1897) is of unique interest. Lorenzo Sabine's Biographical Sketches
of Loyalists of the American Revolution (2 vols., Boston, 1864),
and Claude Halstead Van Tyne's The Loyalists in the American
Revolution (New York, 1902); Herbert Friedenwald's The Declaration
of Independence (New York, 1904), and John Hampden
Hazelton's the Declaration of Independence—Its History (New York,
1906), are valuable special studies. Many important monographs
have appeared in the “Johns Hopkins University Studies,” “the
“Columbia University Studies,” the “Harvard Historical Studies,”
and among the publications of the universities of Wisconsin and
Pennsylvania, The Carnegie Institution has issued the first volume
of a report, edited by C. M. Andrews and F. G. Davenport, on
materials in British archives for the period before 1783. The bibliography
of American history receives adequate treatment in Justin
Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., Boston,
1886-1889) and in J. N. Larned's Literature of American History
(Boston, 1902).
- (H. L. O.)
F.-The Struggle for National Government, 1783-1789.
77. The long struggle to secure the ratification of the Articles of Confederation had given time for careful consideration of the new scheme of government. Maryland's persistent criticism had prepared men to find defects in them. Conventions of New England states, pamphlets, and private correspondence had found flaws in the new plan; but a public trial of it was a necessary preliminary to getting rid of it. The efforts of the individual states to maintain the war, the disposition of each state to magnify its own share in the result, the popular jealousy of a superior power, transferred now from parliament to the central government, were enough to ensure the articles some lease of life. A real national government had to be extorted through the “grinding necessities of a reluctant people.”
78. Congress and its committees had already begun to declare that it was impossible to carry on a government efficiently under the articles. Its expostulations were to be continued for several years before they were heard. In the meantime it did not neglect the great subject which concerned the essence of nationality-the Western territory. Virginia had made a first offer to cede her claims, but it was not accepted. A committee of Congress now made a report (1782) maintaining the validity of the rights which New York had transferred to Congress; and Territorial Cessions. in the next year Virginia made an acceptable offer. Her deed was accepted (March 1, 1784); the other claimant states followed; and Congress, which was not authorized by the articles to hold or govern territory, became the sovereign of a tract of some 430,000 sq. m., covering all the country between the Atlantic tier of states and the Mississippi river, from the British possessions nearly to the Gulf of Mexico.
79. In this territory Congress had now on its hands the same question of colonial government in which the British Territorial Government. parliament had so signally failed. The manner in which Congress dealt with it has made the United States the country that it is. The leading feature of its plan was the erection, as rapidly as possible, of states, similar in powers to the original states. The power of Congress over the Territories was to be theoretically absolute, but it was to be exerted in encouraging the development of thorough self-government, and in granting it as fast as the settlers should The Ordinance of 1787. become capable of exercising it. Copied in succeeding acts for the organization of Territories, and still controlling the spirit of such acts, the Ordinance of 1787 (July 13, 1787) is the foundation of almost everything which makes the modern American system peculiar.
80. The preliminary plan of Congress was reported by a committee of which Thomas Jefferson (q.v.) was chairman, and was adopted by Congress on the 23rd of April 1784. It provided for the erection of seventeen states, north and south of the Ohio, with some odd names, such as Sylvania, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Polypotamia and Pelisipia. These states were for ever to be a part of the United States, and to have republican governments. The provision, “After the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states, other than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” represented Jefferson's feeling on this subject, but was lost for want of seven states in its favour.
81. The final plan of 1787 was reported by a committee of which Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, was chairman. The prohibition of slavery was made perpetual, and a fugitive slave clause was added. The ordinance covered only the territory north of the Ohio, and provided for not less than three nor more than five states. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have been the resultant states. At first Congress was to appoint the governor, secretary, judges and militia generals, and the governor and judges were, until the organization of a legislature, to make laws subject to the veto of Congress. When the population reached 5000 free male adult inhabitants the Territory was to have an assembly of its own, to consist of the governor, a legislative council of five, selected by Congress from ten nominations by the lower house, and a lower House of Representatives of one delegate for every 500 free male inhabitants.[1] This assembly was to choose a delegate to sit, but not to vote, in Congress, and was to make laws not repugnant to “the principles and articles” established and declared in the ordinance. These were as follows: the new states or Territories were to maintain freedom of worship, the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, trial by jury, proportionate representation, bail, moderate fines and punishments, and the preservation of liberty, property and private contracts; they were to encourage education and keep faith with the Indians; they were to remain for ever a part of the United States; and they were not to interfere with the disposal of the soil by the United States, or to tax the lands of the United States, or to tax any citizen of the United States for the use of the navigable waters leading into the Mississippi or St Lawrence rivers. These articles were to be unalterable unless by mutual consent of a state and the United States. The transformation of the Territory, with its limited government, into a state, with all the powers of an original state, was promised by Congress as soon as the population should reach 60,000 free inhabitants, or, under certain conditions, before that time.
82. The Constitution, which was adopted almost immediately afterwards, provided merely (art. iv, § 3) that “Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory or other property belonging to the United States,” and that “new states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.” Opinions have varied as to the force of the Ordinance of 1787. The Southern school of writers have been inclined to consider it ultra vires and void; and they adduce the fact that the new Congress under the Constitution thought it necessary to re-enact the ordinance (Aug. 7, 1789). The opposite school have inclined to hold the ordinance as still in force. Even as to the Territorial provision of the Constitution, opinions have varied.
83. In the interval of the settlement of the territorial question the affairs of the “league of friendship,” known as the United Difficulties of the Confederation. States, had been going from bad to worse, culminating in 1786. The public debt amounted in 1783 to about $42,000,000, of which $8,000,000 was owed abroad—in Holland, France and Spain. Congress had no power to levy taxes for the payment of interest or principal; it could only make requisitions on the states. In the four years ending in 1786 requisitions had been made for $10,000,000 and the receipts from them had amounted to but one-fourth of what had been called for. Even the interest on the debt was falling into arrears, and the first instalment of the principal fell due in 1787. To pay this, and subsequent annual instalments of $1,000,000, was quite impossible. Robert Morris, the financier of the War of Independence, resigned in 1783 rather than “be the minister of injustice,” hoping thus to force upon the states the necessity of granting taxing powers to Congress. Washington, on retiring from the command-in-chief, wrote a circular letter to the governors of all the states, urging the necessity of granting to Congress some power to provide a national revenue. Congress (April 18, 1783) appealed to the states for power to levy specific duties on certain enumerated articles, and 5% on others. It was believed that with these duties and the requisitions, which were now to be met by internal taxation, $2,500,000 per annum could be raised. Some of the states ratified the proposal; others ratified it with modifications; others rejected it, or changed their votes; and it never received the necessary ratification of all the states. The obedience to the requisitions grew more lax. In 1786 a committee of Congress reported that any further reliance on requisitions would be “dishonourable to the understandings of those who entertain such confidence.”
- ↑ When the total number should reach 25, the legislature itself was to have the power of regulating the number and proportion. Property qualifications were prescribed for electors, representatives and members of the council.
