The Critical Period of American History

The insurrection suppressed by state troops.

Meanwhile the habeas corpus act was suspended for eight months, and Governor Bowdoin called out an army of 4,400 men, who were placed under command of General Lincoln. As the state treasury was nearly empty, some wealthy gentlemen in Boston subscribed the money needed for equipping these troops, and about the middle of January, 1787, they were collected at Worcester. The rebels had behaved shamefully, burning barns and seizing all the plunder they could lay hands on. As their numbers increased they found their military stores inadequate, and accordingly they marched upon Springfield, with the intent to capture the federal arsenal there, and provide themselves with muskets and cannon. General Shepard held Springfield with 1,200 men, and on the 25th of January Shays attacked him with a force of somewhat more than 2,000, hoping to crush him and seize the arsenal before Lincoln could come to the rescue. But his plan of attack was faulty, and as soon as his men began falling under Shepard's fire a panic seized them, and they retreated in disorder to Ludlow, and then to Amherst, setting fire to houses and robbing the inhabitants. On the approach of Lincoln's army, three days later, Shays retreated to Pelham, and planted his forces on two steep hills protected at the bottom by huge snowdrifts. Lincoln advanced to Hadley and sought to open negotiations with the rebels. They were reminded that a contest with the state government was hopeless, and that they had already incurred the penalty of death; but if they would now lay down their arms and go home, a free pardon could be obtained for them. Shays seemed willing to yield, and Saturday, the 3d of February, was appointed for a conference between some of the leading rebels and some of the officers. But this was only a stratagem. During the conference Shays decamped and marched his men through Prescott and North Dana to Petersham. Toward nightfall the trick was discovered, and Lincoln set his whole force in motion over the mountain ridges of Shutesbury and New Salem. The day had been mild, but during the night the thermometer dropped below zero and an icy, cutting snow began to fall. There was great suffering during the last ten miles, and indeed the whole march of thirty miles in thirteen hours over steep and snow-covered roads was a worthy exploit for these veterans of the Revolution. Shays and his men had not looked for such a display of energy, and as they were getting their breakfast on Sunday morning at Petersham they were taken by surprise. A few minutes sufficed to scatter them in flight. A hundred and fifty, including Shays himself, were taken prisoners. The rest fled in all directions, most of them to Athol and Northfield, whence they made their way into Vermont. General Lincoln then marched his troops into the mountains of Berkshire, where disturbances still continued. On the 26th of February one Captain Hamlin, with several hundred insurgents, plundered the town of Stockbridge and carried off the leading citizens as hostages. He was pursued as far as Sheffield, defeated there in a sharp skirmish, with a loss of some thirty in killed and wounded, and his troops scattered. This put an end to the insurrection in Massachusetts.

Conduct of neighbouring states.

During the autumn similar disturbances had occurred in the states to the northward. At Exeter in New Hampshire and at Windsor and Rutland in Vermont the courts had been broken up by armed mobs, and at Rutland there had been bloodshed. When the Shays rebellion was put down, Governor Bowdoin requested the neighbouring states to lend their aid in bringing the insurgents to justice, and all complied with the request except Vermont and Rhode Island. The legislature of Rhode Island sympathized with the rebels, and refused to allow the governor to issue a warrant for their arrest. On the other hand, the governor of Vermont issued a proclamation out of courtesy toward Massachusetts, but he caused it to be understood that this was but an empty form, as the state of Vermont could not afford to discourage immigration! A feeling of compassion for the insurgents was widely spread in Massachusetts. In March the leaders were tried, and fourteen were convicted of treason and sentenced to death; but Governor Bowdoin, whose term was about to expire, granted a reprieve for a few weeks. At the annual election in April the candidates for the governorship were Bowdoin and Hancock, and it was generally believed that the latter would be more likely than the former to pardon the convicted men. So strong was this feeling that, although much gratitude was felt toward Bowdoin, to whose energetic measures the prompt suppression of the rebellion was due, Hancock obtained a large majority. When the question of a pardon came up for discussion, Samuel Adams, who was then president of the senate, was strongly opposed to it, and one of his arguments was very characteristic. "In monarchies," he said, "the crime of treason and rebellion may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished; but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death." This was Adams's sensitive point. He wanted the whole world to realize that the rule of a republic is a rule of law and order, and that liberty does not mean license. But in spite of this view, for which there was much to be said, the clemency of the American temperament prevailed, and Governor Hancock pardoned all the prisoners.

Nothing in the history of these disturbances is more instructive than the light incidentally thrown upon the relations between Congress and the state government. Just before the news of the rout at Petersham, Samuel Adams had proposed in the senate that the governor should be requested to write to Congress and inform that body of what was going on in Massachusetts, stating that "although the legislature are firmly persuaded that … in all probability they will be able speedily and effectively to suppress the rebellion, yet, if any unforeseen event should take place which may frustrate the measures of government, they rely upon such support from the United States as is expressly and solemnly stipulated by the articles of confederation." A resolution to this effect was carried in the senate, but defeated in the house through the influence of western county members in sympathy with the insurgents; and incredible as it may seem, the argument was freely used that it was incompatible with the dignity of Massachusetts to allow United States troops to set foot upon her soil. When we reflect that the arsenal at Springfield, where the most considerable disturbance occurred, was itself federal property, the climax of absurdity might seem to have been reached.

Congress afraid to interfere.

It was left for Congress itself, however, to cap that climax. The progress of the insurrection in the autumn in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, as well as the troubles in Rhode Island, had alarmed the whole country. It was feared that the insurgents in these states might join forces, and in some way kindle a flame that would run through the land. Accordingly Congress in October called upon the states for a continental force, but did not dare to declare openly what it was to be used for. It was thought necessary to say that the troops were wanted for an expedition against the northwestern Indians! National humiliation could go no further than such a confession, on the part of our central government, that it dared not use force in defence of those very articles of confederation to which it owed its existence. Things had come to such a pass that people of all shades of opinion were beginning to agree upon one thing, – that something must be done, and done quickly.

CHAPTER V.

GERMS OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

Creation of a national domain beyond the Alleghanies.

While the events we have heretofore contemplated seemed to prophesy the speedy dissolution and downfall of the half-formed American Union, a series of causes, obscure enough at first, but emerging gradually into distinctness and then into prominence, were preparing the way for the foundation of a national sovereignty. The growth of this sovereignty proceeded stealthily along such ancient lines of precedent as to take ready hold of people's minds, although few, if any, understood the full purport of what they were doing. Ever since the days when our English forefathers dwelt in village communities in the forests of northern Germany, the idea of a common land or folkland – a territory belonging to the whole community, and upon which new communities might be organized by a process analogous to what physiologists call cell-multiplication – had been perfectly familiar to everybody. Townships budded from village or parish folkland in Maryland and Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, just as they had done in England before the time of Alfred. The critical period of the Revolution witnessed the repetition of this process on a gigantic scale. It witnessed the creation of a national territory beyond the Alleghanies, – an enormous folkland in which all the thirteen old states had a common interest, and upon which new and derivative communities were already beginning to organize themselves. Questions about public lands are often regarded as the driest of historical deadwood. Discussions about them in newspapers and magazines belong to the class of articles which the general reader usually skips. Yet there is a great deal of the philosophy of history wrapped up in this subject, and it now comes to confront us at a most interesting moment; for without studying this creation of a national domain between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, we cannot understand how our Federal Union came to be formed.

Conflicting claims to the western territory.

When England began to contend with France and Spain for the possession of North America, she made royal grants of land upon this continent, in royal ignorance of its extent and configuration. But until the Seven Years' War the eastward and westward partitioning of these grants was of little practical consequence; for English dominion was bounded by the Alleghanies, and everything beyond was in the hands of the French. In that most momentous war the genius of the elder Pitt won the region east of the Mississippi for men of English race, while the vast territory of Louisiana, beyond, passed under the control of Spain. During the Revolutionary War, in a series of romantic expeditions, the state of Virginia took military possession of a great part of the wilderness east of the Mississippi, founding towns in the Ohio and Cumberland valleys, and occupying with garrisons of her state militia the posts at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Vincennes. We have seen how, through the skill of our commissioners at Paris, this noble country was secured for the Americans in the treaty of 1783, in spite of the reluctance of France and the hostility of Spain. Throughout the Revolutionary War the Americans claimed the territory as part of the United States; but when once it passed from under the control of Great Britain, into whose hands did it go? To whom did it belong? To this question there were various and conflicting answers. North Carolina, indeed, had already taken possession of what was afterward called Tennessee, and at the beginning of the war Virginia had annexed Kentucky. As to these points there could be little or no dispute. But with the territory north of the Ohio River it was very different. Four states laid claim either to the whole or to parts of this territory, and these claims were not simply conflicting, but irreconcilable.

Claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The charters of Massachusetts and Connecticut were framed at a time when people had not got over the notion that this part of the continent was not much wider than Mexico, and accordingly these colonies had received the royal permission to extend from sea to sea. The existence of a foreign colony of Dutchmen in the neighbourhood was a trifle about which these documents did not trouble themselves; but when Charles II. conquered this colony and bestowed it upon his brother, the province of New York became a stubborn fact, which could not be disregarded. Massachusetts and Connecticut peaceably settled their boundary line with New York, and laid no claims to land within the limits of that state; but they still continued to claim what lay beyond it, as far as the Mississippi River, where the Spanish dominion now began. The regions claimed by Massachusetts have since become the southern halves of the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. The region claimed by Connecticut was a narrow strip running over the northern portions of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; and we have seen how much trouble was occasioned in Pennsylvania by this circumstance.

Claims of New York.

But New York laughed to scorn these claims of Connecticut. In the seventeenth century all the Algonquin tribes between Lake Erie and the Cumberland Mountains had become tributary to the Iroquois; and during the hundred years' struggle between France and England for the supremacy of this continent the Iroquois had put themselves under the protection of England, which thenceforth always treated them as an appurtenance to New York. For a hundred years before the Revolution, said New York, she had borne the expense of protecting the Iroquois against the French, and by various treaties she had become lawful suzerain over the Six Nations and their lands and the lands of their Algonquin vassals. On such grounds New York claimed pretty much everything north of the Ohio and east of the Miami.

Virginia's claims.

But according to Virginia, it made little difference what Massachusetts and Connecticut and New York thought about the matter, for every acre of land, from the Ohio River up to Lake Superior, belonged to her. Was not she the lordly "Old Dominion," out of which every one of the states had been carved? Even Cape Cod and Cape Ann were said to be in "North Virginia," until, in 1614, Captain John Smith invented the name "New England." It was a fair presumption that any uncarved territory belonged to Virginia; and it was further held that the original charter of 1609 used language which implicitly covered the northwestern territory, though, as Thomas Paine showed, in a pamphlet entitled "Public Good," this was very doubtful. But besides all this, it was Virginia that had actually conquered the disputed territory, and held every military post in it except those which the British had not surrendered; and who could doubt that possession was nine points in the law?

Maryland's novel and beneficent suggestion, Oct. 15, 1777.

Of these conflicting claims, those of New York and Virginia were the most grasping and the most formidable, because they concerned a region into which immigration was beginning rapidly to pour. They were regarded with strong disfavour by the small states, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, which were so situated that they never could expand in any direction. They looked forward with dread to a future in which New York and Virginia might wax powerful enough to tyrannize over their smaller neighbours. But of these protesting states it was only Maryland that fairly rose to the occasion, and suggested an idea which seemed startling at first, but from which mighty and unforeseen consequences were soon to follow.5 It was on the 15th of October, 1777, just two days before Burgoyne's surrender, that this path-breaking idea first found expression in Congress. The articles of confederation were then just about to be presented to the several states to be ratified, and the question arose as to how the conflicting western claims should be settled. A motion was then made that "the United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such states as claim to the Mississippi, … and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent states, from time to time, as the numbers and circumstances of the people may require." To carry out such a motion, it would be necessary for the four claimant states to surrender their claims into the hands of the United States, and thus create a domain which should be owned by the confederacy in common. So bold a step towards centralization found no favour at the time. No other state but Maryland voted for it.

The several states yield their claims in favour of the United States, 1780–85.

But Maryland's course was well considered: she pursued it resolutely, and was rewarded with complete success. By February, 1779, all the other states had ratified the articles of confederation. In the following May, Maryland declared that she would not ratify the articles until she should receive some definite assurance that the northwestern territory should become the common property of the United States, "subject to be parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent governments." The question, thus boldly brought into the foreground, was earnestly discussed in Congress and in the state legislatures, until in February, 1780, partly through the influence of General Schuyler, New York decided to cede all her claims to the western lands. This act of New York set things in motion, so that in September Congress recommended to all states having western claims to cede them to the United States. In October, Congress, still pursuing the Maryland idea, went farther, and declared that all such lands as might be ceded should be sold in lots to immigrants and the money used for federal purposes, and that in due season distinct states should be formed there, to be admitted into the Union, with the same rights of sovereignty as the original thirteen states. As an inducement to Virginia, it was further provided that any state which had incurred expense during the war in defending its western possessions should receive compensation. To this general invitation Connecticut immediately responded by offering to cede everything to which she laid claim, except 3,250,000 acres on the southern shore of Lake Erie, which she wished to reserve for educational purposes. Washington disapproved of this reservation, but it was accepted by Congress, though the business was not completed until 1786. This part of the state of Ohio is still commonly spoken of as the "Connecticut Reserve." Half a million acres were given to citizens of Connecticut whose property had been destroyed in the British raids upon her coast towns, and the rest were sold, in 1795, for $1,200,000, in aid of schools and colleges.

In January, 1781, Virginia offered to surrender all the territory northwest of the Ohio, provided that Congress would guarantee her in the possession of Kentucky. This gave rise to a discussion which lasted nearly three years, until Virginia withdrew her proviso and made the cession absolute. It was accepted by Congress on the 1st of March, 1784, and on the 19th of April, in the following year, – the tenth anniversary of Lexington, – Massachusetts surrendered her claims; and the whole northwestern territory – the area of the great states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio (excepting the Connecticut Reserve) – thus became the common property of the half-formed nation. Maryland, however, did not wait for this. As soon as New York and Virginia had become thoroughly committed to the movement, she ratified the articles of confederation, which thus went into operation on the 1st of March, 1781.

Magnanimity of Virginia.

This acquisition of a common territory speedily led to results not at all contemplated in the theory of union upon which the articles of confederation were based. It led to "the exercise of national sovereignty in the sense of eminent domain," as shown in the ordinances of 1784 and 1787, and prepared men's minds for the work of the Federal Convention. Great credit is due to Maryland for her resolute course in setting in motion this train of events. It aroused fierce indignation at the time, as to many people it looked unfriendly to the Union. Some hot-heads were even heard to say that if Maryland should persist any longer in her refusal to join the confederation, she ought to be summarily divided up between the neighbouring states, and her name erased from the map. But the brave little state had earned a better fate than that of Poland. When we have come to trace out the results of her action, we shall see that just as it was Massachusetts that took the decisive step in bringing on the Revolutionary War when she threw the tea into Boston harbour, so it was Maryland that, by leading the way toward the creation of a national domain, laid the corner-stone of our Federal Union. Equal credit must be given to Virginia for her magnanimity in making the desired surrender. It was New York, indeed, that set the praiseworthy example; but New York, after all, surrendered only a shadowy claim, whereas Virginia gave up a magnificent and princely territory of which she was actually in possession. She might have held back and made endless trouble, just as, at the beginning of the Revolution, she might have refused to make common cause with Massachusetts; but in both instances her leading statesmen showed a far-sighted wisdom and a breadth of patriotism for which no words of praise can be too strong. In the later instance, as in the earlier, Thomas Jefferson played an important part. He, who in after years, as president of the United States, was destined, by the purchase of Louisiana, to carry our western frontier beyond the Rocky Mountains, had, in 1779, done more than any one else to support the romantic campaign in which General Clark had taken possession of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. He had much to do with the generous policy which gave up the greater part of that country for a national domain, and on the very day on which the act of cession was completed he presented to Congress a remarkable plan for the government of the new territory, which was only partially successful because it attempted too much, but the results of which were in many ways notable.

Jefferson proposes a scheme of government for the northwestern territory, 1784.

In this plan, known as the Ordinance of 1784, Jefferson proposed to divide the northwestern territory into ten states, or just twice as many as have actually grown out of it. In each of these states the settlers might establish a local government, under the authority of Congress; and when in any one of them the population should come to equal that of the least populous of the original states, it might be admitted into the Union by the consent of nine states in Congress. The new states were to have universal suffrage; they must have republican forms of government; they must pay their shares of the federal debt; they must forever remain a part of the United States; and after the year 1800 negro slavery must be prohibited within their limits. The names of these ten states have afforded much amusement to Jefferson's biographers. In those days the schoolmaster was abroad in the land after a peculiar fashion. Just as we are now in the full tide of that Gothic revival which goes back for its beginnings to Sir Walter Scott; as we admire mediæval things, and try to build our houses after old English models, and prefer words of what people call "Saxon" origin, and name our children Roland and Herbert, or Edith and Winifred, so our great-grandfathers lived in a time of classical revival. They were always looking for precedents in Greek and Roman history; they were just beginning to try to make their wooden houses look like temples, with Doric columns; they preferred words of Latin origin; they signed their pamphlets "Brutus" and "Lycurgus," and in sober earnest baptized their children as Cæsar, or Marcellus, or Darius. The map of the United States was just about to bloom forth with towns named Ithaca and Syracuse, Corinth and Sparta; and on the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of Licking Creek, a city had lately been founded, the name of which was truly portentous. "Losantiville" was this wonderful compound, in which the initial L stood for "Licking," while os signified "mouth," anti "opposite," and ville "town;" and the whole read backwards as "Town-opposite-mouth-of-Licking." In 1790 General St. Clair, then governor of the northwest territory, changed this name to Cincinnati, in honor of the military order to which he belonged. With such examples in mind, we may see that the names of the proposed ten states, from which the failure of Jefferson's ordinance has delivered us, illustrated the prevalent taste of the time rather than any idiosyncrasy of the man. The proposed names were Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.