The Great Republic by the Master Historians Preliminary Remarks byBancroft, Hubert H.
Jefferson's immortal manifesto has been pecked at by certain latter-day
dilettante critics for alleged indifference to the dictates of genteel literary
style, as by them understood. As if thunderbolts are to be gauged by the
snapping of popguns! The men who signed the Declaration were men in earnest;
they spake as they were moved by patriotic fervor, and their sound still echoes
from the ends of the grateful world.
The important action taken by the Continental Congress in the passage of the
Declaration of Independence was received with enthusiasm by the people of the
newly-created United States of America. On the 8th of July the independence of
the country was proclaimed with great solemnity at Philadelphia, and welcomed by
the people with the greatest exultation, artillery being fired, bonfires
kindled, and other manifestations of joy displayed. It was read to the army in
New York on the 11th, and was received by them with wild acclamations. That
evening the statue of King George, which had been erected in 1770, was dragged
through the streets by a party of soldiers, and a resolution taken to convert
into bullets the lead of which it was made. This riotous proceeding was severely
rebuked by Washington.
In Baltimore independence was proclaimed amid the roar of artillery, while the
effigy of the king became the sport of the populace, and was afterwards burned
in the public square. In Boston the rejoicings of the people surpassed those in
any other section of the country. Independence was there proclaimed from the
balcony of the State-House, in the presence of all the authorities and of a
great concourse of people. Salutes were fired, the troops paraded, the bells
were rung, and the people went wild with joy, in their excitement tearing to
pieces and burning all the ensigns of royalty. A banquet was prepared for the
authorities and the principal inhabitants, at which toasts were drunk to the
destruction of tyrants, the propagation of liberty, and a series of similar
sentiments. In Virginia great enthusiasm also prevailed, and the convention
passed a number of acts designed to remove every vestige of royalty from the
public proceedings of the commonwealth.
The passage of this declaration entailed new duties upon the people, which would
exhaust their powers, legislative and military, for years to come. A new
government had to be formed, on a plan which had never before been applied to a
country of such extent, and which involved innumerable difficulties. And the
independence declared by the legislature had to be sustained by the army against
all the power of the richest and most energetic nation of the Europe of that
day. Some consideration of the steps taken towards the accomplishment of these
purposes is important as preliminary to the story of the subsequent events of
the war.
The resolution of independence had abolished one phase of political existence;
it had not created a new phase. A nation was yet to be made out of the
discordant elements of the separate colonies, And to this essential purpose
Congress at once addressed itself. The tie which had hitherto held together the
colonies was slight and temporary. It needed to be made strong and permanent.
Articles of confederation satisfactory to all the States of the newly-formed
republic needed to be adopted ere the American Union could claim the title of a
nation.
A committee was at once appointed by Congress to frame such articles. A report
was made by this committee on the 12th of July. On the 22d the House began the
consideration of the proposed articles, the principal subjects of debate being
the proportion of money which each State should pay into the common treasury,
and the manner of voting in Congress. The financial article, as proposed,
required each State to pay into the treasury a sum in proportion to its total
population, exclusive of untaxed Indians. This was objected to on the plea that
it included slaves, who, properly considered, were property and not persons, and
that Southern slaves had no more right to be considered in fixing the tax-rate
than Northern cattle. John Adams took the opposite view, with the argument that
slaves by their labor added to the wealth of the States, and that they had
always been taken into the estimates of taxes by the Southern provinces. The
question was carried, on this basis, by the votes of the Northern delegates, who
were in a majority. The other article which led to prolonged debate was that
concerning the voting power of the States in Congress. The original report
provided that each colony should have but one vote. Mr. Chase proposed as a
compromise that on financial questions each State should have a voice in
proportion to the number of its inhabitants. Franklin supported this
proposition, saying that if the States voted equally they ought to pay equally.
Dr. Witherspoon contended that each State should be considered as an individual,
with a single vote on all matters. John Adams, on the contrary, advocated voting
in proportion to numbers. He held that the individuality of the States was a
mere word; it was the purpose of the Confederacy to weld them, like separate
pieces of metal, into one common mass. Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, ably
followed from the same point of view, bringing European illustrations to show
the danger of giving too much separate independence to the members of a
confederated union. Thus early was brought up that burning question of State
Rights, as opposed to the supremacy of the Union, which has not yet been
definitely settled.
The debate on the Articles of Confederation was continued for several months,
and the whole subject thoroughly canvassed, standing committees of Congress
meanwhile carrying on the active affairs of the government. During this period
the several States, in conformity with the act previously passed by Congress,
busied themselves in organizing State governments suitable to the new condition
of affairs. Not for a moment was any thought of reproducing a monarchical
government entertained. The people of America had been republican in sentiment
from the first, and their political history had been in great part a struggle to
reduce the prerogatives of the monarch who claimed them as subjects. So much
power had been exercised by the people and their representatives, and so well
were they schooled in the art of self-government, that the change of sovereignty
was scarcely perceptible, and very little needed to be added to existing
conditions to form a complete apparatus of government.
The people were not willing that any one man should have the authority to
negative the decision of a majority of their representatives. Yet long
experience had taught them that it would be dangerous to lodge all power in the
hands of a single body of men. Some intermediate course was desirable, and after
much discussion the difficulty was overcome by the formation, in eleven out of
the thirteen colonies, of a legislature of two branches, whose concurrence
should be necessary to the passage of any law. The second branch was to consist
of a few select persons, under the name of senate, or council, adapted to
consider wisely and calmly the acts passed by the more numerous branch of
representatives. Georgia and Pennsylvania alone adopted legislatures consisting
of a single House.
New York and Massachusetts went a step farther. The former gave to a council
composed of the governor and the heads of judicial departments, and the latter
to the governor alone, the power of objecting to any proposed law and requiring
its reconsideration and passage by a two-thirds majority of both Houses to make
it operative. The objection in Georgia and Pennsylvania to a double Assembly
arose from the difficulty of creating a higher and a lower branch by election
from a homogeneous people held to be absolutely equal politically. No
distinction of rank existed, and distinction of wealth was not admitted as a
source of political inequality. Ten of the eleven States, with legislatures of
two branches, ordained the election of both by the people. Maryland had her
senate chosen by electors, two from each county, elected by the people, the
senators to hold their seats for five years, while the representatives were re-
elected annually. By this means a senate composed of men of influence and
ability was obtained. Pennsylvania adopted the expedient of publishing bills
after the second reading, so that they might be considered by the people and the
sense of the inhabitants taken. It was not long, however, before it was
discovered that this expedient was injudicious, and that the single chamber did
not work well. A second chamber was therefore added. A similar action was
afterwards taken by Georgia.
Every State appointed a supreme executive, under the title either of governor or
president. In New York and the Eastern States the governors were elected
directly by the people; in the other States, by the legislatures. New York alone
gave the governor the right to act without the advice of a council. The jealousy
of supreme power was so great among the Americans that they surrounded their
executive officers with checks that proved, in the end, more cumbrous than
useful. The principle of rotation in office was strongly insisted upon, frequent
elections being required, and in some cases it being ordained that no office
should be held by the same person longer than a specified period of time. As a
further security for the permanence of republican institutions, all the States
agreed in prohibiting hereditary honors or distinctions of rank. They all,
moreover, abolished state religions. Some retained a constitutional distinction
between Christians and others, so far as the power of holding office was
concerned, but no sect was permitted legislative precedence, and the alliance
between church and state was completely broken.
While the States were thus adopting new constitutions and organizing new
governments, whose imperfections were negatived by the important feature that
the people retained the power of altering and amending them whenever they chose,
the General Congress continued the consideration of the Articles of
Confederation which were to combine these separate States into a single nation.
The debate upon this was very deliberately conducted, and sixteen months elapsed
before it was ready to be communicated to the States. Three years more elapsed
ere it was ratified by all the States. The principal objections were those which
had already been abundantly debated in Congress, and that of the disposal of the
vacant Western lands. This latter question was finally settled by the cession of
these lands, by the States which claimed them, to the Union, for the common good
of the people. The suffrage-difficulty was overcome by viewing the States as
individuals and giving them equality of votes. The last State to ratify the
Articles of Confederation was Maryland, on March 1, 1781. The principal powers
of Congress, as defined by this agreement, were -- the sole right of deciding on
peace and war, of sending and receiving ambassadors, of forming treaties and
alliances, of regulating coinage, of fixing the standard of weights and
measures, of managing Indian affairs, of establishing post-offices, of borrowing
money or issuing bills on the credit of the United States, of raising an army
through requisitions upon the States, and of forming a navy. It constituted also
the final court of appeal in disputes between the States.
This system, though suitable to the conditions then existing, was destined to
prove inadequate to the political requirements of the country after peace had
succeeded to war. The confederation was little more than a league of friendship
between the States. While investing Congress with many of the powers of
sovereignty, it left it destitute of all means to enforce its decrees, the
States retaining important powers which properly belonged to the central
government. Not many years had passed after the termination of the war before it
appeared that a radical change in the whole system was necessary for the proper
government of the nation. Yet the Articles of Confederation sufficed to hold the
States together till the conflict had ended, and the wisdom of American
legislators could be applied to the important duty of organizing a stable union,
in which the relations of the State and the national governments would be
properly adjusted, and the American theory of local control of local affairs,
and of national control of general affairs, could be carried out in all the
complex details of the existence of a great confederated nation.
As for the means through which the declared independence was to be consummated,
and the opposing means through which England hoped to reduce her revolted
colonies to obedience, there were discouraging circumstances on both sides. We
have already adverted to the difficulties experienced by Washington in making an
army out of the intractable materials placed in his hands, and of the
inconvenience arising from the short terms of enlistment of the men. There were
other disheartening conditions. An officer who at that time wrote to a member of
Congress presented a deplorable picture of the state of the army: "Almost every
villainy that can disgrace the man, the soldier, or the citizen is daily
practised, without meeting the punishment they merit. So many of our officers
want honor, and so many of our soldiers want virtue, civil, social, and
military, that nothing but the severest punishments will keep both from
practices that must ruin us. . Our men are at present only robbers; that they
will soon be murderers, unless some are hanged, I have no doubt." This is the
testimony of a patriotic American, and it is confirmed by other statements.
It was evident that a total change in the military system of the country was
requisite. Many of the soldiers were enlisted for a few months, and none for
more than a year, and they had no time to learn the business of war. The
enthusiasm of the militia quickly died out, as it necessarily always does, and
it was remarked by a member of Congress that the Americans had lost most of that
virtue which first drew them to the field, and were sinking into an army of
mercenaries. They received so little pay, and were so ill provided with the
necessaries of life, that there was some excuse for their acts of plundering.
Yet these acts were of serious dimensions. Washington spoke of them as infamous,
and said that no man was secure in his effects, and scarcely in his person. Yet
he found it impossible to reduce the soldiers to subordination, under existing
circumstances. He did his utmost to rouse Congress to the importance of long
enlistments, but such was the dread of a standing army that these demands were
as yet unheeded. Congress, indeed, discouraged the formation of martial habits,
and required that frequent furloughs should be granted, "rather than that the
endearments of wives and children should cease to allure the individuals of our
army from camps to farms." This was no way to make an army, as the law-makers
were destined to discover. Shortly before the evacuation of New York by General
Washington, it was resolved, against considerable opposition, to reorganize the
army in eighty-eight battalions, to be made up of men enlisted for the war. A
quota was assigned to each State, and, to encourage enlistments, a bounty of
twenty dollars and one hundred acres of land was given to every recruit, with
higher bounties to officers. A new set of rules for the discipline of the army
was at the same time adopted. It had become evident that a regular army must be
formed if success were desired.
Yet the raising of these new levies proceeded with discouraging slowness, and
meanwhile affairs were going from bad to worse. One expedient adopted by
Congress was an attempt to seduce the Hessian troops from the British service by
the offer of large bounties in land. Yet the condition of American affairs after
the loss of New York was calculated to render all these efforts nugatory. When
Washington reached the western shore of the Delaware, after his retreat through
New Jersey, the fortunes of the United States were at a very low ebb. The army
was greatly reduced in numbers, and the term of all its members would end within
a month. Indications looked towards its complete disbandment, and a hopeless
yielding of the colonies to the power against which they had rebelled.
Washington's success at Trenton radically changed this depressing state of
affairs. The cruelty of the British and the Hessians had aroused the people of
the occupied regions to bitter hatred, and as the Continental army gradually
regained possession of the State of New Jersey, confidence returned, and the
depleted ranks were filled up with new levies. From that time forward the
American forces became an army more than in name, and the fortunes of the United
States never again sank to so low an ebb.
While these difficulties existed in America, England had not been without her
troubles. The doings of the ministry had from the first roused a powerful
opposition in Parliament, and the Earl of Chatham, in particular, arraigned the
government for injustice to the colonies, deprecated the attempt to reduce them
by force, and demanded a complete removal of the oppressive acts which had
driven the loyal colonists to rebellion. He was of opinion that this course
would bring them back to their allegiance; but in this he misjudged the
sentiments of the Americans, as was proved when the ministry afterwards sent out
commissioners to treat with Congress and the colonies on the basis of a redress
of grievances. Neither Congress nor the people of the States would listen to
their proposals, and they were forced to return without achieving their purpose.
America could be reduced only by force, and this force proved difficult to
obtain. The service was not popular, and recruiting for the American war went on
very slowly. The British government, hampered by this circumstance, looked
abroad for aid, offering its money for the men of other states. Its great hope
was in Russia, whose empress had made some friendly remarks about England which
were construed into a readiness to furnish troops. An application for twenty
thousand infantry was made, and so sure was the British ministry of obtaining
them that there was sent to Carleton, in Canada, an assurance of speedy
reinforcements. But the Empress Catherine had meant nothing of the kind, and she
bluntly declined to hire out her soldiers as mercenaries. Her refusal was so
expressed as to give great offence to George III., who found himself now obliged
to depend on the German principalities for aid. He also considered the project
of rousing the High-landers of North Carolina and the loyalists of the Middle
and Southern provinces.
In the latter part of 1775 the situation of England was a grave one. The
opponents in Parliament to the action of the ministry were numerous, and
comprised some of the foremost men in that body The military position of the
country was still worse. Twenty-eight thousand sailors and fifty thousand
soldiers had been asked for; but these were insufficient for the purposes
required, and a bill enabling the king to call out the militia, to use in
America, was passed.
Yet the need of soldiers was immediate, and application was made to various
Continental powers, among them Holland, where a so-called Scottish brigade had
existed since early in the seventeenth century. But Holland refused the use of
this body, except for employment in Europe. This George III. declined. He had,
indeed, obtained assistance from another quarter. Contracts had been made for
the enlistment of soldiers in some of the petty German states. These were in
part secret, but open negotiations were carried on with the Duke of Brunswick
and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. The subjects of these magnates were bought
like so many cattle, it being arranged with the duke that every soldier killed
should be paid for at the rate of the levy-money, and that three wounded should
be reckoned as one killed. An annual subsidy was to be paid.
The German troops obtained in this discreditable manner numbered seventeen
thousand men. Of these, Hesse-Cassel supplied twelve thousand, and Brunswick and
other petty states the remainder. The affair was a disgraceful one on both
sides, and aroused indignation throughout Europe. Frederick the Great, a man not
over-scrupulous in his own measures, viewed it as an abominable traffic in human
lives, and it is said that whenever any of these hirelings passed through his
territory he levied on them the usual toll for cattle, saying that they had been
sold as such
Many in England entertained a similar feeling; yet the treaties were ratified by
large majorities in Parliament, and these disgracefully-obtained troops were
shipped to America. There the proceeding was viewed with the utmost indignation,
and served to increase the bitterness and determination of the colonists, whose
rebellious energy was greatly added to by the means thus taken to overcome it,
and particularly by the measures employed to bring the Indians into the conflict
in support of the British cause. Such was the state of affairs in America and
England at the period at which we have now arrived. In the Declaration of
Independence America had flung the gauntlet of defiance at the feet of the
British government, and both sides prepared for a stern continuance of the war.
