ministration by even communicating with them in his official 
 capacity, but for some three weeks the inability of the Cabinet 
 to decide to act upon their case one way or the other led the 
 Southerners to believe that events and forces were working 
 in their favor. The more warlike at the North even began 
 to fear that the predictions of the Southerners would come 
 true and that the North would not fight. 
 
 As usual, the larger issue presented itself in more concrete 
 form. The Federal forts in Charleston harbor were gar 
 risoned by Major Anderson and Federal troops. When South 
 Carolina seceded, Anderson evacuated the fort and batteries 
 on the shore and posted himself in Fort Sumter, which was lo 
 cated on an island and commanded the ship channels in and 
 out of the harbor. Naturally, to the South Carolinians, drunk 
 with the wine of their new found liberty, his presence was of- 
 
SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 305 
 
 fensive and they had earlier protested to Buchanan and de 
 manded the surrender of the fort. They had even dared fire 
 upon a Federal supply ship which had attempted in January 
 to reprovision the fort and which had in consequence re 
 turned without accomplishing its object. When Lincoln be 
 came President, the situation in the fort was critical: it was 
 surrounded and commanded by the batteries erected on shore ; 
 the food was running low; and its surrender, reinforcement, 
 or provisioning was a question of moment because the 
 Southerners had repeatedly given warning that either of the 
 latter would be treated as the signal for war. After weeks of 
 indecision, Lincoln finally determined to provision the fort; 
 he could not see the Union abandoned without at least trying 
 the issue and certainly the provisioning of the fort was not 
 from any reasonable point of view a hostile act, however the 
 Southerners might choose to regard it. The commissioners of 
 the Confederacy promptly sent a letter to Seward declaring 
 the act a declaration of war ; and at daybreak on April 12, the 
 South Carolina batteries began the bombardment of Fort 
 Sumter. The structure was old, and ill-equipped for re 
 sistance ; and, after it had been shot to pieces, the powder ex 
 hausted and further resistance made useless, Anderson sur 
 rendered and evacuated it with the honors of war. 
 
 The sensation in the North is indescribable : blind rage and 
 a desire to wipe out the insult to the flag replaced the luke- 
 warmness and hesitation hitherto characteristic. The una 
 nimity of sentiment in favor of war was as remarkable as it 
 was sudden. Douglas at once waited on the President and 
 promised his entire support. The publication of his message 
 to the country had tremendous effect. A great crowd went 
 out to his home in Chicago ; he addressed them from a balcony, 
 and besought them, his voice choked with emotion, to stand 
 for the Union. " There can be no neutrals in this war; only 
 patriots or traitors. * Buchanan declared war inevitable and 
 predicted that the North to a man would support the govern 
 ment. 
 
 He was right. On April 15, Lincoln called for seventy-five 
 
306 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 thousand volunteers; on the next day the Massachusetts regi 
 ments mobilized in Boston, and on the following day, the Sixth 
 Massachusetts left for Washington. Passing through Balti 
 more, the troops were mobbed by the Secessionists who con 
 trolled the town, but succeeded in getting through to the 
 national eapitol. Behind them the wires were cut and the 
 railroad bridges burned. Maryland had risen and Washing 
 ton was isolated! 
 
 The news came that Virginia had seceded; that Harper s 
 Perry with its arsenals and its control of the Potomac and 
 Shenandoah Valley had been evacuated and the Navy Yard 
 at Gosport destroyed. The legislatures of New York and Ohio 
 voted large rams for the support of the government ; a quarter 
 of a million people held a rally in Union Square, New York, 
 and solemnly pledged themselves to the defense of the Union, 
 and the departure for Washington of the famous Seventh 
 New York Regiment was the signal for scenes of enthusiasm 
 and determination which beggar description. Rhode Island 
 troops were already on the road. But the anxious President, j 
 marooned in Washington, in receipt of only occasional mes-j 
 sages by couriers, could not believe in the actuality of this 
 support. "I begin to believe there is no North," he said to 
 the Sixth Massachusetts. "The Seventh Regiment is a myth. 
 Rhode Island is another. You are the only real thing. The 
 def enselessness of Washington was so apparent, the moral re- j 
 suit of its loss so clear, that the watchword became "On to 
 Washington!" Then Butler s Eighth Massachusetts Pvcn- 
 ment landed at Annapolis, ignoring the protests of the Gover-l 
 nor of Maryland against such an "invasion" of a sovereign | 
 State without permission, repaired the railroad trains disabled 
 by the Marylanders, put the baggage on the cars, and marched 
 on to Washington, rebuilding the track as they went. Over 
 the same route, troops soon poured in; the connection with 
 the North had been established and Washington was safe. 
 
 The city had never been in any real danger. The Con 
 federates were not ready to move. In reality, the panic in 
 Washington was equaled only by that in Richmond on Sun- 
 
SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 307 
 
 day, April 21. Word came that a Federal gunboat was steam 
 ing up the river. Bells rang; the congregations rushed out 
 of the churches to arms ; and not till late at night did the alarm 
 subside and the people become thoroughly convinced of their 
 safety. Meanwhile, in Charleston, the greatest joy reigned. 
 Russell, the famous war correspondent of the London Times, 
 wrote of "crowds of armed men singing and promenading 
 the streets, the battle blood running through their veins 
 that hot oxygen which is called the flush of victory on the 
 cheek; restaurants full, reveling in barrooms, elubrooms 
 crowded, orgies and carousing in tavern and private house, in 
 tap-room from cabaret down narrow alleyways, in the broad 
 high-way. Sumter has set them distraught; never was such 
 a victory; never such brave lads; never such a light; ... it 
 is a bloodless Waterloo or Solferiuo. 2 
 
 2 Diary, 08. 
 
XXIII 
 THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 
 
 THE policy of passive resistance promptly adopted by the 
 Confederacy had its solid basis in diplomacy and statesman 
 ship rather than in military considerations; but its military 
 result was to throw the war into the Southern States, to force 
 the North to become the aggressor, and made the story of the 
 war the tale of the progress of the Northern "conquest." 
 The most important factor, then, in the military history of 
 the Civil War is the strategical geography of the United 
 States south of Mason and Dixon s line. This vast territory 
 about one-third of the total area of the country to-day, 
 then nearly two-thirds of the settled States, is divided by 
 the Alleghany Mountains into two unequal parts, each of 
 which promptly became a theater of war. During the first 
 three years and more a series of simultaneous campaigns took 
 place, all directed toward the occupation of the South, but 
 carried on by Northern armies in the West and East which be 
 cause of the mountains did not attempt to keep in touch with 
 each other or carry out concerted movements. The cam 
 paigns in Virginia and the campaigns in the West were 
 aimed at different strategic points. This same difficulty of 
 communication through the Alleghanies, which so hampered 
 the concerted action of the invaders, also made extremely dif 
 ficult any cooperation of the Southern armies in either field 
 and in particular clogged the wheels of the machinery in 
 tended to provide Lee s army in Virginia with supplies and 
 munitions of war. Many of the first military movements 
 were devoted to attempts to establish or prevent conjunction 
 of forces in both armies, and it is not perhaps going too far 
 
 308 
 
THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 
 
 309 
 
 to say that the character of the war as a whole was the result 
 of the existence of the Alleghany Mountains. 
 
 The fact that Washington was situated a comparatively 
 short distance from Richmond, the expectation entertained by 
 both sides of a sudden collapse of the opposition under so 
 striking a reverse as the seizure of its capital, the belief of 
 each that the other was unprepared to resist sudden invasion, 
 all combined to induce both to begin the war in Virginia and 
 to conduct operations there with especial pertinacity in the 
 face of all obstacles and reverses. Indeed, the enthusiasts on 
 both sides could not comprehend why their general could not 
 cross those few miles of territory and so end the War. The 
 fact that the campaigns in Virginia, with the exception of a 
 few brilliant successes for both sides, were for both a long 
 series of striking reverses, which left the contending armies 
 in the fall of 1864 no nearer the accomplishment of cither s 
 desire than when the War began, is the most significant aspect 
 of this part of the War and is explained largely, if not en 
 tirely, by the character of the country. Military critics have 
 unreservedly praised the generalship of Lee and have de 
 clared that his ability alone maintained the defense in Vir 
 ginia and therefore prolonged the War for four years. Lee s 
 defense, however, was based chiefly upon a detailed knowl 
 edge of the ground and a most skilful use of the natural ad 
 vantages it afforded him. 
 
 Virginia is a plain, sloping southeast from the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains to Chesapeake Bay and intersected by numerous 
 parallel rivers, of which the Potomac, the Rappahannock, 
 York, and James are the most important. So low is the land 
 near the Bay that for a considerable distance the shore of 
 the Bay and the sides of the rivers are marshy, and land firm 
 enough for army maneuvers begins some miles from shore 
 about the meridian of Fredericksburg. The possible field of 
 war was thus narrowed and limited by nature. The rivers, 
 moreover, all of them lying athwart an invader s path, af 
 forded the Northern armies the maximum number of diffi 
 culties in their march overland on Richmond, and gave the 
 
310 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Confederates the maximum opportunities for defense and 
 for assault at moments when the nature of the ground near 
 the river fords made the deploying of any considerable part 
 of the Northern army hazardous in the extreme. The dis 
 trict Lee had to guard was limited, and Nature herself had 
 provided fortifications for him and obstacles for his enemies. 
 These same rivers had been since colonial times the high 
 ways of Virginia, for all commodities were moved to the Bay 
 for export and were rarely sent overland from one part of 
 the State to another. There had never been developed, there 
 fore, any system of roads running north and south which was 
 of real service to either side. Days were spent in making 
 roads across river bottoms, swamps, and morasses, where 
 more soldiers died of malarial fevers, dysentery, and camp 
 diseases than were killed in battle. Then this part of Vir 
 ginia had been normally devoted to growing tobacco; agri 
 culture had declined; and food and fuel were scarce. Both 
 armies were speedily dependent upon supplies brought to 
 them and found it extremely difficult to procure in Virginia 
 enough horses, mules, or wagons even, to get the supplies from 
 the railroad to the camps. The invaders were compelled to 
 carry everything. The war in the East indeed soon de 
 pended for its prosecution at all upon the smooth working of 
 the immensely complicated administrative machine required 
 to supply and move the Northern army under the geograph 
 ical conditions. In fact, the comparative inaction of the first 
 two years was almost entirely due to the imperative need 
 of a machinery which only time and experience could render 
 really efficient; and the operations undertaken were such as 
 the limited resources of that machinery seemed to render pos 
 sible. McClellan s continual complaint was that he was not 
 given enough men properly equipped for the task assigned 
 him. To the geographical difficulty of fighting at all in Vir 
 ginia may be assigned much of the responsibility for the fail 
 ure of the Union armies to wage war more successfully in the 
 East. 
 
 This same configuration of the field of war, however, gave 
 
THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 311 
 
 both sides enormous natural advantages of which they were 
 not slow to avail themselves, but which, as used by Lee, af 
 forded the Confederates vastly more assistance than they did 
 the Federals. The control of Chesapeake Bay and of the 
 rivers gave the Federal gunboats and transports such ready 
 access to the interior that the Union generals could land their 
 armies where they pleased, in nearly any part of eastern Vir 
 ginia and could maintain them there by provisions from the 
 fleet. The early seizure of Maryland gave the Union con 
 trol of a second side of the field of war, and maintained the 
 indispensable connections with the North and West. This, 
 however, was rather a possible advantage snatched from the 
 Confederates than a positive assistance to the Federals. 
 
 Of a very different sort was the assistance derived by the 
 Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley. The Blue Ridge 
 occupied one whole side of the field of war and the numerous 
 gaps made entrance to it or exit from it easy for both armies. 
 Its northern end debouched in Pennsylvania and made it a 
 protecting screen for an invasion of the North by the Confed 
 erates ; from its center an army advancing through Manassas 
 or Centerville and across Bull Run could menace Washing 
 ton directly; while an army fleeing from pursuit could slip 
 in one gap and no one know from which of the many others 
 it would emerge. From this vantage point Jackson, Stuart, 
 and Early threatened Washington or harried the rear of the 
 Union armies till the last year of the War. Through it Lee 
 twice attempted to invade the North; in its defiles, he twice 
 eluded his pursuers, who were between him and the Confeder 
 ate lines, and reached Richmond in safety. Aside from the 
 beaten track of the contending armies, the pursuits of peace 
 long went on uninterrupted and all through the years from 
 1861 to 1864 priceless loads of supplies were drawn from the 
 fertile fields of the Valley for Lee s army. In addition, the 
 Valley enabled the Confederates to threaten the communica 
 tions of the North with the West via the Potomac River Valley 
 and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which crossed the river 
 and the Valley roads at Harper s Ferry. 
 
312 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Indeed Harper s Ferry, Manassas, and Centerville, con 
 trolling the most direct roads from the Valley to Washing 
 ton; and Fortress Monroe at the mouth of the James Eiver 
 were the only strategic points in the triangular field of the 
 Virginia War. There were in fact no other strategic points 
 of first importance to struggle for, and the long campaigns 
 were a series of attempts by the Union armies to reach Rich 
 mond by passing a few miles west or east of the point of the 
 last rebuff, or, on the part of the Confederates to try once 
 more a dash on Washington or on Philadelphia through the 
 Shenandoah Valley. The armies were too well matched; the 
 valor of each too great ; the skill of the generals too consider 
 able to make the weary years of strife more than a draw. 
 The War was not won by the Virginia campaigns, but, as 
 Sherman early predicted, by the western armies. 
 
 The Mississippi Valley possessed many strategic points of 
 the utmost consequence to the Union. The Ohio River, deep, 
 swift, and almost fordless, flowing between steep banks across 
 almost the entire width of the country would have been a 
 splendid boundary for defense and would have given the Con 
 federates a virtual fortification from which Ohio, Indiana, 
 and Illinois could have been harried at will. Missouri con 
 trolled the junction of the Ohio, of the Missouri, and of the 
 Illinois with the Mississippi, and paralleled the whole western 
 side of the strong Union State of Illinois and the southern 
 side of Iowa. Should it join the Confederacy, the South would 
 control the whole of the navigable waterways of the Middle 
 West and would be provided with splendid roads into the very 
 heart of the anti-slavery territory. The loss of Kentucky, 
 of West Virginia, and of Missouri to the South in the first 
 months of the War was of far greater significance than has 
 been supposed. While the military operations concerned with 
 their seizure were slight in strategy and of little tactical im 
 portance, the result upon the general position of the South was 
 equal to the winning of any single great battle of the War. 
 The chance of meeting the Northern armies along the Ohio, 
 far from the center of the Confederacy, was lost; and only 
 
THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 313 
 
 Forts Henry and Donelson kept the Federal gunboats out of 
 the Tennessee and Cumberland, rivers which were navigable 
 indeed far enough south to furnish a waterway into the very 
 heart of the Confederacy. With the loss of Missouri went 
 the control of the upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and the 
 mouth of the Ohio. Practically, the great depth of the 
 Mississippi cut the western part of the Confederacy into two 
 parts, and prevented armies east of the river from cooperating 
 effectively with the troops west of it. The hostility of Mis 
 souri kept Arkansas on the qui vive; while Texas and Louisiana 
 were not sufficiently populous to maintain armies, even had 
 the character of the country not made military campaigns in 
 the marshes and bayous impracticable. From them must 
 come supplies and recruits. The field of war in the West 
 then was limited by Nature and by circumstances to the land 
 south of central Kentucky, west of the mountains, and east of 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 The strategic points were chiefly those controlling the lines 
 of communication north and south, and east and west. The 
 rivers first engaged attention. It became at once clear to the 
 Northern generals that the possession of the Mississippi would 
 prevent the South from drawing men and supplies from the 
 Western States ; and permit the provisioning and relieving of 
 the western armies by the North much more safely than the 
 railroads would have allowed. The moral effect of its loss 
 could not fail to be tremendous. To advance along the Ten 
 nessee and Cumberland Kivers, however, was more likely to 
 be decisive, for such a movement menaced the east and west 
 connections of the Confederacy. The Civil War was one of 
 the first to be fought with aid of the telegraph and railroad, 
 and their value as military forces had not been entirely ap 
 preciated. It so happened that while the system of trunk 
 lines running in all directions naturally developed by North 
 ern trade were of immense strategic importance, the majority 
 of Southern railroad lines were nearly valueless from a mili 
 tary point of view. There were only about 9,000 miles of 
 track south of Mason and Dixon s line. Most of the lines 
 
314 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 were short spurs to the coast or to a shipping point on some 
 river, and the majority of them were single track and narrow 
 gauge. From Virginia no trunk line ran south to Charles 
 ton and Atlanta, and there was, indeed, only one trunk line 
 running east and west that was likely to be of any conse 
 quence. The proximity of Washington and Richmond had, 
 however, determined the chief field of war and the communi 
 cations between Virginia and the country further south be 
 came at once of extraordinary military importance. The 
 knowledge that the army in Virginia must be fed and clothed 
 from a distance, and must be supported promptly by fresh 
 troops in case of disaster, made the Cumberland Gap and 
 its roads and railway seem almost as important a point to 
 maintain as Richmond itself. Through this Gap ran the Dan 
 ville and Ohio Railroad, the only east and west trunk line 
 joining Memphis, Atlanta, Charleston, and Richmond. The 
 railroads from Memphis to Richmond and from Charleston 
 and Atlanta joined at Chattanooga ; the roads north from Mo 
 bile and New Orleans crossed the line from Memphis to Chat 
 tanooga at or near Corinth. Through the Cumberland Gap 
 supplies and troops must reach Lee or they would not reach 
 him at all. Through that Gap the Southern army in the 
 West must cooperate with the army in Virginia or the two 
 would be separated and crushed singly. To maintain that 
 connection it was absolutely essential to hold both Corinth and 
 Chattanooga. 
 
 The campaign of 1861 in the West having given the Union 
 troops the rivers and the States of Missouri, Kentucky, and 
 Western Virginia (admitted as a State in 1863), Grant and 
 Sherman prepared to move down the Tennessee, cut the rail 
 road at Corinth and at Chattanooga, and thence invade Vir 
 ginia from the rear through the Cumberland Gap. Simul 
 taneously, the gunboat flotilla began the task of reducing the 
 Mississippi from the north, while Farragut and the fleet as 
 sailed its mouth at New Orleans. By the end of April 1862, 
 the river was in Northern hands as far south as Memphis; 
 Grant had taken the forts guarding the passage of the Ten- 
 
THE CIVIL WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 315 
 
 nessee and Cumberland, had fought the battle of Shiloh and 
 established himself in southern Tennessee ready to move on 
 the railroad connections; and New Orleans was in the hands 
 of Farragut and Butler. Grant and Sherman were now or 
 dered to take Corinth and Memphis, which was soon done, 
 and then were ordered to advance with Porter and his gun 
 boats on Vicksburg down the river ; cooperate with Butler and 
 Farragut, advancing up the river; concentrate on Vicksburg 
 and so clear the Mississippi of Confederates. Buell, soon re 
 placed by Rosecrans, was at the same time ordered to lay 
 siege to Chattanooga. But the success of the earlier months 
 did not continue and the second half of the year 1862 saw 
 the Northern armies everywhere at a standstill: McClellan 
 outmanoeuvered along the James, nearly defeated at Antietam, 
 outgeneraled by Lee s masterly retreat, and the Army of the 
 Potomac, now under Burnside, dreadfully cut to pieces at 
 Fredericksburg ; in the West, all the armies completely check 
 mated. Indeed, not until July 1863, did Grant and Sherman 
 prevail at Vicksburg and secure full control of the river, and 
 only the massing of troops at Chattanooga some months later 
 under Grant, Sherman, and Thomas sufficed to clear the Gap 
 and cut the communications of the South with Virginia. By 
 this time, a direct line had been finished through North Caro 
 lina and the loss of the Gap was not so decisive a blow as it 
 would have been a year earlier. Despite Vicksburg and Chat 
 tanooga, despite the decisive repulse of Lee at Gettysburg in 
 July 1863, where his second attempt to invade the North 
 was frustrated by Meade, it was clear that in Virginia at 
 least the Northern army was not appreciably nearer Rich 
 mond, and that the losses in the West would not of themselves 
 demolish the Confederacy. Military movements based upon 
 the new position of the western armies became indispensable. 
 After much discussion, it was decided that Grant should, 
 as before, advance on Richmond from the North; Sheridan 
 should lay waste the Shenandoah, to prevent its further use 
 as a base of operations and of supplies; Sherman should ad 
 vance on Atlanta, march across Georgia to the Sea, proving 
 
316 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the vulnerability of the Confederacy, and then, advancing 
 north through South Carolina and North Carolina, take pos 
 session of the country on whose support Lee was depending, 
 and so in the end reach his rear. Thomas was left behind 
 in Tennessee to keep Hood s army in sight and prevent his 
 interference with Sherman. Every campaign was successful 
 except that of Grant, who was thrown back again and again 
 by Lee s veterans in a series of battles which experts then 
 and since pronounced bad generalship to have fought at all. 
 So extended a series of operations, however, consumed the 
 whole year and it was not until the spring of 1865 that the 
 final moves of the game could be made. Grant, having already 
 shifted his operations to the James, closed in on Richmond 
 from the east and south; Sherman advanced through North 
 Carolina, driving Johnston before him ; Thomas s army scaled 
 the Cumberland Gap, and Lee found himself completely sur 
 rounded. He abandoned Richmond and tried to retreat into 
 the mountains, where he could have resisted indefinitely, but 
 Grant was too quick for him, and in April 1865, the impend 
 ing surrender took place at Appomattox. 
 
XXIV 
 WHY THE NORTH WON 
 
 THE physical and economic preponderance of the North over 
 the South two and one-half times as many fighting men, 
 eleven times the productivity 1 could not fail ultimately to 
 decide the issue, should the South be unable to beat the 
 Northern armies or to obtain assistance from Europe. From 
 the outset this was clear to the Southern leaders. Thanks 
 to the Southern sympathies of the Secretary of War, the 
 available supplies in the hands of the Federal government 
 in 1861 were early seized by the Southerners; thanks to the 
 hesitation of the North to believe in the reality of secession, 
 the South, it was seen, was drilled, and prepared long before 
 the North as a whole had decided to act. The expectation 
 was that the Southern armies would be able to defeat the 
 Northern and perhaps invade the North itself, while the 
 failure of the supply of cotton and the lack of a medium 
 of exchange with Europe would bankrupt Northern industry, 
 bring Europe to the aid of the South, and compel the West 
 to sell to the South on her own terms or face commercial 
 ruin. 
 
 The first great blow to the Southern cause was the failure 
 of the border States, Missouri and Kentucky, to secede or 
 to defend themselves against the first movements of Union 
 troops. The northern boundary of the swift, unfordable Ohio 
 was lost to the South. With it went the control of the 
 navigation of that great river, and the possibility of flanking 
 the great State of Illinois, of threatening invasion of the 
 West, and of thus weakening the Northern armies before 
 
 i Supra, p. 290-2. 
 
 317 
 
318 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Lee. The whole aspect of the War was changed in a moment 
 by the loss in May 1861, of Missouri, Kentucky, and West 
 ern Virginia. The next crushing blow fell when it became 
 evident that the growth of the railroads in the last decade 
 had furnished the Ohio Valley and the Northwest a high 
 way to the Eastern market as cheap and much more rapidly 
 traversible than that which the Mississippi had afforded 
 them to the South. Moreover, the Eastern market was in 
 finitely larger than the Southern and hence a better place 
 in which to sell. The East produced itself most of the manu 
 factured goods the West desired and it was therefore a 
 better market to buy in than the South, which could give 
 its creditors only exchange on the East or on London and 
 could furnish them goods only after the delay and expense 
 of importation. In 1850, the lack of adequate facilities for 
 transportation to the Eastern markets must perforce have 
 compelled the West to depend upon the Southern markets ; in 
 1860, when the War actually broke out, the West was able 
 for the first time to find a market for her own produce in 
 the East. 
 
 Although the direct trade with the West helped the East, 
 the outbreak of the War was a great economic blow, for the 
 South had bought in the winter of 1860-61, with the usual 
 arrangement for future payment, three hundred million 
 dollars worth of goods in the North. 2 The commencement 
 of hostilities of course had the effect of a repudiation of the 
 entire debt. The New York firms alone lost one hundred and 
 sixty millions as a result of secession; in 1861 six thousand 
 Northern firms actually failed for sums over $5,000 and it was 
 calculated that an equal number failed for liabilities less than 
 that sum, with a total almost one-third as great. The firms 
 which did not actually fail were in every way crippled and 
 found themselves almost as badly off as during the Panic of 
 
 2 The financial and economic effects of the War have been adequately 
 dealt with hy Professor E. D. Fite in Social and Industrial Conditions 
 During the Civil War. New York, 1910. Chapter V is devoted to the 
 commercial conditions here referred to. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 31d 
 
 1857. Retrenchments of individual expenses due to fear of 
 the War s results or possible failure were responsible for a 
 great falling off of sales and for a consequent difficulty among 
 wholesalers and manufacturers of placing new orders. In 
 deed, a commercial crisis of magnitude prevailed throughout 
 the North during 1861 and 1862 and it combined with the 
 inactivity of the Army of the Potomac and the "unconsti 
 tutional powers exercised by Lincoln to make the War highly 
 unpopular. 
 
 But the War itself set in motion economic forces which 
 soon solved the chief difficulties. The army and navy ab 
 sorbed many of the hands thrown out of work. The new 
 factories needed to supply the army, the administrative 
 offices at Washington, and other multifarious activities 
 created by the conflict began gradually to provide for the 
 rest. Everything it purchased the government paid for; 
 nearly everything made in the North the government bought ; 
 the army, the navy, the clerks and officials of all grades and 
 ranks received wages or salaries. The expense was enormous ; 
 the financing of the war 3 was a great problem on the whole 
 skilfully handled; but the fact must not be overlooked that 
 the whole North was employed by the Federal government 
 directly or indirectly and was paid for its services at prices 
 much higher than any which had ever been seen in the 
 country before. Even those persons who themselves loaned 
 the money found the government s bonds good investments 
 and received at once high rates of interest. The individuals 
 then alive benefited unquestionably from the War. "We are 
 only another example/ wrote John Sherman, "of a people 
 growing rich in a great war. . . . This is not a mere tem 
 porary inflation caused by paper money but is a steady 
 progress and rests almost entirely upon actual capital." 
 Great sums were spent in luxuries : * " We are clothed in 
 
 3 Any one who hopes to understand the financing of the War must 
 read carefully tTie biographies of Jay Cooke. 
 
 * See the quotations given by Rhodes, History of the United Ktatcs, 
 V, 198-209; and the detailed evidence quoted by Fite, opp. tit., 259-274, 
 
320 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 purple and fine linen," said the Chicago Tribune. The South 
 had expected the economic crisis caused by secession to bank 
 rupt the North, and the War was actually making the North 
 richer, stronger, larger than before ! This incontestable pros 
 perity enabled the North to bear heavy taxation without 
 actually suffering. The great bulk of the cost of the War 
 was foisted upon posterity, thanks to the very bonds whose 
 sale provided capitalists with a good investment for their 
 money in war-time and allowed the government practically to 
 subsidize industry at the North on an enormous scale. 
 
 The expectations entertained by the South of assistance 
 from England and France did not materialize, chiefly be 
 cause cotton was not king. While large and influential sec 
 tions of the English people favored the Southern cause, the 
 government was loath to act until the ability of the Southern 
 Confederacy to maintain itself was apparent. Unquestion 
 ably, too, the sagacity and ability of C. F. Adams, the United 
 States Ambassador to Great Britain, was instrumental in 
 preventing prompt action in favor of the South, and in 
 delaying a decision until both England and France concluded, 
 as the Confederate agents were compelled to report, that the 
 probabilities of the restoration of the Union outweighed "the 
 wisdom, energy, and completeness" of the administrative 
 system established at Richmond. 5 The expected pressure 
 upon foreign governments caused by the need for cotton 
 was long postponed, because, in the spring of 1861, the 
 
 with the authorities cited. The N ew "York Independent, June 25, 1864, 
 Baid: "Who at the North would ever think of war, if he had not a 
 friend in the army, or did not read the newspapers? Go into Broad 
 way, and we will show you what is meant by the word Extravagance. 
 Ask Stewart about the demand for camel s hair shawls, and he will 
 say monstrous. Ask Tiffany what kind of diamonds and pearls are 
 called for. He will answer the prodigious, as near hen s-egg size as 
 possible, price no object. What kind of carpetings are now wanted? 
 None but extra. Brussels and velvets are now used from basement 
 to garret." The correspondent of the London Times was amazed to 
 read the news in the papers of great losses at the front and yet find 
 that "the signs of mourning were hardly anywhere perceptible; the 
 noisy gayety of the town was not abated one jot." Cited by Fite, 259. 
 5 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, II, 53. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 321 
 
 European manufacturers had nearly a year s supply of cotton 
 on hand. Long before this supply was exhausted, the general 
 failure of the grain crops throughout Europe caused a de 
 mand for food-stuffs literally unprecedented since the Na 
 poleonic wars. 6 England, even then unable to feed herself 
 and dependent on importation, found her usual sources of 
 supply either non-existent or inadequate and was forced to 
 seek some new supply of food. In that very year of Euro 
 pean scarcity, the West harvested the largest crops of its 
 history ; 7 the new railroads quickly and cheaply landed the 
 crop at New York; whence it was shipped to England and 
 found ready sale. The North possessed in fact the only 
 available supply of a commodity which Europe needed far 
 more than it did cotton. 8 The lack of cotton as a medium of 
 exchange with Europe was scarcely felt. The Emancipation 
 Proclamation, issued in September 1862, to take effect Jan 
 uary 1, 1863, seems to have played an important part in 
 deciding the European nations to decline to recognize the 
 Confederacy. While the object of the War as stated by 
 Lincoln and others was primarily and perhaps exclusively 
 to perpetuate the political ties created by the Constitution, 
 England and France had felt that the issue was chiefly one 
 of expediency and not of principle. When, however, the 
 Northern government pledged itself to the principle of eman 
 cipation, public opinion manifested itself too clearly in favor 
 of the Union in Europe for the governments to disregard it. 
 All hope of recognition was destroyed by the victories of 
 Vicksburg and Gettysburg. 
 
 e The English wheat crop had averaged about 16 million quarters; 
 fell in I860 to 13 million, in 1861 to 11 million, and was in 1862 only 
 12 million, and in 1863 only 14 million. Fite, Social and Industrial 
 Conditions, 18 note. 
 
 7 The increase of the crop in the loyal States was 40 millions 
 bushels and the cessation of trade with the South added 10 millions 
 more, available for export. 
 
 8W. E. Forster stated in the House of Commons: "When they were 
 asked to go to war for merely selfish purposes, to procure cotton, it 
 was allowable to ask, What would be the cost of the war in corn? 
 Cited by Fite, p. 21. 
 
322 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Meanwhile, the expectation that the South would be able 
 to buy in Europe with King Cotton nearly if not quite 
 everything she would require also was crushed by the totally 
 unexpected efficiency of the blockade of Southern ports 
 established by the Northern navy. Although the South had 
 neither navy nor merchant marine and had shipped her cotton 
 to Europe in Northern or English bottoms, she knew that the 
 Federal government had comparatively few ships in com 
 mission in the spring of 1861, and deemed it impossible for 
 such a handful to blockade in a practical manner a thousand 
 miles and more of seacoast. The administration at Washing 
 ton set to work diligently to buy and build ; developed shortly 
 armor-clad boats and steam warships, both now introduced 
 in naval warfare for the first time, and almost immediately 
 11 Uncle Sam s webbed feet," in Lincoln s odd but character 
 istic phrase, were leaving their marks "wherever the land 
 was wet." It transpired that the numerous harbors along 
 the Southern coasts were of no particular value, for only 
 a few were connected by railways or roads with the interior, 
 and none of them, outside of the Chesapeake region, were 
 at the beginning of the War connected with the district where 
 supplies were needed. In fact, the magnificent rivers had 
 given each little district, each plantation, as it were, its 
 own special waterway to the oceanic trade, and an elaborate 
 network of roads and railroads had not been needed to ensure 
 rapid economic growth. There was no system of intercom 
 munication by land throughout the South which would have 
 made one harbor as good a base of communication with 
 Europe as another and therefore have rendered effective 
 blockade of so many harbors as impossible as it first seemed. 
 In reality, the investiture of a very few places closed the 
 only ports through which any considerable volume of trade 
 had flowed or which possessed any connection by rail with 
 the interior. Even had the ports remained open, the de 
 ficiencies of transportation would still have sown formidable 
 obstacles in the way of the speedy and regular transmission 
 of supplies. The waterways were indeed a detriment to the 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 323 
 
 South, were simply so many roads to the interior which 
 Federal gunboats and transports were speedily utilizing to 
 land troops in the very heart of the Mississippi Valley and 
 to take possession of the seacoast and the river-bottoms 
 for many miles inland. In fact, the only system of trans 
 portation, which the South had consistently used between 
 plantations or with the outside world, fell into the hands 
 of her enemies. The normal intercourse with Europe ceased 
 even before hostilities were begun in earnest; by the summer 
 of 1861 the South was already finding it difficult to procure 
 lead, medicines, salt, and other necessities. 9 
 
 Nor did the cotton famine attain anything like the pro 
 portions or have anything like the effect expected. The high 
 price and ready market encouraged exports of Egyptian cot 
 ton; the progress of the Northern armies in Tennessee and 
 Mississippi, the success of the navy along the Gulf coast, 
 enabled the Federal government to seize and confiscate con 
 siderable amounts of cotton, all of which was, of course, 
 instantly distributed to the hungry looms in New England 
 and Lancashire. 10 Both governments also connived at the 
 smuggling of cotton through the lines, 11 and Davis and some 
 of his cabinet were supposed to have agreed upon a scheme 
 for exchanging the idle cotton bales with the Northerners 
 for necessities. 12 This expedient was viewed with little favor : 
 
 Rebellion Records, Series IV, Vol. I, 276. 
 
 10 "It has been estimated that after Sept. 1863, England received 
 indirectly from the Confederacy an average of 4000 bales a week." 
 "The leak was not a trickling stream, but a river, and the famine 
 policy was a dream." Pendleton s Stephens, 305. 
 
 11 C. A. Dana s Recollections are full of details about the system of 
 licensing trade through the lines. He was a government spy in the 
 western armies to investigate conditions and watch the generals. His 
 confidential letters to Stanton are full of the most valuable information. 
 
 12 Jones, a confidential war clerk in the War Department at Rich 
 mond, handled the Secretary s private correspondence, including letters 
 from the Secretary and even from the President. With the consent of 
 the authorities, he kept a diary in which he recorded his impressions 
 of men and measures. A Rebel War Clerk s Diary, I, 180 (Phila., 
 1866), and following, contains a good deal of information and con 
 jecture about cotton speculation. 
 
324 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the North desired to exhaust the Southern supplies as soon 
 as possible ; the South still believed that a real cotton famine 
 would be a great weapon in its favor and that the expected 
 results had not been obtained because there was really no 
 famine. Blockade-runners plied a brisk trade and brought 
 invaluable cargoes of salt, medicine, cartridges, and the like ; 
 but the vigilance of the Federal navy prevented any depend 
 ence on them as a regular source of supply. On the whole, it 
 is no exaggeration to say that the blockade was so soon 
 effective that the South was compelled to fight the War from 
 her own resources, plus the very considerable supplies of 
 all kinds on hand in May 1861. 
 
 Her inability to utilize these resources was another cause of 
 the Northern victory. When, in the first bitterness of de 
 feat, the Southerners sought some explanation of it, many 
 concluded that Davis, his personality, his incapacity, the 
 inefficiency of his appointees, his stubborn refusal to remove 
 them were among the leading causes of disaster. 13 Men 
 like Pollard fiercely denied that the South was exhausted in 
 men or means ; 14r the administration had simply proved itself 
 utterly incapable of utilizing and developing such resources 
 as it possessed. Few will now deny that the difficulties were 
 too fundamental to have been overcome by human ability, 
 yet had Davis and his administration shown anything like 
 the consummate skill with which Lee utilized the meager re 
 sources at his disposal, the War might have been prolonged. 
 But the result could hardly have been changed. Neither 
 
 is On Oct. 31, 1862, when he had had considerable time for observa 
 tion, Jones asked himself whether Davis could ever become a second 
 Washington. "I know not, of course; but I know what quite a number 
 here say of him now. They say he is a small specimen of a statesman 
 and no military chieftain at all. And worse still that he is a capricious 
 tyrant." Diary I, 178. Stephens declared in January 1864, after his 
 bitter quarrel with Davis had had time to cool, "Those at the head of 
 our affairs" seem to have had no policy, but to have trusted "to the 
 sublimity of luck and floating upon the surface of the occasion." Pen- 
 dleton, Stephens, 311. 
 
 i* Pollard, Life of Davis, 445-447. The whole volume is merely a 
 detailed elaboration of this charge. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 325 
 
 logic nor skill could create something out of nothing, and the 
 moment the gates to Europe were shut, it was clear that the 
 resources of the South were hopelessly inadequate and that 
 during a conflict of such magnitude with a foe so abundantly 
 provided with every necessity, no foresight could develop in 
 time a sufficiently diversified industry to produce what was 
 needed. 15 Great efforts were made; more was accomplished 
 than seemed in any way possible to the discouraged men 
 when they first learned that the blockade would soon be 
 effective ; the straw was lacking and the bricks could not be 
 made. 
 
 ^ By the summer of 1861, the supply of volunteers in the 
 South was exhausted. Conscription was begun and was per 
 force continued throughout the war in the face of a con 
 stantly increasing opposition. Careful search failed to un 
 cover more than scanty supplies of nitre, salt, and saltpetre. 
 There was not enough crude iron to keep at work the few 
 foundries which the government did create, and very soon 
 rails and old iron of all varieties had to be utilized. Cloth 
 became scarce. All material for buttons gave out, and one 
 prominent lady appeared at a Richmond ball in 1864 in a 
 coarse homespun dress with buttons of gourd seeds. Paper 
 and ink became particularly difficult to obtain, and the execu 
 tive correspondence was in the later years written on old 
 envelopes split open. Wood grew so scarce in Richmond 
 that it was treasured and hoarded like gold. 
 
 Nothing was more serious than the effect upon transpor 
 tation of the lack of iron, of machinery, and of skilled 
 mechanics. The few trunk lines of the South had not been 
 equipped to carry the commerce of the country: cotton had 
 been shipped by water or by short spur-lines of narrow- 
 gauge, single-track railroads to the nearest port. The rolling 
 stock of the trunk lines was therefore too small and the rails 
 were too light to bear the severe strain at once imposed upon 
 
 IB The story of this struggle with economic difficulties is conveniently 
 summarized with adequate citations in Schwab s The Confederate States 
 of America. 
 
326 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 them by the War Department. Locomotives broke down ; parts 
 of the equipment wore out and could not be replaced because 
 either the material for duplicating the damaged parts was 
 lacking or no man understood how to turn them out. Hence 
 such supplies as there were could not be promptly and 
 efficiently distributed. Often the food collected by govern 
 ment agents spoiled before it could be moved ; leather, desper 
 ately needed in Virginia, had been collected in North Caro 
 lina but could not be shipped. 16 This deficiency of transpor 
 tation facilities was one of the greatest difficulties with which 
 the Confederate government had to cope. It was due in the 
 last analysis to cotton and to slavery, to the policy which 
 had kept the South purely an agricultural country and which 
 had regarded the development of diversified industry as need 
 less. This was not the fault of any individual, but of the 
 very system which the Confederacy was created to defend, 
 and which thus, by a curious poetic justice, demonstrated its 
 unfitness to survive. 
 
 There was, however, at many periods during the war, strong 
 feeling among Southerners, which later research has on the 
 whole justified, that the men in control did not make the 
 most of the facilities and supplies at their disposal. 17 It is 
 of course easy to criticize, and difficult to make sufficient al 
 lowance for the fact that the North enjoyed the use of the 
 administrative machinery developed by the past seventy years 
 
 is Jones, Diary, I, 196. 
 
 17 On such matters as this, Jones is an admirable witness, for he was 
 purely an observer and had ample opportunities to learn the truth. 
 The government has 50,000 pounds of leather in North Carolina, he 
 writes. "This convinces me that there is abundance of leather in the 
 South, if it were properly distributed. It is held, like everything else, 
 by speculators, for extortioners profits. The government might remedy 
 the evils, and remove the distresses of the people; but instead of doing 
 so, the bureaus aggravate them by capricious seizures and tyrannical 
 restrictions on transportation. Letters are coming in from every 
 quarter complaining of the despotic acts of government agents." Diary, 
 I, 196. "From all sections of the Confederacy, complaints are coming 
 in that the military agents of the bureaus are oppressing the people 
 and the belief is expressed by many that a sentiment is prevailing 
 inimical to the government itself." Nov. 29, 1862. Ibid., p. 199. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 327 
 
 and that the South was compelled to create a new adminis 
 tration and had perforce to fill many offices with men scarcely 
 competent because no better were available. But this will 
 not explain why Davis and his Cabinet so soon fell to log 
 gerheads; why Stephens and many other ante-bellum leaders 
 went into implacable and at times violent opposition; and 
 why the impression became general that Davis was appoint 
 ing favorites and not the best men available. 18 Jones, a 
 highly confidential clerk in Richmond, who knew nearly all 
 the secrets, wrote in his diary of his surprise to find the men 
 who had done the most to create the War offered clerkships 
 with hesitancy and relegated to "the lowest subordinate 
 positions, while Tom, Dick, and Harry, never heard of before, 
 young and capable of performing military service, rich and 
 able to live without office, are heads of bureaus, chief clerks 
 of departments, and staff officers flourishing their stars." 19 
 Davis insisted upon retaining as generals Pemberton and 
 Bragg, in whom many placed no confidence at all after their 
 disasters of 1862 and 1863, and persistently refused to ad 
 vance to commands of importance Beauregard, in whom the 
 people had implicit faith. 
 
 The clearest case seems to be nearly if not quite the most 
 important. It involves the Commissary General, Northrup. 
 
 "How does this speak for the government; or rather the efficiency of 
 the men who by many indirect ways came into power? Alas! it is a 
 sad commentary." Ibid., p. 204. "An expose" of funds in the hands 
 of disbursing agents shows that there are nearly 70 millions of dollars 
 not accounted for." Ibid., 182. 
 
 is " The Examiner to-day [July 1863] in praising him [Yancey] 
 made a bitter assault on the President, saying he was unfortunately 
 and hastily inflicted on the Confederacy at Montgomery, and when fixed 
 in position, banished from his presence the heart and brain of the 
 South denying all participation in the affairs of the government to 
 the great men who were the authors of secession, etc." Ibid., I, 
 391. 
 
 is Diary, I, 205, 216. De Bow and Fitzhugh were offered clerkships 
 with hesitation. Might not De Bow s intimate knowledge of Southern 
 conditions and familiarity with financial and commercial questions 
 have been of value to the Treasury Department where the Secretary 
 seems to have had few to advise him competently? 
 
328 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Upon him fell the burden and responsibility of utilizing care 
 fully the scanty supplies, and it is hardly too much to say 
 that by 1863 he retained the confidence only of Davis him 
 self, and was cordially hated by the people at large. 20 At 
 a time when shirts were selling for $12, Northrup issued an 
 order offering to buy shirts for the army at $1, an offer 
 widely commented upon as displaying something less than 
 average perception, to say nothing of common sense. He 
 offered to carry clothing from the families and friends of 
 the soldiers to the men in the trenches, when, as Jones re 
 marked, "the people will not trust him to convey the cloth 
 ing to their sons and brothers, and so the army must suffer 
 on. 21 This was in 1862. Lee repeatedly complained of 
 the inefficiency of Northrup s work and more than once 
 categorically requested his dismissal; but Davis declined to 
 remove him. It seems scarcely possible to justify the orders 
 forbidding the feeding of regiments on the produce of the 
 district in which they were located and compelling them to 
 depend upon irregular shipments of the regulation bacon and 
 corn. Ugly charges, which received wide credit, were made 
 of speculations in food and cotton by individuals and even 
 by the commissary department, 22 of the use of the railroads 
 for transportation of private shipments of grain for specu- 
 
 20 Elaborate discussions of Northrup s case will be found in all the 
 lives of Davis, in such books as Pollard s Lost Cause, and in the corre 
 spondence of the chief military men, especially cogent material being 
 found in the letters of Lee. 
 
 21 Jones, Diary, I, 198, Nov. 29, 1862. "The Commissary General 
 to-day says there is not wheat enough in Virginia (when a good crop 
 was raised) for Gen. Lee s army, and, unless he has millions in money 
 and cotton, the army must disband for want of food. I don t believe 
 it." Ibid., p. 183. 
 
 22 "God speed the day of peace," wrote Jones in 1862. "Our patriot 
 ism is mainly in the army and among the ladies of the South. The 
 avarice and cupidity of the men at home could only be excelled by 
 ravenous wolves; and most of our sufferings are fully deserved." 
 Diary, I, 200. "We are already meager and emaciated. Yet I believe 
 there is abundance of clothing and food, held by the extortioners. The 
 government should wage war upon the speculators enemies as mis 
 chievous as the Yankees." Ibid., II, 280. Sept., 1864. For cotton 
 speculations see Ibid., I, 180-2; 187 et seq. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 329 
 
 lative ends, 23 of the "loan" of army mules and horses for 
 months to wealthy gentlemen at a time when the army was 
 in desperate need and Northrup was complaining of a scar 
 city of transport animals; 24 of illegal exemptions from taxes 
 and food levies of the friends and relatives of Northrup. 
 After all allowances have been made, there seems to have 
 been in the commissary department much corruption and 
 inefficiency, whose immediate effect on the result of the War 
 was only too apparent and for which Davis in person must 
 largely be held responsible. 
 
 The finances of the Confederacy seem also to have been 
 mismanaged. The Secretary of the Treasury, Meminger, was 
 honest and well-intentioned, but totally unacquainted with 
 finance. He had, indeed, a fundamental difficulty to struggle 
 with which no skill could have surmounted the lack of suf 
 ficient specie in the country to serve as an adequate medium 
 of exchange for domestic and foreign business. There seem 
 to have been about fifteen millions in specie in the South 
 
 zs Jones, Diary, I, 182 et seq. "I believe the commissaries and quar 
 termasters are cheating the government." "A gentleman in Alabama 
 writes that his [Northrup s] agents are speculating in food." Ibid., 198. 
 
 24. "Our cause is in danger of being lost for want of horses and mules, 
 and yet I discovered to-day that the government [i. e., Northrup] has 
 been lending horses to men who have but recently suffered some of the 
 calamities of war. I discovered it in a letter from Hon. R. M. T. 
 Hunter of Essex County, asking in behalf of himself and neighbors to 
 be permitted to retain the borrowed horses beyond the time specified, 
 October 1. Mr. Hunter borrowed two horses and four mules. He is 
 worth millions and only suffered his first loss by the enemy a few 
 weeks ago!" Sept., 1864. Ibid., II, 279. A few days later he wrote: 
 "Over 100,000 landed proprietors and most of the slave-owners are 
 now out of the ranks, and soon, I fear, we shall have an army that will 
 not fight, having nothing to fight for. And this is the result of the 
 pernicious policy of partiality and exclusiveness, disintegrating society 
 in such a crisis, and recognizing distinction of ranks, the higher class 
 staying home and making money, the lower class thrust into the 
 trenches." Of course, the opinion of one man, however well informed, 
 is hardly conclusive evidence in so important a matter as this, but a 
 man in Jones s position of trust would scarcely believe such things 
 about his immediate superiors unless something was wrong. If his 
 testimony is worth anything on any subject, it certainly should be im 
 portant on this. 
 
330 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 at the outbreak of the War, which, carefully husbanded, 
 would have served as the stable basis of issues of treasury 
 notes or national bank notes, large enough for the needs of 
 ordinary business. That the specie could not be replaced if 
 exported ; that the country would have no basis for a medium 
 of exchange if it disappeared; that it was enough to support 
 business at home but utterly inadequate to meet any of the 
 needs of the War at home or abroad, seems never to have 
 dawned on any one at Richmond. Hamilton had financed 
 the United States with only two millions in specie, but this 
 they either never knew or had totally forgotten. However 
 that may have been, the specie in the South was with in 
 credible difficulty collected by the government in the form 
 of a loan, and with still more unbelievable stupidity was 
 shipped to Europe to pay for supplies. 25 Then, notwith 
 standing the numerous examples offered by history of the 
 futility of using unlimited paper money as a medium of 
 exchange, the government began in 1861 a series of treasury 
 note issues, and, whenever one issue was exhausted, printed 
 more. The inefficiency of the administration is clear from 
 the fact that within a couple of years the Secretary himself 
 is believed not to have known how many notes had been issued 
 or what the actual indebtedness of the government was. 26 
 
 Taxes paid in money speedily became a farce; the people 
 paid back to the government its own worthless paper. There 
 was at the South no commercial fabric, no credit structure on 
 which the government and the community might rely in the 
 crisis. The government was promptly reduced to taxes in 
 kind, the collection of grain, leather, and the like from the 
 producer, and upon it was instantly forced the thousand 
 and one burdens of transportation and manufacture which 
 the Northern Government was able to turn over to private 
 enterprise with admirable results. The Confederate ad- 
 
 25 The financial history of the Confederacy, bonds, notes, and taxa 
 tion, has been treated in detail by Schwab, in his Confederate States 
 of America. 
 
 26 Eggleston, Rebel Recollections, 79. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 331 
 
 minstration, weak at best, compelled for the most part to 
 work through inexperienced hands, had thrust upon it the 
 almost insuperable task of utilizing the crude products of 
 an agricultural community and of making them somehow or 
 other meet the complex necessities of a civilized State at war. 
 The failure of such an administration adequately to solve 
 such a problem could be at best scarcely more than a ques 
 tion of time. 
 
 Out of such a situation grew inevitably centralized govern 
 ment, acts which seemed arbitrary to the people, infringe 
 ments upon the liberty of States and of individuals. As at 
 the North, the exigencies of the case forced the government 
 to act and not pause very long over constitutional subtleties. 
 Strangely enough, this very sort of centralized administra 
 tion, this very readiness to override individual and State 
 opinion in the name of expediency and of the general wel 
 fare, had been one of the causes alleged by the South for 
 secession, and these very things the new constitution had 
 been framed to prevent. South Carolina had inveighed 
 against the tariff, 27 and the new Constitution had forbidden 
 customs duties and declared for free trade; yet the Con 
 federacy almost at once instituted a tariff of the most onerous 
 and harassing type, a duty on exports which would have 
 been extremely burdensome had there been any opportunity 
 to collect it. 28 Worse than all others were the constant and 
 obvious violations of State sovereignty and of individual 
 liberty. In the fall of 1862, when only Virginia, the Caro- 
 linas, Georgia, and Alabama remained entire in the hands of 
 the Confederates, Georgia and North Carolina were roused 
 almost to the point of rebellion by their anger at what they 
 deemed the disregard of the doctrine of States sovereignty, 29 
 
 27 Her Ordinance of Secession declared the tariff one of her chief 
 grievances. 
 
 23 To ensure the payment of interest and principal on the $15,000,00( 
 bond issue authorized Feb. 28, 1861, an export duty of one-eighth of a 
 cent a pound was levied on all cotton exported, and was to be paid in 
 specie or in the coupons of the bonds. 
 
 2 Governor Brown of Georgia wrote to Davis that "no act of the 
 
332 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 and the Charleston Courier called loudly for a convention 
 to depose or impeach the President. 30 Many prominent men 
 considered it better to yield to the North and restore the 
 Union than to live under such a Confederacy. 31 After An- 
 tietam, when Lee s regiments were melting away by desertion, 
 Governor Brown of Georgia put every possible obstacle in 
 the way of conscription in that State, and at the fall elec 
 tion, Vance, an open and avowed opponent of Davis s, was 
 elected Governor in North Carolina by a majority of forty 
 thousand. 32 To connect Richmond and the field of war with 
 Charleston and Atlanta after the investiture of Chattanooga 
 had closed the only trunk line, it became necessary to join 
 together various short lines and build about forty miles of 
 road from Danville, Va., to Greensboro, N. C. The latter 
 State declined to permit the Confederate government to build 
 it, and the road, a military necessity of the very first con 
 sequence, was built only when the war power was exercised 
 to override the prohibition of the State. 33 In 1864, Gov 
 ernor Brown of Georgia flatly refused in an abusive and of 
 fensive letter, written at a crucial moment, to send the 
 militia of the State into the ranks in Virginia. 34 " Gloom 
 
 government of the United States prior to the secession of Georgia had 
 struck a blow at constitutional liberty so fell as has been stricken [sic] 
 by the conscript acts. . . . The people of Georgia will refuse to yield 
 their sovereignty to usurpation." Dodd s Davis, 300. 
 so Issue of May 22, 1862. 
 
 31 Stephens, the Vice-President, wrote in August 1862, "Better in 
 my judgment that Richmond s hould fall and that the enemy s armies 
 should sweep our whole country from the Potomac to the Gulf than 
 that our people should submissively yield obedience to one of these 
 edicts of our own generals." Pendleton s Stephens, 292. 
 
 32 Dodd s Davis, 283. Mr. Dodd, a Southern man, has temperately 
 dealt with the very large amount of material on the infringements of 
 States sovereignty without denying their existence or importance and 
 yet without drawing conclusions of too sweeping a character. 
 
 33 Dodd s Davis, 259-60. 
 
 3* "A long letter was received at the [war] department to-day from 
 Governor Brown absolutely refusing to respond to the President s call 
 for the militia of that State. He says he will not encourage the Presi 
 dent s ambitious projects by placing in his hands, and under his un 
 conditional control all that remains to preserve the reserved rights 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 333 
 
 and despondency rule the hour," wrote Cobb from Georgia, 
 and bitter opposition to the administration mingled with 
 disaffection and disloyalty is manifesting itself. " 85 In fact, 
 the Confederate government, like the Northern, found itself 
 hampered continually by a bitter and active opposition among 
 its own citizens, which not infrequently was carried to the 
 point of flat refusal to act at critical moments although the 
 prompt cooperation of all was needed to render the contest 
 effectual. The cause was lost by our own dissensions, wrote 
 a member of the Cabinet in later years. 
 
 The length of the War was due to a variety of reasons, but 
 first and foremost to the military skill and personal mag 
 netism of General Robert E. Lee and the able assistance he 
 received from such men as Jackson and Johnston. Indeed, 
 the consummate skill with which Lee fought a losing contest 
 for years has scarcely if ever been surpassed. Certainly no 
 general of equal skill was enrolled in the Northern armies; 
 Grant s reputation was due to his success, which in its turn 
 was the result of a combination of many factors, among which 
 the superior resources of the North and other influences just 
 enumerated ought to have prominence. Much allowance must 
 also be made for the fact that the South stood on the defensive 
 and that to conquer her required the subjugation of an enor- 
 
 of his State. He bitterly and offensively criticizes the President s 
 management of military affairs." Jones, Diary, II, 292-3. Sept. 26, 
 1864. 
 
 ss Rebellion Records, Series IV, Vol. Ill, 1010. On Feb. 3, 1864, 
 Davis sent the following message to the Confederate Congress: "Dis 
 content, disaffection, and disloyalty are manifested among those who 
 through the sacrifices of others, have enjoyed quiet and safety at home. 
 Public meetings have been held in some of which a treasonable design 
 is masked by a pretence of devotion to State sovereignty, and in others 
 is openly avowed. ... In certain localities men of no mean position 
 do not hesitate to avow their disloyalty and hostility to our cause, and 
 their advocacy of peace on the terms of submission and the abolition 
 of slavery. . . . [Soldiers are taken from the ranks on the eve of battle 
 by means of writs of habeas corpus. If this continues] Desertion, 
 already a frightful evil, will become the order of the day. And who 
 will arrest the deserter, when most of those at home are engaged with 
 him in the common cause of setting the government at defiance?" 
 Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, I, 396, 398. 
 
334 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 mous theater of war, which, even had the resistance heen less 
 able and desperate, would have required time for adequate oc 
 cupation of the numerous strategic points. Furthermore, it 
 must always be remembered that the South had very much 
 the advantage in equipment in 1861, that the North required 
 time to adjust itself to the situation, and was, moreover, 
 hampered by the commercial crisis of 1861-2. Time was neces 
 sary to make the greater resources of the North in men and 
 munitions of war tell decisively upon the outcome. Indeed, 
 the very abundance of the Northern provision for the army 
 was for a while an administrative problem of the first magni 
 tude. There was too much food and clothing to be promptly 
 and accurately distributed by the old machinery, and the 
 creation of a new administration, undertaken by Stanton with 
 admirable determination and energy and executed with con 
 summate skill, required time to become effective. 
 
 Besides, politics at the North was constantly tying the hands 
 of the generals and robbing them of discretion, and the ac 
 tivity of the opposition during the year 1862 made it long 
 doubtful whether the conflict would not eome to an end be 
 cause of the refusal of the Northern people to countenance it 
 longer. Lincoln found it difficult during the first two years to 
 leave the conduct of the campaign in the hands of the men at 
 the front. His idea that Washington needed fifty thousand 
 men either within it or close at hand to insure its safety often 
 prevented the undertaking or completion of any plan which 
 depended for success upon the concentration of the Union 
 forces, and the Confederates soon discovered that a feint at 
 Washington invariably paralyzed the Union armies, because 
 of the dispatch of so large a detachment to protect the city. 
 Lincoln saw more clearly than the men in the field that the 
 real object of the War was not so much to win battles as to 
 crush the Confederacy, and that there were enemies at home 
 almost as difficult to meet and whose defeat was even more 
 imperative than that of Lee. From the first, there was a 
 strong minority at the North opposed to the War, some be 
 cause of a belief in the illegality of coercion or in the right to 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 335 
 
 secede, the vast majority because they believed the conduct of 
 the war reprehensible. The administrative corruption and 
 confusion of the first year, the defeat at Bull Run, the long 
 inactivity of the huge force of men at the front while Mc- 
 Clellan was turning that " armed mob" into an army was 
 interpreted at the North very much to the detriment of the 
 government. It had been doubtful in 1861 whether the North 
 would support a war at all; it continued to be doubtful as in 
 activity and bungling were succeeded by the reverses of 18G2 
 whether the North would not make imperative the conclusion 
 of an ignoble peace by the withdrawal of troops and supplies. 
 Denunciations of Lincoln and of his generals were delivered 
 by notable men in Washington and even in the anterooms 
 of the Executive Mansion. 30 In September 1862, men said 
 openly in Pennsylvania that they would be glad to hang Lin 
 coln to the nearest lamp-post. 37 Men, waiting to see the Presi 
 dent, maligned and abused him openly and went to lengths 
 which were amazing. 38 A Democratic paper, the New York 
 World, declared on June 9, 1864, after Lincoln had been re- 
 nominated: "The age of statesmen is gone: the age of rail- 
 splitters and tailors, of buffoons, boors, and fanatics, has suc 
 ceeded. ... In a crisis of the most appalling magnitude, re 
 quiring statesmanship of the highest order, the country is 
 asked to consider the claims of two ignorant, boorish, third- 
 rate backwoods lawyers for the highest stations in the govern- 
 
 se Nearly all the books dealing with life in Washington during the 
 War or with Lincoln as President will furnish numerous examples. 
 Oberholtzer in his Life of Lincoln cites several characteristic cases. 
 
 37 Oberholtzer, Lincoln, 237. 
 
 38 So Riddle tells in his Recollections, 267. "The one most loud and 
 bitter was Henry Wilson of Massachusetts. His open assaults were 
 amazing." Lincoln would be renominated, said Wilson, and "bad as 
 that would be, the best must be made of it." Chase, Secretary of the 
 Treasury and later Chief Justice, wrote in 1864: "Nothing except the 
 waste of life is more painful in this war than the absolutely reckless 
 waste of means. . . . Contrary to all rules, the spigot in Uncle Abe s 
 barrel is made twice as big as the bung-hole. He may have been a 
 good flat-boat man and rail-splitter, but he certainly never learned the 
 true science of coopering." Quoted by Rhodes, History of the United 
 States, IV, 477-8. 
 
336 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 ment." The Democratic party campaigned the North in 
 1862 and 1864 on the platform that the conduct of the War 
 was a disgrace and demanded its prompt conclusion by a treaty 
 with the South upon the best terms obtainable. 
 
 As Lincoln perceived, the defeat of the administration at 
 the polls in the North would be even more disastrous than 
 reverses in the field; and reverses in the field were the 
 most powerful weapon in the hands of his political adversaries 
 at home. Despatches poured into Washington from Northern 
 governors and politicians: "Nothing but success, speedy and 
 decided, will save our cause from destruction. In the North 
 west, distrust and despair are seizing upon the hearts of the 
 people. " 39 Such was the refrain. The difficulties of the situ 
 ation were nothing to Halleck and Lincoln; the armies must 
 move forward at all costs, for inaction produced almost as 
 unfavorable an effect on Northern opinion as did defeat. The 
 generals must act so as to retain the confidence of the people 
 at home ; the war was no mere military event ; it was a political 
 and economic cataclysm of the utmost complexity. Its ob 
 ject was not to win victories but to destroy the Confederacy 
 and military operations must be sacrificed to the exigencies 
 of political campaigns, even if it became necessary to re 
 nounce the plans which seemed from a military point of view 
 conclusive. Food, clothing, transportation, the need of elabo 
 rate preparations before opening the campaign, so invariably 
 insisted upon by McClellan and other generals, made Lincoln 
 impatient in the face of the feats accomplished by Lee with 
 out such resources or preparations. The President, wrote 
 
 3& These sentences are from a despatch from Governor Morton of 
 Indiana to Lincoln, dated Oct. 21, 1862. The Governors of Ohio and 
 Illinois telegraphed at the same time in similar strain. The most in 
 structive incident from this point of view was the removal of Buell 
 and the appointment of Rosecrans, solely with a view to securing an 
 immediate and successful advance. Rosecrans then declined to advance 
 until his preparations were complete and for nearly a month remained 
 at Nashville, furiously busy but apparently inactive, while President, 
 Congress, and the Northern press raged and stormed. To all orders 
 and demands he gave but one answer, his resignation. Rhodes has par 
 ticularly well emphasized such issues as these in his account of the War. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 337 
 
 Halleck, the General-in-Chief, to Buell, "does not understand 
 vhy we cannot march as the enemy marches, live as he lives, 
 nd fight as he fights, unless we admit the inferiority of our 
 roops and generals. 40 But the generals, campaigning in the 
 Alleghanies, knew that the mountain districts were at heart 
 Jnionist and that the surest way to throw them into the ranks 
 >f the enemy would be to forage there for the support of the 
 "ederal armies. 41 The strength of the Unionist party at the 
 South had been counted upon by many to aid as powerfully 
 n the eventual reduction of the Confederacy as campaigns 
 ind armies. Besides, the desperate expedients to which 
 lecessity drove Lee were scarcely measures to adopt from 
 choice with a restless and suspicious public watching for mis- 
 akes. The news that the troops were ragged, barefoot, and 
 mngry because of an impetuous advance into a district where 
 here was insufficient forage and to which supplies had not 
 )een brought, would have been a worse blow to the administra- 
 ion than inaction could possibly be. In December 1862, the 
 situation was darkest. "Everything goes wrong," said Lin 
 coln to Seward and Weed. "The rebel armies hold their own ; 
 Grant is wandering around in Mississippi ; Burnside manages 
 to keep ahead of Lee ; Seymour has carried New York and if his 
 "the Democratic] party carries and holds many of the North 
 ern States, we shall have to give up the fight, for we can never 
 conquer three-fourths of our countrymen, scattered in front, 
 flank, and rear. 42 
 
 *o Rebellion Records, XVI, Part II, 627. Lincoln wrote to McClellan, 
 Oct. 13, 1862: "Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you 
 cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? . . . Change positions 
 with the enemy, and think you not he would break your communication 
 with Richmond within the next twenty-four hours? ... We should not 
 so operate as merely to drive him away. As we must beat him some 
 where or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near to us than far 
 away." Ibid.. XIX, Part I, 13. 
 
 4i Halleck telegraphed to Grant after the battle of Corinth: "Why 
 not pursue tne enemy into Mississippi, supporting your army on the 
 country?" Grant replied, laconically, "An army cannot subsist itself 
 on the country except in forage." Rhodes, History of the United States, 
 IV, 181. 
 
 2 Oberholtzer, Lincoln, 242. His authority is not cited. 
 
338 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Grant was more successful than other generals not so much 
 because of superior military ability as because he alone fully 
 grasped the relation of the military to the political situation. 
 To retire along the railroad from Corinth and luka upon 
 Memphis, there to pause to recuperate his army, to prepare a 
 base of operations from which the following spring to ad 
 vance down the river upon Vicksburg, would have been from 
 a military point of view much better than an immediate ad 
 vance overland on Vicksburg through Mississippi bayous and 
 swamps, constantly exposed to the danger of losing touch with 
 his base of supplies. But headlines in the Northern papers, 
 "Grant Retreats on Memphis, " would have been at that junc 
 ture fatal to the campaign and to his career as a general, and 
 he knew it. An advance, which did not expose him to actual 
 defeat, which would hearten the sinking and discouraged and 
 give the administration papers a chance to print the scare- 
 heads, "Grant Advancing/ would be potent material with 
 which to conjure at home. Eventually, the victories at Gettys 
 burg and Vicksburg "knocked the planks out of the Chicago 
 platform " which declared the conduct of the "War a failure. 
 Not till then was it clear that the North would support the 
 War to the end. 
 
 These difficulties were intensified by the wide disapproval 
 of the interference with the right of free speech and of the 
 press and of the arbitrary arrests made by virtue of the war 
 powers " assumed by Lincoln. It was thought at Washington 
 inexpedient to allow speeches at public meetings which openly 
 expressed sympathy for the South or declared the Federal 
 government a despotism. Several men arrested for such ut 
 terances without the usual legal formalities were promptly 
 elected by the people of their States to the legislatures, and in 
 one case even to the United States Senate, at the very moment 
 when they were in custody charged with treason. The large 
 bounties offered by State and nation to volunteers failed to 
 maintain the strength of the Union forces and the North was 
 compelled to follow the expedients adopted months before at 
 the South and have recourse to a draft to recruit the armies. 
 
WHY THE NORTH WON 339 
 
 It aroused immediate and widespread opposition and in July 
 1863, caused in New York City a riot which assumed the pro 
 portions of a revolt against the government, held control of 
 the city for three days, and was finally only reduced by troops 
 hastily sent back from the front to cooperate with the navy. 
 The amazing commercial prosperity at the North, which be 
 came evident in 1863, and was due to fundamental causes 
 over which no one had control, greatly affected the attitude 
 of the majority in favor of the administration and prevented 
 anything more than sporadic and temporary opposition. The 
 number of exemptions, the permission to pay substitutes, and 
 the comparative ease of desertion also helped. 43 With this 
 political opposition, Lincoln dealt with conspicuous success. 
 The support of the government by a majority at the North 
 was due more considerably than most men have realized to 
 the personal character, influence, and tact of Abraham Lin 
 coln, who in this sense was one of the important factors in the 
 winning of the War by the North. 
 
 The Draft of July 18, 1864, for 500,000 men resulted in the draw 
 ing of 231,918 names, of whom 138,536 reported; 82,531 were ex 
 empted outright; and the total draft amounted to 56,005, of whom 
 more than half provided substitutes. In New York the accumulated 
 county, state, and national bounties amounted to $677 for a new recruit 
 and an additional $100 for a man who had seen service. Enlisting in 
 one State, securing the bounty, deserting on the way to the front, 
 enlisting again in order to receive a second bounty, became all too 
 common a practice. Of a detachment of 625 recruits from New Hamp 
 shire for the Army of the Potomac in 1864, 137 deserted on passage to 
 the front, 82 to the enemy s picket lines, and 36 to the rear, leaving 
 a total of 370 men. Over 41 per cent deserted. Rhodes, History of the 
 United States, IV, 429 et seq. The Southern armies experienced simi 
 lar difficulties. 
 
XXV 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 THE Northern men who fought and won the War invariably 
 declared that its purpose was the " preservation of the Union," 
 the " maintenance of the Constitution," the defeat of those 
 who were seeking to * destroy both the Constitution and the 
 Union. Yet, it is incontestable that the result of the War 
 the one permanent result of significance due directly to the 
 War was the alteration beyond recognition of both t Consti 
 tution" and "Union," as those words had been popularly 
 and commonly understood in 1860. And every element in 
 both was as unmistakably and unalterably changed the peo 
 ple collectively, the individual, the idea of citizenship, the 
 notion of a State and of its relation to its own citizens as 
 well as to the Federal government, the idea of what was 
 meant by the North, the South, the West. 
 
 The difficulty in comprehending this apparent paradox lies 
 in the very general failure to remember what Lincoln meant 
 by the words "Union" and "Constitution." The strong 
 sentiment in the North in 1860 against the right of the Fed 
 eral government to coerce a State will convince the student 
 that the word "Constitution" connoted to most people North 
 and South before the War a compact made by sovereign 
 States, and that the "Union" denoted a league of units bound 
 together by some tie not very exactly defined in any one s 
 mind. Men had not yet rid themselves of the precedents and 
 traditions of the anti-national movement which had received 
 in Colonial and Revolutionary times the almost universal ad 
 herence of the people. To Lincoln, on the other hand, the 
 word "Union" meant oneness, nationality; the Constitution 
 had "created" a government of individuals and not of States. 
 
 340 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 341 
 
 He saw the issue of nationality as the vital concept behind the 
 Revolution, and indeed credited the makers of the Declara 
 tion of Independence with national ideas which they would 
 have denied with some vehemence. 1 But he correctly ap 
 preciated the fact that the Constitution had signified to its 
 makers the conscious adoption of nationalism and in the de 
 bates of the Convention he found ample confirmation of his 
 own beliefs and ideals. 2 States rights and secession he saw 
 
 1 On his way to Washington in 1861, Lincoln made many speeches 
 whose tenor was substantially the same. "When the time does come 
 [for action], I shall take the ground that I think is right right for 
 the North, for the South, for the East, for the West, for the whole 
 country." Temporarily, he represented "the majesty of the nation"; 
 so he told audience after audience. That phrase was new and pregnant 
 with meaning. To the New Jersey Senate he said: "I am exceedingly 
 anxious that that thing [struggled for in the Revolution] that some 
 thing even more than national independence; that something that hold 
 out a great promise to all the people of the world to all time to come 
 I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the 
 liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the 
 original idea for which the struggle was made." His course would 
 "tend to the perpetuity of the nation, and the liberty of these States 
 and these people." Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works, VI, 147, 152, 
 154, 151, 155, respectively. What he found in the writings of Wash 
 ington were probably such phrases as these. "Let us look to our na 
 tional character and to things beyond the present moment." Writings 
 of Washington, Ford s ed., XI, 81. "I have labored, ever since I have 
 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 I have found it impossible to overcome prejudices." 
 Ibid., V, 117. The wish and the impossibility of its realization are both 
 significant for us. 
 
 2 "A Union of the States is a Union of the men composing them, 
 from whence a national character results to the whole. ... If they 
 formed a confederacy in some respects they formed a Nation in others." 
 Hunt s Madison s Notes, I, 186. See also I, 233, 248-50. 259, 263, 268, 
 274, 285, etc., etc., for clear evidence that both parties in the Convention 
 were agreed as to what the document they were making meant. The 
 Federalist and the debates in the various States over the adoption of 
 the Constitution show that the leaders all understood that a conscious 
 choice in favor of nationalism was being registered. Lincoln s doctrine 
 of the Union as older than the States, as found in the First Inaugural 
 and other state papers, will be found in this statement of Wilson s: 
 "Mr. Wilson could not admit the doctrine that when the Colonies be 
 came independent of G. Britain, they became independent also of 
 each other. He read the declaration of Independence, observing thereon 
 
342 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 were, like Anti-Federalism, anti-national, striving openly for 
 a confederation of sovereigns and denying the existence of a 
 nation in the true sense of the word 2a or the possibility or de 
 sirability of attempting to create one. 3 
 
 We must not to-day, however, mistake the Declaration of 
 Independence for a proclamation of nationality made by the 
 people as individuals, nor confuse the affirmation of nationality 
 as the ultimate basis for permanent central government, made 
 in the preamble to the Constitution, with the existence of na 
 tional sentiment among the people as a whole, and, least of 
 all, with the flowering of national consciousness or with its 
 realization of its own existence. The Constitution was a 
 prophecy, a forecast of what would become true, and was 
 startlingly accurate, for the framers saw that the social, eco 
 nomic, and geographical conditions in the country made 
 eventual union inevitable. 4 Webster saw what the Constitu- 
 
 that the United Colonies were declared to be free and independent 
 States; and inferring that they were independent not individually, but 
 Unitedly and that they were confederated as they were independent 
 States." IUd., I, 188. 
 
 zaThe Salem Gazette for October 18 and 21, 1814, contained long ar 
 ticles on States sovereignty and denounced nationalism. "The truth is 
 that the federal constitution is nothing more than a treaty between 
 independent sovereignties." A war between the States would be a "pub 
 lic war between sovereigns ... as much as in a war between Russia 
 and France." The Boston Daily Advertiser in November, 1814, said: 
 "We are too prone to think that there is a distinct sovereignty known 
 by the name of the Government of the United States and that it exists 
 independently of the several States. Whereas, in fact, the national 
 compact is only an agreement entered into between the whole of the 
 States and each individual State." The Columbian Centinel of Boston 
 at this same time declared: "The individual States are free, sovereign 
 and independent nations . . . [To the Federal government] our al 
 legiance is secondary, qualified, and conditional; to our State sovereign 
 ties it is primary, universal and absolute." See these and other ex 
 tracts to the same purpose in the Mississippi Valley Historical Associa 
 tion Proceedings, 1912-13, VI, 176-188. 
 
 s General Quitman of Alabama in a public letter written in 1852, 
 said: "If reorganized Democracy admits the absolute doctrines of the 
 existence and sovereignty of a supreme national government, possessing 
 power to coerce the States, nothing will be lost by its defeat and de 
 struction." Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 335. 
 
 * The great question debated in the Convention was really what were 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 343 
 
 tion meant and his splendid affirmation of nationality as the 
 true ideal of a democratic people, his orations eulogizing the 
 Colonists and the Men of 1776 as patriots, his proof that the 
 Constitution vested the sovereignty in the people as individ 
 uals 4a are landmarks in the history of the achieving of Ameri 
 can nationality. That the nation was becoming sentient, was 
 really beginning to signify its existence by unmistakable signs, 
 Webster comprehended. The greatness of the vision en 
 thralled many of his listeners : Three or four times I thought 
 my temples would burst with the gush of blood," wrote Tick- 
 nor. 5 But to the majority, nationality had not yet become a 
 reality. 6 The logic of facts was too strong. Webster, how 
 ever, was followed by a long line of historians, poets, and es 
 sayists Bancroft, Sparks, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, 
 Emerson, Thoreau who apostrophized Freedom and Liberty 
 as magnificent qualities and wrote of a great nationality en 
 nobled by finding its expression through such concepts. Only 
 by the fostering of such ideals in the popular consciousness 
 could an aggregation of individuals become a people and 
 attain nationality in the highest sense ; only thus could an en 
 tity evolve worthy of national consciousness, and possessed of 
 those fundamental virtues on which it could alone be nourished 
 or sustained. Potent as was the written word, the spoken 
 word was mightier, and the message of Webster and of the 
 leaders of the intellectual world really reached the Northern 
 people through the pulpit, the lecture platform, and the school 
 
 and what would be likely to be the social, economic, and geographical 
 conditions in the country and was one national government or two or 
 three confederacies the better solution. Again and again they reached 
 the conclusion that union only would be feasible. Hunt s Madison s 
 Notes, I, 255-7, 267, 269, 271 note, 274, 278-9. 288-91, 29S-9, etc. 
 
 *a "That unity of government which constitutes us one people." Web 
 ster, Eulogy on Washington, Works, 1, 230. Chancellor Kent, intro 
 ducing Webster at a public dinner in his honor to celebrate the 1830 
 speech, said: "It turned the attention of the public to the groat doc 
 trines of the national rights and national union." Webster, Works, I, 
 194. 
 
 5 Life and Letters of George Ticknor, I, 330. 
 
 6 See the quotation from De Tocqueville, supra, p. 226. 
 
344 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 room, where the sermons, addresses, and text-books all 
 breathed patriotism and nationality. 
 
 In the anti-slavery debates, in the searchings of conscience, 
 North and South, over the issues that produced the War, we 
 hear the first incoherent mutterings, the first attempts at con 
 nected thinking and at self-expression of the new giant, wak 
 ing to consciousness of his own existence. The nation was 
 seeking in mental anguish national ideals, moral standards, 
 ethical concepts, policies broad in scope, lofty in purpose, uni 
 versal in application and meaning. From individuals here 
 and there came something like utterance of the notions with 
 whose mystic purport the national subconscious mind was full, 
 the eager expression as conscious thought through a human 
 and individualistic medium of the ethical and moral com ^pts 
 of which the people as a whole were but dimly conscious. The 
 greatness of such men lies not in themselves. They are vessels 
 of the spirit, sensitive media for the apprehension and ex 
 pression of the seething content of human sentiment strug 
 gling round them for utterance. 
 
 In Lincoln, the nation, North and South, grew to see it 
 self. He was in the highest possible sense a representative 
 man, making the nation conscious of its oneness of purpose 
 and idealism, of the glory and splendor of nationality, and of 
 the wondrous possibilities open to a great people who should 
 be filled with the ideals of unity, democracy, and liberty. In 
 him and through him, both North and South awakened to a 
 consciousness of the meaning of American development, and 
 realized that the War had actually been an attempt, all un 
 witting, to destroy this collective personality before it had at 
 tained consciousness. And in the last year of the War, as the 
 consciousness of that great vital fact became universal, in the 
 moment when the glorious conception of what nationality 
 meant flashed upon the vast majority of Americans, a new na 
 tion was born. For a nation is; it springs into life, full 
 fledged, in the imagery of the old Greek description of the 
 birth of Minerva, and at once is possessed of sentient life 
 and vast powers. Washington had made us free and inde- 
 
THE HESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 345 
 
 pendent; Lincoln became the father of American nationality. 
 He was not the man who made it possible nor the man whose 
 glowing words first carried the vision to men s minds, but the 
 man in whom and through whom it became an actuality. 
 Webster had made New England see the vision ; Lincoln made 
 the South, which neither saw nor believed, which was in arms 
 against the very concept, not only realize that the object of 
 the War was not conquest, the abolition of slavery, nor the 
 abrogation of constitutional rights, but the creation of a na 
 tion out of a divided people. It was a great achievement to 
 have convinced those whose own interests urged them to ac 
 cept the idea of nationality ; it was a thousand-fold greater to 
 have convinced those whose interests were to be vitally in 
 jured by the acceptance of the idea, of its greatness and 
 worth. The most immediate and most important result of the 
 War was the creation of the American nation and this result 
 we owe chiefly to Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 One is tempted almost to doubt the evidence of his own 
 eyes and look upon this sudden "creation" of national con 
 sciousness as a miracle of that sort which cannot in its very 
 nature be the work of one man. How could a nation, as it 
 were, spring into existence ? Is it true, after all, that nations 
 are created by fighting, that great issues can be actually de 
 cided by battles? The "creation" of the new nation, in this 
 particular instance, consisted in the achieving by the majority 
 of a consciousness of facts and tendencies which had always 
 been true. As a child takes form in its mother s womb and 
 exists before it makes its entry into the world, so a nation 
 grows, all unconscious of its own existence; and, as with the 
 child, we date its life from its first moment of consciousness. 
 The War made the people aware of what the Northern leaders 
 had long seen ; it convinced the South that the position of the 
 North was the true one. The War showed the people, North, 
 South, and West, what the President of the United States had 
 meant by the Union and the Constitution, and that what he 
 said was true. 
 
 In a sense, the War created the nation: it stimulated, as 
 
346 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 nothing else could have done, the growth of common sentiment. 
 The armies brought together men from the most distant sec 
 tions and made them acquainted, showing them their common 
 interests and beliefs, the essential identity of their democratic 
 ideals, their common humanity and sympathy. The prisoners 
 in both camps learned how superficial were the differences 
 which they in their ignorance had assumed to be so great; 
 with the vastness of the country and of its natural resources, 
 most men became acquainted for the first time. The War gave 
 the country a common aim for which to work and welded the 
 North and the West tightly together, and made the Southern 
 men more conscious of their similarities than of their differ 
 ences. 
 
 Again, the War was a great social leveler and brought to 
 gether in the trenches men hitherto sundered by wealth and 
 social position. In the South especially, poor white and 
 planter met on terms of equality and each learned to respect 
 and admire the sterling traits of the other. Intercourse was 
 stimulated and increased and the necessities of the struggle 
 gave an immediacy to the attempt to agree upon the solution of 
 common problems and difficulties which forced the process of 
 the growth of a consensus of opinion. Gradually, the non- 
 essentials became apparent and were discarded by both parties ; 
 gradually the really vital issue of nationality was pushed to 
 the fore, almost entirely obscuring slavery and States 7 sover 
 eignty. 6 * The average man thought perforce much about the 
 reason for the War, about its purpose, about differences and 
 similarities; and, as the essential nobility of each be 
 came clearer to the other, both North and South began to ask 
 themselves why they fougHt at all. The simple presence of 
 so many men in the various armies, the necessity of travel, the 
 
 a "What was at first a struggle to maintain the outward form of our 
 government has become a 1 contest to preserve the life and assert the 
 supreme will of the nation. Even in April 1861, . . . there was an 
 instinctive feeling that the very germinating principle of our nation 
 ality was at stake and that unity of territory was but another name 
 for unity of idea, nay, was impossible without it and undesirable if it 
 were possible." Lowell in the Atlantic Monthly, October 1864, p. 566. 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 347 
 
 process of acquaintance was making the whole community 
 aware that a nation existed, and this dawning of conscious 
 ness was in itself the process of birth. The War was the 
 travail of the new nation. It proved all those things to the 
 common man which he must otherwise have waited long to 
 appreciate. It showed him what Lincoln meant and proved 
 its truth. 
 
 The War had been literally won by the forces of nationality 
 over those of separateness ; by the geographical and com 
 mercial factors making the North comparatively stronger than 
 the South. Here again the conflict merely made apparent 
 the existing fact that the forces of union were and long had 
 been predominant in the life of the people. They had pro 
 duced the Constitution and the numerous compromises and 
 had postponed the War for seventy years. The accidents of 
 geography and of settlement had produced communities which 
 were and are singularly interdependent. Only three natural 
 divisions existed: the Atlantic Coast, the Mississippi Valley, 
 the Pacific Slope. With these natural lines, other lines of heat 
 and cold, of rainfall, of productivity of the soil, and the like, 
 did not at all coincide. The geographical divisions ran north 
 and south ; the climatic and geological lines ran east and west. 
 The accident of settlement, spreading westward across all of 
 these natural areas, coinciding with none, forming succes 
 sively small communities favored by this natural advantage, 
 fettered by that natural obstacle, did create, as Gerry said, 
 " neither the same nation nor different nations." No sec- 
 tionalization of the country upon economic, political, racial, or 
 religious lines was possible. 7 Nature had also failed to pro- 
 
 7 Lincoln s Message to Congress of Dec. 1, 1862, contains a remark 
 ably clear exposition of the facts described in these paragraphs. "That 
 portion of the earth s surface which is owned and inhabited by the 
 people of the United States is well adapted to be the home of one 
 national family, and it is not well adapted for two or more. . . . Phys 
 ically speaking we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective 
 sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. 
 . . . There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national 
 boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, 
 upon the line between the free and slave country, and we shall find a 
 
348 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 vide any of the political entities with separate methods of 
 communication with the outside world: the abundant water 
 ways served of necessity many rather than one. All the tiny 
 groups in existence in 1760, the different parts of the broad 
 belt of settlement in 1789, the different sections of the con 
 tinent east of the Mississippi in 1860, were interdependent, in 
 terrelated by economic, political, racial, and religious factors, 
 whose potency was already appreciated by the leaders. 
 
 Yet, while the country remained sparsely settled, while the 
 most pressing problems were local, States rights, local sover 
 eignty, were naturally paramount. They coincided best with 
 actual conditions. But the growth of each succeeding decade, 
 the resultant closer contiguity of States with States, of indi 
 viduals with individuals, the rapid growth of the area of set 
 tlement, were creating common problems of constantly greater 
 significance, whose settlement could not long be ignored or 
 postponed, and which had necessarily to be settled by general 
 discussion and compromise. The nationality of the common 
 
 little more than one-third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, 
 and populated, or soon to be populated thickly upon both sides; while 
 nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors lines, over which 
 people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their 
 presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass 
 by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. . . . 
 As part of one nation, its people [in the Mississippi Valley] now find, 
 and may forever find their way to Europe by New York, to South 
 America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. 
 But separate our common country into two nations as designed by the 
 present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is thereby 
 cut off from some one or more of these outlets not perhaps by a 
 physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations. 
 . . . These outlets, east, west, and south, are indispensable to the well- 
 being of the people inhabiting, and to inhabit, this vast interior region. 
 . . . Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from 
 the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no 
 possible severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils 
 among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes, it demands union and 
 abhors separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however 
 much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost. Our strife 
 pertains to ourselves to the passing generations of men; and it can 
 without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one genera 
 tion." Complete Works, VIII, 110-116. 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 349 
 
 problems was growing each decade clearer and clearer. 
 Withal, the benefits of nationality were becoming rapidly more 
 obvious: the freedom of intercourse between the communi 
 ties so vitally dependent on each other for the continuity of 
 economic life, unhampered by the artificial restrictions of 
 frontiers and customs barriers; the untrammeled use of the 
 natural highways by all ; the freedom of the movement of in 
 dividuals from State to State without loss of civil and legal 
 privileges; trade with Europe on equal terms, all this the 
 War made evident to the average man. Travel and military 
 campaigns made clear the vastness of the country, its struc 
 ture, its interdependence, and above all, the necessity of the 
 common use of the lines of communication through the Mo 
 hawk Valley, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the 
 Cumberland Gap. As never before men saw that the West 
 was tied to New York and Chicago by the railroads ; that the 
 railroads of most consequence were interstate, not local ; that 
 the really profitable commerce was interstate and national; 
 that the country was still dependent on its market in Europe 
 and was therefore tied fast to the Atlantic seaboard by the 
 necessity of contact with Europe through the ports. Even 
 local trade was vitally dependent on the common use of the 
 Hudson, the Delaware, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes. 
 Men began to realize that a central government strong enough 
 to prevent individual States from interfering with each 
 other s mutual rights was an absolutely indispensable political 
 basis for the economic fabric upon whose solidarity and rapid 
 development the prosperity of the country depended. 
 
 Indeed, it was slowly borne in upon the people by the ex- 
 perien&s of the War that these natural conditions were the 
 real difficulties with which the sections had been contending, 
 and that they were immutable to be conquered neither by 
 fighting nor argument, factors to be recognized and to which 
 all sections must adjust themselves as best as they could. 
 They saw too that the pressure of these factors for settlement 
 was increased by the growth of the country, by the growing 
 density of population, and by the new complexity of the 
 
350 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 economic fabric. The existence of two confederacies would 
 not solve the vital problems at all, would make their solution 
 incalculably more difficult, and result constantly in issues 
 which two sovereign nations could not with dignity com 
 promise nor with indifference leave unsettled, and which they 
 could, least of all, decide by an appeal to arms. The prob 
 lems of North, South, and West were not different problems 
 but different phases or complementary results of the same 
 problems. The railroads and the telegraph were already knit 
 ting the country together and would in the future provide that 
 close contact between all its parts and that ease of movement 
 between them which would be certain to strengthen those 
 forces making for nationality. As Lowell said, the very stars 
 in their courses fought for Union. 8 
 
 The result of the War upon the North had been striking. 
 The commercial crisis of 1861 and 1862, the new contact with 
 the West, the direct trade with Europe thanks to the western 
 grain and the new railroad trunk lines, the new industries 
 created by the needs of the army, and the new economic wants 
 resultant upon the great prosperity of the years 1864 and 
 1865, had given industry in all its phases a jolt which had 
 advanced it decades in development. The War made the 
 North richer as a whole and laid the foundation of many 
 individual fortunes. The causes are not far to seek. First 
 and foremost, the North had been compelled to draw heavily 
 upon its resources of capital and had loaned the govern 
 ment capital which would normally not have been invested in 
 industrial securities. The Federal government then prac 
 tically offered bounties to private individuals who were will 
 ing to utilize this capital for the production of military stores. 
 Much capital that would normally have been invested for 
 permanent returns and of which the community would have 
 spent only the interest was spent in its entirety and posterity 
 was to repay it. The high prices paid by the government en 
 abled the people to bear heavy direct and indirect taxes, but the 
 size of the debt at the end of the war, nearly three billions 
 s Atlantic Monthly, January 1861. 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 351 
 
 of dollars, indicates the amount of capital actually distributed 
 among individuals then alive which posterity was to replace. 
 Undoubtedly, too, the necessities of the War and the high 
 prices stimulated production and investment and caused the 
 spurs of ambition to urge the individual onward at a faster 
 rate than before. The War created a new North, different 
 in spirit, in temper, in ambitions, and wealthier, more confi 
 dent, more complaisant than the North of 1860. 
 
 The War also made apparent the weakness of the economic 
 and social structure at the South. The Confederacy had been 
 constructed upon the belief that the slave States were inde 
 pendent of the North in fact, and that the political and con 
 stitutional separation would merely adjust theories to reali 
 ties. The War proved the falsity of the notion. What had 
 seemed enormous, fabulous wealth melted away the moment 
 the blockade became effective, and the South saw only too 
 clearly that its economic fabric was an artificial creation, de 
 pendent upon conditions whose continuance could not be as 
 sured by the simple political expedients of passing ordinances 
 of secession and making a new constitution. Not the Consti 
 tution of the United States, not the tariff, not Congress, but 
 the very character of Southern civilization was the true dif 
 ficulty. The weakness of the Confederacy was less military 
 than it was economic and social. There was no substructure 
 on which the political entity could rest, no bricks out of which 
 to build a new nation. The War did not itself destroy the 
 slavocracy: it removed of necessity those props on which the 
 slave power had depended and made apparent the frailty and 
 artificiality of the structure. The old regime at the South 
 was not destroyed; it collapsed. In the culture of cotton by 
 forced labor there was no proper economic basis for an inde 
 pendent nation and the War proved it even before the fighting 
 began in earnest. 
 
 The artificial factors were now evident. The high degree 
 of profit obtained from the cotton-culture had been primarily 
 due to the unexampled fertility of the virgin soil in the river- 
 bottoms, which yielded enormous returns even to extensive 
 
352 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 cultivation by the crudest of forced labor. The profit had 
 also depended on the growth of the demand for raw cotton in 
 the North and in Europe at the same rate at which the 
 planters had increased the supply. That the demand before 
 1860 scarcely ever failed to equal the supply was a remark 
 able fact, but there was no reason to suppose it would con 
 tinue indefinitely to do so. Above all, freedom of access to 
 the Northern and European markets, a merchant marine and 
 cheap freights were even more essential. In the nature of 
 things, the continued cooperation of all these factors could not 
 be indefinitely assured. The amount of virgin soil was limited 
 by Nature. An increase in the value of slaves ; a decrease in 
 the proportionate return; a falling off of the demand; the 
 discovery of a new source of supply; interference with free 
 dom of intercourse; expensive freights; the alteration of any 
 single factor might destroy the profitableness of the invest 
 ment, and such a change might be produced at any moment 
 by natural forces over which no human agency could exert 
 the slightest influence. The War stopped intercourse with 
 Europe and with the North by the interposition of a highly 
 artificial barrier, the blockade, which the growing of cotton 
 had not provided the South with any means to remove. The 
 whole fabric of the slave power instantly crumbled and died. 
 The South found itself pauperized, without any industrial 
 life at all. Its land and slaves, fabulously valuable on paper, 
 potentially valuable for growing cotton, were an utterly worth 
 less encumbrance when one single factor in the artificial struc 
 ture of Southern life was removed. The South was not inde 
 pendent; it was absolutely dependent upon the North, the 
 West, and Europe for existence at all. The War proved it. 
 The only arable land in use was not suitable for grain; the 
 only agricultural tools the planters had were inadequate for 
 the diversified intensive agriculture needed to sustain the life 
 of the community; the only skill the millions of slaves pos 
 sessed was valueless in the crisis and they were too ignorant 
 and too lacking in adaptability to be forced into new in 
 dustries in time to be of any avail. And even had they 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 35:1 
 
 possessed adaptability, the necessary raw materials were lack 
 ing. 
 
 It began to be evident to the Southerners that the cotton- 
 culture had in its nature prevented the growth of a strong, 
 well-knit community by locating the people on large planta 
 tions miles from each other, by putting a premium on the 
 occupation of vast areas of soil only a tithe of which was in 
 actual use. Towns and cities had not been able to grow ; com 
 munity life, the daily contact of the people, had been re 
 duced to a minimum, and they had not acquired the habit 
 of acting in concert nor learned the necessity of cooperation. 
 States rights had thrived; the individual had been unham 
 pered by State and central government ; and the very success 
 of local government made difficult the sort of common action 
 which the War made imperative. The social and political 
 structure of the South did not furnish a proper basis even for 
 strong State governments and still less afforded adequate sup 
 port to a central government struggling with the administra 
 tive difficulties of a great conflict. 
 
 The separateness of the Southerners had also prevented the 
 growth of a system of transportation which would adequately 
 connect the various scattered communities with each other. 
 The splendid river systems, eked out by a few miles of nar 
 row-gauge railroad here and there, put every plantation into 
 cheap and easy contact with the markets for cotton and made 
 a network of railroads, east and west, north and south, need 
 less for the ordinary daily life of the community before the 
 War. But, when the Federal gunboats had occupied the sea- 
 coast and the rivers, the only universal system of transporta 
 tion the South had possessed was lost, and it found itself with 
 out adequate means of communication and unable to utilize 
 promptly and efficiently such resources as it did possess. The 
 truth was that South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and the 
 rest had been in contact with the North and with Europe far 
 more than with each other ; they were not even interdependent. 
 Not the South as a whole, but literally every State and al 
 most every plantation was dependent upon easy and direct 
 
354 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 contact with the North and with Europe. The Southern 
 States had never actually cooperated with each other in eco 
 nomic, political, or constitutional life. While the leaders had 
 lived together at Washington and had voted as a unit in the 
 Senate, the States at home had gone each its own way. The 
 Confederacy itself was an artificial aggregation of small iso 
 lated communities which were for the first time attempting life 
 in common. The South was a geographical expression, not a 
 nation, not even an entity. With its constitutional professions 
 the facts dicl not agree. The War made strikingly apparent 
 what had always been true. 
 
 The vital objection to slavery was that it was undemo 
 cratic and contrary to every legal and social principle of 
 American life. It created obviously a three-caste system, the 
 slave-holding whites, the non-slave-holding whites, and the 
 slaves. Forced labor was and always will be nominally 
 cheaper than free labor and the very existence of the slave 
 deprived the poor white of economic opportunity. He could 
 not compete in the cotton fields with the negro; so long as 
 the degree of profit in the cotton-culture so greatly exceeded 
 the profit of producing anything else at the South, he was 
 excluded from any other industry, and would exist merely 
 by the labor of his own hands on the small portion of less 
 productive soil that might fall to his lot. Slavery, which 
 robbed the poor white of his economic, political, and social 
 freedom, put the power and wealth into the hands of a small 
 oligarchy. In addition, slavery was undemocratic because 
 it deprived the negroes and poor whites alike of opportunity 
 for individual development and aggrandizement. From the 
 lack of stimulus to progress, from the general lack of edu 
 cation, from the realization among the planters that any 
 improvement of the slaves and poor whites threatened the 
 extent and security of their own control, resulted that stag 
 nation of community life which prevented any truly organic 
 development. The Confederacy was a democracy whose fun 
 damental principles were daily abrogated by its own life. It 
 was an oligarchy which had theoretically renounced the use 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 355 
 
 of those administrative and legal forms by which alone 
 oligarchies had governed great masses of men. A democratic 
 community in which four-fifths of the population was excluded 
 by artificial restrictions from actual participation in the life 
 of the community was a house built upon the sands, certain 
 to perish under the first stress of unfavorable circumstances. 
 An oligarchy under the forms of democracy carried the seeds 
 of its destruction in its own constitution. Both were doomed. 
 The actual social and political structure of the Confederacy 
 was utterly inconsistent with and repugnant to its constitu 
 tion. The War made the fact appallingly clear. The South 
 erners saw it the clearest, for the presence of the poor whites 
 in the army side by side with the old ruling class had been 
 a lesson in democracy for both and had opened their eyes 
 to their common humanity. The willingness of the Southern 
 Government to free the slaves who would serve in the army, 
 the comparatively slight regret expressed at the South over 
 the abolition of slavery, both showed the working of the 
 leaven of democracy under the powerful stimulus of circum 
 stances. 
 
 Above all, the realization that slavery was undemocratic 
 and unprogressive convinced Lincoln, long before the war 
 was over, that a democratic nation could neither be preserved, 
 restored, or created unless this vitally undemocratic institu 
 tion were abolished. 9 The South had not been one with the 
 North because this " peculiar institution" had been undem 
 ocratic; and it could not become democratic and begin to 
 develop in harmony with the genius of American institutions 
 until slavery was destroyed. 9 * He saw, however, in 1865, that 
 
 "He wished the reunion of all the States perfected, and so effected 
 as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future; and to attain this 
 end, it was necessary that the original disturbing cause [slavery] 
 should, if possible, be rooted out." Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works, 
 X, 353. Slavery "must be always and everywhere hostile to the prin 
 ciples of republican government; justice and the national safety demand 
 its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the republic." Ibid., 
 X, 119. See also 191, 193-7. 
 
 a"The popular understanding has been gradually enlightened as to 
 the real causes of the War, and in consequence of that enlightenment, a 
 
356 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the War had already done the work. The Planter class had 
 actually been dethroned; the old social and economic struc 
 ture had collapsed and had actually freed the poor whites 
 from their shackles; many slaves had already left the cotton 
 plantations; others would follow as soon as opportunity 
 offered. The downfall of the old slave power was a fact and 
 there remained only the declaration of the freedom of the 
 negro from legal slavery to make the emancipation of the 
 poor white a reality, the future development of the negro 
 a possibility, and the building of a new South upon truly 
 democratic principles a certainty. The obstacles hindering 
 the growth of democracy had been artificial and not funda 
 mental, and the War had removed them. Under any circum 
 stances, a complete readjustment of economic and social life 
 at the South would be necessary; the process might be long; 
 the suffering to individuals would be considerable ; but Lincoln 
 felt that the North owed it to the true South to abolish by con 
 stitutional amendment the artificial fetters with which custom 
 and tradition had hitherto allowed the oligarchy of great plant 
 ers to hamper the development of the community at large. The 
 North must not nullify the result of the War the actual 
 downfall of the old economic and social fabric built on 
 slavery. It must insist that the New South should be a 
 product of true democracy. 
 
 The War, nevertheless, resulted in an extreme economic 
 exhaustion of the South. It had destroyed the old fabric 
 and had put nothing in its place. Before the War there 
 had been a few enormous private fortunes, a considerable 
 number of well-to-do families, while the great majority of 
 the poor whites and free negroes as well as the slaves had 
 been on the very margin of subsistence. The great fortunes 
 had flown in the first year of the War, and the produce 
 taxes levied in kind and the forceable seizure of property 
 
 purpose has grown up, defining itself slowly into clearer consciousness, 
 to finish the War in the only way that will keep it finished, by rooting 
 out the evil principle [slavery] from which it sprang." Lowell in the 
 Atlantic Monthly, October 1864, p. 572. 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 357 
 
 by the commissary department for the use of the army had 
 pretty well deprived every one who had anything at all of 
 nearly all he had. Though the South had never been wealthy 
 except on paper, though its richest men had possessed large 
 incomes rather than tangible wealth whose continued ex 
 istence was assured, the War had taken from the community 
 the little it had possessed. The Confederacy was bankrupt 
 in 1861 ; its citizens had little left in 1865. Even the cotton, 
 from whose sale once the War was over many had expected 
 to recoup their fortunes, was confiscated by the Northern 
 government. It should never be forgotten that the poverty 
 of the individual Southerner, the dethroning of the planters, 
 the enfranchisement of the poor white, the emancipation of 
 the negro were direct results of four years of war. Recon 
 struction intensified the suffering but was not its cause. The 
 inevitable difficulties of readjustment were certain to cause 
 suffering to many individuals, though the community as a 
 whole was benefiting from the change. 
 
 But upon the great constitutional and legal issues, out of 
 which hostilities had arisen, the War decided nothing. The 
 great fundamental issues of American development the re 
 lation of the States to each other, to the individual citizen, 
 and to the central government; the economic dependence of 
 the country upon Europe ; the questions of a sound and ade 
 quate currency, of the tariff, and of the public lands the 
 War did not settle at all. It could not ; moral, ethical, legal, 
 constitutional issues are not solved by fighting. The War 
 simply decided that in the discussion and formulation of a 
 solution, the North should play the preponderant part and 
 that the solution should be in harmony with the principles 
 of nationality and democracy as the North understood them. 
 The War made the most important single element in the 
 situation the opinion of the North. It was now necessary 
 for the North to find out what its opinion was. 
 
 The logic of facts at the close of the War made the dis 
 cussion and settlement of the great problems peculiarly diffi 
 cult and the arrival at anything like a decision mutually 
 
358 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 agreeable to all parties in both sections practically impossible. 
 The mere fact that in a great war, costing thousands of lives 
 and billions of dollars, the Northern armies had been victo 
 rious, was to most men proof that a great issue had been at 
 stake about which there was an ascertainable right and wrong. 
 Did not victory in fact show that the North had been right? 
 If there was no right and wrong about it, and if the South 
 had not been wrong, why had the War been fought at all? 
 It was unthinkable to the Northern men in 1865 that they 
 had conquered in a fight for a principle and had espoused the 
 wrong side. If so, the War was not only a mistake and a 
 blunder, but a crime of unbelievable, horrible magnitude. 
 It was inevitable that the men who won the War should 
 have concluded, quite aside from history, precedents, morality, 
 and law, that they had decided a great question in the right. 
 Granting, then, as an axiom which few Northern minds ques 
 tioned, that the South had been wrong, should she not be 
 punished for it or at least forced to acknowledge that she 
 had been wrong and compelled to take such steps as should 
 prevent the recurrence of that wrong? Nothing else galled 
 the South quite so much as this bit of logic. The very idea 
 that they had been " wrong" rankled in the Southern mind; 
 the very indefiniteness of the feeling, the entire lack of any 
 specific thing which had been the wrong of wrongs, embittered 
 the relations of the two sections. All of this feeling was 
 intensified a hundred-fold by the assassination of Lincoln. 
 Many at the North who had talked before of " securities" 
 began to insist upon "punishment" and revenge. 
 
 To the Southern gentleman, who had governed the Con 
 federacy before and during the War, there was also a logic 
 of facts. For whatever reason, justly or unjustly, his estates 
 were ruined and his fortune gone; he saw his friends in the 
 same condition; he saw Northern soldiers quartered on the 
 poverty-stricken and exhausted country and knew that, what 
 ever legal excuse was offered, they were "conquerors" and 
 held him and his in "subjection." There was too the un 
 doubted existence of the negro and the poor white, whom 
 
THE RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 389 
 
 he had despised and ruled; the War had raised the negro 
 to the level of the poor white and had brought the old 
 aristocracy down to the level of both. It seemed almost too 
 much to bear that at this same time the North should be 
 prosperous and reveling in luxury. At both North and 
 South, the more sober and better informed men were anxious 
 to return to amity and peace and to deal with one another 
 like brothers, with a sympathetic forbearance on the one hand 
 of taunts about the past and an eager acceptance on the other 
 of the inevitable changes. It was perhaps too much to expect 
 that it could have been so. Four years of war left behind 
 a legacy that no one desired but of which none could rid 
 himself. 
 
XXVI 
 THE ISSUE OF BE CONSTRUCTION 
 
 THE Civil War grew out of a misunderstanding 1 between 
 honest and sincere men. So did the Reconstruction. Let 
 us not deny that charity to the Northern Reconstructionists 
 which the slave-holders of 1850 have received. Even the 
 carpet-bagger and the scalawag had convictions. As we must 
 renounce the idea that the "War was caused by a conspiracy 
 of Southern planters solely to extend and maintain slavery, 
 so must we renounce the idea that the North intended Re 
 construction to humiliate the South. Much that was done 
 was unintentional, the result of the disagreement of 
 honest men on both sides. Indeed, in the study of Recon 
 struction, there is scarcely another fact so conspicuous as the 
 unexpected turn of events. The whole nation was groping 
 around a problem whose real lineaments it did not know, 
 like a blind man making his way about in an unfamiliar room. 
 Reconstruction was an attempt to settle nearly all the great 
 issues of American development, whose factors had been so 
 altered by the War as to produce in each new features so 
 radically different from the old as to change the problem 
 itself beyond recognition. 
 
 Indeed, we are dealing with the construction of a new 
 nation, not with the reconstruction, preservation, alteration, 
 or restoration of the status quo before the War. The North, 
 
 i"I think very much of the ill feeling that has existed and still 
 exists between the people in the section from which I came and the 
 people here [Washington, D. C.] is dependent upon a misunderstanding 
 of one another." Lincoln in reply to the greeting of the Mayor of 
 Washington, D. C., Feb. 27, 1861. Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works, 
 VI, 165. 
 
 360 
 
THE ISSUE OF RECONSTRUCTION 361 
 
 the South, the Union, the Constitution, the States, the Senate, 
 the House, the Presidency, the people had all been so vitally 
 changed that the readjustment of each to the others required 
 literally the construction of a new social and constitutional 
 fabric. Nor was the necessity less because in the majority 
 of instances the constitutional change was implicit rather than 
 explicit; to be read into old phrases, not formally expressed; 
 a difference to be applied in living rather than to be recorded 
 in line and precept. All national politics and institutions were 
 to be honestly tested for the first time by the concept of nation 
 ality, as Lincoln had made the nation conscious of it. In 
 all social and economic problems at the South, the emancipation 
 of the negro by proclamation and by the Thirteenth Amend 
 ment, ratified in 1865, had introduced a factor entirely un 
 known to every one. The political and economic emancipation 
 of the poor white by the actual destruction of the older agri 
 cultural fabric had placed in the numerical majority in the 
 South a class which hated the old planter class and the negro 
 alike with vehemence. 
 
 Scarcely less important was the alteration in the relative 
 prominence and authority of the executive as compared to the 
 legislature. The exigencies of the War had compelled the use 
 by Lincoln of extraordinary powers, which had been viewed 
 with suspicion and downright hostility by Congress and by 
 many individuals, and whose use had by the logic of facts 
 completely reversed the traditional position of executive and 
 legislature, robbing the latter of its preeminence and initiative. 
 Nothing could have been predicted with greater certainty than 
 that the close of the War and the consequent cessation of the 
 imperative necessary for the recognition of executive discre 
 tion would father a determined attempt by Congress to deprive 
 the executive of his new authority and to reassert once more 
 the legislative supremacy. Without doubt, the doctrine of 
 nationality abrogated the older concept of the State, as well 
 North as South, and introduced in practice the theoretical 
 notion of the paramount authority of the Federal government 
 over the individual citizen as superior in obligation to that of 
 
362 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 his State. Whatever currency this idea had previously ob 
 tained, it had certainly never before been a precept upon 
 which the actual working of the Federal system had been 
 based and the close of the War clearly raised a series of most 
 important practical issues which were to be adjudicated by the 
 courts in the light of this new national reading of the Consti 
 tution. A difference of opinion with the States, so recently 
 members of the Confederacy, was highly probable, and logic 
 and precedent for several views of their status, past and 
 present, were not long in appearing. In the guise of the 
 payment of the Federal debt, and of the provision of a sound 
 currency to replace the paper money adopted as an expedient 
 during the War, rose all the old formidable financial issues 
 America s dependence on Europe, the necessity for a medium 
 of exchange, the dependence of the South and West upon the 
 commercial cities on the Atlantic coast, the necessity of dis 
 tributing the specie evenly throughout the community and of 
 the prevention of hoarding it. All of these vital factors re 
 acted upon each other again and again and complicated still 
 further a problem already difficult in the extreme. The con 
 struction of a new South in harmony with the new notions 
 of nationality and democracy involved sweeping and significant 
 changes in industry, in legislation, in substantive law, in ad 
 ministration, in social life which certainly could not be com 
 pleted without tremendous difficulty and without suffering to 
 many and many an innocent individual. 
 
 In studying this " great confusion, officially styled the Re 
 construction of the Southern States, " 2 it is absolutely essential 
 to read political and social movements in the light of the War. 
 A situation, itself complex in the extreme, was tangled almost 
 beyond the possibility of belief, by the actual conditions in 
 the South and in Washington. 
 
 The presence of the Northern armies constantly reminded 
 the Southerners that the new settlement was really being im 
 posed upon them by the North, whatever legal or ethical 
 grounds might be alleged in an endeavor to conceal the un- 
 
 2 W. G. Brown in Atlantic Monthly, May 1901, Vol. LXXXVII, 634. 
 
THE ISSUE OF RECONSTRUCTION 363 
 
 concealable. The only too evident ruin of all the wealthy, 
 the certainty that the poor whites and negroes would be able 
 to adjust themselves to the conditions of democratic freedom 
 only slowly and painfully, the inevitable bitterness and rancor 
 among the old planters at seeing themselves degraded" to 
 the level of the poor white and of the negro; the latter s 
 equally inevitable elation, only too sure of blatant expression, 
 at his elevation to an equality with the oligarchy, were all un 
 fortunately insistent elements. The Southerners had embraced 
 with real fervor and enthusiasm the new concept of nationality 
 and had no intention of relinquishing it but were somewhat 
 shaken in their belief that all would now be well by the 
 discovery that the new nationality was bound tightly to a new 
 concept of democracy which included the negro. That the 
 United States should be one, they could believe expedient ; but 
 that the negro was industrially, legally, politically, socially 
 the equal of the white man, they could not credit. This was 
 a plain issue of fact and the evidence of their senses as 
 well as the traditions of two centuries and a half forbade 
 their accepting such a dictum without clear proof of its 
 verity. The War had honestly made the North and South 
 nationalists; but it was powerless to remodel, in a moment 
 as it were, their social, moral, and ethical standards. The 
 negro was no different after the War from what he had been 
 before ; if anything, he was less capable, less industrious, less 
 honest, less moral; and he was surely not to be endowed 
 with ability, education, and energy by making speeches in the 
 Senate or by passing constitutional amendments. The logic of 
 the situation was stronger than theory: the Southerners who 
 had always known the negro saw that he could not be other 
 wise than he was ; the Northerners, who had never known the 
 negro at all, were able to believe honestly that the striking 
 off of his shackles would as suddenly reveal hitherto unexpected 
 qualities and his possession of the common heritage of hu 
 manity. To the Southerner, fundamental racial and economic 
 facts stood in the way of the negro s actual freedom and 
 equality; to many excited Northerners, only the artificial re- 
 
364 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 straints of laws and constitutions had hidden the facts which 
 had always existed, and which needed now merely to be made 
 apparent. Here again was a clash of opinion certain to affect 
 vitally the attitude of all parties and individuals to the new 
 settlement. 
 
 Most apparent and important of all, the men in control 
 at Washington naturally regarded as a national calamity the 
 bare suggestion that they were not to direct the creation of 
 the new national fabric, the hint that they were not the men 
 best qualified to undertake it. Had not their winning of the 
 War proved it? Should the results of the War be lost by 
 taking the control of the settlement out of the hands of the 
 friends of freedom? Indeed, it was difficult for them to be 
 lieve that the opinions of Northern men who had opposed the 
 War or criticized its conduct, of Southern men who had fought 
 in the Confederate army, had any right to consideration upon 
 the problems which the War had bequeathed, could be other 
 wise than inharmonious with the splendid principles upon 
 which the War had been fought and won. It was clear that 
 the most vital issues concerned the interpretation of the Consti 
 tution and statutes in the light of the new concepts, involved 
 the passage of new legislation conceived in their spirit, and 
 that all could be easily invalidated and the result of the War 
 destroyed by hostile or unsympathetic interpretations. Thus 
 was promptly injected into issues already too complex, the 
 question of the balance of parties at the North, the personal 
 reputation and reward of the men who had won the War, 
 the importance of the army as a factor in politics at the 
 polls and elsewhere, and the influence, interrelation, and in 
 teraction of all these upon each other and upon the old 
 quarrels of the executive and legislature, of North and South, 
 of the States and the Federal government. 
 
 The reorganization of the South was certain at best to 
 cause suffering to many individuals, and required forbearance 
 and consideration from the North. The actual conditions at 
 the South and at Washington rendered almost inevitable 
 mutual misunderstandings which could not fail greatly to 
 
THE ISSUE OF RECONSTRUCTION 365 
 
 increase the sum total of suffering at the South and strain 
 almost to the breaking-point the new national bond which 
 the fighting of four years had been needed to create. The 
 manner in which Reconstruction was undertaken became a 
 new obstacle in the way of the realization of nationality. 
 To make it a permanent obstacle, the men who had won the 
 War seem to have unconsciously done their best; that it 
 caused only temporary difficulty, was due to the forbearance, 
 the splendid patriotism, and the statesmanship of the North 
 ern conservatives who had opposed the War and of the 
 Southern men once enrolled under the Stars and Bars. We 
 should never forget that if the War was won by a part 
 of the nation to create nationality, the nation as it now 
 stands is nearly as much the work of those who loyally 
 accepted the true results of the War after it was over and 
 who narrowly managed to prevent the destruction of the 
 new nation at the hands of its friends as soon as it had 
 been created. The South as well as the North, the Recon 
 struction as well as the War, played a vital part in making 
 us one people, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. 
 
 As was inevitable, an issue of so many sides and significant 
 aspects, none of which in any sense were mutually exclusive, 
 none of which could by any possibility be settled except in 
 relation to the rest, presented for that very reason, even to 
 the honest and energetic, one aspect so much more vital in 
 its effect on their personal predilections, ideals, and ambitions 
 that it stood in their minds for the whole complex tangle 
 of needs and desirabilities. The issue of Reconstruction was 
 neither political, constitutional, legal, social, ethical, nor eco 
 nomic, but an extraordinarily complicated network created 
 by the interrelation and interaction of all. The first criminal 
 error committed, therefore, in all honesty and good faith, 
 was the attempt to deal with it from only one point of 
 view. Presidential Reconstruction assumed that the question 
 was legal and formal, to be decided by the constitutional 
 theories upon which the War had been fought. Congress 
 promptly saw that there were political questions of the utmost 
 
366 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 consequence involved and that the South would be hard pressed 
 to deal alone with the numerous temporary difficulties grow 
 ing out of the conditions actually in existence. The social 
 reformers soon appreciated that the presidential plan really 
 left the South nearly complete discretion in the rebuilding 
 of the economic and social fabric and they instantly objected 
 to such a " sacrifice " of the negro. To them, the transcendent 
 issue was social and ethical, the negroes the most important 
 class of the community to be protected and assisted over the 
 transition from bondage to freedom. Each of these plans 
 was based upon an important element in the situation; each 
 committed the pardonable blunder of assuming that element 
 to be the only issue of real consequence. None, therefore, 
 met the prerequisite of statesmanship, the open recognition 
 that the problems were interrelated and must be solved to 
 gether with due regard for each other. All three remedies 
 were applied in succession, and as each left unsolved impor 
 tant problems, another sovereign emollient was brought for 
 ward. The result was almost indescribable confusion and 
 the intensification and prolongation of the natural difficulties 
 of adjustment at the South, and the trebling of suffering 
 for many individuals. 
 
 The greatest trouble of all rose out of a misunderstand 
 ing. During the War, Lincoln had announced a theory of 
 executive "reconstruction" of the seceded States which he 
 applied before the end of the War to those States in the 
 hands of the Union armies. He assumed that secession was 
 unconstitutional; no State could "get out of the Union;" no 
 State had ever been a State at all "out of the Union;" and 
 the mere fact that the Southern States had attempted to 
 secede upon this mistaken theory had not in the least altered 
 their constitutional status. The Southern States were still 
 members of the Union, and the process of their reinstate 
 ment would therefore be simple in the extreme. So soon as 
 the President was assured that a loyal State government was 
 peaceably performing the usual civil functions, he should by 
 proclamation make that fact known to the country and to 
 
THE ISSUE OF RECONSTRUCTION 3fl7 
 
 Congress, and thus by an executive announcement of the actual 
 fact, the State would once more take its place among its 
 sisters. No "reconstruction" would be necessary, for there 
 had been no legal breach of the constitutional fabric; the 
 States would merely recommence their old life and the Presi 
 dent should announce the moment when it began. Naturally, 
 the President should exercise his discretion in deciding what 
 tests should indicate its beginning. 
 
 This theory was certainly that on which the War had been 
 fought and that approved by all parties at Washington during 
 the first years of its continuance. The Democratic slogan 
 had even been "Restore the Union as it was." On the 
 whole, the terms proposed by the Federal government in the 
 various abortive negotiations with the Confederacy had in view 
 the "restoration" of the Federal bond as the North understood 
 it. Lincoln recognized Tennessee and Louisiana as States in 
 1864, and, though a clash of opinion between the President 
 and Congress was already apparent before Lincoln s death, 
 Johnson continued his policy. The measures he prescribed in 
 May 1865, were of the simplest. A proclamation offered 
 amnesty to all taking an oath of future loyalty to the United 
 States, and the prominent Confederates, who were excepted 
 from the amnesty by classes, were to be pardoned by the Presi 
 dent when they had taken the oath and petitioned for ex 
 ecutive clemency. The President next appointed provisional 
 governors in the various Southern States, who caused an 
 election of delegates to a constitutional convention by such 
 of the electorate qualified to vote at the date of secession as had 
 already taken the oath of loyalty. By proclamations the 
 civil departments of the Federal government once more began 
 the execution of the Federal laws in the several States. When 
 Congress met in December, all the Southern States had in 
 pursuance of this plan repealed the ordinances of secession, 
 had adopted new constitutions abolishing slavery, and, with 
 two exceptions, had repudiated the war debt of the Confeder 
 acy. The legislatures had met, the executive officers had taken 
 their seats, the Federal officers were executing the United 
 
368 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 States statutes. United States senators and representatives 
 had been chosen, and, with two exceptions, all had adopted 
 the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. In view of 
 these facts, the President had by proclamation declared the 
 cessation of armed resistance, the restoration of intercourse, 
 and the end of the blockade. The troops had not been with 
 drawn nor the right to the writ of habeas corpus restored, 
 but, in his message to Congress of December 1865, Johnson 
 made it clear that, in his opinion, nothing remained to be done 
 to complete the process of restoring the States to their former 
 places but the acceptance of the newly-elected senators and 
 representatives by Congress. 
 
XXVII 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION: ITS CAUSES 
 AND ITS METHODS 
 
 To the Congressional leaders, the issue was by no means so 
 simple. They saw obvious objections on political, constitu 
 tional, and social grounds to any recognition of the presidential 
 solution. Their overwhelmingly important objection was that 
 the process was entirely executive and created or assumed 
 powers extending an executive authority already too large. 
 Congress had always been jealous of the President. The 
 enormous accession of power thrust upon him by the War had 
 been flatly contrary to the general tradition since the earliest 
 Colonial times of the supremacy of the legislature over the 
 executive, and Congress had during the War ill concealed 
 its impatience and hostility. While the crisis actually existed, 
 it was felt that constitutional scruples should be pushed to 
 one side ; but now that the War was over the pent-up wrath, 
 suspicion, hatred which had accumulated during the long four 
 years burst forth over Johnson s demand that Congress should 
 tamely accept at his dictation the settlement of all the ques 
 tions bequeathed by the War. That the executive should have 
 fought and won the War galled Congress inexpressibly ; that 
 the Presidency had drawn from the War and from Lincoln s 
 personal prestige an extraordinary accession of power and an 
 importance as compared to the legislature which could never 
 be entirely regained, the angry senators and representatives 
 fully appreciated. But that the executive should already have 
 issued his fiat upon the results of the War, should not have 
 consulted them even as a formal courtesy as to the proper 
 course to be pursued in the numerous constitutional difficulties 
 involved, was more than the men who had repressed their 
 
 369 
 
370 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 hatred so long could have been expected to bear. They viewed 
 all of Johnson s acts and decisions with supercilious suspicion, 
 simply and solely because they were executive acts. Of the 
 facts of the situation at the South, of the probable consequences 
 of a quarrel between Executive and Congress, they recked 
 little. To them, the whole structure of the Federal Constitu 
 tion, which the North had fought the War to preserve, was 
 being destroyed by the usurpations of the executive. States 
 rights was a specter; presidential domination of Federal poli 
 cies and means was stalking abroad as a giant whose head 
 topped the clouds. Lincoln had taught Congress only too 
 well that the legislative power could deal only with new 
 policies, and now if this greatest subject for new legislation, 
 the results of the War, could thus coolly be dealt with by 
 Johnson by proclamation and fiat, the President could literally 
 usurp by a similar process of interpretation all the functions 
 of Congress and reduce that body to a nonentity. The mem 
 bers of the House felt themselves called to be the saviors of 
 the country from a new and greater peril than States rights 
 and slavery. With them agreed thousands both North and 
 South who had been alienated and disgusted by what they 
 considered the arbitrary and unconstitutional acts of Lincoln 
 and Davis, and who had impatiently awaited the end of the 
 War as a time when such " usurpations" would certainly cease. 
 The strength and intensity of the determination to put an end 
 to the extension of executive authority is a chief factor in the 
 drama of Reconstruction, and in Washington it almost cer 
 tainly dwarfed all others. 
 
 The other objection to the presidential theory was its fail 
 ure to take into account the actual situation at the South. It 
 was all very well to declare that the States were what they 
 had been, but the actual facts contradicted the theory; the 
 Southern States had been actually out of the Union for four 
 years ; * the civil administration, the economic and social 
 
 1 In a Eulogy on Lincoln delivered by Sumner in Boston in 1865, 
 he took issue squarely with the presidential plans. "There can be no 
 question here whether a State is in the Union or out of it. This is but 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 371 
 
 structure had been literally destroyed by the War, and new 
 State governments upon a new national and democratic basis 
 were to be set up. Furthermore, it was entirely clear that 
 the roving negroes and rascally thieves then thronging many 
 parts of the South were not to be successfully restrained by 
 the sort of loosely-organized civil government which had 
 formerly existed there. Excited orators denounced Johnson 
 for closing his eyes to the obvious facts of the situation, and, 
 to their logic and reasoning, the Northern interpretation of 
 the Southern efforts to grapple with the most imperative prob 
 lems lent only too much color. Johnson had handed over to 
 the men, who had seceded to preserve slavery, discretion to 
 deal with the freedmen, and they had used it as he should 
 have anticipated. 
 
 Needless to add, the excited enemies of the President in 
 Washington and throughout the North had only a faint 
 adumbration of the practical difficulties of the negro problem 
 at the South, and, with the almost universal exaggeration of 
 the negro s capacity, virtue, and honesty then prevalent, they 
 quite inevitably misinterpreted the experiments the South 
 erners based upon the practical difficulties whose very ex 
 istence the glorification of the negro forbade the North to 
 credit. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 and the 
 Thirteenth Amendment did not contemplate the need of in 
 struction to the negroes concerning the use of their new free 
 dom. It was, indeed, inconceivable to the enthusiasts that a 
 man should not know what to do with freedom, should be in 
 capable of applying freedom to the problems of life as he him 
 self had to live it. There was no insurrection or universal out 
 break of anarchy and bloodshed as the ante-bellum slavery ad 
 vocates had predicted; but the millennium of freedom antici 
 pated by the anti-slavery men was patently unrealized. 
 Many negroes, especially the house servants, remained with 
 their old masters, faithful, loyal, contented; but thousands 
 
 a phrase on which discussion is useless. Look at the actual fact. Here 
 all will agree. The old governments are vacated, and this is enough." 
 Charles Sumner, Eulogy on Lincoln, 59. Boston, 1865. 
 
372 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 had enlisted in the Union armies, or had followed as laborers, 
 digging in the trenches or driving baggage wagons, and were 
 now stranded by the cessation of the War. Many thousands 
 had left the interior of the cotton States, as food grew scarce, 
 or had wandered around merely to find out whether they 
 could, and had congregated along the rivers where the Fed 
 eral government had attempted to feed them in contraband 
 camps controlled by the army. These roving thousands had 
 somehow to be provided for and it was perfectly patent to 
 any one in contact with them that, as long as the government 
 would feed them, they had no intention of working. Other 
 crowds like them clustered in the cities and towns, restless, 
 lazy, shiftless, committing freely innumerable minor crimes, a 
 constant menace to the peace of the community. On the 
 plantations, petty crimes and thieving had been personal of 
 fenses against the master only and were still to the negroes 
 not offenses against any law involving trials in courts. The 
 removal of the master s authority left them almost uncon 
 trolled by any legislation then in force. To control their 
 criminal propensities was essential, but to force them to do 
 enough work to support themselves and relieve the white com 
 munity of the hardship of doing the work necessary to sup 
 port everybody, was the very first and most important step 
 in the economic construction of a new South. The chief 
 source of labor for growing the only commodity of value had 
 not only ceased to be available in the cotton fields, but had 
 become an overwhelming economic burden. That the bulk 
 of the negroes had not the slightest intention of working was 
 evident; that it would ruin the South beyond repair to be 
 forced to feed between two and three million mouths from the 
 labor of the whites and a million or so of blacks was eminently 
 clear. 
 
 The Federal government had seen the difficulty and had 
 created the Freedman s Bureau in March 1865, to care for 
 the blacks and their interests, to shield them from the specu 
 lators and sharpers, white and black, already imposing on 
 their inexperience, and to allot to them the abandoned planta- 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 373 
 
 tions and furnish enough tools and seeds to start them on the 
 new life. To facilitate the work, jurisdiction was given the 
 Bureau over all controversies to which a negro was a party, 
 including family relations and marriage. In particular, the 
 Bureau was to take cognizance of all the means and methods 
 by which the whites sought to secure the labor of the freed- 
 men and was to guarantee them against contracts which should 
 be the equivalent of slavery for life. Most of the appointees 
 of the Bureau were military officers who worked in conjunc 
 tion with the army in the district. To the Southerners, the 
 Bureau was a diabolical device to perpetuate the military con 
 trol of the South and humiliate the whites before the negro, 
 a method of compelling by force recognition of the social 
 equality with the blacks which the whites were determined 
 not to concede. 
 
 The resentment and reaction at the South caused the inser 
 tion of clauses in the new constitutions denying with vehe 
 mence the equality of the white and black races and affirming 
 that negroes could not be citizens of the United States. To 
 coerce the negroes into working, vagrancy * acts were passed 
 in several States in the fall of 1865 which declared it an of 
 fense for negroes over eighteen years old to be without law 
 ful employment or business" or to be found "unlawfully as 
 sembling themselves together either in the day or night time." 
 For this offense the negro was to be fined $50, and, if he should 
 not pay his fine within five days, he should be hired out by 
 the sheriff to the man who would pay the fine and costs, in re 
 turn for the shortest period of service, preference being given 
 to the negro s previous "employer." Negroes under eighteen 
 years of age, "orphans or the children of parents who could 
 not or would not support them," were to be apprenticed until 
 twenty-one years old by the Clerk of the Probate Court at his 
 discretion, preferably to the former owner. Mississippi made 
 a similar provision for negroes who did not pay their taxes 
 and then levied a poll tax of $1 a head on all negroes "for 
 the support of the poor." The criminal statutes provided 
 fines and compulsory work to be done by the criminal for 
 
374 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 the man who would pay the fine in return for the shortest 
 period of service in such elastic offenses as "malicious mis 
 chief," "insulting gestures," "seditious speeches," or "any 
 other misdemeanor." 
 
 Granting that these acts were necessary to replace the 
 negro in the economic fabric and secure his cooperation in 
 supporting the community of which he was now a citizen, 
 they were certain to create the impression in the North that 
 the Southerners intended to restore actual slavery under the 
 guise of apprenticeship or as a punishment for debt or crime, 
 and, to hasten and facilitate the completion of the process, 
 had put acts on the statute-book defining vagrancy and crime 
 in broad and inclusive terms which ipso facto made every 
 negro guilty. They had provided compulsory work for 
 negroes in debt and had then passed laws which instantly put 
 every negro into debt. Nor could the constant reference to 
 his "former employer" or owner as the fittest person to be 
 come his guardian or jailor fail to lend verisimilitude to all 
 these charges of a revival of slavery. 
 
 Such statutes seemed to Congress evidence that the spirit 
 in which the South proposed to interpret the Thirteenth 
 Amendment was by no means that in which it had been 
 passed. To this unfortunate misunderstanding, fuel was 
 added by the election of men, who had been especially promi 
 nent in the administrative and military service of the Confed 
 eracy to be senators and representatives of the United States 
 from the new State governments reconstructed by the Presi 
 dent. If such men could at once return to Congress to be 
 gin over again the old debates, why had the War been fought ? 
 Could the North ask less recognition of the defeat of the Con 
 federacy, demand less evidence of an honest intention to ac 
 cept the result, than the choice by the Southerners of senators 
 and representatives for the national councils who had not been 
 connected with the "rebellion"? The reply, that nearly 
 every man of ability or character had been in some way identi 
 fied with the Confederacy and that their disqualification would 
 deprive the South of the services of its natural leaders, did 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 375 
 
 not seem to the North really valid. Stephens, Brown, and 
 their ilk again in Washington ! This was surely defiance. 
 
 Moreover, with some astonishment, many Northern men 
 learned that the South would now be proportionately stronger 
 in the House of Representatives than ever before. The adop 
 tion of the Thirteenth Amendment had changed the basis of 
 representation from the whites plus three-fifths of the negroes 
 to the whites plus all the negroes. The South was entitled to 
 more votes in Congress, and these would certainly be thrown 
 against the Republicans and in favor of the Northern Demo 
 crats, who had already so large a minority that the addition 
 of the increased Southern vote might give them a majority. 
 Already the vivid fears of the Republicans saw the men who 
 had won the War ousted from office; the men who had op 
 posed the War, North and South, in control of the national 
 government ; the War debt of the North repudiated and that 
 of the Confederacy paid; the negro enslaved once more; the 
 results of the War entirely lost. Why should the War have 
 ever been fought if the men who had won it were thus supinely 
 to allow its results to be evaded? Before the white South 
 should be allowed to elect representatives to Congress for the 
 negroes, the suffrage must be extended at the South to in 
 clude the negroes, who would of course vote for Republican 
 representatives. 
 
 In addition, came the news that the uneasiness and fear of 
 the Southern whites at the presence of such large numbers 
 of negroes, insufficiently restrained from the commission of 
 crime by the scattered Federal troopers, had resulted in the 
 formation of State militia by the new Southern governments, 
 in whose ranks wore naturally to be found a large proportion 
 of Confederate veterans. Was this not clearest evidence of 
 all, insisted the excited Northerners, of an intention to reim- 
 pose slavery by force and to protect the South from the 
 natural ire of the North at this evasion of the War legisla 
 tion? Lee s army enrolled again under the guise of State 
 militia ! The Confederate Vice-President again in Congress ! 
 The negroes serving out by forced labor sentences for crimes 
 
376 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 which their very existence compelled them to commit! "To 
 my mind," declared Sumner of Massachusetts, "it abandons 
 the freedmen to the control of their ancient masters and leaves 
 the national debt exposed to repudiation by returning rebels. " 
 "We tell the white men of Mississippi," vociferated the 
 Chicago Tribune, "that the men of the North will convert the 
 state of Mississippi into a frog-pond before they will allow 
 any such laws to disgrace one foot of soil over which the flag 
 of freedom flies. y At Washington, the sentiment was general 
 that the political reorganization of the old States ought to be 
 postponed until the continued ascendency of the Republican 
 Party could be assured. For such purposes and in such a 
 spirit was Congressional Reconstruction undertaken. 
 
 The first measures passed were intended to increase the 
 power of the Freedman s Bureau to protect the negro and 
 ensure him equality of civil rights. Johnson vetoed the acts 
 and, on the failure of Congress to repass one of them over his 
 veto, exulted openly over his victory, declaring that the leaders 
 in Congress were striving as hard to undermine the principles 
 of the Constitution as had the Confederates. The Northern 
 Democrats and the whites at the South promptly and not un 
 reasonably concluded that the President and the administra 
 tion at Washington were on their side and consequently were 
 encouraged to go further than they otherwise would have. At 
 the same time, Congress discovered an ally in Stanton, the 
 Secretary of War. He was of course ex officio in control of 
 the army in the South and of the Freedman s Bureau, of the 
 only administrative arms of the Federal government which 
 could effectively enforce either executive or legislative de 
 cisions. With his assistance, the Congressional leaders hoped 
 to nullify the President s orders and secure the adequate en 
 forcement of their own. 
 
 The denunciation of the Congressional policy as unconsti 
 tutional set the leaders at once to work in the spring of 1866 
 upon the Fourteenth Amendment which was to settle firmly 
 and decisively the results of the War. It was to secure to 
 the negro full equality in civil rights and before the courts; 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 377 
 
 to define the term "citizen of the United States" and include 
 the negro ; to guarantee the payment of the Federal debt and 
 repudiate the Confederate debt; to repudiate forever all 
 claims to indemnification for loss by reason of the emancipa 
 tion of the slaves ; and to disqualify all Confederates for elec 
 tion to Federal office. Above all, it was intended to prevent 
 the Southern States, when reorganized, from taking advan 
 tage of the increase in representation, to which the Thirteenth 
 Amendment entitled them, without enfranchising the negro. 
 The "Federal ratio," the chief compromise of 1787, had 
 permitted the South to count in computing its population, on 
 which direct taxes and representation were to be apportioned, 
 three-fifths of the negroes. The whites at the South had al 
 ways, therefore, voted for a part of the negroes as well as 
 for themselves. The new amendment provided, as finally 
 passed, that the population of each state for representation 
 should be decreased in proportion to the number of male in 
 habitants, * being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the 
 United States," who were denied the suffrage. Practically, 
 this deprived the Southern States of the partial representa 
 tion of the negroes they had had and gave them representa 
 tion only for those male inhabitants over twenty-one who were 
 actually allowed to vote. The language of the amendment ap 
 plied it to all the States of the Union, but conditions in the 
 North made it of no consequence there. In the States where 
 the negroes equaled or outnumbered the whites, the effect of 
 the amendment was materially to decrease the old representa 
 tion of the State in the House of Representatives and thus 
 to ensure the control of that body by the Republicans, for any 
 increase could be obtained only by the enfranchisement of the 
 negroes, who could be depended upon to vote for the Republic 
 ans. "Loyalty must govern what loyalty preserved" became 
 the new slogan. 2 
 
 2 The phrase was coined by Colfax, Speaker of the House of Repre 
 sentatives during the War. "If it be said that the colored people are 
 unfit, then do I say that they are more fit than their recent masters 
 or even than many among the poor whites. They have been loyal 
 
378 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 In the Congressional Campaign of 1866, with this confusec 
 jumble of issues, the Republicans certainly swept the coun 
 try; Johnson was clearly unpopular at the North; and, wher 
 by spring all the Southern States had rejected the Fourteenth 
 Amendment by overwhelming majorities, Congress felt itsell 
 thoroughly justified in proceeding with the plan elaboratec 
 by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction during the yeai 
 1866. 
 
 In February 1867, the new measure was passed and with 
 out doubt was brutal, tyrannical, foolish, inexpedient, un 
 just, and probably unconstitutional. Admitting that then 
 was much justification for hesitation in accepting at once presi 
 dential reconstruction, and that the Southern acts were no 
 unnaturally misinterpreted by the North, it is still impossibl< 
 to defend the method by which Congress proposed to re 
 construct the South on any other basis than a determinatior 
 to ensure the preponderance of the Republican Party unde] 
 all conditions for at least a generation, and to humble th< 
 executive and render Congress supreme in the Federal gov 
 ernment at all costs. Congress had found fault with presi 
 dential reconstruction because it failed to recognize the fad 
 that the Southern States had actually been out of the Unior 
 for four years, and it now proceeded to declare that those 
 States were to be punished for seceding, though the War it 
 self had been fought expressly to prove that no State could bj 
 any legal act constitutionally secede. It declared them liable 
 to a penalty for doing something which the War had provec 
 they had not done. The preamble spoke of the l rebel States, 
 though they were patently no longer in rebellion and the con 
 tention of Congress was that they were no longer States a1 
 all. It declared the absence of civil government and the ex 
 istence of conditions to be controlled only by the military tc 
 be the reasons for the bill, when it was notorious that a reason 
 ably efficient civil government had successfully preserved the 
 
 always, and who are you, that under any pretence, exalt the prejudices 
 of the disloyal above the rights of the loyal?" Charles Sumner, Eulogy 
 on Lincoln, 57. Boston, 1865. 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 379 
 
 peace and administered the statutes of the United States in all 
 the Southern States since the summer of 1865. To supply this 
 lack of civil government until conditions should make it pos 
 sible to restore it, the act created five military districts, to be 
 governed by martial law enforced by the Federal troops. Any 
 semblance of civil government which might be in existence 
 was to be utilized or not by the general in command of the 
 district at his discretion. These districts should continue un 
 til the State should enfranchise all males over twenty-one years 
 old without regard for race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude; until a convention should be elected by the males 
 not disfranchised for participation in rebellion or for crime, 
 which should frame a constitution in conformity with the 
 laws of the United States; and until a majority of the elec 
 torate, voting at the election, had accepted the constitution 
 and the Fourteenth Amendment. When the constitution had 
 been accepted by Congress and the Fourteenth Amendment by 
 three-fourths of the other States, the State should be readmit 
 ted to the Union. 
 
 To this measure, were joined others intended to prevent the 
 President from removing executive or army officers loyal to 
 Congress without the consent of the Senate ; to force Johnson 
 as commander-in-chief of the army to issue all orders to the 
 generals in command of the military districts in the South 
 only through the general of the army, whom Congress be 
 lieved loyal to it, and who was not to be removed without con 
 sent of the Senate. Congress then passed a bill calling a new 
 session of Congress for March 4, when the long recess would 
 normally have left the President supreme, and thus perpetu 
 ated itself in office. All of these measures Johnson vetoed 
 with masterly arguments, and all were derisively passed by 
 huge majorities over his head. 
 
 To save the South some of the humiliation and suffering 
 which these acts involved, Johnson interpreted them in the 
 most favorable sense. Congress, to insult the President, 
 promptly made an explicit interpretation to the opposite ef 
 fect and rendered the legislation even more stringent. At- 
 
380 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 tempts to examine the constitutionality of the acts, to secure 
 an injunction to prevent their enforcement were frustrated by 
 the decision of the Supreme Court that it had no jurisdiction, 
 and when a case was found which the Court could consider, 
 Congress in a panic repealed the act in question and quashed 
 the suit. There seemed literally to be no method of restrain 
 ing the unlimited authority claimed by Congress; the Presi 
 dent s veto was no check ; the Supreme Court could not prop 
 erly interfere with instances of executive or legislative dis 
 cretion and could under any circumstances consider only con 
 tentious cases brought to its bar by private citizens. 
 
 But the injustice and bad faith of Congress even more than 
 the inconsistency and unconstitutionally of the scheme roused 
 bitter opposition both North and South. During the sum 
 mer and fall of 1867, the elections were held and the " Black 
 and Tan" Conventions chosen, chiefly of Northern " carpet 
 baggers, poor whites, and negroes. No such hideous bodies 
 of men had ever been assembled before upon the soil of 
 the United States" to assist in constitution-making. In 
 Alabama, the General in charge ordered the election of State 
 officers to be held at the same time as the vote on the adop 
 tion of the Constitution; for this Johnson recalled him. 
 Moreover, a majority of the citizens stayed away from the 
 polls in order to defeat the Constitution, because the Re 
 construction Act required an affirmative vote by a majority 
 of the electorate, voting at the election. Congress now 
 capped the climax of injustice and shameful dealing by voting 
 that the holding of elections at the same time as the vote 
 for ratification of the Constitution was valid, and that the 
 approval of the Constitution by a majority of those voting 
 would be sufficient to secure its adoption. This legislation 
 was applied ex post facto to the Alabama election. The 
 crisis between the President and Congress resulted in the 
 winter of 1867 and 1868 in the attempt to impeach Johnson, 
 a scandal which was a fit companion to the drama being en 
 acted at the South. In the summer of 1868, with the presi 
 dential election approaching, with the Northern Democrats 
 
CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION 381 
 
 rapidly growing in strength on account of the open disap 
 proval of Congressional Reconstruction, the Republicans saw 
 that, even with Grant as a candidate, they would almost cer 
 tainly lose the election unless they could secure the votes of 
 the Southern States. With undue haste and unseemly in 
 consistency, seven States were reinstated in time to vote and 
 the Fourteenth Amendment was declared a part of the Consti 
 tution. This reinforcement, coupled with Grant s candidacy, 
 the promise of bountiful pensions and the payment of the debt 
 in sound currency, enabled the party to weather the storm 
 of Northern disapproval. The acme of inconsistency was 
 reached, however, when the Republican platform announced 
 that negro suffrage was not to be required of the Northern 
 States a stand too obviously unjust to be maintained and 
 in the following session the Fifteenth Amendment was passed. 
 It did not actually confer suffrage upon the negro but pre 
 vented his exclusion on the ground of his race, color, or previ 
 ous condition of servitude, and in particular, it prevented the 
 amendment of the new Southern constitutions and thus guar 
 anteed the continued existence of the Republican Party in the 
 South. By 1870, all the Southern States had complied with 
 all the exactions of Congress and had been readmitted, but 
 the Reconstruction which should have been the birth time of 
 ithe new nation had very nearly resulted in its disruption. 
 
XXVIII 
 THE SOLID SOUTH 
 
 THE results of Congressional Reconstruction were only too 
 soon apparent in the growing hostility of the South to such 
 measures. Fortunately for the new national consciousness 
 that greatest of the results of the War, the resentment of the 
 Southern whites was not visited upon the North as a whole 
 but rather upon the men then in control at Washington and 
 upon their more selfish and individual aims. For the most 
 part, however, the broad humanitarian aspect of the move 
 ments after the War, which made so much impression upon the 
 North, was totally lost upon the South. The latter saw in 
 the Congressional measures the work of a cabal striving at 
 whatever cost to both South and North to ensure the ascend 
 ency of the Republican Party over the Democratic opposition 
 throughout the country, and to increase by fair means or foul 
 the relative authority and prestige of the legislature as com 
 pared with the executive. The tools of the Congressional 
 leaders were the reconstructed governments, without whose 
 votes they could not continue in control of the Federal govern 
 ment, and of which they could retain control only by such des 
 perate expedients as negro suffrage and unfair interference 
 with the attempts of the whites at the South to free them 
 selves from the bondage of negro ascendency. Indeed, the 
 Southerners felt sure that the negro governments would have 
 lasted but a short time (and Congress thoroughly agreed with 
 them) but for the support furnished by the army and the 
 Freedman s Bureau acting under the radical measures di 
 rected or sanctioned by the Enforcement Acts. The purpose, 
 the method, the result, all were to the Southerners vile be 
 yond the power of language to describe. 
 
 382 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 383 
 
 That the military and negro governments meant the post 
 ponement for as long as they might last the construction of a 
 new legal, social, and economic fabric for a new South was to 
 the leaders the most burning wrong they could have suffered. 
 The losses of the War had been hard to bear, but these losses, 
 so unnecessary and so much more taxing to the shattered re 
 sources of the South, seemed almost beyond human endurance. 
 The new South must be built upon truth, not upon falsehood. 
 The exaltation of the negro, " loyalty under a black skin," as 
 more trustworthy and as capable and virtuous as the white 
 man, was to them a flat contradiction of existing facts. 1 Upon 
 such a foundation nothing could be built. Its falsity and 
 iniquity were demonstrated by the almost inconceivable bad 
 ness of the work of the reconstructed governments. "The 
 lion had had his turn," wrote Francis Parkman, 2 "and now 
 the fox, the jackal, and the wolf took theirs." 
 
 South Carolina, which furnishes us with probably the worst 
 case of negro domination, is also the best case to study be 
 cause the negroes were largely in the majority, and because 
 the army, the Freedman s Bureau, and the Enforcement Acts 
 effectively prevented any interference with their rule. The 
 majority of the legislature and of the most important officers 
 were negroes and the rest were rascally whites from the North 
 or even more unsavory characters from the South. A "Band 
 of Forty Thieves" unblushingly sold themselves to the high 
 est bidder. The barbarous luxury and extravagance at the 
 Capitol were unexampled $1600 was paid for two hun 
 dred imported china spittoons, $750 apiece for French mirrors 
 for the Speaker s Room, while a bar and restaurant dispensed 
 free food and drink to members and their friends. Hundreds 
 of pardons were openly sold to criminals by the Governors. 
 Nearly $600,000 was spent on worn out rice-fields and sand 
 hills, for the relief of negroes. The land was not worth 
 $100,000 ; not a hundred negroes were ever settled on it ; the 
 Committee drew $100,000 more than its appropriation and 
 
 1 Supra, p. 370-2. 
 
 2 Farnham, Life of Parkman, 275. 
 
384 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 never accounted at all for the expenditure of more than a 
 quarter of a million dollars. So much for black philanthropy ! 
 In 1860, the taxable property in South Carolina had been 
 $316,000,000, which had shrunk in 1871 to $184,000,000 ; the 
 taxes had risen, however, from $392,000 to $2,000,000. The 
 valuation had decreased 40% ; the taxes had risen 500% ; and 
 the State debt increased 400%. The taxes were levied by 
 the negroes, of whom scarcely 20% had any property at all 
 and of whom 80% were totally illiterate, and were paid by 
 the whites the vast majority of whom were disfranchised for 
 participation in the War. 
 
 To the Southerners, the worst part was the forcible main 
 tenance of such a regime by the Federal troops, by the Freed- 
 man s Bureau, by negro militia, for the most selfish of polit 
 ical purposes, as they conceived it, the continued supremacy 
 of the Republican Party. If slavery had been anti-democratic 
 and was for that reason alien to the spirit of American insti 
 tutions, what name should be applied to the maintenance of 
 the Republican Party in power by means of ignorance and in 
 capacity supported by fraud and violence in defiance of the 
 expressed will of the Democrats, North and South? D. H. 
 Chamberlain, the white Governor of South Carolina who res 
 cued that State, many times met the Congressional leaders in 
 Washington. No less Northern a periodical than the Atlantic 
 Monthly 3 published his gently worded but crushing arraign 
 ment of Stevens and his colleagues. "Not one of these leaders 
 had seen the South or studied it first hand. Not one of them 
 professed or cared to know more. They had made up their 
 minds once for all and they wished only to push on with 
 their predetermined policy. . . . The personal knowledge of 
 the writer warrants him in stating that eyes were never blinder 
 to facts, minds never more ruthlessly set upon a policy, than 
 were Stevens and Morton on putting the white South under 
 the heel of the black South." It was told of Stevens, and 
 believed to be a characteristic story, that, when informed both 
 applicants for a certain office in the South were thorough ras- 
 
 s Vol. LXXXVII, p. 474. 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 385 
 
 cals, he vociferated, "What do I care for that? Tell me 
 which is our rascal/ On the whole, the men who had really 
 been the backbone of the North during the War did not ap 
 prove of the Congressional policy of Reconstruction. There 
 seems to be little reason to doubt that after 1867 the popular 
 majority at the North was Democratic and thoroughly hostile 
 to Reconstruction. Indeed, this very fact must be appreciated 
 to understand why certain features of the Congressional policy 
 were devised and adopted at all. 
 
 The South was saved by the moderation and real devotion 
 of the Southern whites aided by the Northern Democrats. 
 The methods used were empirical and were discovered almost 
 by accident. To deal with the arrogant negroes and protect 
 the lives and honor of the whites, which the Southern men were 
 afraid to entrust solely to the scattered Federal troops, secret 
 organizations were devised and had their greatest currency 
 and success between 1868 and 1872. Unable to organize pub 
 licly because of the attitude of the authorities at Washington, 
 "it was therefore necessary in order to protect our families 
 from outrage and preserve our own lives to have something 
 that we could regard as a brotherhood, a combination of the 
 best men in the country to act purely in self-defense, to repel 
 attack in case we should be attacked by these people. That 
 was the whole object of this organization," testified General 
 Gordon in later years. 
 
 In 1870, the Freedman s Bureau was abolished, the corps of 
 the army soon after entirely withdrawn, and the artificial sup 
 port of the carpet-baggers and negroes disappeared. Grad 
 ually, too, the whites who had been disqualified for participa 
 tion in the War were qualifying as voters, and, as the negroes 
 were in the numerical majority in only three States, it was 
 clear that the whites would control the other States as soon as 
 they could be reinstated. It was seen, however, that the white 
 vote must be cast for the Democratic party and its candidates. 
 Hence arose the Solid South, a white South based upon the 
 exclusion of the negro from political power. To secure the 
 election of the first white candidates, and to anticipate as 
 

 386 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 much as possible the day when the restoration of the vote to 
 the whole white electorate should entirely place the power 
 f~ In their hands, it was seen that the intimidation of negroes to 
 \ prevent them from voting would be useful, if not actually es- 
 (^sential. The superstitious terror of the negroes for the Ku 
 Klux Klan and similar societies suggested their use to keep 
 enough of them from the polls to allow the whites to succeed 
 in choosing their candidates. Much exaggeration and vilifica 
 tion of the influence and purpose of these mysterious orders 
 has been common and probably many rascals took advantage 
 of the familiar disguises to perpetrate crimes which were 
 wrongly ascribed to the orders. In South Carolina, where the 
 negroes formed a majority of the population, salvation came 
 through the splendid honesty and ability of a white man, 
 elected by the negroes themselves, who turned upon them and, 
 after a hard fight, led the whites to victory. 
 
 The greatest problem lay in the maintenance of the whites 
 in the ascendency, and, in the States where the negroes formed 
 the majority, this could be permanently assured only by the 
 disfranchisement of enough negroes to leave the whites in the 
 majority. It was soon clear that the Fifteenth Amendment 
 was not mandatory: it did not provide that negroes should 
 vote, but that they should not be excluded from the electorate 
 by a constitutional or statutory provision which in express 
 words or by necessary implication excluded them solely on 
 the ground of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 
 Any limitation of the suffrage by educational or property 
 qualifications, applicable to all classes and races, would ef 
 fectually and constitutionally exclude the negroes from the 
 electorate. It was also apparent that the national govern 
 ment was not empowered to investigate the manner in which 
 each State s officials exercised such discretionary authority as 
 might be conferred upon them in applying such statutes to 
 individual cases. If the officials declared the white man liter 
 ate and the black man illiterate in defiance of the facts, there 
 would not be any remedy. The official s right to decide 
 could not be taken from him nor his use of it investigated 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 387 
 
 by Federal authority. If the white man was invariably asked 
 to prove his ability to read by "reading" a short phrase which 
 could be easily learned beforehand, and the negro was re 
 quired to show genuine intelligence, it would be a simple mat 
 ter to qualify even the ignorant whites and exclude all but the 
 educated blacks, for the vast majority of the negroes were ut 
 terly illiterate. By such measures, enforced by such a use of 
 the discretionary authority of the executive, all the Southern 
 States soon reduced the negro electorate to a safe minority. 
 
 Meanwhile, it had become apparent that the severe pressure 
 of circumstances would not permanently prevent vital differ 
 ences of opinion among the whites on other questions of policy 
 than white supremacy, and that soon some method of debat 
 ing other issues among the whites would be imperative to 
 avoid any possible split in their ranks and any consequent loss 
 of the election to the Black Republicans. Then they resorted 
 to the machinery of the Democratic Party. The qualifications 
 for membership were not affected by the Fifteenth Amend 
 ment because the Party was not legally in existence. Within 
 its organization the whites might disagree, debate, and finally 
 reach some decision as to candidates and policies, which they 
 could then make effective at the legal election by a solid vote. 
 The negroes have been excluded from the Democratic Party; 
 they still are a minority of the legal electorate in all the 
 Southern States; and they have thus been effectually robbed 
 of all the real exercise of political power which the humani 
 tarians and politicians sought to give them, but which they 
 were not as a race qualified to use. 
 
 By 1870, all the Southern States had in one way or another 
 been restored to their places in the Union ; by 1877 the whites 
 had recovered control of the State government in all and the 
 period usually known as the Reconstruction was over. In 
 reality, the struggles of the twelve years following the War 
 had merely enabled the Southern whites to remove the worst 
 obstacles sown in the way of the construction of a really new 
 South by the pernicious activity of Congress. The building 
 of the New South did not begin anywhere much before 1870 . 
 
388 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 and in some States not till 1877. Nor has the North in any 
 proper sense been responsible for the making of the new 
 South : the Southerners themselves have solved their own prob 
 lems with the assistance of mighty factors whose operation no 
 one foresaw. 
 
 The Southerners have aided economic forces in solving the 
 economic problems which conditions both before and after the 
 War had created. The insistent cry for more land had been 
 chiefly due to the fact that only the most fertile soil yielded 
 large returns to the crude labor of the slaves and that its 
 virgin productiveness was so soon exhausted that the planters 
 must be constantly clearing new land. Moreover, only land 
 along the rivers was wanted because the river furnished an 
 easy, cheap method of transportation, while the cultivation of 
 the land a few miles away, and in particular of the uplands, 
 required transportation of the crops, the expense of which 
 greatly reduced the amount of profit and prevented competi 
 tion with the river-bottoms. Nor was the quality of the cotton 
 grown outside of the river-bottoms as good. The upland soil 
 lacked certain necessary chemical constituents and the product 
 was less in amount and difficult to prepare for market. 
 Modern scientific agriculture and modern machinery plus the 
 railroad have completely obviated these fundamental diffi 
 culties. It is now possible cheaply to fertilize the fields and 
 crop them year after year; it is possible to till fields never 
 before profitable and to cleanse cheaply by machinery cotton 
 which before the War could not have been used at all. The 
 network of railroad trunk lines, growing constantly through 
 out the South, has put thousands of acres into close contact 
 with the market which were before the War hopelessly isolated. 
 With the introduction of better tools and better methods, of 
 fertilizers and intensive agriculture, a larger crop has been 
 constantly grown with fewer hands. 
 
 On the whole, too, even "unreconstructed" Southerners are 
 compelled to admit that the free negro is a more intelligent 
 and industrious worker than the old slave, that there is to-day 
 less labor wasted than there used to be. The experience of 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 389 
 
 the South since the War has conclusively disproved the Jere 
 miads of 1858 that cotton could not be grown without slaves 
 and that emancipation would destroy the industry.- Indeed, 
 far from interfering with its development, free labor, aided 
 by a great number of other powerful factors, has produced 
 cotton at an even faster rate than before. The old assump 
 tions of profitable cultivation fertile land and cheap labor 
 have been proved true, but experience has shown that virgin 
 soil is not necessarily the most fertile cotton land nor ignorant 
 slave-labor necessarily the cheapest. 
 
 At the same time, the negro has not shown himself as capa 
 ble, industrious, and energetic as the eager humanitarians as 
 sumed he would be once his shackles had been struck off. 
 Men are not changed by legislative fiat nor by the good in 
 tentions of other people. Whether the result of inherent 
 racial deficiencies or of the environment provided by slavery, 
 the negro as a race has not been capable of self-development, 
 and the more intelligent negroes themselves now realize that 
 their fathers were economic as much as legal slaves, and that 
 emancipation did not strike off the economic shackles welded 
 by the negroes own ignorance, laziness, and lack of personal 
 ambition and moral strength. Educational and religious or 
 ganizations have accomplished much and will undoubtedly ac 
 complish proportionately more each decade, but the solution 
 of the negroes difficulties has been found in the exercise by 
 most employers of a sort of patriarchal authority. Nothing 
 else has saved the more superstitious and more ignorant from 
 the clutches of the loan shark, from constant imprisonment 
 for petty offenses, and from chronic beggary and want. It 
 has been necessary to pay the negro in food and clothes be 
 cause he nearly invariably gambled away the money or bought 
 with it valueless and useless trinkets at extortionate prices. 
 Naturally, this situation has permitted the unscrupulous em 
 ployer to exact " contract labor," to create permanent debts 
 at his "truck" store, and terrorize the unfortunate negroes 
 with impossible penalties for trivial crimes. In an infinitely 
 greater number of cases, it has compelled the white employer 
 
390 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 to advance supplies to the negro and his family far in excess 
 of the value of the labor performed and constantly to care 
 for them through sickness and hard times. It should be more 
 generally and more generously admitted that the vast ma 
 jority of Southerners have conscientiously and nobly acquitted 
 themselves of their responsibility toward the negro. At the 
 same time, despite the assistance of the better class of em 
 ployers, between the loan shark, the unscrupulous poor whites 
 often chosen to judgeships and legal offices, thieving agents, 
 and unjust employers, the negroes as a class have enjoyed any 
 thing but ideal economic freedom since 1865 and have in 
 many cases been less contented and less well cared for than 
 the slaves were on the more humane plantations before the 
 ^War. The negro is indeed his own greatest problem. 
 
 Yet, while the Southern sentiment is still strong against any 
 recognition of social equality, the best opinion is now insistent 
 upon the strict enforcement of laws which will ensure even the 
 most ignorant and credulous negroes from exploitation at the 
 hands of the unscrupulous of all sorts, varieties, and shades, 
 and give them actual civil and economic equality with white 
 men of the same capacity. The most serious aspect of the 
 negro problem was and still is the existence of these millions 
 of an alien race compelled by circumstances to live in the 
 midst of the white South. Slavery was no remedy because it 
 meant the perpetuation of the evil. Emancipation was the 
 only possible permanent remedy because it alone could pro 
 vide the negro with the possibilities of unlimited development 
 and change. The only permanent solution will of course 
 be the gradual transformation of the ignorant, shiftless, and 
 superstitious cotton-hand into such intelligent, industrious, 
 capable, colored men, really as well as nominally the equal of 
 the white man in all civil and political pursuits, as have de 
 veloped in some number since the war. The latter are yet 
 only a bare handful and in the nature of things, as normal 
 processes of evolution are slow, will become the majority only 
 in course of generations. Emancipation spelled opportunity, 
 not fulfilment. 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 391 
 
 Again, while emancipation and the War provided oppor 
 tunities, removed artificial obstacles, they did not and could 
 not create the economic forces which have caused so remark 
 able a transformation of the poor white as the years since 
 Reconstruction have seen. Natural forces have been freeing 
 him from his economic slavery by the creation and wide de 
 velopment of diversified industry and of improved agriculture. 
 Cheap steel has meant more railroads, better and cheaper 
 transportation facilities, cheaper machinery, and the possi 
 bility of transporting it cheaply, cheap coal and the certainty 
 of a steady supply for factories operated by steam in loca 
 tions where the lack of water-power and of raw materials had 
 hitherto prevented their development. The factory, spinning 
 and weaving cotton in the South at the source of the supply of 
 cotton and labor, has successfully competed with older 
 Northern and European firms, better organized and with more 
 skilful but higher paid labor. The new agriculture, the use 
 of fertilizers, of selected seed have made again fertile lands 
 long considered to have been worn out. Access to the rail 
 roads has made it possible to market the crop to advantage, 
 and, though cotton is still the great source of income in most 
 Southern States and still prevents the adequate development 
 of agricultural and mineral resources in general, the change 
 for the better is very marked. In this as in every other direc 
 tion the factors solving the Southern problem have been eco 
 nomic and social, not political and legal, the application of 
 science to the fundamental geological difficulties which made 
 the South in 1850 what it was. 
 
 Best of all, the railroads, the telegraph, the press, schools 
 and education are welding the Southern people to each other 
 and to the nation at large. The country is truly interdepend 
 ent for the first time and is realizing more and more that its 
 future is interlocked with that of the nation at large. While 
 the wounds of the War, augmented by the trials of Recon 
 struction, are not yet entirely healed, there are now few, if 
 any, who do not feel themselves Americans and not South 
 erners. 
 
XXIX 
 NATIONAL PROBLEMS 
 
 THE truly fundamental and difficult problems, which had for 
 so many generations caused concern and anxiety to American 
 statesmen and merchants, were finally solved in the decades 
 succeeding the Civil War, but neither the War itself nor any 
 of the political or constitutional developments resultant from 
 it or subsequent to it had more than a subsidiary influence in 
 consummating the settlement. As the problems were them 
 selves economic, the result of the character of the new country, 
 of its people, and of its natural backwardness in develop 
 ment, so the solution was itself the work of economic forces, 
 which solved the problems by literally obviating the economic 
 difficulties out of which they arose. 
 
 The dependence of America upon Europe had colored the 
 whole of Colonial history and had largely shaped political 
 and constitutional events before 1860. Free trade with the 
 West Indies had been the fundamental condition of Colonial 
 economic development and to secure it political and consti 
 tutional relationships had been created or rejected. The dis 
 obedience to the Navigation Acts, the outbreak of the Revolu 
 tion, the War of 1812, the protective tariff, the "American 
 System, and much more had been the direct result of Ameri 
 can economic dependence on Europe. With the development 
 of the cotton-culture, a medium of direct exchange with 
 Europe appeared, and with the concomitant growth of di 
 versified industry in the North and the use of machinery and 
 fertilizers by the West in agriculture, the dependence on 
 European manufactured goods and the lack of a home market 
 for American produce were no longer so pronounced. Be 
 fore 1860 a beginning had been made, but the economic de- 
 
 392 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 393 
 
 velopment of the country since the War finally and decisively 
 freed us from the old economic shackles hitherto binding us 
 to Europe. America and Europe are now fairly interdepend 
 ent. Our " infant industries " have disappeared; the old 
 tariff problem has disappeared with the cessation of the 
 economic dependence whose disastrous effects it was intended 
 to mitigate. The growth of the country, and not the Revo 
 lution, the Civil War, or the tariff, has made us economi 
 cally independent of the rest of the world. 
 
 The second greatest problem in American development, 
 the lack of a medium of exchange between sections of the 
 country, has been similarly solved by the growth of the 
 United States. The disappearance of the problem has ended 
 the internal quarrels in America which were such striking fac 
 tors in 1776, in 1812, and in 1861. One fundamental cause 
 of the difficulty had been the lack of a domestic supply of 
 specie from which or on which a sound currency could be 
 based, for the dependence of the country on Europe prevented 
 us from retaining here enough of the world s supply of the 
 precious metals to serve our purpose. Another basic diffi 
 culty had lain in the existence of highly developed com 
 munities along the coast and of primitive districts in the in 
 terior, the latter being necessarily and inevitably in debt to 
 the former. Thus had grown up debtor and creditor classes 
 in all parts of Colonial America, and debtor and creditor 
 sections in post-revolutionary America, which, as the belt 
 of settlement extended westward, ceased to be a source of 
 discord within each State and produced an alignment of 
 States and then of sections of which the Western were al 
 ways the debtors of the Eastern States or sections. The favor 
 ite remedy for this difficulty of domestic exchange through 
 out American history has been plenty of money, or cheap 
 money, and it has appeared in various guises from the land 
 banks and paper money crazes of Colonial times to the repu 
 diation of debts during the Critical Period and the Green 
 back and Free Silver agitations in 1876 and 1896. Always 
 the problem has been the same: a fundamental difficulty in 
 
394 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 maintaining the equilibrium of exchange between the vari 
 ous parts of the country and consequently a very serious 
 pressure on individuals in the debtor sections the moment 
 an economic crisis like the Panics of 1837, 1873, or 1892 
 existed. It has always been necessary for coin or currency 
 to "flow" from the East to the West and South "to move 
 the crops," and, when during a panic the demand for West 
 ern and Southern products decreases, the scarcity of demand 
 manifests itself usually to the farmer and planter as a 
 scarcity of currency. Hence the widespread belief in the 
 debtor districts in 1873 that enough greenbacks would remedy 
 their particular troubles, and in 1896, that silver coined at a 
 ratio of 16 to 1 would relieve the distress. 
 
 The difficulty is now almost, if not entirely, obviated. In 
 the first place, the discovery of gold in California in 1849, 
 of silver in Nevada shortly after, and of gold in Alaska, 
 has provided the United States with an indigenous supply 
 of specie more than adequate to meet the demands for specie 
 as currency. We now dig out of the ground a commodity 
 which Hamilton had to husband with the greatest care for 
 fear no more w r ould be procurable in case the little he had 
 were hoarded or exported. But the more vital difficulty, the 
 dependence of America upon Europe, the dependence of the 
 West and South upon the East, has been itself fundamentally 
 altered by the increase of wealth and population through 
 out the country and in particular by the rise in the Mississippi 
 Valley of a strong diversified economic life, by the growth of 
 the New South, by the development of the Pacific Coast 
 States. The disappearance of the frontier, the extraordinary 
 increase of population from about thirty-one millions in 
 1860 to seventy-six millions in 1900 and to over one hun 
 dred millions in 1914, the rapid immigration, the distribu 
 tion of land by the government, either free or for nominal 
 payments only, have effectively destroyed the peculiar "fron 
 tier" conditions which in themselves were the most difficult 
 aspects of this particular problem. As the country has be 
 come more and more truly interdependent, the independ- 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 3U5 
 
 ence of each section has become more and more marked and 
 its dependence less and less apparent. To-day, no section is 
 altogether self-sufficing; no section is wholly dependent; all 
 therefore mutually benefit from the constant interchange of 
 commodities. The rate of exchange and the amount of cur 
 rency needed are after all results of the comparison of ac 
 tual values, and such difficulties as America had struggled 
 with were due to fundamental differences in the degree of 
 economic development in various parts of the country which 
 nothing short of fundamental economic forces could remedy. 
 Financial policies and measures like those of Hamilton and 
 Gallatin might obviate some of the worst difficulties or partially 
 mitigate the seriousness of the consequences, but only an actual 
 economic equality between America and Europe and between 
 different parts of the United States could really make the con 
 ditions of foreign and domestic exchange essentially similar. 
 The third problem of magnitude with which American his 
 tory had been concerned was the constitutional and political 
 relationship of individuals to each other, and to the local, 
 State, or central government. It had appeared in various 
 guises and forms: democracy, States sovereignty, nation 
 ality, personal liberty, slavery, and in the crowding corollaries 
 of each and of their interaction and interrelation. The 
 operation of the economic forces making for union and 
 nationality and for the abrogation of local independence and 
 States rights has in no period produced as marked results 
 as in the decades subsequent to the Civil War. The disap 
 pearance of the frontier and of those conditions which had 
 hitherto strongly fostered localism; the rapid attainment of 
 something like contiguity of settlement throughout the coun 
 try by the natural growth of population and by immigration; 
 the increasing economic interdependence of the sections; the 
 absolute dependence of the urban population upon the na 
 tionalization of trade and industry ; all are rapidly erasing the 
 old State lines as boundaries marking vital differences of in 
 terests and ideas. With the cheapness of transportation by 
 rail came an ease of the movement of population and a con- 
 
396 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 stant shifting of individuals from one State to another and 
 from one section to another, which, coupled to immigration, is 
 fast obliterating the racial, religious, and social characteristics 
 hitherto regarded as typical in the older sections and States. 
 The population is becoming homogeneous both in blood and in 
 traditions; sectionalization and segregation are already be 
 coming improbable and even impossible. 
 
 In this work of unifying and equalizing the population, 
 schools, universities, newspapers, magazines have played a 
 conspicuous part. The evident attempt to produce books, 
 papers, and literature which should be acceptable to all in 
 terests, sections, races, and creeds, and the consistent avoid 
 ance of what would be likely to appeal to a part only has had 
 an influence towards nationality and uniformity which is ex 
 ceedingly clear in the present generation of children. Sec 
 tionalism, localism, States sovereignty, traditional notions of 
 class, creed, or race are disappearing with an astonishing 
 rapidity and truly national ideas are taking their place. The 
 growth of the country has given us a national idea of the re 
 lations of individuals to each other, of the individual to his 
 own State, of the States to each other, and to the Federal 
 government. Our old hatred of England has disappeared 
 with the change in our economic condition. The antipathy be 
 tween East, and West, and South is gone because of the new 
 economic interdependence. The abolition of slavery has re 
 moved the only thoroughly undemocratic institution in 
 America and the negro problem is slowly but surely solving it 
 self by economic and educational methods. The difficulties 
 and problems are still great but they are no longer State 
 or sectional; they are in the broadest and truest sense na 
 tional. 
 
 The old problems have disappeared and the very growth 
 which dissipated them has caused new problems, and this time 
 national problems to be solved by the nation as a whole. 
 Those were the problems of growth, these are issues of de 
 velopment; those were of childhood and youth; these are of 
 manhood ; those concerned with the strengthening of the phys- 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 397 
 
 ical body of the nation ; these with the expression of its con 
 science and the development of its corporate mentality. 
 
 We are confronted with a nationalization of industry in the 
 growth since the Civil War of transcontinental railroads, of 
 enormous trusts and combinations controlling production or 
 distribution or both throughout the country of some com 
 modity as important to the welfare of the people as steel, beef, 
 or oil. We must understand the attempt of every manu 
 facturer to reach a national market and so to standardize and 
 make uniform his product as to meet the demand in all parts 
 of the country. We have also seen the national political 
 parties and national political issues completely dominate, as 
 probably never before, local, municipal and State parties and 
 policies. The new nationalized industry has influenced the 
 new national politics and parties, and this vast wealth cen 
 tralized in a few hands, these organizations of thousands of 
 men controlled by railroads and trusts, have not unnaturally 
 exerted great influence in politics, resulting, as many believe, < 
 in corruption and wrong. With power and wealth has come 
 national ambition and a desire for expansion. The United 
 States has acquired the Philippines and Porto Rico, is build 
 ing the Panama Canal, and has now so expanded the Monroe 
 Doctrine as to claim a right of interference (and perhaps con 
 trol) in the Central and South American States, which some 
 believe to portend political domination of the Western Hemi 
 sphere. The new nation is at work as a nation, and thinking, 
 feeling, aspiring as a nation. In the new reform movements, 
 in the widespread protests against graft and corruption, in the 
 denunciation of the white-slave trade, we hear the national 
 conscience speaking. By writing, speaking, organizing, we 
 are attempting to arrive at something like a national con 
 sensus of opinion as to the problems, their causes, and the 
 best remedies. 
 
 But this stupendous growth of the country in wealth and 
 in population, this nationalization of industry, of politics, of 
 education, of literature, of reform, has vitally changed every 
 aspect of American life as Hamilton, Jefferson, and Jackson 
 
398 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 knew it. It has altered beyond recognition every fundamental 
 factor in the structure of democracy as they built it and has 
 created a problem of living of which even the basic condi 
 tions are different. American democracy is not what it was 
 meant to be because America is no longer what it was in the 
 times of Jefferson and Jackson. 
 
 The old theoretical assumptions, from which were derived 
 a belief in the adequacy of democracy to govern and admin 
 ister efficiently the community s affairs, premised the pos 
 session by the electorate of sufficient ability to pass upon the 
 qualifications of candidates and upon the expediency and 
 justice of measures. Jackson indeed based manhood suffrage 
 and the reign of the people upon a deep-rooted faith in the 
 simplicity of governmental issues. It was to him therefore 
 a truism that every man in the community possessed the polit 
 ical intelligence requisite for a just decision about measures 
 or for holding offices, to formulate or execute them. On the 
 whole, their observation of conditions taught the early demo 
 crats that government was no peculiarly difficult art to be per 
 formed by experts, but an obviously simple matter of which 
 every man was capable as soon as he became of age. Prob 
 lems were really few and simple in 1787 and had not greatly 
 changed in 1830; the average man did understand them and 
 did know the candidates nominated for office in the rela 
 tively small agricultural community in which he lived. The 
 conditions were those under which democracy works best, and 
 from the conditions the theorists drew the premises on which 
 they built the larger structure of central government. But 
 they naturally did not perceive the effect which the constant 
 doubling of the population generation after generation has 
 had on the electorate and on administrative issues. It has be 
 come almost impossible for a well-educated public-spirited citi 
 zen to vote intelligently, as Jefferson and Jackson assumed as 
 a matter of course he would, from his own knowledge of candi 
 dates and issues. The premises of democracy are no longer 
 true : government is now a difficult art and the average l well- 
 educated" man does not normally possess the information or 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 200 
 
 experience needed to qualify him either to participate in elec 
 tions or to hold office. 
 
 As the country has grown in size, as States have multiplied, 
 as cities have swollen in size till Greater New York now con 
 tains more people than the whole of America held in 1789, 
 the problems thrust upon State and municipal governments 
 have changed utterly in character from those familiar in 
 1830. The every-day work of city government sanitation, 
 water, sewage, lighting can be adequately performed only 
 by the application of scientific knowledge by experts and by 
 the use of administrative skill of a high order in organizing 
 the work of thousands of men, whose daily cooperation in 
 tasks most men performed for themselves in 1830 is now a pre 
 requisite of public health and safety. City problems have be 
 come engineering difficulties which even experts do not always 
 successfully handle ; State problems require a detailed knowl 
 edge of conditions in a large community which no individual 
 normally possesses at all; and national issues like the tariff 
 and the trusts are so complex and difficult that years of study 
 and experience are necessary even to comprehend the problem 
 itself. Though education has spread wider and wider 
 throughout the community, though the standard has risen with 
 each generation of school children, yet the growth of the com 
 munity has been robbing the electorate bit by bit of that 
 ability to understand conditions and of that familiarity with 
 candidates which were the foundations on which democratic 
 government was built. The average man cannot of his own 
 knowledge judge measures or select from among the candi 
 dates nominated. The mere size of the community has made 
 personal information about its needs or its members impos 
 sible for the vast majority. Upon this fact have been based 
 the national and State parties to judge measures and select 
 candidates for the electorate. 
 
 The old concept of democracy adequately satisfied the indi 
 vidual s craving for a share in the direction of affairs be 
 cause the notion of one man, one vote, rested in 1830 upon an 
 actual substantial equality of ability, education, and wealth. 
 
400 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 Something like an aristocracy of wealth had appeared along 
 the seaboard in Colonial times, had been destroyed by the 
 Revolution, and an equality of fortunes created. In the 
 South, slavery and the cotton-culture produced another un 
 democratic social and political oligarchy which was destroyed 
 by the Civil War. During the last generation has appeared 
 once more a wealthy class, whose personnel constantly changes, 
 but whose existence is once more creating an oligarchy of 
 property whose influence on social life in the larger cities and 
 in national business and in politics is only too clearly great. 
 "Big business " is contrary to the principles of Jacksonian 
 democracy. The justice of assigning each individual only one 
 vote depended upon an essential identity of individual inter 
 ests, and huge aggregations of capital, a radical divergence of 
 interests between labor and capital, are contrary to the old 
 premises of democracy. The facts do not coincide with the 
 theory; a man s legal rights clash with his economic status. 
 The vast majority of the electorate are to-day non-taxpayers, 
 but they control the appropriation and assessment of taxes. 
 A majority of the electorate are in the ranks of labor. Shall 
 the small minority which capital and the taxpayers form be 
 contented with an influence in the affairs of the community 
 commensurate with the count of heads? The magnate feels 
 that preeminent ability and phenomenally large economic in 
 terests affected by the policy of the State entitle him to more 
 consideration in politics than is accorded a man who has in 
 the world at large neither influence, interest, nor position. 
 Shall the numerical majority already in control of the State 
 refrain from using the administrative, legislative, and judicial 
 branches of the government to further its aims in the economic 
 and social war with capital ? 
 
 The danger of the situation lies in the fact that neither side 
 can claim the support of the original democratic premises. 
 If these assumed an essential equality of wealth, ability, and 
 social position, they also founded universal suffrage on the 
 assumption that the property of the numerical majority was 
 greater in amount than that of the minority; and that the 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 401 
 
 almost universal possession of taxable property (a literal fact 
 in 1830) would give practically every one a direct interest in 
 avoiding extravagance and guarding against corruption. 
 Both are no longer true. Not only has the usabK- capital of 
 the community become concentrated in a few hands, theoreti 
 cally entitled by reason of their scanty numbers to no political 
 consideration at all, but the control of the political organs of 
 the community lies necessarily in the hands of those who as 
 non-taxpayers, non-property owners, have no direct interest 
 whatever in an economical, efficient utilization of the resources 
 of the country. What seemed the worst of all possible even 
 tualities to the fathers of American democracy has actually 
 come to pass the control of the State is now in the hands of 
 those who have no immediate financial interest in its continued; 
 existence or proper administration. Every man originally re-j 
 ceived a share in the management of affairs because he pos 
 sessed a tangible financial interest in their right conduct. 
 The growth of the industrial fabric, of trusts and railroads, 
 the growth of cities, have literally destroyed that vital premise 
 of democracy. 
 
 Hence we have seen attempts, on the whole, successful, by 
 the minority chiefly interested in the good conduct of affairs, 
 to exert through party machinery and subservient officials 
 and legislatures more influence on the policies of the State and 
 the daily conduct of affairs than the democratic tenet of 
 equality entitles them to exercise. This minority has denied 
 the justice and equity of permitting the numerical majority 
 to decide great issues, involving the status of property and in 
 vestments, in accordance with what the majority has con 
 ceived to be its particular interest, where its interest obviously 
 clashed with theirs. On the other hand, the majority have 
 inveighed against the existence of large aggregations of capi 
 tal as " illegal," meaning of course undemocratic, and have 
 viewed as corruption and wrongdoing the attempts of capital 
 ists to exert an influence upon the affairs of the State com 
 mensurate with the size of their interests. Here the difficulty 
 lies not in the existence of a battle between prejudice and 
 
402 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 honesty, between democracy and oligarchy, but in a clash of 
 interests and a war of prejudices. Both minority and ma 
 jority are prejudiced; each is anxious to advance its interests 
 to the exclusion of the other; neither is unprejudiced or dis 
 interested; to each political power in the other s hands seems 
 a menace to its own existence. 
 
 The fundamental difficulty lies in the fact that the economic 
 power in the community no longer rests with those who 
 nominally control the state; the fundamental assumption of 
 democracy was that the two would naturally be in the same 
 hands. Unquestionably, some satisfactory decision of this 
 oldest of governmental issues is the most important question 
 before the nation to-day. Because it involves of necessity all 
 possible relations between man and man, it concerns not only 
 the happiness of the community but its very existence. It is 
 first and foremost a question of the relation of undoubted 
 economic forces to the political fabric and calls for an ad 
 justment of constitutions and theories to a clash of interests 
 which is as old as the Pyramids and as difficult of solution as 
 the Kiddle of the Sphinx. The real question to be debated 
 is whether property and wealth as such have a right to any 
 influence in a democratic community, whether efficiency, 
 ability, and the undoubted control of the physical resources 
 of the country are to count for naught in deciding the more 
 immediate issues before the community. It is a question as 
 broad as the conception of morality, as vital as the possession 
 of individual liberty, as deep as the foundations of civil life. 
 
 As the result of these changes and as the necessary ideas 
 upon which any solution must be based, we see emerging grad 
 ually various new notions of the purpose and powers of the 
 existing parts of the constitutional fabric. Where Jefferson 
 looked upon government as a negative force which would be 
 more useful the less it interfered with the life of the indi 
 vidual, the present tendency is to insist upon the positive, 
 directive, formative influence the state may exert upon the 
 lives of its citizens. We are agitating for corrective and regu 
 lative legislation on every conceivable subject from the public 
 
NATIONAL PROBLEMS 403 
 
 health and the public morals to the hours of labor and the 
 minimum wage. The assistance of the community is to be 
 invoked to settle all the perplexed issues between individuals 
 or between groups of individuals. Gradually, too, we find the 
 authority of the central government gaining in the public esti 
 mation and believed to possess more adequate powers and to 
 be better able than State or city to deal efficiently and 
 promptly with most problems. The great increase of govern 
 mental authority, which the era of regulation demands, will 
 apparently accrue almost entirely to the Federal government, 
 to the exclusion of State and local governments. And it will, 
 furthermore, break another precedent of democracy and ac 
 crue to the executive rather than to the legislature. Com 
 mission government, expert advice, autocratic power in the 
 hands of the mayor have already robbed the municipal legis 
 latures of prominence and now the State legislature and Con 
 gress seem likely to lose both power and prestige in their 
 turn. 
 
 In still another point, the new democracy is the antithesis 
 of the old. Jefferson and Jackson built their society on the 
 individual, for whose welfare the state itself existed, and who 
 had perfect freedom to follow his own desires or advantage, 
 so far as the law did not explicitly restrain him nor some other 
 individual sue him successfully in the courts. The welfare of 
 the majority of individuals was the highest aim of state 
 craft ; the policy of the state should be based on the views and 
 interests of the majority which cared to vote at the polls ; the 
 minority had no rights as against the majority, nor the com 
 munity as a whole against the individual. This excessive in 
 dividualism, which in an agricultural community was afforded 
 few chances for harm, found in the new economic developments 
 astounding opportunities for self-aggrandizement at the ex 
 pense of other individuals and of the state at large. To rob the 
 nation of lands and mineral rights, to rob posterity of its for 
 ests and water privileges, to burden posterity with huge debts, 
 to destroy competition with the aid of the tariff, all was easily 
 sanctioned by the notion that the community had no rights as 
 
404 THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 against individuals because its rights were merely the sum of 
 theirs. We have come to see that the truly national ideal, the 
 truly democratic ideal, is the good of the whole people and 
 that only by the fullest protection of the rights of the minority 
 and of that greater entity, the State itself, can a great and free 
 people attain in the highest degree, " Liberty and Union, now 
 and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, Jotfn, 56, 97, 98, 113, 114, 
 117, 120, 126, 141, 180, 194. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 96-99, 101, 179. 
 
 Anti-Slavery, rise of, 245-6; com 
 pared with pro-slavery argu 
 ment, 246-8; relation to the 
 outbreak of war in 1861, 246; 
 escaping slaves aided by advo 
 cates of, 264-5. 
 
 Armada, significance in American 
 History of defeat of, 18-19. 
 
 Balboa, 12. 
 
 Boston, settlement of, 25; in co 
 lonial times, 50-54, 56, 62-7; 
 in the Revolution, 93, 94, 96- 
 106. 
 
 Brown, John, in Kansas, 273; raid 
 of, 280-1. 
 
 Bunker Hill, battle of, 94, 97, 98, 
 104-106, 137. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., in the War of 
 1812, 206; views upon conflict 
 ing interests of sections, 215; 
 Exposition of, 221-2; democratic 
 ideas of, 234; against Compro 
 mise in 1850, 267; counsels war 
 with the North, 266, 289 and 
 note, 295; death of, 268. 
 
 Canada, French colonies in, 74-6; 
 results of conquest of by the 
 English, 78-9; attempts to an 
 nex to United States, 199 and 
 note, 206 ; boundary settled with 
 United States, 262. 
 
 Capitalists, part played by in col 
 onization, 20; origin of in 
 colonial America, 43-4; at 
 tacked during Revolution, 95-6, 
 111-116; difficulties of during 
 
 Critical Period, 140-5, 152-7; 
 support strong central govern 
 ment, 1787-90, 160, 184-5, 196- 
 7; support protective tariff, 
 215-219, 221; alone profit from 
 slavery at South, 241-5; 
 strength of at the North due to 
 manufactures, 249-250; effects 
 of Civil War upon, 350-9; effects 
 of nationalization of industry 
 upon, 399-403. 
 
 Civil War, 1861-65, place in Amer 
 ican History of, 9-10, 18; fun 
 damental causes of, 282-6; 
 immediate causes of, 284-296; 
 outbreak of, 297-307; military 
 aspects of, 308-316; why won 
 by the North, 317-339; results 
 of, 340-359; results on the 
 North, 340-351; on economic 
 condition of the South. 351-9. 
 
 Clay, Henry, in War of 1812, 206; 
 responsible for the "American 
 System," 216-218; on union in 
 1820, 220; on elections of 1824 
 and 1832, 232-4; creator of leg 
 islative system in House of Rep 
 resentatives, 236-7; on slavery 
 in border States, 244; on Com 
 promise of 1850, 267; death of, 
 268. 
 
 Colonists, character of, Spanish, 
 13-14; French, 16; English, 26, 
 33-7; Dutch, 27-8. 
 
 Columbus, 11, 17. 
 
 Commerce, colonial, 38-44, 73, 81- 
 4, 93; after the Revolution, 
 152-5; interstate commerce af 
 ter 1783, 155-6; foreign com 
 merce after 1783, 163-4, 183, 
 196-200, 205, 211-216. 
 407 
 
408 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Committees of Correspondence, 97- 
 104, 107-8, 114-116. 
 
 Companies, joint-stock or trading, 
 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 50-5. 
 
 Compromise, Missouri, 218-220, 
 259, 270, 271, 274; on tariff and 
 Bank, 227-228; of 1850, 262-9; 
 attempts in 1860 and 1861, 299- 
 302; meaning of in American 
 History, 284-7. 
 
 Concord, battle of, 103-4, 124, 137. 
 
 Confederacy, Southern, early pro 
 posals of, 223, 266, 282-4; 
 causes of formation of in 1860, 
 284-296; formation of, 297-9; 
 negotiates with United States 
 government in 1861, 303-4; mili 
 tary aspects of war with North, 
 308-316; why defeated in, 317- 
 339; administrative weaknesses 
 of, 324-5, 326-9 ; economic weak 
 ness of, 325-6; financial mis 
 management of, 329-331. 
 
 Confederation, government under 
 the Articles of, 122, 147, 148, 
 159-162, 196. 
 
 Constitution, causes of its adop 
 tion, 116, 145-167; precedent 
 for the form of, 120, 168; pro 
 visions of, 168-179; adoption of, 
 179-181; interpretation of in 
 1830, 223-7; expansion of, 1789- 
 1829, 229-239; made a national 
 bond by Civil War, 340-2, 345. 
 
 Cotton, beginning of production 
 of, 212-213; growth of culture 
 of, 241-5; method of cultivation 
 of, 242, 255; creates new inter 
 est in western lands, 243-4, 255, 
 257 ; extension of territory de 
 manded, 257-260, 262-4, 267, 
 270-271, 286-8; relation of to 
 secession in 1860, 292-4, 317; 
 why it did not decide the Civil 
 War in favor of the South, 322- 
 4; results of the Civil War upon 
 the culture of, 351-3, 372-3, 
 388-9, 391. 
 Creditor class, origin of, 43^4; in 
 
 Revolution, 95-6, 111-116; in 
 Critical Period, 140-5, 152-7, 
 160; after the adoption of the 
 Constitution, 184-5, 196-7. 
 Currency Problem, colonial, 82; 
 during Critical Period, 142-4, 
 149, 151, 152, 156, 157, 163; 
 Hamilton s solution of, 188-190; 
 Jacksonian solution of, 227-8; 
 at South during the Civil War, 
 329-331; after Civil War, 362, 
 381; final solution of, 393-5. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 266, 268; on 
 causes of the Civil War, 284-5, 
 294; election as President of the 
 Confederacy, 298; as President, 
 304, 323, 324, 327-9, 331-3. 
 
 Debtor class, origin of, 43-4; in 
 Revolution, 95-6, 111-116; in 
 Critical Period, 140-5, 152-7, 
 159-160. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, a 
 statement of existing fact, 55, 
 118-119; passage of, 117-118. 
 
 Democracy colonial, 45-58; in 
 1787, 169-179; Jeffersonian, 195, 
 229, 230, 234-5, 238; Webster 
 on, 225-7, 235-6; Jacksonian, 
 229, 230, 234-5, 238; develop 
 ment of, 1789-1850, 229-239; ef 
 fect of immigration upon, 238, 
 397-9; effect of nationalization 
 of industry upon, 399-402; new 
 aspects of, 402-404. 
 
 Democratic Party, against Civil 
 War at the North, 337-8; its 
 attitude on Reconstruction, 376, 
 381, 384, 385; at the South after 
 Reconstruction, 3j|f-388. 
 
 Dickinson, John, 93*4. 
 
 Douglas, S. A., 268; on Kansas, 
 270, 272, 274 and note; debates 
 with Lincoln, 277-9; supports 
 Federal government, 1861, 305. 
 
 Dred Scott Case, 265, 275-7. 
 
 Economic and geographical influ 
 ences on history of the United 
 
INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 States, on colonial history, 5, 
 26, 37, 38, 43, 44, 72; on the 
 Revolution, 93, 111-114, 131- 
 139; on the formation of the 
 Constitution, 158-166; on the 
 War of 1812, 206; explain dif 
 ferences between the sections in 
 1860, 252-5, 284-5; influence of 
 on the Civil War, 308-316, 322- 
 3, 352-4; make for nationality, 
 347-350, 395-6. 
 
 Emancipation of the Negro, agita 
 tion for, 245-6, 300, 321; procla 
 mation of, 321, 354-6; result of 
 upon Reconstruction, 361, 363, 
 366, 370-4, 382-6; from eco 
 nomic bondage, 388-390. 
 
 Emigration, causes of European, 
 19-22, 24-5, 33-37. 
 
 Exploration of North America, in 
 centive to, 1-4; by Spanish, 11- 
 16; by French, 16; by English, 
 16-18, 21-26. 
 
 Fisheries, 29; colonies excluded 
 from in 1775, 102; after 1783, 
 148, 151, 153, 159, 197, 201-2. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, biography 
 and character, 59-60; in the 
 Revolution, 64, 92-3, 113, 120-2, 
 131, 140, 149, 171, 181. 
 
 French Revolution, influence of on 
 the history of the United States, 
 183, 193, 197-9. 
 
 French colonies, causes of weak 
 ness of, 16, 74, 75; result of cap 
 ture of by English, 74, 76. 
 
 Fur-trade, 25, 29, 35, 258. 
 
 Geographical influences on United 
 States history, see Economic In 
 fluences, etc. 
 
 George III, 64, 77, 83, 84, 90, 93, 
 100, 101, 109, 129-130. 
 
 Grant, U. S., as General, 314-316, 
 333, 337-8; as President, 381. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, on vices of 
 the Confederation, 160; on the 
 
 Constitution, 168, 178, 180; es 
 tablishes new administration, 
 182-192; later years of, 193, 194 
 208. 
 
 Hayne, R. Y., debate with Webster, 
 223-4. 
 
 Huguenots, 16, 22. 
 
 Independence, growth of idea of, 
 94, 96, 106-118; Declaration of. 
 see Declaration. 
 
 Indians, condition of in Sixteenth 
 Century, 14-15; treatment ol by 
 Spaniards, 15; relations of Eng 
 lish with, 23, 26-7, 76-7; rela 
 tions of to United States, 258, 
 271. 
 
 Internal Improvements, demanded 
 by the West, 214-215, 220-221, 
 227. 
 
 Iroquois, 14, 16, 27, 29, 74, 75. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, at New Orleans, 
 210; favors the Union, 226-7; 
 democratic ideas of, 229, 230, 
 238; in campaigns of 1824 and 
 1828, 232-4. 
 
 Jamestown, settlement of, 11, 23, 
 28. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 65, 84, 87, US, 
 177; life and personality, 193- 
 4; ideas of, 195; as President, 
 204, 205, 207, 230. 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Crime 
 against Kansas, 270-^1. 
 
 Lee, Robert E., 309, 311, 314-316, 
 324, 328, 333. 
 
 Lewis and Clark expedition, 17. 
 
 Lexington, battle of, 103-4, 107, 
 124. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, debates with 
 Douglas, 277-9; election of, in 
 1860, 296; on causes of the Civil 
 War, 285; on the object of the 
 War, 321; as President, 302- 
 306, 319, 334-9; the father of 
 
410 
 
 INDEX 
 
 American Nationality, 340, 344- 
 5; influence of the assassination 
 of, 358; Reconstruction policy 
 of, 366-7; quoted, 8, 9, 322, 341, 
 347-8, 360. 
 
 Louisiana, Purchase of, 38, 203- 
 205, 208, 218-219, 259, 262. 
 
 Loyalists, in the Revolution, 92-3, 
 100-101, 106-108, 112, 114-116, 
 154. 
 
 Madison, James, 150, 180, 190, 
 282. 
 
 Magellan, 12. 
 
 Manufactures, in colonial period, 
 38; during War of 1812, 213- 
 214; after War of 1812, 211, 
 212, 215-218, 248-251; policy of 
 protection of adopted, 215-218 1 , 
 221; statistics of in 1860, North 
 and South, 291-292; effect of 
 Civil War upon at North, 318- 
 320; at South, 391; nationaliza 
 tion of, 397. 
 
 Marshall, John, Chief Justice, 178, 
 194, 237-8. 
 
 Massachusetts, founding of, 25; 
 origin of town and state gov 
 ernment in, 46-8, 50-4, 56; 
 States sovereignty in, 62-4, 65- 
 7; opposition to Navigation 
 Acts, 68-9; in the Revolution, 
 96-106, 107; in the Critical 
 Period, 158, 180; in the Civil 
 War, 305-6. 
 
 Mexican War, 1846, 257-262. 
 
 Missouri Compromise, 1820, 218- 
 220, 259, 270-271, 274. 
 
 Nationality, American, the essence 
 of American history lies in the 
 achieving of, 5, 6; slowness of 
 attainment, 7, 8; no fundamen 
 tal obstacles to, 55; foundations 
 of in independence laid by 
 Washington, 59; strength of the 
 sentiment against, in 1760, 71- 
 2; in 1775, 92, 125-7; in Crit 
 ical Period, 144-8, 170-1; in 
 
 1787, 190-2; in 1812-14, 207- 
 210; in 1819-20, 219-220; in 
 1824-32, 223-6; adopted as basis 
 of Constitution, 172-4, 179; 
 Webster, the prophet of, 225-7, 
 235-6 ; subconscious beginnings 
 of, 1830-60, 239-240; belief in 
 at the North a great factor in 
 1860, 301; "created" by the 
 Civil War, 340-350; Lincoln s 
 relation to, 340, 344-5; geo 
 graphical forces making for, 
 347-350; Lincoln s appreciation 
 of, 347-8 1 notes; Reconstruction 
 last obstacle to, 365, 387-8; 
 present problems of, 396-404. 
 
 Navigation Acts, in colonial times, 
 41, 42, 68, 73, 78; probable re 
 sults in 1765 of enforcement of, 
 81-4; enforcement of after 1783, 
 153-5, 199, 205. 
 
 Negro, Problem of, during Recon 
 struction, 361, 363, 366, 370-4, 
 382-6 ; since Reconstruction, 
 388-390. See also Slavery, 
 Slave-Trade, Cotton. 
 
 New Amsterdam, 27-8. 
 
 New England, settlement of, 24-6; 
 reasons for permanence of, 26- 
 30; plans secession, 1804-1815, 
 202-203, 207-210. 
 
 North, The, national position of 
 in 1861, 9; beginning of cleft 
 with the South, 159, 282-3; at 
 titude towards tariff, 215-218, 
 221; attitude towards slavery, 
 246-8, 269 ; development of man 
 ufactures in, 248-51; influence 
 of geographical conditions upon, 
 252-5, 256 ; attitude towards the 
 South and slavery, 246-8 1 , 266- 
 281; compared with the South 
 in 1860, 290-4; stands for union 
 in 1861, 301-2, 305-6; party at 
 in favor of the South in 1861, 
 301, 303-4, 334-5; war with the 
 Confederacy, 308-316; why vic 
 torious, 317-339; economic ef 
 fects of War upon, 318-20, 339, 
 
INDEX 
 
 411 
 
 350-1; results of War upon, 
 340-351; attitude towards Re 
 construction, 358-60, 364, 366, 
 371. 
 
 Nullification, anti-national, 8, 146- 
 8, 161-2, 201-2, 205, 208-9, 219- 
 220, 223-8, 235-6. 
 
 People, American, meaning of their 
 history, 1-10; relation of the 
 people to the nation, 5-6; char 
 acter of in 1787, 169-72; Con 
 stitution makes sovereign, 172- 
 76; Constitution places checks 
 on power of, 176-9; Webster 
 proves that Constitution de 
 clares sovereign, 225-7, 235-6; 
 character of in 1840, 240; effect 
 of Civil War upon, 344-7, 349, 
 353, 355. 
 
 Pilgrims, 24-5, 28. 
 
 Population, growth of, 32, 140, 
 162, 290-1; effect on democracy, 
 45-6, 48-54, 238, 397-8. 
 
 Railroads, influence of in develop 
 ment of country before 1860, 
 249-252; influence on conduct of 
 Civil War, 310, 313-314; influ 
 ence in deciding Civil War, 318, 
 321, 325-6; as nationalizers, 
 349-50; nationalization of, 397. 
 
 Reconstruction, problem of, 358- 
 366; Presidential Reconstruc 
 tion, 366-8; causes of Congres 
 sional, 369-376; measures of 
 Congressional, 376-381 ; attitude 
 of North towards, 358-60, 364, 
 366, 371; attitude of South to 
 wards, 367, 373-6, 381-6; re 
 sults of on South, 381-6; last 
 obstacle in way of nationality, 
 365. 
 
 Representation, ideas of in Amer 
 ica and England contrasted, 88- 
 9; progress of ideas about in 
 America, 175, 234, 238, 281, 
 382-7. 
 
 Republican Party, formation of, 
 
 275; attitude of in 1861, 302; 
 result of winning of War upon, 
 358-9, 364, 369, 375-6; Con 
 gressional Reconstruction in 
 tended to secure supremacy of, 
 375-8, 381-2, 384-5; at the 
 South during Reconstruction, 
 382-7. 
 
 Revolution, causes of, 31-2, 38, 45, 
 56-8, 73-91; outbreak of, 92- 
 105; problem of organization 
 during, 106-122; why we won, 
 123-139; lack of popular sup 
 port for, 106-116, 125-7, 140-2; 
 results of, 140-150. 
 
 Secession, anti-national, 8; in 
 West, 1786-1803, 202; in Con 
 stitutional Convention, 282-4 ; 
 in Virginia, 1789, 283; in New 
 England, 1804-1815, 202-3, 207- 
 210, 284; discussion of, 1819- 
 20, 220, 284; at the South, 1828, 
 223-7; at the South, 1848-60, 
 266-7, 295-6; causes of in 1860- 
 61, 282-294; relation of to slav 
 ery, 284-290; consummation of, 
 1861, 297-9; effect of on Recon 
 struction, 366-7. 
 
 Seward, W. H., 267-8, 303-4, 337. 
 
 Silver, from Peru, a cause of the 
 colonization of America, 13, 20; 
 from Nevada, helps solution of 
 currency problem, 394; Free Sil 
 ver agitation, 395. 
 
 Slave-trade, in colonial times, 40, 
 59; revival of urged from 1857- 
 9, 260-1, 280; in District of Co 
 lumbia, 265-7. 
 
 Slavery, in colonial times, 40, 49; 
 influence of cotton upon, 213, 
 218, 241-5; extension of mooted, 
 218, 243-4, 257-268; argument 
 for extension of, 257-260, 263, 
 270-1 ; argument against exten 
 sion of, 261, 264, 269-270, 277- 
 9; Pro- and Anti-slavery views 
 compared, 245-8; fugitive slaves, 
 
412 
 
 INDEX 
 
 264-5 ; geographical influences 
 encouraging extension of, 252-6; 
 Lincoln s views on, 277-9; con 
 nection with secession, 246, 284- 
 290; Confederacy based on, 299; 
 attempts to compromise difficul 
 ties on, 1861, 299-302; results 
 of the War upon, 351-3; abol 
 ished as undemocratic, 354; 
 abolition of, 321, 354-6, 368. 
 
 Smith, Captain John, 23. 
 
 Spanish, exploration and coloniza 
 tion by, 4-5, 11-16. 
 
 Smuggling trade with the West 
 Indies, 42-3, 78-9, 81-4, 152-5. 
 
 South, The, position in 1861 anti- 
 national, 8-9; beginning of cleft 
 with the North, 159, 282-3; 
 origin of "peculiar institutions" 
 of, 212-213, 215, 218, 219; real 
 difficulties of economic, 222, 
 322-6, 351-4, 388-391; effect of 
 cotton and slavery on, 244-5, 
 351-4; influence of fundamental 
 geographical conditions upon, 
 252-5; attitude towards the 
 North and secession, 1848-60, 
 266, 268-296; compared with 
 the North in 1860, 290-4; se 
 cedes in 1S61, 297-9; party fa 
 voring union at, 301, 303-4, 339; 
 war with the North, 308-316; 
 why defeated in, 317-339; re 
 sults of Civil War upon, 340- 
 357; reconstruction of, 360-381; 
 results of Reconstruction upon, 
 382-7; solution of economic 
 problems of, 388-391. 
 
 Stamp Act, 82-4. 
 
 State governments, origin of, 50- 
 58; new Revolutionary constitu 
 tions for, 119-120; part played 
 by in Revolution, 116-119; in 
 Critical Period, 144-151, 155- 
 158, 162-3; refunding debts of, 
 186; in War of 1812, 207-210; 
 relation of to Federal govern 
 ment discussed by Webster and 
 Hayne, 223-7; new democracy 
 
 in, 1830-60, 229-239. See also 
 States sovereignty. 
 
 States sovereignty, anti-national, 
 8-9; in colonial times, 61-72; 
 before the Revolution, 79-80, 
 87-8, 92; during the Revolu 
 tion, 108, 116-119; in Critical 
 Period, 144-8, 160-2; Constitu 
 tion intended to abolish, 172-4, 
 179; belief in, about 1800, 190- 
 3; 1S04-15, 202,, 203, 207-210, 
 219 note; discussion of by 
 Hayne and Webster, 223-8, 235- 
 6; geographical factors favor 
 ing, 255-6, 348-9, 353; belief 
 in at South, 1850-60, 268; rela 
 tion to secession, 284-6, 291; 
 party at the North in favor of, 
 1861, 294, 303-4; Confederate 
 constitution establishes, 298 ; 
 Confederate government in 
 fringes, 331-3; destroyed by the 
 Civil War, 340-350; during Re 
 construction, 361-2, 366-7, 370- 
 1, 378; final disappearance of 
 probable, 395-6. 
 
 Suffrage, limited in 1787, 89, 175; 
 manhood by 1840, 234, 238; ne 
 gro, 381-7. 
 
 Sumter, Fort, firing on the casus 
 belli in 1861, 285, 304-5, 307. 
 
 Tariff, 38, 187; origin of protective 
 tariff, 215-218, 221; Southern 
 opinion of, 221-3; Compromise 
 tariff, 227; imposed by Confed 
 erate government, 331. 
 
 Tobacco, in Virginia, 29; method 
 of cultivation, 48 -9. 
 
 Union, schemes for in colonial 
 times, 69-71; idea of during the 
 Revolution, 92, 106-122; in Crit 
 ical Period, 145-151; forces 
 working for, 1783-7, 158-166; 
 forces working against, 1804- 
 1815, 202-3, 207-210; its mean 
 ing and value discussed, 1815- 
 1848, 219-220, 223-6; De Toe- 
 
INDEX 
 
 413 
 
 queville on, 226; sentiment re 
 garding at South, 1848-60, 266, 
 268-296; sentiment regarding 
 at the North, 1848-60, 267-296; 
 North stands for in 1861, 301, 
 302, 305-6; party at South in 
 favor of, 1861, 301, 303-4, 334- 
 8; Civil War makes adhesion to 
 universal, 340-350; Reconstruc 
 tion last obstacle to, 365, 387-8. 
 United States, place of its history 
 in universal "history, 1; in Eu 
 ropean history, 2; achieving of 
 nationality chief fact in the his 
 tory of, 5; definition of history 
 of, 18. 
 
 Virginia, settlement of, 22-4; rea 
 sons for permanence of, 26-30; 
 land claims of, 164-6; opposi 
 tion to Constitution in, 179, 
 180, 283; Resolutions of 1798, 
 202; on Compromise of 1850, 
 266; secession of, 306; cam 
 paigns in, 1861-65, 308-311, 
 314-316. 
 
 War of 1812, causes of, 196-206; 
 why United States was defeated 
 in, 206-7; results of, 211-218; 
 attitude of New England to 
 wards, 202-3, 207-210. 
 
 Washington, George, early life and 
 character, 58-9; in the Revolu 
 tion, 109, 113, 117, 121-139, 
 190; as President, 180-2; de 
 scription by Ames, 181; quoted, 
 
 6, 110, 121, 124-139, 141, 145, 
 149, 150, 157, 162, 181, 182. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, in the War of 
 1812, 206; "1830 Speech," 225- 
 7; Prophet of American Nation 
 ality, 225-7, 235-6, 345; on the 
 Mexican War, 261 ; on the Com 
 promise of 1850, 267; death of, 
 268; quoted, 8. 
 
 Western lands, in 1780, 164-5; 
 1815-30, 214-215, 220-1, 227; 
 cotton creates new interest in, 
 243-4, 255; development of by 
 the railroads, 249, 252; reasons 
 for the desire to extend slavery 
 to, 257-9, 263, 270-1; develop 
 ment of since 1865, 393-6. 
 
 West Indies, vital importance of, 
 38, 196; colonial trade with, 
 38-44, 73; fear of loss of trade 
 with one cause of the Revolu 
 tion, 81-4, 93; results of loss 
 of trade with after 1783, 152-5, 
 196-8, 201-2, 205; prosperity of 
 destroyed, 242. 
 
 West, The, ideas of secession in, 
 201-2, 205; development of, 
 214-5, 252, 257-60; influence of 
 geographical conditions upon, 
 252-5; development of, 1840-60, 
 decisive in effect of the Civil 
 War, 318, 321; stands for the 
 Union, 1861, 312-314, 317-318, 
 321 ; welded to the North by the 
 War, 345-6. 
 
 Wilson, James, influential in fram 
 ing the Constitution, 172-3, 190. 
 
 Winthrop, John, 21, 25, 52, 53, 50. 
 
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