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by John Bach McMaster
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Title: A School History of the United States
Author: John Bach McMaster
Release Date: February 26, 2004 [EBook #11313]
Language: English
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A SCHOOL HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES
BY
JOHN BACH McMASTER
PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA
1897
PREFACE
It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with the
discovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wise
and necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has been
made to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States;
to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the account
of the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years,
and to confine it to the narration of such events as are really
necessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.
The story, therefore, has been restricted to the discoveries,
explorations, and settlements within the United States by the English,
French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion of the French by the
English; to the planting of the thirteen colonies on the Atlantic
seaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrel which ended with the
rise of thirteen sovereign free and independent states, and to the
growth of such political institutions as began in colonial times. This
period once passed, the long struggle for a government followed till our
present Constitution--one of the most remarkable political instruments
ever framed by man--was adopted, and a nation founded.
Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution and the rise
of Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, and
then for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war with
Great Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years,
commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal
resources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the
era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with
great--though it is believed not too great--fullness of detail; for,
beyond all question, _the_ event of the world's history during the
nineteenth century is the growth of the United States. Nothing like it
has ever before taken place.
To have loaded down the book with extended bibliographies would have
been an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find in
Channing and Hart's _Guide to the Study of American History_ the best
digested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, and
cannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and disposition
to read one half of the reference books cited in the footnotes of this
history, he is most fortunate.
JOHN BACH McMASTER.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. EUROPE FINDS AMERICA
II. THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES
III. ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES ON THE SEABOARD
IV. THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND
V. THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES
VI. THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
VII. THE INDIANS
VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA
IX. LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763
X. "LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS"
XI. THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
XII. UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
XIII. MAKING THE CONSTITUTION
XIV. OUR COUNTRY IN 1790
XV. THE RISE OF PARTIES
XVI. THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRALITY
XVII. STRUGGLE FOR "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS"
XVIII. THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE
XIX. PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1790 AND 1815
XX. SETTLEMENT OF OUR BOUNDARIES
XXI. THE RISING WEST
XXII. THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
XXIII. POLITICS FROM 1824 TO 1845
XXIV. EXPANSION OF THE SLAVE AREA
XXV. THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL
XXVI. PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860
XXVII. WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-1865
XXVIII. WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA
XXIX. THE COST OF THE WAR
XXX. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH
XXXI. THE NEW WEST (1860-1870)
XXXII. POLITICS FROM 1868 TO 1880
XXXIII. GROWTH OF THE NORTHWEST
XXXIV. MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS
XXXV. POLITICS SINCE 1880
APPENDIX
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
STATE CONSTITUTIONS
INDEX
LIST OF IMPORTANT MAPS
DISCOVERY ON THE EAST COAST OF AMERICA
EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS, 1650
FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700
BRITISH COLONIES, 1733
EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS, 1763
THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764
BRITISH COLONIES, 1776
RESULTS OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
THE UNITED STATES, 1783
THE UNITED STATES, 1789
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1790
SLAVE AND FREE SOIL IN 1790
THE UNITED STATES, 1801
THE UNITED STATES, 1810
NORTH AMERICA AFTER 1824
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1820
FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 1820
THE UNITED STATES, 1826
TERRITORY CLAIMED BY TEXAS IN 1845
THE OREGON COUNTRY
ROUTES OF THE EARLY EXPLORERS
TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO, 1848 AND 1853
RESULTS OF THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
THE UNITED STATES IN 1851
EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL, 1790-1860
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION, 1850
THE UNITED STATES, 1861
WAR FOR THE UNION
INDUSTRIAL AND RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES
A SCHOOL HISTORY OF THE
UNITED STATES
* * * * *
_DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS_
CHAPTER I
EUROPE FINDS AMERICA
%1. Nations that have owned our Soil.%--Before the United States
became a nation, six European powers owned, or claimed to own, various
portions of the territory now contained within its boundary. England
claimed the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. Spain once held
Florida, Texas, California, and all the territory south and west of
Colorado. France in days gone by ruled the Mississippi valley. Holland
once owned New Jersey, Delaware, and the valley of the Hudson in New
York, and claimed as far eastward as the Connecticut river. The Swedes
had settlements on the Delaware. Alaska was a Russian possession.
Before attempting to narrate the history of our country, it is
necessary, therefore, to tell
1. How European nations came into possession of parts of it.
2. How these parts passed from them to us.
3. What effect the ownership of parts of our country by Europeans had on
our history and institutions before 1776.
%2. European Trade with the East; the Old Routes.%--For two hundred
years before North and South America were known to exist, a splendid
trade had been going on between Europe and the East Indies. Ships loaded
with metals, woods, and pitch went from European seaports to Alexandria
and Constantinople, and brought back silks and cashmeres, muslins,
dyewoods, spices, perfumes, ivory, precious stones, and pearls. This
trade in course of time had come to be controlled by the two Italian
cities of Venice and Genoa. The merchants of Genoa sent their ships to
Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board
the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The
men of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels to Alexandria, and
carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea.
[Illustration: Routes to India]
%3. New Routes wanted.%--Splendid as this trade was, however, it was
doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves
across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of
the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,
they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was
spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice,
in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the
Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not
possible to find an ocean route to Asia.
Now, it happened that just at this time the Portuguese were hard at work
on the discovery of such a route, and were slowly pushing their way down
the western coast of Africa. But as league after league of that coast
was discovered, it was thought that the route to India by way of Africa
was too long for the purposes of commerce.[1] Then came the question, Is
there not a shorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer.
[Footnote 1: Read the account of Portuguese exploration in search of a
way to India, in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 274-334.]
%4. Columbus seeks the East and finds America.%[2]--Columbus was a
native of Genoa, in Italy. He began a seafaring life at fourteen, and in
the intervals between his voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was
then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470,
and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In
1473 he married a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King
of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a
quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying
them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems
to have first started in his mind. But many a year went by, and many a
hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in
poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when
his three caravels, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the
_Pinta_ (peen'-tah), and the _Niña_ (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of
Palos (pah'-los), in Spain.
[Footnote 2: There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D.
the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named
Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our
country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account
of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's _Discovery of America_,
Vol. I., pp. 148-255.]
[Illustration: Santa Maria]
His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went
directly westward. The earth was not then generally believed to be
round. Men supposed it to be flat, and the only parts of it known to
Europeans were Iceland, the British Isles, the continent of Europe, a
small part of Asia, and a strip along the coast of the northern part of
Africa. The ocean on which Columbus was now embarked, and which in our
time is crossed in less than a week, was then utterly unknown, and was
well named "The Sea of Darkness." Little wonder, then, that as the
shores of the last of the Canaries sank out of sight on the 9th of
September, many of the sailors wept, wailed, and loudly bemoaned their
cruel fate. After sailing for what seemed a very long time, they saw
signs of land. But when no land appeared, their hopes gave way to fear,
and they rose against Columbus in order to force him to return.
[Illustration: Niña]
But he calmed their fears, explained the sights they could not
understand, hid from them the true distance sailed, and kept steadily on
westward till October 7, when a flock of land birds were seen flying to
the southwest. Pinzon (peen-thon'), who commanded one of the vessels,
begged Columbus to follow the birds, as they seemed to be going toward
land. Had the little fleet kept on its way, it would have brought up on
the coast of Florida. But Columbus yielded to Pinzon. The ships were
headed southwestward, and about ten o'clock on the night of October 11,
Columbus saw a light moving in the distance. It was made by the
inhabitants going from hut to hut on a neighboring coast. At dawn the
shore itself was seen by a sailor, and Columbus, followed by many of his
men, hastened to the beach, where, October 12, 1492, he raised a huge
cross, and took possession of the country in the name of Ferdinand and
Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, who had supplied him with caravels
and men.[1] He had landed on one of a group of islands which we call the
Bahamas.[2]
[Footnote 1: Columbus called the new land San Salvador (sahn
sahl-vah-dor', Holy Savior), because October 12, the day on which it was
discovered, was so named in the Spanish calendar.]
[Footnote 2: Three islands of this group, Cat, Turks, and Watlings, have
rival claims as the landing place of Columbus. At present, Watlings
Island is believed to be the one on which he first set foot. Read an
account of the voyage in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp.
408-442; Irving's _Life and Voyages of Columbus_, Vol. I., Book III.]
[Illustration: Coat of arms of Columbus]
During ten days he sailed among these islands. Then, turning southward,
he coasted along Cuba to the eastern end, and so to Haiti, which he
named Hispaniola, or Little Spain. There the _Santa Maria_ was wrecked.
The _Pinta_ had by this time deserted him, and, as the _Niña_ could not
carry all the men, forty were left at Hispaniola, to found the first
colony of Europeans in the New World. Giving the men food enough to last
a year, Columbus set sail for Spain on the 3d of January, 1493, and on
March 15 was safe at Palos.
Of the greatness of his discovery, Columbus had not the faintest idea.
That he had found a new world; that a continent was blocking his way to
the East, never entered his mind. He supposed he had landed on some
islands off the east coast of Asia, and as that coast was called the
Indies, and as the islands were reached by sailing westward, they came
to be called the West Indies, and their inhabitants Indians; and the
native races of the New World have ever since been called Indians.
Although Columbus in after years made three more voyages to the New
World, he never found out his mistake, and died firm in the belief that
he had discovered a direct route to Asia.[1]
[Footnote 1: Columbus began his second voyage in September, 1493, and
discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico (por'-to ree'-co), and the islands of the
Caribbean Sea. On his third voyage, in 1498, he discovered the island of
Trinidad, off the coast of Venezuela, and saw South America at the mouth
of the Orinoco River. During his fourth and last voyage, 1502-1504, he
explored the shores of Honduras and the Isthmus of Panama in search of a
strait leading to the Indian Ocean. Of course he did not find it, and,
going back to Spain, he died poor and broken-hearted on May 20, 1506.]
%5. The Atlantic Coast explored.%--And now that Columbus had shown
the way, others were quick to follow. In 1497 and 1498 came John and
Sebastian Cabot (cab'-ot), sailing under the flag of England, and
exploring our coast from Labrador to Cape Cod; and Pinzon and Solis,
with Vespucius[2] for pilot, sailing under the flag of Spain along the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico, around the peninsula of Florida, and
northward to Chesapeake Bay. Between 1500 and 1502 two Portuguese
navigators named Cortereal (cor-ta-ra-ahl') went over much the same
ground as the Cabots. For the time being, however, these voyages were
fruitless. It was not a new world, but China and Japan, the Indian
Ocean, and the spice islands, that Europe was seeking. When, therefore,
in 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, passed around the end of
Africa, reached India, and came back to Portugal in 1499 with his ship
laden with the silks and spices of the East, all explorers turned
southward, and for eleven years after the visit of the Cortereals no
voyages were made to North America.
[Footnote 2: As this man was an Italian, his name was really Amerigo
Vespucci (ah-ma'-ree-go ves-poot'-chee), but it is usually given in its
Latinized form, Americus Vespucius (a-mer'-i-cus ves-pu'-she-us).]
%6. Why the Continent was called America.%--But some great voyages
meantime were made to South America. In 1500 a Portuguese fleet of
thirteen vessels, commanded by Cabral, started from Portugal for the
East. In place of following the usual route and hugging the west coast
of Africa, Cabral went off so far to the westward that one day in April,
1500, he was amazed to see land. It proved to be what is now Brazil, and
after sailing along a little way he sent one of his vessels home to
Portugal with the news.
[Illustration: %DISCOVERY% ON THE EAST COAST OF %AMERICA%]
He did this because six years before, in June, 1494, Spain and Portugal
made a treaty and agreed that a meridian should be drawn 370 leagues
west of the Cape Verde Islands and be known as "The Line of Demarcation"
All heathen lands discovered, no matter by whom, to the east of this
line, were to belong to Portugal; all to the west of it were to be the
property of Spain. Now, as the strange coast seemed to be east of the
line of demarcation, and therefore the property of Portugal, Cabral sent
word to the King that he might explore it.
Accordingly, in May, 1501, the King sent out three ships in charge of
Americus Vespucius. Vespucius sighted the coast somewhere about Cape St.
Roque, and, finding that it was east of the line of demarcation,
explored it southward as far as the mouth of the river La Plata. As he
was then west of the line, and off a coast which belonged to Spain, he
turned and sailed southeastward till he struck the island of South
Georgia, where the Antarctic cold and the fields of floating ice stopped
him and sent him back to Lisbon.
The results of this great voyage were many. In the first place, it
secured Brazil for Portugal. In the second place, it changed the
geographical ideas of the time. The great length of coast line explored
proved that the land was not a mere island, but that Vespucius had found
a new continent in the southern hemisphere,--off the coast of Asia, as
was then supposed. This for a time was called the "Fourth Part" of the
world,--the other three parts being Europe, Asia, and Africa. But in
1507 a German professor published a little book on geography, in which
he suggested that the new part of the world discovered by Americus, the
part which we call Brazil, should be called America.
As Columbus was not supposed to have discovered a new world, but merely
a new route to Asia, this suggestion seemed very proper, and soon the
word "America" began to appear on maps as the name of Brazil. After a
while it was applied to all South America, and finally to North
America also.
%7. The Pacific discovered; the Mexican Gulf Coast explored.%--A few
years after the publication of the little book which gave the New World
the name of America, a Spaniard named Balboa landed on the Isthmus of
Panama, crossed it (1513), and from the mountains looked down on an
endless expanse of blue water, which he called the South Sea, because
when he first saw it he was looking south.
Meantime another Spaniard, named Ponce de Leon (pon'tha da la-on'),
sailed with three ships from Porto Rico, in March, 1513, and on the 27th
of that month came in sight of the mainland. As the day was Easter
Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pascua (pas'-coo-ah) Florida, he called
the country Florida.
[Illustration: Map of 1515][1]
[Footnote 1: Showing what was then supposed to be the shape and position
of the newly discovered lands.]
Six years later (1519) Pineda (pe-na'-da) skirted the shores of the Gulf
from Florida to Mexico.
%8. Spaniards sail round the World.%--In the same year (1519) that
Pineda explored the Gulf coast, a Portuguese named Magellan (ma-jel'-an)
led a Spanish fleet across the Atlantic. He coasted along South America
to Tierra del Fuego, entered the strait which now bears his name, passed
well up the western coast, and turning westward sailed toward India. He
was then on the ocean which Balboa had discovered and named the South
Sea. But Magellan found it so much smoother than the Atlantic that he
called it the Pacific. Five ships and 254 men left Spain; but only one
ship and fifteen men returned to Spain by way of India and Cape of Good
Hope. Magellan himself was among the dead.[1]
[Footnote 1: Magellan was killed by the natives of one of the Philippine
Islands. The captain of the ship which made the voyage was greatly
honored. The King of Spain ennobled him, and on his coat of arms was a
globe representing the earth, and on it the motto "You first sailed
round me."]
%9. Importance of Magellan's Voyage.%--Of all the voyages ever made
by man this was the greatest.[2] In the first place, it proved beyond
dispute that the earth is round. In the second place, it proved that
South America is a great continent, and that there is no short southwest
passage to India.
[Footnote 2: By all means read the account of this voyage by Fiske, in
his _Discovery of America_, Vol. II., pp. 190-211.]
%10. Search for a Northwest Passage; our North Atlantic Coast
explored.%--All eyes, therefore, turned northward; the quest for a
northwest passage began, and in that quest the Atlantic coast of the
United States was examined most thoroughly.
SUMMARY
1. Towards the close of the fifteenth century the Turks cut off the old
route of trade between Asia and Europe.
2. In attempting to find a new way to Asia, the Portuguese then began to
explore the west coast of Africa.
3. When at last they got well down the African coast it was thought that
such a route was too long.
4. Columbus (1492) then attempted to find a shorter way to Asia by
sailing westward across the Atlantic Ocean, and landed on some islands
which he supposed to be the East Indies.
5. The explorations of men who followed Columbus proved that a new
continent had been discovered and that it blocked the way to India.
6. The attempts to find a southwest passage or a northwest passage
through our continent led to the exploration of the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts.
7. The new world was called America, after the explorer Americus.
8. The voyage of Magellan proved that the earth is round.
CHAPTER II
THE SPANIARDS IN THE UNITED STATES
%11. The Spaniards explore the Southwest.%--Now it must be noticed
that up to 1513 no European had explored the interior of either North or
South America. They had merely touched the shores. In 1513 the work of
exploration began. Balboa then crossed the Isthmus of Panama. In 1519
Cortes (cor'-tez) landed on the coast of Mexico with a body of men, and
marched boldly into the heart of the country to the city where lived the
great Indian chief or king, Montezuma. Cortes took the city and made
himself master of Mexico. This was most important; for the conquest of
Mexico turned the attention of the Spaniards from our country for many
years, and finally led to the exploration of the Southwest. But the
first explorers of what is now the United States came from Cuba in 1528.
[Illustration: Map of 1530, Sloane MS.[1]]
[Footnote 1: Notice that the two continents begin to take shape, and
that as the result of Magellan's voyage is not generally known, North
America is placed very near to Java.]
In that year Narvaez (nar-vah-eth), excited by Pineda's accounts of the
Mississippi Indians and their golden ornaments, set forth with 400 men
to conquer the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico. At Apalachee Bay he
landed, and made a raid inland. On returning to the shore, he missed his
ships, and after traveling westward on foot for a month, built five rude
vessels, and once more put to sea. For six weeks the little fleet hugged
the shore, till it came to the mouth of the Mississippi, where two of
the boats were upset and Narvaez was drowned. The rest reached the coast
of Texas in safety. But famine and the tomahawk soon reduced the number
of the survivors to four. These were captured by bands of wandering
Indians, were carried over eastern Texas and western Louisiana, till,
after many strange adventures and vicissitudes, they met beyond the
Sabine River.[1] Protected by the fame they had won for sorcery, and led
by one Cabeza de Vaca, they now wandered westward to the Rio Grande[2]
(ree'-o grahn'-da) and on by Chihuahua (chee-wah'-wah) and Sonora to the
Gulf of California, and by this to Culiacan, a town near the west coast
of Mexico, which they reached in 1536. They had crossed the continent.
[Footnote 1: Now the western boundary of Louisiana.]
[Footnote 2: Rio Grande del Norte---Great River of the North.]
%12. "The Seven Cities of Cibola."%--The story these men told of the
strange country through which they had passed, aroused a strong desire
in the Spaniards to explore it, for somewhere in that direction they
believed were the Seven Cities. According to an ancient legend, when the
Arabs invaded the Spanish peninsula, a bishop of Lisbon with many
followers fled to a group of islands in the Sea of Darkness, and on them
founded seven cities. As one of the Indian tribes had preserved a story
of Seven Caves in which their ancestors had once lived, the credulous
and romantic Spaniards easily confounded the two legends. Firmly
believing that the seven cities must exist in the north country
traversed by Vaca, Mendoza, the Spanish governor of Mexico, selected
Fray Marcos, a monk of great ability, and sent him forth with a few
followers to search for them. Directed by the Indians through whose
villages he passed, he came at last in sight of the seven Zuñi
(zoo'-nyee) pueblos (pweb'-loz) of New Mexico, all of which were
inhabited in his time. But he came no nearer than just within sight of
them. For one of the party, who went on in advance, having been killed
by the Zuñi, Fray Marcos hurried back to Culiacan. Understanding the
name of the city he had seen to be Cibola (see'-bo-la), he called the
pueblos the "Seven Cities of Cibola," and against them the next year
(1540) Coronado marched with 1100 men. Finding the pueblos were not the
rich cities for which he sought, Coronado pushed on eastward, and for
two years wandered to and fro over the plains and mountains of the West,
crossing the state of Kansas twice.[1]
[Footnote 1: Do not fail to read a delightful little book called _The
Spanish Pioneers_, by Charles F. Lummis. In it the story of these great
journeys is told on pp. 77-88, 101-143.]
[Illustration: The kind of cities found by Marcos and Coronado in the
Rio Grande valley.]
[Illustration: CORONADO'S EXPEDITION 1540]
%13. The Spaniards on the Mississippi.%--In 1537 De Soto was
appointed governor of Cuba, with instructions to conquer and hold all
the country discovered by Narvaez. On this mission he set out in May,
1539, and landed at Tampa Bay, on the west coast of our state of
Florida. He wandered over the swamps and marshes, the moss-grown
jungles, and the forests of the Gulf states, and spent the winter of
1541 near the Yazoo River. Crossing the Mississippi in the spring of
1542 at the Chickasaw Bluffs, he wandered about eastern Arkansas, till
he died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi. His followers then
built rude boats, floated down the river to the Gulf, steered along the
coast of Texas, and in September, 1543, reached Tampico, in Mexico.
More than half a century had now gone by since the first voyage of
Columbus. Yet not a settlement, great or small, had been established by
Spain within our boundary. Between 1546 and 1561 missionaries twice
attempted to found missions and convert the Indians in Florida, and
twice were driven away. In 1582 others entered the valleys of the Gila
and the Rio Grande, took possession of the pueblos, established
missions, preached the Gospel to the Indians, and brought them under
the dominion of Spain. But when Santa Fé (sahn'-tah fa') was founded, in
1582, the only colony of Spain in the United States, besides the
missions in Arizona and New Mexico, was St. Augustine in Florida.
[Illustration: A Spanish mission]
%14. St. Augustine.%--St. Augustine was founded by the Spaniards in
order to keep out the French, who made two attempts to occupy the south
Atlantic coast. The first was that of John Ribault (ree-bo'). He led a
colony of Frenchmen, in 1562, to what is now South Carolina, built a
small fort on a spot which he called Port Royal, and left it in charge
of thirty men while he went back to France for more colonists. The men
were a shiftless set, depended on the Indians till the Indians would
feed them no longer, and when famine set in, they mutinied, slew their
commander, built a crazy ship and went to sea, where an English vessel
found them in a starving condition, and took them to London.
In 1564 a second party, under Laudonnière (lo-do-ne-ar'), landed at the
St. Johns River in Florida, and built a fort called Fort Caroline in
honor of Charles IX. of France. But the King of Spain, hearing that the
French were trespassing, sent an expedition under Menendez
(ma-nen'-deth), who founded St. Augustine in 1565. There Ribault, who
had returned and joined Laudonnière, attempted to attack the Spaniards.
But a hurricane scattered his ships, and while it was still raging,
Menendez fell suddenly on Fort Caroline and massacred men, women, and
children. A few days later, falling in with Ribault and his men, who had
been driven ashore south of St. Augustine, Menendez massacred 150
more.[1] For this foul deed a Frenchman named Gourgues (goorg) exacted a
fearful penalty. With three small ships and 200 men, he sailed to the
St. Johns River, took and destroyed the fort which the Spaniards had
built on the site of Fort Caroline, and put to death every human being
within it.
[Footnote 1: The story of the French in Florida is finely told in
Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_; also J. Sparks's _Life
of Ribault_; Baird's _Huguenot Emigration_.]
[Illustration: Gateway at St. Augustine[2]]
[Footnote 2: Remaining from the Spanish occupation of Florida.]
SUMMARY
1. From 1492 to 1513 the Europeans who came to America explored the
coasts of North and South America, but did not go inland.
2. In 1513 exploration of the interior of the two continents began.
Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, 1513, and Cortes conquered
Mexico, 1519-21.
3. In 1528 Narvaez made the first serious attempt to enter the
Mississippi valley. He died, and some of his followers, under Cabeza de
Vaca, crossed the continent.
4. When the Spanish governor of Mexico heard their story, he sent Fray
Marcos to find the "Seven Cities of Cibola"; and began the exploration
of the southwestern part of the United States.
5. In 1539-1541 De Soto and his band explored the southeastern part of
the United States from Florida to the Mississippi River.
6. By 1582 two Spanish settlements had been made in the United States
--St. Augustine, 1565, and Santa Fé, 1582.
EUROPE FINDS AMERICA.
DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATIONS, 1492-1600.
ATLANTIC COAST.
1492. Columbus. Islands off the coast.
1493. Columbus. Islands off the coast.
1497. John Cabot. North America. Labrador.
1498. John and Sebastian Cabot. Labrador to Cape Cod.
Pinzon and Solis. Florida to Chesapeake Bay.
1500. Cabral. Discovers Brazil.
1501. Vespucius. Explores Brazilian coast.
1500-1502. Cortereals. Explore coast North America.
1513. Ponce de Leon. Discovers and names Florida.
GULF COAST.
1498. Pinzon and Solis. Explore Gulf of Mexico and
coast of Florida.
1519. Pineda. Sails from Florida to Mexico.
1528. Narvaez. Florida to Texas.
1543. Followers of De Soto sail from Mississippi River
to Mexico.
THE INTERIOR.
1519-21. Cortes. Conquers Mexico.
1534-36. De Vaca. From the Sabine River to the Gulf
of California.
1539. Fray Marcos. Search for the Seven Cities. Wanders
over New Mexico.
1540-42. Coronado, Gila River, Rio Grande, Colorado
River.
1539-41. De Soto. Wanders over Florida, Georgia, and
Alabama, and reaches the Mississippi River.
1582-1600. Spaniards in the valleys of the Gila and Rio
Grande.
PACIFIC COAST.
1513. Balboa. Discovers the Pacific Ocean.
1520. Magellan. Sails around South America into the
Pacific.
1578-1580. Drake. Sails around South America and
up the Pacific coast to Oregon. (See p. 26.)
CHAPTER III
ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES ON THE SEABOARD
%15. The English Claim to the Seaboard.%--After the Spaniards had
thus explored the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and what is now Arizona,
New Mexico, and Texas, the English attempted to take possession of the
Atlantic coast. The voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot in 1497 and 1498
were not followed up in the same way that Spain followed up those of
Columbus, and for nearly eighty years the flag of England was not
displayed in any of our waters.[1] At last, in 1576, Sir Martin
Frobisher set out to find a northwest passage to Asia. Of course he
failed; but in that and two later voyages he cruised about the shores of
our continent and gave his name to Frobisher's Bay.[2] Next came Sir
Francis Drake, the greatest seaman of his age. He left England in 1577,
crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the South American coast, passed
through the Strait of Magellan, and turning northward coasted along
South America, Mexico, and California, in search of a northeast passage
to the Atlantic. When he had gone as far north as Oregon the weather
grew so cold that his men began to murmur, and putting his ship about,
he sailed southward along our Pacific coast in search of a harbor, which
in June, 1579, he found near the present city of San Francisco. There he
landed, and putting up a post nailed to it a brass plate on which was
the name of Queen Elizabeth, and took possession of the country.[3]
Despairing of finding a short passage to England, Drake finally crossed
the Pacific and reached home by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He had
sailed around the globe.[4]
[Footnote 1: For Cabot's voyages read Fiske's _Discovery of America_,
Vol. II., pp. 2-15.]
[Footnote 2: See map of 1515.]
[Footnote 3: The white cliffs reminded Drake strongly of the cliffs of
Dover, and as one of the old names of England was Albion (the country of
the white cliffs), he called the land New Albion.]
[Footnote 4: For Drake read E.T. Payne's _Voyages of Elizabethan
Seamen_.]
%16. Gilbert and Ralegh attempt to found a Colony.%--While Drake was
making his voyage, another gallant seaman, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was
given (by Queen Elizabeth) any new land he might discover in America.
His first attempt (1579) was a failure, and while on his way home from a
landing on Newfoundland (1583), his ship, with all on board, went down
in a storm at sea. The next year (1584) his half-brother, Sir Walter
Ralegh, one of the most accomplished men of his day and a great favorite
with Queen Elizabeth, obtained permission from the Queen to make a
settlement on any part of the coast of America not already occupied by a
Christian power; and he at once sent out an expedition. The explorers
landed on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina,
and came home with such a glowing description of the "good land" they
had found that the Virgin Queen called it "Virginia," in honor of
herself, and Ralegh determined to colonize it.[1]
[Footnote 1: For Ralegh read E. Gosse's _Raleigh_ (in English Worthies
Series); Louise Creighton's _Sir W. Ralegh_ (Historical
Biographies Series).]
%17. Roanoke Colony; the Potato and Tobacco.%--In 1585, accordingly,
108 emigrants under Ralph Lane left England and began to build a town on
Roanoke Island. They were ill suited for this kind of pioneer life, and
were soon in such distress that, had not Sir Francis Drake in one of his
voyages happened to touch at Roanoke, they would have starved to death.
Drake, seeing their helplessness, carried them home to England. Yet
their life on the island was not without results, for they took back
with them the potato, and some dried tobacco leaves which the Indians
had taught them to smoke.
Ralegh, of course, was greatly disappointed to see his colonists again
in England. But he was not discouraged, and in 1587 sent forth a second
band. The first had consisted entirely of men. The second band was
composed of both men and women with their families, for it seemed likely
that if the men took their wives and children along they would be more
likely to remain than if they went alone. John White was the leader, and
with a charter and instructions to build the city of Ralegh somewhere on
the shores of Chesapeake Bay he set off with his colonists and landed on
Roanoke Island. Here a little granddaughter was born (August 18, 1587),
and named Virginia. She was the child of Eleanor Dare, and was the first
child born of English parents in America.
[Illustration: Roanoke Island and vicinity]
Governor White soon found it necessary to go back to England for
supplies, and, in consequence of the Spanish war, three years slipped by
before he was able to return to the colony. He was then too late. Every
soul had perished, and to this day nobody knows how or where. Ralegh
could do no more, and in 1589 made over all his rights to a joint-stock
company of merchants. This company did nothing, and the sixteenth
century came to an end with no English colony in America.[1]
[Footnote 1: Doyle's _English Colonies in America_, Virginia, pp. 56-74;
Bancroft's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 60-79;
Hildreth's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 80-87.]
%18. Gosnold in New England.%--With the new century came better
fortune. Ralegh's noble efforts to plant a colony aroused Englishmen to
the possibility of founding a great empire in the New World, and
especially one named Bartholomew Gosnold.
Instead of following the old route to America by way of the Canary
Islands, the West Indies, and Florida, he sailed due west across the
Atlantic,[2] and brought up on the shore of a cape which he named Cape
Cod.[3] Following the shore southward, he passed through Nantucket Sound
and Vineyard Sound, till he came to Cuttyhunk Island, at the entrance of
Buzzards Bay. On this he landed, and built a house for the use of
colonists he intended to leave there. But when he had filled his ship
with sassafras roots and cedar logs, nobody would remain, and the whole
company went back to England.[4]
[Footnote 2: By thus shortening the journey 3000 miles, he practically
brought America 3000 miles nearer to Europe.]
[Footnote 3: Because the waters thereabout abounded in codfish. For a
comparison of Gosnold's route with those of the other early explorers
see the map on p. 15.]
[Footnote 4: Bancroft's _United States_, Vol. I., pp. 70-83. Hildreth's
_United States,_ Vol. I., p. 90.]
%19. The Two Virginia Companies.%--As a result of this voyage,
Gosnold was more eager than ever to plant a colony in Virginia, and this
enthusiasm he communicated so fully to others that, in 1606, King James
I. created two companies to settle in Virginia, which was then the name
for all the territory from what is now Maine to Florida.
1. Each company was to own a block of land 100 miles square; that is,
100 miles along the coast,--50 miles each way from its first
settlement,--and 100 miles into the interior.
2. The First Company, a band of London merchants, might establish its
first settlement anywhere between 34° and 41° north latitude.
3. The Second Company, a band of Plymouth merchants, might establish its
first settlement anywhere between 38° and 45°.
4. These settlements were to be on the seacoast.
5. In order to prevent the blocks from overlapping, it was provided that
the company which was last to settle should locate at least 100 miles
from the other company's settlement.[1]
[Footnote 1: Over the affairs of each company presided a council
appointed by the King, with power to choose its own president, fill
vacancies among its own members, and elect a council of thirteen to
reside on the company's lands in America. Each company might coin money,
raise a revenue by taxing foreign vessels trading at its ports, punish
crime, and make laws which, if bad, could be set aside by the King. All
property was to be owned in common, and all the products of the soil
deposited in a public magazine from which the needs of the settlers were
to be supplied. The surplus was to be sold for the good of the company.
The charter is given in full in Poore's _Charters and Constitutions_,
pp. 1888-1893.]
%20. The Jamestown Colony.%--Thus empowered, the two companies made
all haste to gather funds, collect stores and settlers, and fit out
ships. The London Company was the first to get ready, and on the 19th of
December, 1606, 143 colonists set sail in three ships for America with
their charter, and a list of the council sealed up in a strong box. The
Plymouth Company soon followed, and before the year 1607 was far
advanced, two settlements were planted in our country: the one at
Jamestown, in Virginia, the other near the mouth of the Kennebec, in
Maine. The latter, however, was abandoned the following year (see
Chapter IV).
The three ships which carried the Virginia colony reached the coast in
the spring of 1607, and entering Chesapeake Bay sailed up a river which
the colonists called the James, in honor of the King. When about thirty
miles from its mouth, a landing was made on a little peninsula, where a
settlement was begun and named Jamestown.[1] It was the month of May,
and as the weather was warm, the colonists did not build houses, but,
inside of some rude fortifications, put up shelters of sails and
branches to serve till huts could be built. But their food gave out, the
Indians were hostile, and before September half of the party had died of
fever. Had it not been for the energy and courage of John Smith, every
one of them would have perished. He practically assumed command, set the
men to building huts, persuaded the Indians to give them food, explored
the bays and rivers of Virginia, and for two dreary years held the
colony together. When we consider the worthless men he had to deal with,
and the hardships and difficulties that beset him, his work is
wonderful. The history which he wrote, however, is not to be trusted.[2]
[Footnote 1: Nothing now remains of Jamestown but the ruined tower of
the church shown in the picture. Much of the land on which the town
stood has been washed away by the river, so that its site is now
an island.]
[Footnote 2: Read the _Life and Writings of Captain John Smith_, by
Charles Dudley Warner; also John Fiske in _Atlantic Monthly_, December,
1895; Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 31-38. Smith's _True
Relation_ is printed in _American History Leaflets_, No. 27, and
_Library of American Literature_ Vol. I.]
[Illustration: All that is left of Jamestown]
Bad as matters were, they became worse when a little fleet arrived with
many new settlers, making the whole number about 500. The newcomers were
a worthless set picked up in the streets of London or taken from the
jails, and utterly unfit to become the founders of a state in the
wilderness of the New World. Out of such material Smith in time might
have made something, but he was forced by a wound to return to England,
and the colony went rapidly to ruin. Sickness and famine did their work
so quickly that after six months there were but sixty of the 500 men
alive. Then two small ships, under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George
Somers, arrived at Jamestown with more settlers; but all decided to
flee, and had actually sailed a few miles down the James, when, June 8,
1610, they met Lord Delaware with three ships full of men and supplies
coming up the river. Delaware came out as governor under a new charter
granted in 1609.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read "The Jamestown Experiments," in Eggleston's _Beginners
of a Nation,_ pp. 25-72.]
[Illustration: Vicinity of Jamestown]
%21. The Virginia Charter of 1609% made a great change in the
boundary of the company's property. By the 1606 charter the colony was
limited to 100 miles along the seaboard and 100 miles west from the
coast. In 1609 the company was given an immense domain reaching 400
miles along the coast,--200 miles each way from Old Point
Comfort,--and extending "up into the land throughout _from sea to sea_,
west and northwest." This description is very important, for it was
afterwards claimed by Virginia to mean a grant of land of the shape
shown on the map.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Hinsdale's _Old Northwest_, pp. 74, 75.]
[Illustration]
%22. The First Representative Assembly in America.%--Under the new
charter and new governors Virginia began to thrive. More work and less
grumbling were done, and a few wise reforms were introduced. One
governor, however, Argall, ruled the colony so badly that the people
turned against him and sent such reports to England that immigration
almost ceased. The company, in consequence, removed Argall, and gave
Virginia a better form of government. In future, the governor's power
was to be limited, and the people were to have a share in the making of
laws and the management of affairs. As the colonists, now numbering 4000
men, were living in eleven settlements, or "boroughs," it was ordered
that each borough should elect two men to sit in a legislature to be
called the House of Burgesses. This house, the first representative
assembly ever held by white men in America, met on July 30, 1619, in the
church at Jamestown, and there began "government of the people, by the
people, for the people."
%23. The Establishment of Slavery in America.%--It is interesting to
note that at the very time the men of Virginia thus planted free
representative government in America, another institution was planted
beside it, which, in the course of two hundred and fifty years, almost
destroyed free government. The Burgesses met in July, and a few weeks
later, on an August day, a Dutch ship entered the James and before it
sailed away sold twenty negroes into slavery. The slaves increased in
numbers (there were 2000 in Virginia in 1671), and slavery spread to the
other colonies as they were started, till, in time, it existed in every
one of them.
%24. Virginia loses her Charter, 1624.%--The establishment of popular
government in Virginia was looked on by King James as a direct affront,
and was one of many weighty reasons why he decided to destroy the
company. To do this, he accused it of mismanagement, brought a suit
against it, and in 1624 his judges declared the charter annulled, and
Virginia became a royal colony.[1]
[Footnote 1: On the Virginia colony in general read Doyle's volume on
_Virginia_, pp. 104-184; Lodge's _English Colonies in America_, pp.
1-12; of course, Bancroft and Hildreth. For particular epochs or events
consult Channing and Hart's _Guide to American History_, pp. 248-253.]
%25. Maryland begun.%--A year later James died, and Charles I. came
to the throne. As Virginia was now a royal colony, the land belonged to
the King; and as he was at liberty to do what he pleased with it, he cut
off a piece and gave it to Lord Baltimore. George Calvert, Lord
Baltimore, was a Roman Catholic nobleman who for years past had been
interested in the colonization of America, and had tried to plant a
colony in Newfoundland. The severity of the climate caused failure, and
in 1629 he turned his attention to Virginia and visited Jamestown. But
religious feeling ran as high there as it did anywhere. The colonists
were intolerantly Protestant, and Baltimore was ordered back to England.
Undeterred by such treatment, Baltimore was more determined than ever to
plant a colony, and in 1632 obtained his grant of a piece of Virginia.
The tract lay between the Potomac River and the fortieth degree of north
latitude, and extended from the Atlantic Ocean to a north and south
line through the source of the Potomac.[1] It was called Maryland in
honor of the Queen, Henrietta Maria.
[Footnote 1: It thus included what is now Delaware, and pieces of
Pennsylvania and West Virginia.]
[Illustration: ORIGINAL BOUNDARY OF MARYLAND]
The area of the colony was not large; but the authority of Lord
Baltimore over it was almost boundless. He was to bring to the King each
year, in token of homage, two Indian arrowheads, and pay as rent one
fifth of all the gold and silver mined. This done, the "lord
proprietary," as he was called, was to all intents and purposes a king.
He might coin money, make war and peace, grant titles of nobility,
establish courts, appoint judges, and pardon criminals; but he was not
permitted to tax his people without their consent. He must summon the
freemen to assist him in making the laws; but when made, they need not
be sent to the King for approval, but went into force as soon as the
lord proprietary signed them. Of course they must not be contrary to the
laws of England.
%26. Treatment of Catholics.%--The deed for Maryland had not been
issued when Lord Baltimore died. It was therefore made out in the name
of his son, Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, who, like the
first, was a Roman Catholic, and was influenced in his attempts at
colonization by a desire to found a refuge for people of his own faith.
At that time in England no Roman Catholic was permitted to educate his
children in a foreign land, or to employ a schoolmaster of his religious
belief; or keep a weapon; or have Catholic books in his house; or sit in
Parliament; or when he died be buried in a parish churchyard. If he did
not attend the parish church, he was fined £20 a month. But it is
needless to mention the ways in which he suffered for his religion. It
is enough to know that the persecution was bitter, and that the purpose
of Lord Baltimore was to make Maryland a Roman Catholic colony. Yet he
set a noble example to other founders of colonies by freely granting to
all sects full freedom of conscience. As long as the Catholics remained
in control, toleration worked well. But in the year 1691 Lord Baltimore
was deprived of his colony because he had supported King James II., and
in 1692 sharp laws were made in Maryland against Catholics by the
Protestants. In 1716 the colony was restored to the proprietor.
The first settlement was made in 1634 at St. Marys. Annapolis was
founded about 1683; and Baltimore in 1729.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Scharf's _History of Maryland_; Doyle's _Virginia_;
Lodge's _English Colonies_; Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation,_.]
%27. The Dutch on the Hudson.%--Meantime great things had been
happening to the northward. In 1609 Henry Hudson, an English sailor in
the service of Holland, was sent to find a northwest passage to India.
He reached our coast not far from Portland, Maine, and abandoning all
idea of finding a passage, he sailed alongshore to the southward as far
as Cape Cod. Here he put to sea, and when he again sighted land was off
Delaware Bay. In attempting to sail up it, his ship, the _Half-Moon,_
grounded, and Hudson turned about. Running along the Jersey coast, he
entered New York Bay, and sailed up the river which the Dutch called
the North River, but which we know as the Hudson. Hudson's voyage gave
the Dutch a claim to all the country drained by the Delaware or South
River and the Hudson River, and some Dutch traders at once sent out
vessels, and were soon trading actively with the Indians. By 1614 a rude
fort had been erected near the site of Albany, and some trading huts had
been put up on Manhattan Island. These ventures proved so profitable
that numbers of merchants began to engage in the trade, whereupon those
already in it, in order to shut out others, organized a company, and in
1615 obtained a trading charter for three years from the States General
of Holland, and carried on their operations from Albany to the
Delaware River.
[Illustration: View of New Amsterdam in 1656]
%28. Dutch West India Company.%--On the expiration of the charter (in
1618) it was not renewed, but a new corporation, the Dutch West India
Company (1621), was created with almost absolute political and
commercial power over all the Dutch domains in North America, which were
called New Netherland. In 1623 the company began to send out settlers.
Some went to Albany, or, as they called it, Fort Orange. Others were
sent to the South or Delaware River, where a trading post, Fort Nassau,
was built on the site of Gloucester in New Jersey. A few went to the
Connecticut River; some settled on Long Island; and others on Manhattan
Island, where they founded New Amsterdam, now called New York city.
All these little settlements were merely fur-trading posts. Nobody was
engaged as yet in farming. To encourage this, the company (in 1629) took
another step, and offered a great tract of land, on any navigable river
or bay, to anybody who would establish a colony of fifty persons above
the age of fifteen. If on a river, the domain was to be sixteen miles
along one bank or eight miles along each bank, and run back into the
country as far "as the situation of the occupiers will admit." The
proprietor of the land was to be called a "patroon," [1] and was absolute
ruler of whatever colonies he might plant, for he was at once owner,
ruler, and judge. It may well be supposed that such a tempting offer did
not go a-begging, and a number of patroons were soon settled along the
Hudson and on the banks of the Delaware (1631), where they founded a
town near Lewes. The settlements on the Delaware River were short-lived.
The settlers quarreled with the Indians, who in revenge massacred them
and drove off the garrison at Fort Nassau; whereupon the patroons sold
their rights to the Dutch West India Company.[2]
[Footnote 1: The patroon bound himself to (1) transport the fifty
settlers to New Netherland at his own expense; (2) provide each of them
with a farm stocked with horses, cattle, and farming implements, and
charge a low rent; (3) employ a schoolmaster and a minister of the
Gospel. In return for this the emigrant bound himself (1) to stay and
cultivate the land of the patroon for ten years; (2) to bring his grain
to the patroon's mill and pay for grinding; (3) to use no cloth not made
in Holland; (4) to sell no grain or produce till the patroon had been
given a chance to buy it.]
[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 295-311; Winsor's
_Narrative and Critical History_, Vol. III., pp. 385-411; Bancroft's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 501-508.]
%29. The Struggle for the Delaware; the Swedes on the Delaware.%--And
now began a bitter contest for the ownership of the country bordering
the Delaware. A few leading officials of the Dutch Company, disgusted at
the way its affairs were managed, formed a new company under the lead of
William Usselinx. As they could not get a charter from Holland, for she
would not create a rival to the Dutch Company, they sought and obtained
one from Sweden as the South Company, and (1638) sent out a colony to
settle on the Delaware River.[1] The spot chosen was on the site of
Wilmington. The country was named New Sweden, though it belonged to
Maryland. The Dutch West India Company protested and rebuilt Fort
Nassau. The Swedes, in retaliation, went farther up the river and
fortified an island near the mouth of the Schuylkill. Had they stopped
here, all would have gone well. But, made bold by the inaction of the
Dutch, they began to annoy the New Netherlanders, till (1655) Peter
Stuyvesant, the governor of New Netherland, unable to stand it any
longer, came over from New Amsterdam with a few hundred men, overawed
the Swedes, and annexed their territory west of the Delaware. New Sweden
then became part of New Netherland.[2]
[Footnote 1: Sweden had no right to make such a settlement. She had no
claim to any territory in North America.]
[Footnote 2: Lodge's _English Colonies_, pp. 205-210; Bancroft's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 509, 510; Hildreth's
_History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 413-442.]
SUMMARY
1. After the discovery of the North American coast by the Cabots,
England made no attempt to settle it for nearly eighty years; and even
then the colonies planted by Gilbert and Ralegh were failures.
2. Successful settlement by the English began under the London Company
in 1607.
3. In 1609 the London Company obtained a grant of land from sea to sea,
and extending 400 miles along the Atlantic; but in 1624 its charter was
annulled, and in 1632 the King carved the proprietary colony of Maryland
out of Virginia.
4. Meantime Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch, discovered the
Delaware and Hudson rivers (1609), and the Dutch, ignoring the claims of
England, planted colonies on these rivers and called the country New
Netherland.
5. Then a Swedish company began to colonize the Delaware Bay and River
coast of Virginia, which they called New Sweden.
6. Conflicts between the Dutch and the Swedes followed, and in 1655 New
Sweden was made a part of New Netherland.
CHAPTER IV
THE PLANTING OF NEW ENGLAND
%30. The Beginnings of New England.%--When the Dutch put up their
trading posts where New York and Albany now stand, all the country east
of New York, all of what is now New England, was a wilderness. As early
as 1607 an attempt was made to settle it and a colony was planted on the
coast of Maine by two members of the Plymouth Company, Sir John Popham,
Lord Chief Justice of England, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of
Plymouth. But the colonists were half starved and frozen, and in the
spring of 1608 gladly went home to England.
Six years later John Smith, the hero of Virginia, explored and mapped
the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. He called the country New
England; one of the rivers, the Charles; and two of the promontories,
Cape Elizabeth and Cape Ann. Three times he attempted to lead out a
colony; but that work was reserved for other men.
%31. The Separatists.%--The reign of Queen Elizabeth had witnessed in
England the rise of a religious sect which insisted that certain changes
should be made in the government and ceremonials of the Established or
State Church of England. This they called purifying the Church, and in
consequence they were themselves called Puritans.[1] At first they did
not intend to form a new sect; but in 1580 one of their ministers, named
Robert Brown, urged them to separate from the Church of England, and
soon gathered about him a great number of followers, who were called
Separatists or Brownists. They boldly asserted their right to worship as
they pleased, and put their doctrines into practice. So hot a
persecution followed, that in 1608 a party, led by William Brewster and
John Robinson, fled from Scrooby, a little village in northern England,
to Amsterdam, in Holland; but soon went on to Leyden, where they dwelt
eleven years.[2]
[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 50-71. The
teacher may read "Rise and Development of Puritanism" in Eggleston's
_Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 98-140.]
[Footnote 2: Read Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 141-157;
Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 71-80; Doyle's _Puritan
Colonies_, Vol. I., pp. 47-81; Palfrey's _New England_, Vol. I.,
pp. 176-232.]
%32. Why the Separatists went to New England%.--They had come to
Holland as an organized community, practicing English manners and
customs. For a temporary residence this would do. But if they and their
children's children after them were to remain and prosper, they must
break up their organization, forget their native land, their native
speech, their national traditions, and to all intents and purposes
become Dutch. This they could not bring themselves to do, and by 1617
they had fully determined to remove to some land where they might still
continue to be Englishmen, and where they might lay the foundations of a
Christian state. But one such land could then be found, and that was
America. To America, therefore, they turned their attention, and after
innumerable delays formed a company and obtained leave from the London
Company to settle on the coast of what is now New Jersey.[1]
[Footnote 1: Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 159-176.]
This done, Brewster and Bradford and Miles Standish, with a little band,
sent out as an advance guard, set sail from the Dutch port of Delft
Haven in July, 1620, in the ship _Speedwell_. The first run was to
Southampton, England, where some friends from London joined them in the
_Mayflower_, and whence, August 5, they sailed for America. But the
_Speedwell_ proved so unseaworthy that the two ships put back to
Plymouth, where twenty people gave up the voyage. September 6, 1620,
such as remained steadfast, just 102 in number, reëmbarked on the
_Mayflower_ and began the most memorable of voyages. The weather was so
foul, and the wind and sea so boisterous, that nine weeks passed before
they beheld the sandy shores of Cape Cod. Having no right to settle
there, as the cape lay far to the northward of the lands owned by the
London Company, they turned their ship southward and attempted to go on.
But head winds drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in
Provincetown harbor, at the end of Cape Cod.
[Illustration: The Mayflower[1]]
[Footnote 1: From the model in the National Museum, Washington.]
[Illustration: THE MASSACHUSETTS COAST (map)]
%33. The Mayflower Compact%.--Since it was then the 11th of November,
the Pilgrims, as they are now called, decided to get permission from
the Plymouth Company to remain permanently. But certain members of the
party, when they heard this, became unruly, and declared that as they
were not to land in Virginia, they were no longer bound by the contracts
they had made in England regarding their emigration to Virginia. To put
an end to this, a meeting was held, November 21, 1620, in the cabin of
the _Mayflower_, and a compact was drawn up and signed.[1] It declared
1. That they were loyal subjects of the King.
2. That they had undertaken to found a colony in the northern parts of
Virginia, and now bound themselves to form a "civil body politic."
3. That they would frame such just and equal laws, from time to time, as
might be for the general good.
4. And to these laws they promised "all due submission and obedience."
[Footnote 1: The compact is in Poore's _Charters and Constitutions_, p.
931, and in Preston's _Documents Illustrative of American History_, pp.
29-31. Read, by all means, Webster's _Plymouth Oration_.]
[Illustration: Plymouth Rock]
%34. The Founding of Plymouth%.--The selection of a site for their
home was now necessary, and five weeks were passed in exploring the
coast before Captain Standish with a boatload of men entered the harbor
which John Smith had noted on his map and named Plymouth. On the sandy
shore of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite
bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as
they came ashore, December 21, 1620. To this harbor the _Mayflower_ was
brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun. The winter was a
dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1]
But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2]
from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth
Company, under a charter giving it control between latitudes 40° and
48°, from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen
years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights
to the soil.
[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was
chosen governor and many times reëlected. He wrote the so-called "Log of
the Mayflower,"--really a manuscript _History of the Plymouth
Plantation_ from 1602 to 1647,--a fragment of which is reproduced on the
opposite page.]
[Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary. Each settler might have 100
acres. Fifteen hundred acres were set aside for public buildings.]
[Footnote 3: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 80-87; Palfrey's
_New England_, Vol. I, pp. 176-232; Thatcher's _History of the Town of
Plymouth_.]
[Illustration: Fragment of _History of the Plymouth Plantation_.]
%35. A Puritan Colony proposed.%--Among those who obtained such
rights was a company of Dorchester merchants who planted a town on Cape
Ann. The enterprise failed, and the colonists went off and settled at a
place they called Naumkeag. But there was one man in Dorchester who was
not discouraged by failure. He was John White, a Puritan rector. What
had been done by the Separatists in a small way might be done, it seemed
to White, on a great scale by an association of wealthy and influential
Puritans. The matter was discussed by them in London, and in 1628 an
association was formed, and a tract of land was bought from the Council
for New England.
%36. The "Sea to Sea" Grant%.--Concerning the interior of our
continent absolutely nothing was known. Nobody supposed it was more than
half as wide as it really is. The grant to the association, therefore,
stretched from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles
south of the Charles River, along these rivers to their sources, and
then westward across the continent from sea to sea.[1]
[Footnote 1: You will notice that when this grant was made in 1628 the
Dutch had discovered the Hudson, and had begun to settle Albany. To this
region (the Hudson and Mohawk valleys) the English had no just claim.]
As soon as the grant was obtained, John Endicott came out with a company
of sixty persons, and took up his abode at Naumkeag, which, being an
Indian and therefore a pagan name, he changed to Salem, the Hebrew word
for "peace."
%37. The Massachusetts Charter, 1629%.--The next step was to obtain
the right of self-government, which was secured by a royal charter
creating a corporation known as the Governor and Company of
Massachusetts Bay in New England. Over the affairs of the company were
to preside a governor, deputy governor, and a council of eighteen to be
elected annually by the members of the company.[2]
[Footnote 2: The charter is printed in Poore's _Charters and
Constitutions_, pp. 932-942, and in Preston's _Documents_, pp. 36-61.]
Six ships were now fitted out, and in them 406 men, women, and children,
with 140 head of cattle, set sail for Massachusetts. They reached Salem
in safety and made it the largest colony in New England.
%38. Why the Puritans came to New England.%--It was in 1625 that
Charles I. ascended the throne of England. Under him the quarrel with
the Puritans grew worse each year. He violated his promises, he
collected illegal taxes, he quartered troops on the people, he threw
those into prison who would not contribute to his forced loans, or
pressed them into the army or the navy. His Archbishop Laud persecuted
the Puritans with shameful cruelty.
Little wonder then that in 1629 twelve leading Puritans met in
consultation and agreed to head a great migration to the New World,
provided the charter and the government of the Massachusetts Bay Company
were both removed to New England. This was agreed to, and in April,
1630, John Winthrop sailed with nearly one thousand Puritans for Salem.
From Salem he moved to Charlestown, and later in the year (1630) to a
little three-hilled peninsula, which the English called Tri-mountain or
Tremont. There a town was founded and called Boston.
The departure of Winthrop was the signal, and before the year 1630
ended, seventeen ships, bringing fifteen hundred Puritans, reached
Massachusetts. The newcomers settled Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury,
Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge). New England was
planted.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 75-105.
Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 188-219.]
%39. New Hampshire and Maine.%--When it became apparent that the
Plymouth colony was permanently settled, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose
interest in New England had never lagged, together with John Mason
obtained (1622) from the Council for New England a grant of Laconia, as
they called the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers,
and from the Atlantic "to the great river of Canada." Seven years later
(1629) they divided their property. Mason, taking the territory between
the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, called it New Hampshire because he
was Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire in England. Gorges took the region
between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, and called it Maine. After the
death of Mason (1635) his colony was neglected and from 1641 to 1679 was
annexed to Massachusetts. The King separated them in 1679, joined them
again in 1688, and finally parted them in 1691, making New Hampshire a
royal colony.
Gorges took better care of his part and (in 1639) was given a charter
with the title of Lord Proprietor of the Province or County of Maine,
which extended, as before, from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, and
backward 120 miles from the ocean. But after his death the province fell
into neglect, and the towns were gradually absorbed by Massachusetts,
which, in 1677, bought the claims of the heir of Gorges for £1250 and
governed Maine as lord proprietor under the Gorges charter.
%40. Church and State in Massachusetts.%--Down to the moment of their
arrival in America the Puritans had not been Separatists. They were
still members of the Church of England who desired to see her form of
worship purified. But the party under Endicott had no sooner reached
Salem than they seceded, and the first Congregational Church in New
England was founded.
Some in Salem were not prepared for so radical a step, and attempted to
establish a church on the episcopal model; but Endicott promptly sent
two of the leaders back to England. Thus were established two facts: 1.
The separation or secession of the Colonial Church from that of England.
2. That the episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in
the colony.
In 1631 another step was taken which united church and state, for it was
then ordered that "no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body
politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the
limits of the same."
This was intolerance of the grossest kind, and soon became the cause of
troubles which led to the founding of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
%41. The Planting of Rhode Island.%--There came to Salem (from
Plymouth), in 1633, a young minister named Roger Williams. He dissented
heartily from the intolerance of the people of Massachusetts, and,
though a minister of the Salem church, insisted
1. On the separation of church and state.
2. On the toleration of all religious beliefs.
3. On the repeal of all laws requiring attendance on religious worship.
To us, in this century, the justice of each of these principles is
self-evident. But in the seventeenth century there was no country in the
world where it was safe to declare them. For doing so in some parts of
Europe, a man would most certainly have been burned at the stake. For
doing so in England, he would have been put in the pillory, or had his
ears cut off, or been sent to jail. That Williams's teachings should
seem rank heresy in New England was quite natural. But, to make matters
worse, he wrote a pamphlet in which he boldly stated
1. That the soil belonged to the Indians.
2. That the settlers could obtain a valid title only by purchase from
the Indians.
3. That accepting a deed for the land from a mere intruder like the King
of England was a sin requiring public repentance.
In the opinion of the people of New England such doctrine could not fail
to bring down on Massachusetts the wrath of the King. When, therefore, a
little later, Endicott cut the red cross of St. George out of the colors
of the Salem militia, the people considered his act a defiance of royal
authority, attributed it to the teachings of Williams, and proceeded to
punish both. Endicott was rebuked by the General Court (or legislature)
and forbidden to hold office for a year. Williams was ordered to go
back to England. But he fled to the woods, and made his way through the
snow to the wigwam of the Indian chief, Massasoit, on Narragansett Bay,
and there in the summer of 1636 he founded Providence. About the same
time another teacher of what was then thought heresy, Anne Hutchinson,
was driven from Massachusetts, and with some of her followers went
southward and founded Portsmouth and Newport, on the island of Rhode
Island. For a while each of these settlements was independent, but in
1643 Williams went to London and secured a patent from Parliament which
united them under the name of "The Incorporation of Providence
Plantations on the Narragansett Bay in New England."
%42. Connecticut begun.%--In the same year that Roger Williams began
his settlement at Providence, several hundred people from the towns near
Boston went off and settled in the Connecticut valley. For a long time
past there had been growing up in Massachusetts a strong feeling that
the law that none but church members should vote or hold office was
oppressive. This feeling became so strong that in 1635 some hardy
pioneers from Dorchester pushed through the wilderness and settled at
Windsor. A party from Watertown went further and settled Wethersfield.
These were small movements. But in 1636 the Newtown congregation, led by
its pastor, Thomas Hooker, walked to the Connecticut valley and founded
Hartford. The congregations of the Dorchester and Watertown churches
soon followed, while a party from Roxbury settled at Springfield. During
three years these four towns were part of Massachusetts. But in 1639,
Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield adopted a constitution and formed a
little republic which in time was called Connecticut. Their "Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut" was the first written constitution made in
America. Their republic was the first in the history of the world to be
founded by a written constitution, and marks the beginning of democratic
government in our country.
%43. The New Haven Colony.%--Just at the time these things were
happening in the Connecticut valley, the beginnings of another little
republic were made on the shores of Long Island Sound. One day in the
summer of 1637 there came to Boston a company of rich London merchants
under the lead of an eloquent preacher named John Davenport. The people
of Boston would gladly have kept the newcomers at that town. But the
strangers desired to found a state of their own, and so, after spending
some months in seeking for a spot with a good harbor, they left Boston
in 1638 and founded New Haven. In 1639 Milford and Guilford were laid
out, and Stamford was started in 1640. Three years later these four
towns joined in a sort of federal union and took the name of the New
Haven colony.[1]
[Footnote 1: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 134-137.]
[Illustration: NEW ENGLAND AND NEW NETHERLAND]
%44. "The United Colonies of New England."%--There were now five
colonies in New England; namely, Plymouth, or the "Old Colony,"
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Haven.
Geographically, they were near each other. But each was weak in numbers,
and if left without the aid of its neighbors, might easily have fallen
a prey to some enemy. Of this the settlers were well aware, and in 1643
four of the colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New
Haven[1] united for defense against the Indians and the Dutch, who
claimed the Connecticut valley and so threatened the English colonies
on the west.
[Footnote 1: Rhode Island was not allowed to come in, for the feeling
against the followers of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson was still
very strong.]
The name of this league was "The United Colonies of New England," and it
was the first attempt in America at federal government. All its affairs
were managed by a board of eight commissioners,--two from each
colony,--who must be church members. They had no power to lay taxes or
to meddle with the internal concerns of the colonies, but they had
entire control over all dealings with Indians or with foreign powers.
%45. The Year 1643.%--The year 1643 is thus an important one in
colonial history. It was in that year that the New Haven colony was
founded; that the league of The United Colonies of New England was
formed; and that Roger Williams obtained the first charter of
Rhode Island.
%46. New Charters.%--During the next twenty years no changes took
place in the boundaries of the colonies. This was the period of the
Civil War in England, of the Commonwealth, of the rule of Cromwell and
the Puritans; and affairs in New England were left to take care of
themselves. But in 1660 Charles II. was restored to the throne of
England, and a new era opens in colonial history. In 1661 the little
colony of Connecticut promptly acknowledged the restoration of Charles
II. and applied for a charter. The application was more than granted;
for to Connecticut (1662) was given not only a charter and an immense
tract of land, but also the colony of New Haven.[1] The land grant was
comprised in a strip that stretched across the continent from Rhode
Island to the Pacific and was as wide as the present state.[2] In 1663
Rhode Island was given a new charter.
[Footnote 1: In 1660, after the restoration of Charles II., Edward
Whalley and William Goffe (the regicides, "king-killers," as they were
called), two of the judges who had condemned Charles I. to be beheaded,
fled to New Haven and were protected by the people. This act had much to
do with the annexation of New Haven to Connecticut.]
[Footnote 2: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 192-196. Many
of the New Haven colonists were disgusted by the union of their colony
with Connecticut, and in June, 1667, migrated to New Jersey, where they
founded "New-Ark" or Newark.]
In 1684 the King's judges declared the Massachusetts charter void, and
James II. was about to make New England one royal colony, when the
English people drove him from the throne. William and Mary in 1691
granted a new charter and united the Plymouth colony, Massachusetts,
Maine, and Nova Scotia, in one colony called Massachusetts Bay. This
charter was in force when the Revolution opened.
SUMMARY
1. The first colony established by the Plymouth Company (1607, on the
coast of Maine) was a failure.
2. Captain John Smith explored the New England coast and mapped it
(1613), but did not succeed in planting any colonies.
3. The permanent settlement of New England began with the arrival of a
body of Separatists in the _Mayflower_ (1620), who founded the colony
of Plymouth.
4. The Separatist migration from England was followed in a few years by
a great exodus of Puritans, who planted towns along the coast to the
north of Plymouth, and obtained a charter of government and a great
strip of land, and founded the colony of Massachusetts Bay.
5. Religious disputes drove Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson out of
Massachusetts, and led to the founding of Rhode Island (1636).
6. Other church wrangles led to an emigration from Massachusetts to the
Connecticut valley, where a little confederacy of towns was created and
called Connecticut.
7. Some settlers from England went to Long Island Sound and there
founded four towns which, in their turn, joined in a federal union
called the New Haven Colony.
8. In time, New Haven was joined to Connecticut, and Plymouth and Maine
to Massachusetts; New Hampshire was made a royal colony; and the four
New England colonies--Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut--were definitely established.
9. The territory of Massachusetts and Connecticut stretched across the
continent to the "South Sea," or Pacific Ocean.
CHAPTER V
THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES
%47. North and South Carolina.%--You remember that away back in the
sixteenth century the French under Jean Ribault and the English under
Ralegh undertook to plant colonies on what is now the Carolina coast.
They failed, and the country remained a wilderness till 1653, when a
band of emigrants from Virginia made the first permanent settlement on
the banks of the Chowan and the Roanoke. In 1663 some Englishmen from
Barbados began to settle on the Cape Fear River, just at the time when
Charles II. of England gave the region to eight English noblemen, who,
out of compliment to the King, allowed the name of Carolina given it by
Ribault to remain. In 1665 the bounds were enlarged, and Carolina then
extended from latitude 29° 00' to 36° 30', the present south boundary of
Virginia, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
[Illustration: CAROLINA AS GRANTED BY King Charles II]
There was at first no intention of dividing the territory, although,
after Charleston was founded (1670), North Carolina and South Carolina
sometimes had separate governors. But in 1729 the proprietors sold
Carolina to the King, and it was then divided into two distinct and
separate royal provinces.
%48. New York.%--An event of far greater importance than the
chartering of Carolina was the seizure of New Netherland. After the
conquest of New Sweden, in 1655, the possessions and claims of the Dutch
in our country extended from the Connecticut River to the Delaware
River, and from the Mohawk to Delaware Bay. Geographically, they cut the
English colonies in two, and hampered communication between New England
and the South. To own this region was therefore of the utmost importance
to the English; and to get it, King Charles II., in 1664, revived the
old claim that the English had discovered the country before the Dutch,
and he sent a little fleet and army, which appeared off New Amsterdam
and demanded its surrender. The demand was complied with; and in 1664
Dutch rule in our country ended, and England owned the seaboard from the
Kennebec to the Savannah.
The King had already granted New Netherland to his brother the Duke of
York, in honor of whom the town of New Amsterdam was now renamed
New York.
%49. New Jersey.%--The Duke of York no sooner received his province
than he gave so much of it as lay between the Delaware and the ocean to
his friends Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, and called it New
Jersey, in honor of Sir George Carteret, who had been governor of the
island of Jersey in the English Channel. The two proprietors divided it
between them by the line shown on the map (p. 56). In 1674 Berkeley sold
West Jersey to a company of Quakers, who settled near Burlington. A
little later, 1676, William Penn and some other Quakers bought East
Jersey. There were then two colonies till 1702, when the proprietors
surrendered their rights, and New Jersey became one royal province.
%50. The Beginnings of Pennsylvania.%--The part which Penn took in
the settlement of New Jersey suggested to him the idea of beginning a
colony which should be a refuge for the persecuted of all lands and of
all religions.
[Illustration]
Now it so happened that Penn was the son of a distinguished admiral to
whom King Charles II. owed £16,000, and seeing no chance of its ever
being paid, he proposed to the King, in 1680, that the debt be paid with
a tract of land in America. The King gladly agreed, and in 1681 Penn
received a grant west of the Delaware. Against Penn's wish, the King
called it Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woodland. It was given almost
precisely the bounds of the present state.[1] In 1683 Penn made a famous
treaty with the Indians, and laid out the city of Philadelphia.
[Footnote 1: There was a long dispute, however, with Lord Baltimore,
over the south boundary line, which was not settled till 1763-67, when
two surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, came over from England
and located it as at present. In later years, when all the Atlantic
seaboard states north of Maryland and Delaware had abolished slavery,
this "Mason and Dixon's Line" became famous as the dividing line between
the slave and the free Atlantic states.]
%51. The Three Lower Counties: Delaware.%--If you look at the map of
the British Colonies in 1764, you will see that Pennsylvania was the
only English colony which did not have a seacoast. This was a cause of
some anxiety to Penn, who was afraid that the settlers in Delaware and
New Jersey might try to prevent his colonists from going in and out of
Delaware Bay. To avoid this, he bought what is now Delaware from the
Duke of York.
The three lower counties on the Delaware, as the tract was called, had
no boundary. Lawfully it belonged to Lord Baltimore. But neither the
Dutch patroons who settled on the Delaware in 1631, nor the Swedes who
came later, nor the Dutch who annexed New Sweden to New Netherland, nor
the English who conquered the Dutch, paid any regard to Baltimore's
rights. At last, after the purchase of Delaware, the heirs of Baltimore
and of Penn (1732) agreed on what is the present boundary line. After
1703 the people of the three lower counties were allowed to have an
assembly or legislature of their own; but they had the same governor as
Pennsylvania and were a part of that colony till the Revolution.[1]
[Footnote 1: For Pennsylvania read Janney's _Life of William Penn_ or
Dixon's _History of William Penn_; Proud's or Gordon's _Pennsylvania_;
Lodge's _Colonies_, pp. 213-226.]
%52. Georgia.%--The return of the Carolinas to the King in 1729 was
very soon followed by the establishment of the last colony ever planted
by England in the United States. The founder was James Oglethorpe, an
English soldier and member of Parliament. Filled with pity for the poor
debtors with whom the English jails were then crowded, he formed a plan
to pay the debts of the most deserving, send them to America, and give
them what hundreds of thousands of men have since found in our
country,--a chance to begin life anew.
[Illustration]
Great numbers of people became interested in his plan, and finally
twenty-two persons under Oglethorpe's lead formed an association and
secured a charter from King George II. for a colony, which they called
Georgia. The territory granted lay between the Savannah and the
Altamaha rivers, and extended from their mouths to their sources and
then across the country to the Pacific Ocean. Oglethorpe had selected
this tract in order that his colonists might serve the patriotic purpose
of protecting Charleston from the Spanish attacks to which it was
then exposed.
Money for the colony was easily raised,[1] and in November, 1732,
Oglethorpe, with 130 persons, set out for Charleston, and after a short
stay there passed southward and founded the city of Savannah (1733). It
must not be supposed that all the colonists were poor debtors. In time,
Italians from Piedmont, Moravians and Lutherans from Germany, and
Scotchmen from the Highlands, all made settlements in Georgia.
[Footnote 1: The House of Commons gave £10,000.]
%53. The Thirteen English Colonies.%--Thus it came about that between
1606 and 1733 thirteen English colonies were planted on the Atlantic
seaboard of what is now the United States. Naming them from north to
south, they were: 1. New Hampshire, with no definite western boundary;
2. Massachusetts, which owned Maine and a strip of territory across the
continent; 3. Rhode Island, with her present bounds; 4. Connecticut,
with a great tract of land extending to the Pacific; 5. New York, with
undefined bounds; 6. New Jersey; 7. Pennsylvania and 8. Delaware, the
property of the Penn family; 9. Maryland, the property of the heirs of
Lord Baltimore; 10. Virginia, with claims to a great part of North
America; 11. North Carolina, 12. South Carolina, and 13. Georgia, all
with claims to the Pacific.
SUMMARY
1. The English seized New Netherland (1664), giving it to the Duke of
York; and the Duke, after establishing the province of New York, gave
New Jersey to two of his friends, and sold the three counties on the
Delaware to William Penn.
2. Meanwhile the King granted Penn what is now Pennsylvania (1681).
3. The Carolinas were first chartered as one proprietary colony, but
were sold back to the King and finally separated in 1729.
4. Georgia, the last of the thirteen English colonies, was granted to
Oglethorpe and others as a refuge for poor debtors (1732).
BEGINNINGS OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES
_English_.
Failures:
1579. Gilbert.
1584. }Ralegh, Roanoke Island.
1587. }
Successes:
1606. London Company, Plymouth Company.
1607. Virginia settled.
1609. Boundary of London Company changed. Origin of
Virginia claim.
1620. Landing of the Pilgrims. Plymouth colony.
1622. Grant to Mason and Gorges.
1628. Land bought for Massachusetts Bay colony.
1629. Mason and Gorges divide their grant into Maine
and New Hampshire.
1632. Maryland patent granted.
1639. Connecticut constitution
(Windsor. Hartford. Wethersfield)
1643. New Haven colony organized
(New Haven. Milford. Guilford. Stamford.)
1643. Rhode Island chartered.
1662. Connecticut chartered.
(Connecticut. New Haven.)
1663. Rhode Island rechartered.
1663. Carolina patent granted.
After 1729 North and South Carolina.
1664. New Netherland conquered and New York founded.
1664. New Jersey granted to Berkeley and Carteret.
1681. Pennsylvania granted to Penn.
1682. Three counties on the Delaware bought by Penn.
1691. Plymouth and Maine (and Nova Scotia)
united with Massachusetts.
1732. Georgia chartered.
_Dutch_.
1613. Begin to colonize New Netherland
_Swedes_.
1638. South Company makes settlement on the Delaware.
1655. Conquered by the Dutch.
CHAPTER VI
THE FRENCH IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
%54. The Early French Possessions% on our continent may be arranged
in three great areas: 1. Acadia, 2. New France, 3. Louisiana, or the
basin of the Mississippi River.
ACADIA comprised what is now New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and a part of
Maine. It was settled in the early years of the seventeenth century at
Port Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), at Mount Desert Island, and on
the St. Croix River.
NEW FRANCE was the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence and the Great
Lakes. As far back as 1535 Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence
River to the site of Montreal. But it was not till 1608 that a party
under Champlain made the first permanent settlement on the river,
at Quebec.
The French settlers at once entered into an alliance with the Huron and
Algonquin Indians, who lived along the St. Lawrence River. But these
tribes were the bitter enemies of the Iroquois, who dwelt in what is now
central New York, and when, in consequence of this alliance, the French
were summoned to take the warpath, Champlain, with a few followers,
went, and on the shore of the lake which now bears his name, not far
from the site of Ticonderoga, he met and defeated the Iroquois tribe of
Mohawks in July, 1609.
The battle was a small affair; but its consequences were serious and
lasting, for the Iroquois were thenceforth the enemies of the French,
and prevented them from ever coming southward and taking possession of
the Hudson and the Mohawk valleys. When, therefore, the French
merchants began to engage in the fur trade with the Indians, and the
French priests began their efforts to convert the Indians to
Christianity, they were forced to go westward further and further into
the interior.
[Illustration: EUROPEAN CLAIMS AND EXPLORATIONS 1650]
Their route, instead of being up the St. Lawrence, was up the Ottawa
River to its head waters, over the portage to Lake Nipissing, and down
its outlet to Georgian Bay, where the waters of the Great Lakes lay
before them (see map on p. 63). They explored these lakes, dotted their
shores here and there with mission and fur-trading stations, and took
possession of the country.
%55. The French on the Mississippi.%--In the course of these
explorations the French heard accounts from the Indians of a great
river to the westward, and in 1672 Father Marquette (mar-ket') and Louis
Joliet (zho-le-a') were sent by the governor of New France to search for
it. They set out, in May, 1673, from Michilimackinac, a French trading
post and mission at the foot of Lake Michigan. With five companions, in
two birch-bark canoes, they paddled up the lake to Green Bay, entered
Fox River, and, dragging the boats through its boiling rapids, came to a
village where lived the Miamis and the Kickapoos. These Indians tried to
dissuade them from going on; but Marquette was resolute, and on the 10th
of June, 1673, he led his followers over the swamps and marshes that
separated Fox River from a river which the Indian guides assured him
flowed into the Mississippi. This westward-flowing river he called the
Wisconsin, and there the guides left him, as he says, "alone, amid that
unknown country, in the hands of God."
The little band shoved their canoes boldly out upon the river, and for
seven days floated slowly downward into the unknown. At last, on the
17th of June, they paddled out on the bosom of the Mississippi, and,
turning their canoes to the south, followed the bends and twists of the
river, past the mouth of the Missouri, past the Ohio, to a point not far
from the mouth of the Arkansas. There the voyage ended, and the party
went slowly back to the Lakes.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
West_.]
%56. La Salle finishes the Work of Marquette and Joliet.%--The
discovery of Marquette and Joliet was the greatest of the age. Yet five
years went by before Robert de la Salle (lah sahl') set forth with
authority from the French King "to labor at the discovery of the western
part of New France," and began the attempt to follow the river to the
sea. In 1678 La Salle and his companions left Canada, and made their way
to the shore of Lake Erie, where during the winter they built and
launched the _Griffin_, the first ship that ever floated on those
waters. In this they sailed to the mouth of Green Bay, and from there
pushed on to the Illinois River, to an Indian camp not far from the
site of Peoria, Ill. Just below this camp La Salle built Fort Crèvecoeur
(cra'v-ker, a word meaning heart-break, vexation).
[Illustration: %FRENCH CLAIMS% MISSIONS AND TRADING POSTS IN
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY %in 1700%]
Leaving the party there in charge of Henri de Tonty to construct another
ship, he with five companions went back to Canada. On his return he
found that Fort Crèvecoeur was in ruins, and that Tonty and the few men
who had been faithful were gone, he knew not where. In the hope of
meeting them he pushed on down the Illinois to the Mississippi. To go on
would have been easy, but he turned back to find Tonty, and passed the
winter on the St. Joseph River.
From there in November, 1681, he once more set forth, crossed the lake
to the place where Chicago now is, went up the Chicago River and over
the portage to the Illinois, and early in February floated out on the
Mississippi. It was, on that day, a surging torrent full of trees and
floating ice; but the explorers kept on their way and came at last to
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. There La Salle took formal possession
of all the regions drained by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their
tributaries, claiming them in the name of France, and naming the country
thus claimed "Louisiana." The iron will, the splendid courage, of La
Salle had triumphed over every obstacle and made him one of the grandest
characters in history.
But his work was far from ended. The valley he had explored, the
territory he had added to France, must be occupied, and to occupy it two
things were necessary: 1. A colony must be planted at the mouth of the
Mississippi, to control its navigation and shut out the Spaniards. 2. A
strong fort must be built on the Illinois, to overawe the Indians.
In order to overawe the Indians, La Salle now hurried back to the
Illinois River, where, in December, 1682, near the present town of
Ottawa, on the summit of a cliff now known as "Starved Rock," he built a
stockade which he called Fort St. Louis. In 1684, while on a voyage from
France to plant a colony on the Mississippi, he missed the mouth and
brought up on the coast of Texas; and, landing on the sands of
Matagorda Bay, the colonists built another Fort St. Louis. But death
rapidly reduced their numbers, and, in their distress, they parted. Some
remained at the fort and were killed by the Indians. Others, led by La
Salle, started for the Illinois River and reached it; but without their
leader, whom they had murdered on the way.
SUMMARY
1. After the settlement of Quebec (1608) the French began to explore the
regions lying to the west, discovered the Great Lakes, and heard of a
great river--the Mississippi.
2. This river Marquette and Joliet explored from the mouth of the
Wisconsin to the mouth of the Arkansas (1673).
3. Then La Salle floated down the Mississippi from the Illinois to the
Gulf of Mexico, took formal possession of the valley in the name of his
King, and called it Louisiana (1682).
[Illustration: Starved Rock]
CHAPTER VII
THE INDIANS
[Illustration: A typical Indian]
%57%. When Europeans first set foot on our shores, they found the
country already inhabited, and, adopting the name given to the men of
the New World by Columbus, they called these people "Indians."
They were not "Indians," or natives of Asia, but a race by themselves,
which ages before the time of Columbus was spread over all North and
South America.
Like their descendants in the West to-day, they had red or
copper-colored skins, their eyes and long straight hair were jet black,
their faces beardless, and their cheek bones high.
%58. The Villages.%---East of the Rocky Mountains the Indians lived
in villages, often covering several acres in area, and surrounded by
stockades of two and even three rows of posts. The stockade was pierced
with loopholes, and provided with platforms on which were piles of
stones for the defenders to hurl on the heads of their enemies.
Sometimes the structures which formed the village were wigwams--rude
structures made by driving poles into the ground in a circle, drawing
their tops near together, and then covering them with bark or skins.
Sometimes the dwellings had rudely framed sides and roofs covered with
layers of elm bark. Usually these structures were fifteen or twenty feet
wide by 100 feet long. At each end was a door. Along each side were ten
or twelve stalls, in each of which lived a family, so that one house
held twenty or more families. Down the middle at regular intervals were
fire pits where the food was cooked, the smoke escaping through holes in
the roof.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, Vol. I., pp. 17,
18.]
[Illustration: Buffalo-skin lodge]
%59. Clans and Tribes.%--All the families living in such a house
traced descent from a common female ancestor, and formed a clan. Each
clan had its own name,--usually that of some animal, as the Wolf, the
Bear, or the Turtle,--its own sachem or civil magistrate, and its own
war chiefs, and owned all the food and all the property, except weapons
and ornaments, in common. A number of such clans made a tribe, which had
one language and was governed by a council of the clan sachems.
[Illustration: Seneca long house]
%60. The Three Indian Races.%--With slight exceptions, the tribes
living east of the Mississippi are divided, by those who have studied
their languages, into three great groups:
1. The Muskhogees, who lived south of the Tennessee River and comprised
the Creek, the Seminole, the Choctaw, and the Chickasaw tribes.
2. The Iroquoian group, which occupied the country from the Delaware and
the Hudson to and beyond the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie,
besides isolated tracts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The chief
tribes were the Iroquois proper,--forming a confederacy in central New
York known as the Five Nations (Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas,
and Mohawks),--the Hurons, the Eries, the Cherokees, and the Tuscaroras.
[Illustration: Moccasin]
3. The Algonquian group, which occupied the rest of what is now the
United States east of the Mississippi, besides the larger part of
Canada. In this group were the Mohegans, Pequots, and Narragansetts of
New England; the Delawares; the Powhatans of Virginia; the Shawnees of
the Ohio valley, and many others living around the Great Lakes.
[Illustration: Flint Hatchet]
%61. Weapons and Implements and Clothing.%--All of these tribes had
made some progress towards civilization. They used pottery and
ornamental pipes of clay. They raised beans and squashes, pumpkins,
tobacco, and maize, or Indian corn, which they ground to meal by rubbing
between two stones. For hunting they had bows, arrows with stone heads,
hatchets of flint, and spears. In summer they went almost naked. In
winter they wore clothing made from the skins of fur-bearing animals and
the hides of buffalo and deer. For navigating streams and rivers, lakes
and bays, they constructed canoes of birch bark sewed together with
thongs of deerskin and smeared at the joints with spruce-tree gum.
%62. Traits of Character.%--Living an outdoor life, and depending for
daily food not so much on the maize they raised as on the fish they
caught and the animals they killed, the Indians were most expert
woodsmen. They were swift of foot, quick-witted, keen-sighted, and most
patient of hunger, fatigue, and cold. White men were amazed at the
rapidity with which the Indian followed the most obscure trail over the
most difficult ground, at the perfection with which he imitated the bark
of the wolf, the hoot of the owl, the call of the moose, and at the
catlike tread with which he walked over beds of autumn leaves the side
of the grazing deer.
[Illustration: Ornamental pipe]
[Illustration: Quiver, with bows and arrows]
Courage and fortitude he possessed in the highest degree. Yet with his
bravery were associated all the vices, all the dark and crooked ways,
which are the resort of the cowardly and the weak. He was treacherous,
revengeful, and cruel beyond description. Much as he loved war (and war
was his chief occupation), the fair and open fight had no charm for him.
To his mind it was madness to take the scalp of an enemy at the risk of
his own, when he might waylay him in an ambush or shoot him with an
arrow from behind a tree. He was never so happy as when, at the dead of
night, he roused his sleeping victims with an unearthly yell and
massacred them by the light of their burning home.
%63. The French and the Indians.%--The ways in which French and
English colonists acted towards the Indian are highly characteristic,
and account for much in our history.
From the day when Champlain, in 1609, joined his Huron-Algonquin
neighbors and went with them on the warpath against the Iroquois, the
French held to the policy of making friends with the Indians. No pains
were spared to win them to the cause of France. They were flattered,
petted, treated with ceremonial respect, and became the companions, as
the women often became the wives, of the Frenchmen. Much was expected of
this mingling of races. It was supposed that the Indian would be won
over to civilization and Christianity. But the Frenchmen were won over
to the Indians, and adopted Indian ways of life. They lived in wigwams,
wore Indian dress, decorated their long hair with eagle feathers, and
made their faces hideous with vermilion, ocher, and soot.
%64. Coureurs de Bois.%--There soon grew up in this way a class of
half-civilized vagrants, who ranged the woods in true Indian style, and
gained a living by guiding the canoes of fur traders along the rivers
and lakes of the interior. Stimulated by the profits of the fur trade,
these men pushed their traffic to the most distant tribes, spreading
French guns, French hatchets, beads, cloth, tobacco and brandy, and
French influence over the whole Northwest. Where the trader and the
_coureur de bois_ went, the priest and the soldier followed, and soon
mission houses and forts were established at all the chief passes and
places suited to control the Indian trade.
%65. The English and the Indians.%--How, meantime, did the English
act toward the Indians? In the first place, nothing led them to form
close relationship with the tribes. The fur trade--the source of
Canadian prosperity--and the zeal of priests eager for the conversion of
the heathen, which sent the traders, the _coureurs de bois_, and the
priests from tribe to tribe and from the Atlantic halfway to the
Pacific, did not appeal to the English colonists. Farming and commerce
were the sources of their wealth. Their priests and missionaries were
content to labor with the Indians near at hand.
In the second place, the policy of the French towards the Indians, while
founded on trade, was directed by one central government. The policy of
the English was directed by each colony, and was of as many kinds as
there were colonies. No English frontier exhibited such a mingling of
white men and red as was common wherever the French went. Among the
English there were fur traders, but no _coureurs de bois_. Scorn on the
one side and hatred on the other generally marked the intercourse
between the English and the Indians. One bright exception must indeed be
made. Penn was a broad-minded lover of his kind, a man of most
enlightened views on government and human rights; and in the colony
planted by him there was made a serious effort to treat the Indian as an
equal. But the day came when men not of his faith dealt with the Indians
in true English fashion.
Remembering this difference of treatment, we shall the better understand
how it happened that the French could sprinkle the West with little
posts far from Quebec and surrounded by the fiercest of tribes, while
the English could only with difficulty defend their frontier.[1]
[Footnote 1: A fine account of the Indians, and the French and English
ways of treating them, is given in Parkman's _Conspiracy of Pontiac_,
Vol. I., pp. 16-25, 41-45, 46-56, 64-80.]
%66. Early Indian Wars.%--Again and again this frontier was attacked.
In 1636 the Pequots, who dwelt along the Thames River in Connecticut,
made war on the settlers in the Connecticut River valley towns. Men were
waylaid and scalped, or taken prisoners and burned at the stake.
Determined to put an end to this, ninety men from the Connecticut towns,
with twenty from Massachusetts and some Mohegan Indians, in 1637 marched
against the marauders. They found the Pequots within a circular stockade
near the present town of Stonington, where of 400 warriors all save five
were killed.
%67. King Philip's War.%--During nearly forty years not a tribe in
all New England dared rise against the white men. But in 1675 trouble
began again. The settlers were steadily crowding the Indians off their
lands. No lands were taken without payment, yet the sales were far from
being voluntary. A new generation of Indians, too, had grown up, and,
heedless of the lesson taught their fathers, the Narragansetts,
Nipmucks, and Wampanoags, led by King Philip and Canonchet, rose upon
the English. A dreadful war followed. When it ended, in 1678, the three
tribes were annihilated. Hardly any Indians save the friendly Mohawks
were left in New England. But of ninety English towns, forty had been
the scene of fire and slaughter, and twelve had been destroyed utterly.
%68. The Iroquois.%--Elsewhere on the frontier a happier relation
existed with the Indians. The Iroquois of central New York were the
fiercest and most warlike Indians of the Atlantic coast. But the fight
with Champlain, in 1609, by turning them into implacable enemies of the
French, had rendered them all the more tolerant of the Dutch and the
English, while their complete conquest and subjugation of the Delawares,
or Lenni Lenape, prepared the way for the easy settlement of New Jersey
and Pennsylvania.
%69. Penn and the Lenni Lenape.%--These Indians were Algonquian, and
lived along the Delaware River and its tributaries. But early in the
seventeenth century they had been reduced to vassalage by the Five
Nations, had been forbidden to carry arms, and had been forced to take
the name of Women.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, Vol. I., pp. 30-32,
80-82.]
When the Dutch and Swedes began their settlements on the South River,
and when Penn, in 1683, made a treaty with the Delawares, the settlers
had to deal with peaceful Indians. No horrid wars mark the early history
of Pennsylvania.
%70. The Powhatans in Virginia.%--Much the same may be said of the
Virginia tribes. They were far from friendly, and had they been as
fierce and warlike as the northern tribes, neither the skill of John
Smith, nor the marriage of Pocahontas (the daughter of Powhatan) with
John Rolfe, nor fear of the English muskets, would have saved Jamestown.
[Illustration: Powhatan Indians at work[1]]
[Footnote 1: From a model.]
On the other hand, the destruction of the tribes in New England and the
feud between the French and the Iroquois saved New England. For the time
had now come for the opening of the long struggle between the French and
the English for the ownership of the continent.
SUMMARY
1. The inhabitants of the New World at the time of its discovery, by
mistake called Indians, were barbarians, lived in rude, frail houses,
and used weapons and implements inferior to those of the whites.
2. The Indian tribes of eastern North America are mostly divided into
three great groups: Muskhogean, Iroquoian, and Algonquian.
3. In general, the French made the Indians their friends, while the
English drove them westward and treated them as an inferior race.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH COLONIES AND EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS 1733]
CHAPTER VIII
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA
%71. Louisiana, or the Mississippi Basin.%--The landing of La Salle
on the coast of Texas, and the building of Fort St. Louis of Texas, gave
the French a claim to the coast as far southward as a point halfway
between the fort and the nearest Spanish settlement, in Mexico. At that
point was the Rio Grande, a good natural boundary. On the French maps,
therefore, Louisiana extended from the Rocky Mountains and the Rio
Grande on the west, to the Alleghany Mountains on the east, and from the
Gulf of Mexico on the south, to New France on the north. This confined
the English colonies to a narrow strip between the Alleghany Mountains
and the Atlantic Ocean. As the colonies were growing in population, and
as the charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, and Carolina
gave them great stretches of territory in the Mississippi valley, it was
inevitable that, sooner or later, a bitter contest for possession of the
country should take place between the French and the English in America.
The contest began in 1689, and ended in 1763, and may easily be divided
into two periods: 1. That from 1689 to 1748, when the struggle was for
Acadia and New France. 2. That from 1754 to 1763, when the struggle was
not only for New France, but for Louisiana also.
%72. The Struggle for Acadia and New France; "King William's
War."%--In 1688-89 there was a revolution in England, in the course
of which James II. was driven from his throne, and William and Mary, his
nephew and daughter, were seated on it. James took refuge in France, and
when Louis XIV. attempted to restore him, a great European war
followed, and of course the colonists of the two countries were very
soon fighting each other. As the quarrel did not arise on this side of
the ocean, the English colonists called it "King William's War"; but on
our continent it was really the beginning of a long struggle to
determine whether France or England should rule North America.
The French recognized this at once, and sent over a very able
soldier--Count Frontenac--with orders to conquer New York; but the
colony was saved by the Iroquois, who in the summer of 1689 began a war
of their own against the French, laid siege to Montreal, and roasted
French captives under its walls. Frontenac was compelled to put off his
attack till 1690, when in the dead of winter a band of French and
Indians burned Schenectady, N.Y. Salmon Falls in New Hampshire was next
laid waste (1690), and Fort Loyal, where Portland, Me., is, was taken
and destroyed. A little later Exeter, N.H., was attacked. The boldness
and suddenness of these fearful massacres so alarmed the people exposed
to them that in May, 1690, delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, and New York met at New York city to devise a plan of
attack on the French. Now, at the opening of the war, there were three
French strongholds in America. These were Montreal and Quebec in Canada,
and Port Royal in Acadia. In 1690 a Massachusetts fleet led by Sir
William Phips destroyed Port Royal. It was decided, therefore, to send
another fleet under Phips to take Quebec, while troops from New York and
Connecticut marched against Montreal. Both expeditions were failures,
and for seven years the French and Indians ravaged the frontier. In 1692
York, in Maine, was visited and a third of the inhabitants killed. In
1694 Castine was taken and a hundred persons scalped and tomahawked. At
Durham, in New Hampshire, prisoners were burned alive. Groton, in
Massachusetts, was next visited; but the boldest of all was the
massacre, in 1697, at Haverhill, a town not thirty-five miles from
Boston. In 1696, Frontenac, at the head of a great array of Canadians,
_coureurs de bois_, and Indians, invaded the country of the Onondagas,
and leveled their fortified town to the earth.
[Illustration: MAP OF PART OF ACADIA]
%73. The Struggle for Acadia and New France; "Queen Anne's War."%--In
1697 the war ended with the treaty of Ryswick, and "King William's War"
came to a close in America with nothing gained and much lost on each
side. The peace, however, did not last long, for in 1701 England and
France were again fighting. As William died in 1702, and was succeeded
by his sister-in-law Anne, the struggle which followed in America was
called "Queen Anne's War." Again Port Royal was captured (1710); again
an expedition went against Quebec and failed (1711); and again, year
after year, the French and Indians swept along the frontier of New
England, burning towns and slaughtering and torturing the inhabitants.
At last the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, ended the strife, and the first
signs of English conquest in America were visible, for the French gave
up Acadia and acknowledged the claims of the English to Newfoundland and
the country around Hudson Bay. The name Acadia was changed by the
conquerors to Nova Scotia. Port Royal, never again to be parted with,
they called Annapolis, in honor of the Queen.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _A Half-century of Conflict_, Vol. I., pp.
1-149.]
%74. The French take Possession of the Mississippi Valley; the Chain of
Forts.%--The peace made at Utrecht was unbroken for thirty years. But
this long period was, on the part of the French in America, at least, a
time of careful preparation for the coming struggle for possession of
the valleys of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Lakes. In the
Mississippi valley most elaborate preparations for defense were already
under way. No sooner did the treaty of Ryswick end the first French war
than a young naval officer named Iberville applied to the King for leave
to take out an expedition and found a colony at the mouth of the
Mississippi, just as La Salle had attempted to do. Permission was
readily given, and in 1698 Iberville sailed with two ships from France,
and in February, 1699, entered Mobile Bay. Leaving his fleet at anchor,
he set off with a party in small boats in search of the great river. He
coasted along the shore, entered the Mississippi through one of its
three mouths, and went up the river till he came to an Indian village,
where the chief gave him a letter which Tonty, thirteen years before,
when in search of La Salle, had written and left in the crotch of
a tree.
Iberville now knew that he was on the Mississippi; but having seen no
spot along its low banks suitable for the site of a city, he went back
and led his colony to Biloxi Bay, and there settled it. Thus when the
eighteenth century opened there were in all Louisiana but two French
settlements--that founded on the Illinois River by La Salle, and that
begun by Iberville at Biloxi. But the occupation of Louisiana was now
the established policy of France, and hardly a year went by without one
or more forts appearing somewhere in the valley. Before 1725 came,
Mobile Bay was occupied, New Orleans was founded, and Forts Rosalie,
Toulouse, Tombeckbee, Natchitoches, Assumption, and Chartres were
erected. Along the Lakes, Detroit had been founded, Niagara was built in
1726, and in 1731 a band of Frenchmen, entering New York, put up
Crown Point.[1]
[Footnote 1: Parkman's _A Half-century of Conflict_, Vol. I., pp.
288-314. For the French posts see map on pp. 74, 75.]
The meaning of this chain of forts stretching from New Orleans and
Mobile to Lake Champlain and Montreal, was that the French were
determined to shut the English out of the valley of the Mississippi, and
to keep them away from the shores of the Great Lakes. But they were also
determined at the first chance to reconquer Annapolis and Nova Scotia,
which they had lost by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. As a very
important step towards the accomplishment of this purpose, the French
selected a harbor on the southeast coast of Cape Breton Island, and
there built Louisburg, a fortress so strong that the French officers
boasted that it could be defended by a garrison of women.
%75. The Struggle for New France; "King George's War."%--Such was the
situation in America when (in March, 1744) France declared war on
England and began what in Europe was called the "War of the Austrian
Succession"; but in our country it was known as "King George's War,"
because George II. was then King of England. The French, with their
usual promptness, rushed down and burned the little English post of
Canso, in Nova Scotia, carried off the garrison, and attacked Annapolis,
where they were driven off. That Nova Scotia could be saved, seemed
hopeless. Nevertheless, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts determined to
make the attempt, and that the King might know the exact situation he
sent to London, with a dispatch, an officer named Captain Ryal, who had
been taken prisoner at Canso and afterwards released on parole.[2]
[Footnote 2: The reception of that officer well illustrates the gross
ignorance of America and American affairs which then existed in England.
When the Duke of Newcastle, who was prime minister, read the dispatch,
he exclaimed: "Oh, yes--yes--to be sure. Annapolis must be
defended--troops must be sent to Annapolis. Pray where is Annapolis?
Cape Breton an island! Wonderful! Show it me on the map. So it is, sure
enough. My dear sir [to Captain Ryal], you always bring us good news. I
must go and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island."]
Although Shirley applied to the King for help with which to defend Nova
Scotia, he knew full well that the burden of defense would fall on the
colonies. And with that determination and persistence which always
brings success he labored hard to persuade New Hampshire, Connecticut,
and Rhode Island to join with Massachusetts in an effort to capture
Louisburg. It would be delightful to tell how he overcame all
difficulties; how the young men rallied on the call for troops; how at
the end of March, 1745, 4000 of them in a hundred transports and
accompanied by fourteen armed ships set sail, followed by the prayers of
all New England, and after a siege of six weeks took the fortress on the
17th of June, 1745. But the story is too long.[1] It is enough to know
that the victory was hailed with delight on both sides of the Atlantic,
but that when peace came, in 1748, the British government was still so
blind to the struggle for North America which had been going on for
fifty years, that Louisburg was restored to the French.
[Footnote 1: Read Samuel Adams Drake's _Taking of Louisburg_; Parkman's
_A Half-century of Conflict_, Vol. II., pp. 78-161.]
%76. The French on the Allegheny River; the Buried Plates.%--With
Louisburg back in their possession and no territory lost, the French
went on more vigorously than ever with their preparations to shut the
British out of the Mississippi valley; and as but one highway to the
valley, the Ohio River, was still unguarded, the governor of Canada, in
1749, dispatched Céloron de Bienville with a band of men in twenty-three
birch-bark canoes to take formal possession of the valley. Paddling up
the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, they carried their canoes across to
Lake Erie, and, skirting the southeastern shore, they landed and crossed
to Chautauqua Lake, down which and its outlet they floated to the
Allegheny River. Once on the Allegheny, the ceremony of taking
possession began. The men were drawn up, and Louis XV. was proclaimed
king of all the region drained by the Ohio. The arms of France stamped
on a sheet of tin were nailed to a tree, at the foot of which a lead
plate was buried in the ground. On the plate was an inscription claiming
the Ohio, and all the streams that run into it, in the name of the King
of France.
[Illustration: [1]Half of one of the lead plates]
[Footnote 1: Now owned by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester,
Mass.]
* * * * *
TRANSLATION OF THE ENTIRE INSCRIPTION
In the year 1749, during the reign of Louis XV., King of France, we,
Céleron, commander of a detachment sent by the Marquis de la
Gallissonière, commander in chief of New France, to restore tranquillity
in some savage villages of these districts, have buried this plate at
the confluence of the Ohio and ... this ... near the river Ohio, alias
Beautiful River, as a monument of our having retaken possession of the
said river Ohio and of those that fall into the same, and of all the
lands on both sides as far as the sources of the said rivers, as well as
of those of which preceding kings have enjoyed possession, partly by the
force of arms, partly by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick,
Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle.
* * * * *
A second plate was buried below the mouth of French Creek; a third near
the mouth of Wheeling Creek; and a fourth at the mouth of the Muskingum,
where half a century later it was found protruding from the river bank
by a party of boys while bathing. Yet another was unearthed at the mouth
of the Great Kanawha by a freshet, and was likewise found by a boy while
playing at the water's edge. The last plate was hidden where the Great
Miami joins the Ohio; and this done, Céloron crossed Ohio to Lake Erie
and went back to Montreal.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read T. J. Chapman's _The French in the Allegheny Valley_,
pp. 9-23, 187-197; Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., pp. 36-62;
Winsor's _The Mississippi Basin_, pp. 252-255.]
%77. The French build Forts on the Allegheny.%--This formal taking
possession of the valleys of the Allegheny and the Ohio was all well
enough in its way; but the French knew that if they really intended to
keep out the British they must depend on forts and troops, and not on
lead plates. To convince the French King of this, required time; so that
it was not till 1752 that orders were given to fortify the route taken
by Céloron in 1749. The party charged with this duty repaired to the
little peninsula where is now the city of Erie, and there built a log
fort which they called Presque Isle. Having done this, they cut a road
twenty miles long, to the site of Waterford, Pa., and built Fort Le
Boeuf, and later one at Venango, the present site of the town
of Franklin.
%78. Washington's First Public Service.%--The arrival of the French
in western Pennsylvania alarmed and excited no one so much as Governor
Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia. He had two good reasons for his
excitement. In the first place, Virginia, because of the interpretation
she placed on her charter of 1609, claimed to own the Allegheny valley
(see p. 33). In the second place, the governor and a number of Virginia
planters were deeply interested in a great land company called the Ohio
Company, to which the King of England had given 500,000 acres lying
along the Ohio River between the Monongahela and the Kanawha rivers, a
region which the French claimed, and toward which they were moving.
As soon, therefore, as Dinwiddie heard that the French were really
building forts in the upper Allegheny valley, he determined to make a
formal demand for their withdrawal, and chose as his messenger George
Washington, then a young man of twenty-one, and adjutant general of the
Virginia militia.
Washington's instructions bade him go to Logstown, on the Ohio, find out
all he could as to the whereabouts of the French, and then proceed to
the commanding officer, deliver the letter of Dinwiddie, and demand an
answer. He was especially charged to ascertain how many French forts had
been erected, how many soldiers there were in each, how far apart the
posts were, and if they were to be supported from Quebec.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read T.J. Chapman's _The, French in the Allegheny Valley_,
pp. 23-47; Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., pp. 128-161; Lodge's
_George Washington_, pp. 62-69.]
With that promptness which distinguished him during his whole life,
Washington set out on his perilous journey the very day he received his
instructions, and made his way first to Logstown, and then to Fort Le
Boeuf, where he delivered Governor Dinwiddie's letter to the French
commandant. The reply of Saint-Pierre--for that was the name of the
French commandant--was that he would send the letter of Dinwiddie to the
governor of Canada, the Marquis Duquesne (doo-kan'), and that, in the
meantime, he would hold the fort.
[Illustration: The French and the English Forts]
%79. Fort Duquesne.%--When Dinwiddie read the answer of Saint-Pierre,
he saw clearly that the time had come to act. The French were in force
on the upper Allegheny. Unless something was done to drive them out,
they would soon be at the forks of the Ohio, and once they were there,
the splendid tract of the Ohio Company would be lost forever. Without a
moment's delay he decided to take possession of the forks of the Ohio,
and raised two companies of militia of 100 men each. A trader named
William Trent was in command of one of the companies, and that no time
should be lost, he, with forty men, hurried forward, and, February 17,
1754, drove the first stake of a stockade that was to surround a fort on
the site of the city of Pittsburg. While the English were still at work
on their fort, April 17, 1754, a body of French and Indians came down
from Le Boeuf, and bade them leave the valley. Trent was away, and the
working party was in command of an ensign named Ward, who, as resistance
was useless, surrendered, and was allowed to march off with his men. The
French then finished the fort Trent had begun, and called it Fort
Duquesne, after the governor of Canada.
%80. "Join or Die."%--Meantime the legislature of Virginia voted
£10,000 for the defense of the Ohio valley, and promised a land bounty
to every man who would volunteer to fight the French and Indians. Joshua
Frye was made colonel, and Washington lieutenant colonel of the troops
thus to be raised. As some time must elapse before the ranks could be
filled, Washington took seventy-five men and (in March, 1754) set off to
help Trent; but he had not gone far on his way when Ensign Ward met him
(where Cumberland, Md., now is) and told him all about the surrender.
Accounts of the affair were at once sent to the governors of Maryland,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
[Illustration: JOIN, or DIE.]
In publishing one of these in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, Franklin
inserted the above picture at the top of the account.[1]
[Footnote 1: There is an old superstition, then very generally believed,
that if one cuts a snake in pieces and allows the pieces to touch, the
snake will not die, but will live and become whole again. By this
picture Franklin meant that unless the colonies joined for defense
against the French they would die; that is, be conquered.]
%81. Albany Plan of Union.%--The picture was apt for the following
reason. The Lords of Trade in London had ordered the colonies to send
delegates to Albany to make a treaty with the Iroquois Indians, and to
this congress Franklin purposed to submit a plan for union against the
French. The plan drawn up by the congress was not approved by the
colonies, so the scheme of union came to naught.
%82. Washington's Expedition.%--Meanwhile great events were happening
in the west. When Washington met Ensign Ward at Cumberland and heard the
story of the surrender, he was at a loss just what to do; but knowing
that he was expected to do something, he decided to go to a storehouse
which the Ohio Company had built at the mouth of a stream called
Redstone Creek in southwestern Pennsylvania. Pushing along, cutting as
he went the first road that ever led down to the valley of the
Mississippi from the Atlantic slope, he reached a narrow glade called
the Great Meadows and there began to put up a breastwork which he named
Fort Necessity. While so engaged news came that the French were near.
Washington thereupon took a few men, and, coming suddenly on the French,
killed or captured them all save one. Among the dead was Jumonville, the
leader of the party. Well satisfied with this exploit, Washington pushed
on with his entire force towards the Ohio. But, hearing that the French
were advancing, he fell back to Fort Necessity, and there awaited them.
He did not wait long; for the French and Indians came down in great
force, and on July 4, 1754, forced him, after a brave resistance, to
surrender. He was allowed to march out with drums beating and flags
flying.[1]
[Footnote 1: Lodge's _George Washington_, pp. 69-74; Winsor's _The
Mississippi Basin_, pp. 294-315.]
%83. The French and Indian War.%--Thus was begun what the colonists
called the French and Indian War, but what was really a struggle
between the French and the British for the possession of America.
Knowing it to be such, both sides made great preparations for the
contest. The French stood on the defensive. The British made the attack,
and early in 1755 sent over one of their ablest officers, Major General
Edward Braddock, to be commander in chief in America. He summoned the
colonial governors to meet him at Alexandria, Va., where a plan for a
campaign was agreed on.
%84. Plan for the War.%--Vast stretches of dense and almost
impenetrable forest then separated the colonies of the two nations, but
through this forest were three natural highways of communication: 1.
Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the St. Lawrence River. 2. The Hudson,
the Mohawk, Lake Ontario, and the Niagara River. 3. The Potomac to Fort
Cumberland, and through the forest to Fort Duquesne.
It was decided, therefore, to have four expeditions.
1. One was to go north from New York to Lake Champlain, take the French
fort at Crown Point, and move against Quebec.
2. Another was to sail from New England and make such a demonstration
against the French towns to the northeast, as would prevent the French
in that quarter going off to defend Quebec and Crown Point.
3. The third was to start from Albany, go up the Mohawk, and down the
Oswego River to Lake Ontario, and along its shores to the Niagara River.
4. The fourth was to go from Fort Cumberland across Pennsylvania to Fort
Duquesne.
%85. Braddock's Defeat, July 9, 1755.%--Braddock took command of this
last expedition and made Washington one of his aids. For a while he
found it impossible to move his army, for in Virginia horses and wagons
were very scarce, and without them he could not carry his baggage or
drag his cannon. At last Benjamin Franklin, then deputy
postmaster-general of the colonies, persuaded the farmers of
Pennsylvania, who had plenty, to rent the wagons and horses to
the general.
All this took time, so that it was June before the army left Fort
Cumberland and literally began to cut its way through the woods to Fort
Duquesne. The march was slow, but all went well till the troops had
crossed the Monongahela River and were but eight miles from the fort,
when suddenly the advance guard came face to face with an army of
Indians and French. The Indians and French instantly hid in the bushes
and behind trees, and poured an incessant fire into the ranks of the
British. They, too, would gladly have fought in Indian fashion. But
Braddock thought this cowardly and would not allow them to get behind
trees, so they stood huddled in groups, a fine mark for the Indians,
till so many were killed that a retreat had to be ordered. Then they
fled, and had it not been for Washington and his Virginians, who covered
their flight, they would probably have been killed to a man.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., Chap. 7, pp.
162-187; T.J. Chapman's _The French in the Allegheny Valley_, pp. 60-72;
Sargeant's _History of Braddock's Expedition_.]
Braddock was wounded just as the retreat began, and died a few days
later.
%86. The Other Expeditions.%--The expedition against Niagara was a
failure. The officer in command did not take his army further than
Oswego on Lake Ontario.
The expedition against Crown Point was partially successful, and a
stubborn battle was fought and a victory won over the French on the
shores of that beautiful sheet of water which the English ever after
called Lake George in honor of the King.
%87. War declared.%--Up to this time all the fighting had been done
along the frontier in America. But in May, 1756, Great Britain formally
declared war against France. The French at once sent over Montcalm,[1]
the very ablest Frenchman that ever commanded on this continent, and
there followed two years of warfare disastrous to the British. Montcalm
took and burned Oswego, won over the Indians to the cause of France, and
was about to send a strong fleet to attack New England, when, toward the
end of 1757, William Pitt was made virtually (though not in name) Prime
Minister of England.
[Footnote 1: Read Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Vol. I., pp. 318-380.]
William Pitt was one of the greatest Englishmen that ever lived. He
could see exactly what to do, and he could pick out exactly the right
man to do it. No wonder, then, that as soon as he came into power the
British began to gain victories.
%88. The Victories of 1758.%--Once more the French were attacked at
their three vulnerable points, and this time with success. In 1758
Louisburg surrendered to Amherst and Boscawen. In that same year
Washington captured Fort Duquesne, which, in honor of the great Prime
Minister, was called Fort Pitt. A provincial officer named Bradstreet
destroyed Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. This was a heavy blow to the
French; for with Fort Frontenac gone and Fort Duquesne in English hands,
the Ohio was cut off from Quebec.
An attack on Ticonderoga, however, was repulsed by Montcalm with
dreadful loss to the English.
%89. The Victories of 1759; Wolfe.%--But the defeat was only
temporary. At the siege of Louisburg a young officer named James Wolfe
had greatly distinguished himself, and in return for this was selected
by Pitt to command an expedition to Quebec. The previous attempts to
reach that city had been by way of Lake George. The expedition of Wolfe
sailed up the St. Lawrence, and landed below the city.
Quebec stands on the summit of a high hill with precipitous sides, and
was then the most strongly fortified city in America. To take it seemed
almost impossible. But the resolution of Wolfe overcame every obstacle:
on the night of September 12, 1759, he led his troops to the foot of the
cliff, climbed the heights, and early in the morning had his army drawn
up in battle array on the Plains of Abraham, as the plateau behind the
city was called. There a great battle was fought between the French, led
by Montcalm, and the British, led by Wolfe. The British triumphed, and
Quebec fell; but Wolfe and Montcalm were among the dead.[1]
[Footnote 1: Parkman's _Montcalm and Wolfe_, Chaps. 25-27; A. Wright's
_Life of Wolfe;_ Sloan's _French War and the Revolution_, Chaps. 6-9.]
[Illustration: European Possessions 1763]
Ticonderoga and Crown Point had been captured a few weeks before.
Montreal was taken in 1760, and the long struggle between the French and
the English in America ended in the defeat of the French. The war
dragged on in Europe till 1763, when peace was made at Paris.
%90. France driven out of America.%--With all the details of the
treaty we are not concerned. It is enough for us to know that France
divided her possessions on this continent between Great Britain and
Spain. To Great Britain she gave Canada and Cape Breton, and all the
islands save two in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Entering what is now the
United States, she drew a line down the middle of the Mississippi River
from its source to a point just north of New Orleans. To Great Britain
she surrendered all her territory east of this line. To Spain she gave
all her possessions to the west of this line, together with the city of
New Orleans. But Great Britain, during the war, had taken Havana from
Spain. To get this back, Spain now gave up Florida in exchange.
At the end of the war with France, Great Britain thus found herself in
possession of Canada and all that part of the United States which lies
between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the little strip at the mouth
of the river alone excepted.
SUMMARY
We have now come to the time when the third European power was driven
from our country. The first was Sweden when New Sweden was captured by
the Dutch. The second was Holland when New Netherland was captured by
the English. The third was France.
1. The struggle for the French possessions in America may be divided
into two periods: A. That from 1689 to 1748, when the contest was for
Acadia and New France. B. That from 1754 to 1763, when the struggle was
for Louisiana as well as New France.
2. The first war, "King William's," was indecisive, but the second,
"Queen Anne's," ended (1713) in the transfer of Acadia to England.
3. After the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, the French began seriously to take
possession of the Mississippi valley, and began a chain of forts to
stretch from New Orleans and Mobile to Montreal.
4. "King George's War" interrupted this work for a few years
(1744-1748), but in 1749 Céleron was sent to bury plates in the valleys
of the Allegheny and Ohio and claim them in the name of France.
5. The next step after claiming the valleys was to take armed
possession, and in 1752 the French began to build forts.
6. This alarmed the governor of Virginia, who sent Washington to bid the
French leave the Allegheny valley. When they refused, troops were sent
to build a fort on the site of what is now Pittsburg; but these men,
under Trent and Ward, were driven away, as were also the reinforcements
under Washington (1764).
7. Braddock (with Washington) was next sent against the French, who had
built Fort Duquesne. He was surprised by the Indians (July 9, 1755),
defeated, and killed.
8. The "French and Indian War" thus opened was fought with varying
success till 1760, when the British held Quebec, Montreal, Fort
Duquesne, and all the other French strongholds in America. In 1763 peace
was made, and nearly all the French possessions east of the Mississippi
River were surrendered to the British.
* * * * *
THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA:
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND ACADIA:
King William's War:
1690. Sir W. Phips takes Port Royal.
Sir W. Phips attacks Quebec.
Montreal attacked.
1690-1697. The New York and New England frontier ravaged by the
French and Indians.
1697. Peace of Ryswick. Port Royal given back to the French.
Queen Anne's War. Acadia lost to the French:
1702-1713. Frontier of New England ravaged.
1710. Port Royal again taken.
1711. Quebec again attacked.
1713. Peace of Utrecht. Acadia held by the English.
King George's War:
1744. French attack Canso and Annapolis (Port Royal).
1745. Louisburg (Cape Breton Island) taken.
1748. Louisburg given back to the French.
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEW FRANCE AND LOUISIANA.
Occupation of Louisiana:
1699. The French at the mouth of the Mississippi.
1701. The occupation of the valley begun.
1701-1748. The chain of forts joining New Orleans and Montreal.
1749. The French on the Allegheny. Céleron's expedition. The buried
plates.
1753. The French fortify the Allegheny valley.
The French and Indian War:
1754-1763. The struggle for final possession.
1758. The capture of Louisburg.
1759. The capture of Quebec.
1760. The capture of Montreal.
1763. The French abandon America.
CHAPTER IX
LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763
%91. Things unknown in 1763.%--Had a traveler landed on our shores in
1763 and made a journey through the English colonies in America, he
would have seen a country utterly unlike the United States of to-day.
The entire population, white man and black, freeman and slave, was not
so great as that of New York or Philadelphia or Chicago in our time. If
we were to write a list of all the things we now consider as real
necessaries of daily life and mark off those unknown to the men of 1763,
not one quarter would remain. No man in the country had ever seen a
stove, or a furnace, or a friction match, or an envelope, or a piece of
mineral coal. From the farmer we should have to take the reaper, the
drill, the mowing machine, and every kind of improved rake and plow, and
give him back the scythe, the cradle, and the flail. From our houses
would go the sewing machine, the daily newspaper, gas, running water;
and from our tables, the tomato, the cauliflower, the eggplant, and many
varieties of summer fruits. We should have to destroy every railroad,
every steamboat, every factory and mill, pull down every line of
telegraph, silence every telephone, put out every electric light, and
tear up every telegraphic cable from the beds of innumerable rivers and
seas. We should have to take ether and chloroform from the surgeon, and
galvanized iron and India rubber from the arts, and give up every sort
of machine moved by steam.
[Illustration: Lamp and sadiron]
[Illustration: Postrider (Footnote: From an old print, 1760)]
%92. State of the Arts, Sciences, and Industry.%--The appliances left
on the list, because in some form they were known to the men of 1763,
would now be thought crude and clumsy. There were printing presses in
those days,--perhaps fifty in all the colonies. But they were small,
were worked by hand, and were so slow that the most expert pressman
using one of them could not have printed so much in three working days
as a modern steam press can run off in five minutes. There was a general
post, and Benjamin Franklin was deputy postmaster-general for the
northern district of the colonies. But the letters were carried thirty
miles a day by postriders on horseback, and there were never more than
three mails a week between even the great towns. Every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday a postrider left New York city for Philadelphia.
Every Monday and Thursday another left New York for Boston. Once each
week a rider left for Albany on his way to Quebec. On the first
Wednesday of each month a packet boat sailed from New York for Falmouth,
England, with the mail, and this was the only mail between Great Britain
and her American colonies. We put electricity to a thousand uses; but in
1763 it was a scientific toy. Franklin had just proved by his experiment
with the kite that lightning and electricity were one and the same, and
several other men were amusing themselves and their hearers by ringing
bells, exploding powder, and making colored sparks. But it was put to no
other use. If we take up a daily newspaper published in one of our great
cities and read the column of wants, we find in them twenty occupations
now giving a comfortable living to millions of men. Yet not one of these
twenty existed in 1763. The district messenger, the telegraph operator,
the typewriter, the stenographer, the bookkeeper, the canvasser, the
salesman, the commercial traveler, the engineer, the car driver, the
hackman, the conductor, the gripman, the brakeman, the electrician, the
lineman, the elevator boy, and a host of others, follow trades and
occupations which had no existence in the middle of the
eighteenth century.
Run away, the 23d of this Instant _January_, from _Silas Crispin_
of _Burlington_, Taylor, a Servant Man named _Joseph Morris, _by
Trade a Taylor, aged about 22 Years, of a middle Stature, swarthy
Complexion, light gray Eyes, his Hair clipp'd off, mark'd with
a large pit of the Small Pox on one Cheek near his Eye, had on
when he went away a good Felt Hat, a yelowish Drugget Coat with
Pleits behind, an old Ozenbrigs Vest, two Ozenbrigs Shirts, a pair
of Leather Breeches handsomely worm'd and flower'd up the Knees,
yarn Stockings and good round toe'd Shoes. Took with him a large
pair of Sheers crack'd in one of the Bows & mark'd with the Word
[_Savoy_]. Whoever takes up the said Servant, and secures him so
that his Matter may have him again, shall have _Three Pounds_
Reward besides reasonable Charges, paid by me _Silas Griffin._
From a Philadelphia newspaper
%93. Labor.%--On the other hand, if we take up a newspaper of that
day and read the advertisements, we find that a great deal of what
existed then does not exist now. The newspapers were published in a few
of the large towns, and appeared not every day, but once a week. In the
largest of them would be from seventy-five to eighty advertisements,
setting forth that such a merchant had just received from England or the
West Indies a stock of new goods which he would sell for cash; that the
_Charming Nancy_ would sail in a few weeks for Londonderry in Ireland,
or for Barbados, or for Amsterdam in Holland, and wanted a cargo; that a
tract of land or a plantation would be sold "at vendue," or, as we say,
at auction; that a reward of five pistoles would be paid for the arrest
of "a lusty negroe man" or an "indented servant" or an "apprentice lad,"
who had run away from his owner or master. Very rarely is a call made
for a mechanic or a workman of any sort.
[Illustration: From a Philadelphia newspaper]
The reason for this was two fold. In the first place, negro slavery
existed in all the thirteen colonies. In the second place, there were
thousands of whites in many of the colonies in a state of temporary
servitude, which was sometimes voluntary and sometimes involuntary.
Those who served against their will were convicts and felons, not only
men and women who had been guilty of stealing, cheating, and the like,
but also forgers, counterfeiters, and murderers, who were transported by
thousands from the English prisons to the colonies and sold into slavery
or service for seven or fourteen years.[1] Advertisements are extant in
which the masters from whom such servants have run away warn the people
to beware of them.
[Footnote 1: One act of Parliament, for instance, provided that persons
sentenced to be whipped or branded might, if they wished, escape the
punishment by serving seven years in the colonies, and never returning
to England. Another allowed convicts sentenced to death to commute the
sentence by serving fourteen years.]
But all "indented" or bond servants were not criminals. Many were
reputable persons who sold themselves into service for a term of years
in return for transportation to America. Others, generally boys and
young women, had been kidnaped and sold by the persons who stole them.
%94. Indentured Servants.%--In the case of such as came voluntarily,
carefully drawn agreements called indentures would be made in writing.
The captain of the ship would agree to bring the emigrant to America.
The emigrant would agree in return to serve the captain three or five
years. When the ship reached port, the captain would advertise the fact
that he had carpenters, tailors, farmers, shoemakers, etc., for sale,
and whoever wanted such labor would go on board the ship and for perhaps
fifty dollars buy a man bound to serve him for several years in return
for food, clothes, and lodging. Not only men, but also women and
children, were sold in this way, and were known as "indented servants,"
or "redemptioners," because they redeemed their time of service with
labor. Their lot seems to have been a hard one; for the young men were
constantly running away, and the newspapers are full of advertisements
offering rewards for their arrest.
What we call the workingman, the day laborer, the mechanic, the mill
hand, had no existence as classes. The great corporations, railroads,
express companies, mills, factories of every sort, which now cover our
land and give employment to five times as many men and women as lived in
all the colonies in 1763, are the creatures of our own time.
[Illustration: Wigs and wig bag]
[Illustration: Flax wheel]
%95. No Manufacturers.%--For this state of things England was largely
to blame. For one hundred years past every kind of manufacture that
could compete with the manufactures of the mother country had been
crushed by law. In order to help her iron makers, she forbade the
colonists to set up iron furnaces and slitting mills. That her cloth
manufacturers might flourish, she forbade the colonists to send their
woolen goods to any country whatever, or even from one colony to
another. Under this law it was a crime to knit a pair of mittens or a
pair of socks and send them from Boston to Providence or from New York
to Newark, or from Philadelphia across the Delaware to New Jersey. In
the interest of English hatters the colonists were not allowed to send
hats to any foreign country, nor from one colony to another, and a
serious effort was made to prevent the manufacture of hats in America.
People in this country were obliged to wear English-made hats. Taking
the country through, every saw, every ax, every hammer, every needle,
pin, tack, piece of tape, and a hundred other articles of daily use came
from Great Britain.
Every farmhouse, however, was a little factory, and every farmer a
jack-of-all-trades. He and his sons made their own shoes, beat out nails
and spikes, hinges, and every sort of ironmongery, and constructed much
of the household furniture. The wife and her daughters manufactured the
clothing, from dressing the flax and carding the wool to cutting the
cloth; knit the mittens and socks; and during the winter made straw
bonnets to sell in the towns in the spring.
Even in such towns as were large enough to support a few artisans, each
made, with the help of an apprentice, and perhaps a journeyman, all the
articles he sold.
[Illustration: Hand loom[1]]
%96. The Cities.%--If we take a map of our country and run over the
great cities of to-day, we find that except along the seacoast hardly
one existed, in 1765, even in name. Detroit was a little French
settlement surrounded with a high stockade. New Orleans existed, and St.
Louis had just been founded, but they both belonged to Spain. Mobile and
Pensacola and Natchez and Vincennes consisted of a few huts gathered
about old French forts. There was no city, no town worthy of the name,
in the English colonies west of the Alleghany Mountains. Along the
Atlantic coast we find Portsmouth, Boston, Providence, New Haven, New
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, Williamsburg, Charleston,
Savannah, and others of less note. But the largest of these were mere
collections of a few hundred houses ranged along streets, none of which
were sewered and few of which were paved or lighted. The watchman went
his rounds at night with rattle and lantern, called out the hours and
the state of the weather, and stopped and demanded the name of every
person found walking the streets after nine o'clock. To travel on Sunday
was a serious and punishable offense, as it was on any day to smoke in
the streets, or run from house to house with hot coals, which in those
days, when there were no matches, were often used instead of flint and
steel to light fires.
[Footnote 1: From an old loom in the National Museum, Washington.]
[Illustration: Colonial mansion in Charleston]
Travel between the large towns was almost entirely by sailing vessel, or
on horseback. The first stagecoach-and-four in New England began its
trips in 1744. The first stage between New York and Philadelphia was not
set up till 1756, and spent three days on the road.
%97. The Three Groups of Colonies.%--It has always been usual to
arrange the colonies in three groups: 1. The Eastern or New England
Colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut).
2. The Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware). 3. The Southern Colonies (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Georgia). Now, this arrangement is good not only
from a geographical point of view, but also because the people, the
customs, the manners, the occupations, in each of these groups were very
unlike the people and the ways of living in the others.
[Illustration: New England mansion]
%98. Occupations in New England.%--In New England the colonists were
almost entirely English, though there were some Scotch, some
Scotch-Irish, a few Huguenot refugees from France, and, in Rhode Island,
a few Portuguese Jews. As the climate and soil did not admit of raising
any great staple, such as rice or tobacco, the people "took to the sea."
They cut down trees, with which the land was covered, built ships, and
sailed away to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland for cod, and to the
whale fisheries for oil. They went to the English, Dutch, and Spanish
West Indian Islands, with flour, salt meat, horses, oxen; with salted
salmon, cod, and mackerel; with staves for barrels; with onions and
salted oysters. In return, they came back with sugar, molasses, cotton,
wool, logwood, and Spanish dollars with which the New England Colonies
paid for the goods they took from England. They went to Spain, where
their ships were often sold, the captains chartering English vessels and
coming home with cargoes of goods made in England. Six hundred ships are
said to have been employed in the foreign trade of Boston, and more than
a thousand in the fisheries and the trade along the coast.
[Illustration: Dutch House at Albany[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old print.]
Farming, outside of Connecticut, yielded little more than a bare
subsistence. Manufactures in general were forbidden by English law.
Paper and hats were made in small quantities, leather was tanned, lumber
was sawed, and rum was distilled from molasses; but it was on homemade
manufactures that the people depended.
%99. Occupations in the Middle Colonies.%--In the Middle Colonies the
population was a mixture of people from many European countries. The
line of little villages which began at the west end of Long Island and
stretched up the Hudson to Albany, and out the Mohawk to
Schenectady---the settled part of New York--contained Englishmen,
Irishmen, Dutchmen, French Huguenots, Germans from the Rhine countries,
and negroes from Africa. The chief occupations of those people were
farming, making flour, and carrying on an extensive commerce with
England, Spain, and the West Indian Islands.
[Illustration: Shoes worn by Palatines in Pennsylvania]
In New Jersey the population was almost entirely English, but in
Pennsylvania it was as mixed as in New York. Around Philadelphia the
English predominated, but with them were mingled Swedes, Dutch, Welsh,
Germans, and Scotch-Irish. Taken together, the Germans and the
Scotch-Irish far outnumbered the English, and made up the mass of the
population between the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna rivers. Both were
self-willed and stubborn, and they were utterly unable to get along
together peaceably, so that their settlements ran across the state in
two parallel bands, in one of which whole regions could be found in
which not a word of English was spoken. Indeed, then, and long after the
nineteenth century began, the laws of Pennsylvania were printed both in
English and in German. The chief occupation of the people was farming;
and it is safe to say that no such farms, no such cattle, no such grain,
flour, provisions, could be found in any other part of the country.
Lumber, too, was cut and sold in great quantities; and along the
frontier there was a lively fur trade with the Indians. At Philadelphia
was centered a fine trade with Europe and the West Indies. Had it not
been for the action of the mother country, manufactures would have
flourished greatly; even as it was, iron and paper were manufactured in
considerable quantities.
%100. Occupations in the Southern Colonies.%--South of Pennsylvania,
and especially south of the Potomac River, lay a region utterly unlike
anything to the north of it. In Virginia, there were no cities, no large
towns, no centers of population. At an early day in the history of the
colony the legislature had attempted to remedy this, and had ordered
towns to be built at certain places, had made them the only ports where
ships from abroad could be entered, had established tobacco warehouses
in them, had offered special privileges to tradesmen who would settle in
them, and had provided that each should have a market and a fair. But
the success was small, and Fredericksburg and Alexandria and Petersburg
were straggling villages. Jamestown, the old capital, had by this time
ceased to exist. Williamsburg, the new capital, was a village of 200
houses. There was no business, no incentive in Virginia to build towns.
The planters owned immense plantations along the river banks, and raised
tobacco, which, when gathered, cured, and packed into hogsheads, was
rolled away to the nearest wharf for inspection and shipment to London.
In those early days, when good roads were unknown and wagons few, shafts
were attached to each hogshead by iron bolts driven into the heads, and
the cask was thus turned into a huge roller. With each year's crop would
go a long list of articles of every sort,--hardware, glass, crockery,
clothing, furniture, household utensils, wines,--which the agent was
instructed to buy with the proceeds of the tobacco and send back to the
planter when the ships came a year later for another crop. The country
abounded in trees, yet tables, chairs, boxes, cart wheels, bowls, birch
brooms, all came from the mother country. The wood used for building
houses was actually cut, sent to England as logs to be dressed, and then
taken back to Virginia for use.
[Illustration: Tobacco rolling[1]]
[Footnote 1: From a model in the National Museum, Washington.]
Maryland was in the same condition. Her people raised tobacco, and with
it bought their clothing, household goods, brass and copper wares, and
iron utensils in Great Britain.
In South Carolina rice was the great staple, just as tobacco was the
staple of Virginia, and there too were large plantations and no towns.
All the social, commercial, legal, and political life of the colony
centered in Charleston, from which a direct trade was carried on
with London.
[Illustration: %An old Maryland manor house%]
Labor on the plantations of Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia was
performed exclusively by negro slaves and redemptioners.
%101. Civil Government in the English Colonies.%--If we arrange the
colonies according to the kind of civil government in each, we find that
they fall into three classes:
1. The charter colonies (Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island).
2. The proprietary colonies (Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland).
3. The royal, or provincial, colonies (New Hampshire, New York, New
Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia).
The charters of the first group were written contracts between the King
and the colonists, defined the share each should have in the government,
and were not to be changed without the consent of both parties. In
colonies of the second group some individual, called the proprietary,
was granted a great tract of land by the King, and, under a royal
charter, was given power to sell the land to settlers, establish
government, and appoint the governors of his colony. In the third group,
the King appointed the governors and instructed them as to the way in
which he wished his colonies to be ruled.
With these differences, all the colonies had the same form of
government. In each there was a legislature elected by the people; in
each the right to vote was limited to men who owned land, paid taxes,
had a certain yearly income, and were members of some Christian church.
The legislature consisted of two branches: the lower house, to which the
people elected delegates; and the upper house, or council, appointed by
the governor. These legislatures could do many things, but their powers
were limited and their acts were subject to review: 1. They could do
nothing contrary to the laws of England. 2. Whatever they did could be
vetoed by the governors, and no bill could be passed over the veto. 3.
All laws passed by a colonial legislature (except in the case of
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland), and approved by a governor,
must even then be sent to England to be examined by the King in Council,
and could be "disallowed" or vetoed by the King at any time within three
years. This power was used so constantly that the colonial legislatures,
in time, would pass laws to run for two years, and when that time
expired would reënact them for two years more, and so on in order to
avoid the veto. In this way the colonists became used to three political
institutions which were afterwards embodied in what is now the American
system of state and national government: 1. The written constitution
defining the powers of government. 2. The exercise of the veto power by
the governor. 3. The setting aside of laws by a judicial body from whose
decision there is no appeal.
%102. The Colonial Governors.%--The governor of a royal province was
the personal representative of the King, and as such had vast power.
The legislature could meet only when he called it. He could at any
moment prorogue it (that is, command it to adjourn to a certain day) or
dissolve it, and, if the King approved, he need never call it together
again. He was the chief justice of the highest colonial court, he
appointed all the judges, and, as commander in chief of the militia,
appointed all important officers. Yet even he was subject to some
control, for his salary was paid by the colony over which he ruled, and,
by refusing to pay this salary, the legislature could, and over and over
again did, force him to approve acts he would not otherwise have
sanctioned. In Connecticut and Rhode Island the people elected the
governors. This right once existed also in Massachusetts; but when the
old charter was swept away in 1684, and replaced by a new one in 1691,
the King was given power to appoint the governor, who could summon,
dissolve, and prorogue the legislature at his pleasure.
%103. Lords of Trade and Plantations.%--That the King should give
personal attention to all the details of government in his colonies in
America, was not to be expected. In 1696, therefore, a body called the
Lords of the Board of Trade and Plantations was commissioned by the King
to do this work for him. These Lords of Trade corresponded with the
governors, made recommendations, bade them carry out this or that
policy, veto this or that class of laws, examined all the laws sent over
by the legislatures, and advised the King as to which should be
disallowed, or vetoed.
In the early years of our colonial history the Parliament of England had
no share in the direction of colonial affairs. It was the King who owned
all the land, made all the grants, gave all the charters, created all
the colonies, governed many of them, and stoutly denied the right of
Parliament to meddle. But when Charles I. was beheaded, the Long
Parliament took charge of the management of affairs in this country, and
although much of it went back to the King at the Restoration in 1660,
Parliament still continued to legislate for the colonies in a few
matters. Thus, for instance, Parliament by one act established the
postal service, and fixed the rates of postage; by another it regulated
the currency, and by another required the colonists to change from the
Old Style to the New Style--that is, to stop using the Julian calendar
and to count time in future by the Gregorian calendar; by another it
established a uniform law of naturalization; and from time to time it
passed acts for the purpose of regulating colonial trade.
%104. Acts of Trade and Navigation.%--The number of these acts is
very large; but their purpose was four fold:
1. They required that colonial trade should be carried on in ships built
and owned in England or in the colonies, and manned to the extent of two
thirds of the crew by English subjects.
2. They provided a long list of colonial products that should not be
sent to any foreign ports other than a port of England. Goods or
products not in the list might be sent to any other part of the world.
Thus tobacco, sugar, indigo, copper, furs, rice (if the rice was for a
port north of Cape Finisterre), must go to England; but lumber, salt
fish, and provisions might go (in English or colonial ships) to France,
or Spain, or to other foreign countries.
3. When trade began to spring up between the colonies, and the New
England merchants were competing in the colonial markets with English
merchants, an act was passed providing that if a product which went from
one colony to another was of a kind that might have been supplied from
England, it must either go to the mother country and then to the
purchasing colony, or pay an export duty at the port where it was
shipped, equal to the import duty it would have to pay in England.
4. No goods were allowed to be carried from any place in Europe to
America unless they were first landed at a port in England.[1]
[Footnote 1: Edward Eggleston's papers in the _Century Magazine_, 1884;
Scudder's _Men and Manners One Hundred Years Ago_; Lodge's _English
Colonies_.]
SUMMARY
1. The men who began the long struggle for the rights of Englishmen
lived in a state of society very different from ours, and were utterly
ignorant of most of the commonest things we use in daily life.
2. Labor was performed by slaves, by criminals sent over to the colonies
and sold, and by "indented servants," or "redemptioners."
3. Manufactures were forbidden by the laws of trade. Nobody was
permitted to manufacture iron beyond the state of pig or bar iron, or
make woolen goods for export, or make hats.
4. Taking the colonies in geographical groups, the Eastern were engaged
in fishing, in commerce, and in farming; the Middle Colonies were
agricultural and commercial; the Southern were wholly agricultural, and
raised two great, staples--rice and tobacco.
5. As a consequence, town life existed in the Eastern and Middle
Colonies, and was little known in the South, particularly in Virginia.
6. Over the colonies, as a great governing body to aid the King, were
the Lords of Trade and Plantations in London. Under them in America were
the royal and proprietary governors, who with the local colonial
legislatures managed the affairs of the colonies.
LIFE IN THE COLONIES IN 1763.
_Social and Industrial Condition_.
Population.
Implements and inventions unknown.
The printing press.
The postal service.
Trades and occupations then unknown.
Labor.}The apprentice.
}The "indented servant."
}The redemptioner.
}The slave.
No manufactures. }Iron making
Acts of trade regulating. }Cloth making.
The cities. }Hat making.
Travel.
The Navigation Acts.
State of agriculture.
_Government_.
The charter colonies.
The proprietary colonies.
The royal colonies.
The colonial governor.
The Lords of Trade and Plantations.
The King.
CHAPTER X
"LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS"
%105. The New Provinces.%--The acquisition of Canada and the
Mississippi valley made it necessary for England to provide for their
defense and government. To do this she began by establishing three new
provinces.
In Canada she marked out the province of Quebec, part of the south
boundary of which is now the north boundary of New York, Vermont, New
Hampshire, and Maine.
In the South, out of the territory given by Spain, she made two
provinces, East and West Florida. The north boundary of West Florida was
(1764) a parallel of latitude through the junction of the Yazoo and
Mississippi rivers. The north boundary of East Florida was part of the
boundary of the present state. The territory between the Altamaha and
the St. Marys rivers was "annexed to Georgia."
%106. The Proclamation Line.%--By the same proclamation which
established these provinces, a line was drawn around the head waters of
all the rivers in the United States which flow into the Atlantic Ocean,
and the colonists were forbidden to settle to the west of it. All the
valley from the Great Lakes to West Florida, and from the proclamation
line to the Mississippi, was set apart for the Indians.
%107. The Country to be defended.%--Having thus provided for the
government of the newly acquired territory, it next became necessary to
provide for its defense; for nobody doubted that both France and Spain
would some day attempt to regain their lost possessions. Arrangements
were therefore made to bring over an army of 10,000 regular troops,
scatter them over the country from Canada to Florida, and maintain
them partly at the expense of the colonies and partly at the expense of
the crown.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1764]
The share to be paid by the colonies was to be raised
1. By enforcing the old trade and navigation laws.
2. By a tax on sugar and molasses brought into the country.
3. By a stamp tax.
%108. Trial without Jury.%--In order to enforce the old laws, naval
vessels were sent to sail up and down the coast and catch smugglers.
Offenders when seized were to be tried in some vice-admiralty court,
where they could not have trial by jury.[1]
[Footnote 1: This is one of the things complained of in the Declaration
of Independence.]
%109. The Sugar Act and Stamp Tax.%--The Sugar Act was not a new
grievance. In 1733 Parliament laid a tax of 6_d_. a gallon on molasses
and 5_s_. per hundredweight on sugar brought into this country from any
other place than the British West Indies. This was to force the
colonists to buy their sugar and molasses from nobody but British sugar
planters. After having expired five times and been five times reënacted,
the Sugar Act expired for the sixth time in 1763, and the colonies
begged that it might not be renewed. But Parliament merely reduced the
molasses duty to 3_d_. and laid new duties on coffee, French and East
Indian goods, indigo, white sugar, and Spanish and Portuguese wines. It
then resolved that "for further defraying the expense of protecting the
colonists it would be necessary to charge certain stamp duties in the
colonies."
At that time, 1764, no such thing as an internal tax laid by Parliament
for the purpose of raising revenue existed, or ever had existed, in
America. Money for the use of the King had always been raised by taxes
imposed by the legislatures of the colonies. The moment, therefore, the
people heard that this money was to be raised in future by parliamentary
taxation, they became much alarmed, and the legislatures instructed
their business agents in London to protest.
This the agents did in February, 1765. But Grenville, the Prime
Minister, was not to be persuaded, and on March 22, 1765, Parliament
passed the Stamp Act[1].
[Footnote 1: The exact text of the Stamp Act has been reprinted in
_American History Leaflets_, No. 21. For an excellent account of the
causes and consequences of the Stamp Act, read Lecky's _England in the
Eighteenth Century_, Vol. III., Chap. 12; Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic of the United States_, Chap. 5; Channing's _The United States
of America, 1765-1865_, pp. 41-50.]
%110. The Stamp Distributors.%--That the collection of the new duty
might give as little offense to the colonists as possible, Grenville
desired that the stamps and the stamped paper should be sold by
Americans, and invited the agents of the colonies to name men to be
"stamp distributors" in their colonies. The law was to go into effect on
the 1st of November, 1765. After that day every piece of vellum, every
piece of paper, on which was written any legal document for use in any
court, was to be charged with a stamp duty of from three pence to ten
pounds sterling. After that day, every license, bond, deed, warrant,
bill of lading, indenture, every pamphlet, almanac, newspaper, pack of
cards, must be written or printed on stamped paper to be made in England
and sold at prices fixed by law. If any dispute arose under the law, the
case might be tried in the vice-admiralty courts without a jury.[2]
[Footnote: The stamps were not the adhesive kind we are now accustomed
to fasten on letters. Those used for newspapers and pamphlets and
printed documents consisted of a crown surmounting a circle in which
were the words, "One Penny Sheet" or "Nine Pence per Quire," and were
stamped on each sheet in red ink by a hand stamp not unlike those used
at the present day to cancel stamps on letters. Others, used on vellum
and parchment, consisted of a square piece of blue paper, glued on the
parchment, and fastened by a little piece of brass. A design was then
impressed on the blue paper by means of a little machine like that used
by magistrates and notaries public to impress their seals on legal
documents. When this was done, the parchment was turned over, and a
little piece of white paper was pasted on the back of the stamp. On this
white piece was engraved, in black, the design shown in the second
picture on p. 113, the monogram "G. R." meaning Georgius Rex, or
King George.]
[Illustration: Stamps used in 1765]
The money raised by this tax was not to be taken to England, but was to
be spent in America for the defense of the colonies. Nevertheless, the
colonists were determined that none should be raised. The question was
not, Shall America support an army? but, Shall Parliament tax America?
%111. The Virginia Resolutions.%--In opposition to this, Virginia now
led the way with a set of resolutions. In the House of Burgesses, as the
popular branch of her legislature was called, was Patrick Henry, the
greatest orator in the colonies. By dint of his fiery words, he forced
through a set of resolutions setting forth
1. That the first settlers in Virginia brought with them "all the
privileges and immunities that have at any time been held" by "the
people of Great Britain."
2. That their descendants held these rights.
3. That by two royal charters the people of Virginia had been declared
entitled to all the rights of Englishmen "born within the realm
of England."
4. That one of these rights was that of being taxed "by their own
Assembly."
5. That they were not bound to obey any law taxing them without consent
of their Assembly.[1]
[Footnote 1: These resolutions, printed in full from Henry's manuscript
copy, are in Channing's _The United States of America, 1765-1865, _pp.
51, 52. They were passed May 29, 1765.]
Massachusetts followed with a call for a congress to meet at New York
city.
%112. Stamp-act Congress.%--To the congress thus called came
delegates from all the colonies except New Hampshire, Virginia, North
Carolina, and Georgia. The session began at New York, on the 5th of
October, 1765; and after sitting in secret for twenty days, the
delegates from six of the nine colonies present (Massachusetts, New
York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland) signed a
"Declaration of Rights and Grievances." [1]
[Footnote 1: This declaration is printed in full in Preston's _Documents
Illustrative of American History_, pp. 188-191.]
%113. Declaration of Rights.%--The ground taken in the declaration
was:
1. That the Americans were subjects of the British crown.
2. That it was the natural right of a British subject to pay no taxes
unless he had a voice in laying them.
3. That the Americans were not represented in Parliament.
4. That Parliament, therefore, could not tax them, and that an attempt
to do so was an attack on the rights of Englishmen and the liberty of
self-government.
%114. Grievances.%--The grievances complained of were: 1. Taxation
without representation. 2. Trial without jury (in the vice-admiralty
courts). 3. The Sugar Act. 4. The Stamp Act. 5. Restrictions on trade.
%115. The English View of Representation.%--We, in this country, do
not consider a person represented in a legislature unless he can cast a
vote for a member of that legislature. In Great Britain, not individuals
but classes were represented. Thus, the clergy were represented by the
bishops who sat in the House of Lords; the nobility, by the nobles who
had seats in the House of Lords; and the mass of the people, the
commons, by the members of the House of Commons. At that time, very few
Englishmen could vote for a member of the House of Commons. Great cities
like Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, did not send even one member. When
the colonists held that they were not represented in Parliament because
they did not elect any members of that body, Englishmen answered that
they were represented, because they were commoners.
%116. Sons of Liberty.%--Meantime, the colonists had not been idle.
Taking the name of "Sons of Liberty," a name given to them in a speech
by a member of Parliament (named Barré) friendly to their cause, they
began to associate for resistance to the Stamp Act. At first, they were
content to demand that the stamp distributors named by the colonial
agents in London should resign. But when these officers refused, the
people became violent; and at Boston, Newark, N.J., New Haven, New
London, Conn., at Providence, at Newport, R.I., at Dover, N.H., at
Annapolis, Md., serious riots took place. Buildings were torn down, and
more than one unhappy distributor was dragged from his home, and forced
to stand before the people and shout, "Liberty, property, and
no stamps."
%117. November 1, 1765.%--As the 1st of November, the day on which
the Stamp Act was to go into force, approached, the newspapers appeared
decorated with death's-heads, black borders, coffins, and obituary
notices. The _Pennsylvania Journal_ dropped its usual heading, and in
place of it put an arch with a skull and crossbones underneath, and this
motto, "Expiring in the hopes of a resurrection to life again." In one
corner was a coffin, and the words, "The last remains of the
_Pennsylvania Journal_, which departed this life the 31st of October,
1765, of a stamp in her vitals. Aged 23 years." The _Pennsylvania
Gazette_, on November 7, the day of its first issue after the Stamp Act
became law, published a half sheet, printed on one side, without any
heading, and in its place the words, "No stamped paper to be had."
During the next six months, every scrap of stamped paper that was heard
of was hunted up and given to the flames. Thus, when a vessel from
Barbados, with a stamped newspaper published on that island, reached
Philadelphia, the paper was seized and burned, one evening, at the
coffeehouse, in the presence of a great crowd. A vessel having put in
from Halifax, a rumor spread that the captain had brought stamped paper
with him, and was going to use it for his Philadelphia clearance. This
so enraged the people that the vessel was searched, and a sheet of paper
with three stamps on it was found, and burned at the coffee-house.
%118. Non-importation Agreements.%--Meantime, the merchants in the
larger towns, and the people all over the country, had been making
written agreements not to import any goods from England for some
months to come.
The effect of this measure was immense. Not a merchant nor a
manufacturer in Great Britain, engaged in the colonial trade, but found
his American orders canceled and his goods left on his hands. Not a ship
returned from this country but carried back English wares which it had
brought here to sell, but for which no purchaser could be found.
%119. Stamp Act repealed.%--When Parliament met in December, 1765,
such a cry of distress came up from the manufacturing cities of England,
that Parliament was forced to yield, and in March, 1766, the Stamp Act
was repealed. In the outburst of joy which followed in America, the
intent and meaning of another act passed at the same time was little
heeded. In it was the declaration that Parliament did have the right to
tax the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
%120. The Townshend Acts.%--If the people thought this declaration
had no meaning, they were much mistaken, for next year (1767) Parliament
passed what have since been called the Townshend Acts. There were three
of them. One forbade the legislature of New York to pass any more laws
till it had provided the royal troops in the city with beds, candles,
fire, vinegar, and salt, as required by what was called the Mutiny Act.
The second established at Boston a Board of Commissioners of the Customs
to enforce the laws relating to trade. The third laid taxes on glass,
red and white lead, painter's colors, paper, and tea. None of these
taxes was heavy. But again the right of Parliament to tax people not
represented in it had been asserted, and again the colonists rose in
resistance. The legislature of Massachusetts sent a letter to each of
the other colonial legislatures, urging them to unite and consult for
the protection of their rights. Pennsylvania sent protests to the King
and to Parliament. The merchants all over the country renewed their old
agreements not to import British goods, and many a shipload was sent
back to England.
%121. Colonial Legislatures dissolved.%[1]--The letter of
Massachusetts to the colonial legislatures having given great offense to
the King, the governors were ordered to see to it that the legislatures
did not approve it. But the order came too late. Many had already done
so, and as a punishment the assemblies of Maryland and Georgia were
dismissed and the members sent home. To dissolve assemblies became of
frequent occurrence. The legislature of Massachusetts was dissolved
because it refused to recall the letter. That of New York was repeatedly
dissolved for refusing to provide the royal troops with provisions. That
of Virginia was dismissed for complaining of the treatment of New York.
[Footnote 1: One of the charges against the King in the Declaration of
Independence.]
%122. Boston Riot of 1770.%--And now the troops intended for the
defense of the colonies began to arrive. But Massachusetts, North
Carolina, and South Carolina followed the example of New York, and
refused to find them quarters. For this the legislature of North
Carolina was dissolved. Everywhere the presence of the soldiers gave
great offense; but in Boston the people were less patient than
elsewhere. They accused the soldiers of corrupting the morals of the
town; of desecrating the Sabbath with fife and drum; of striking
citizens who insulted them; and of using language violent, threatening,
and profane. In this state of feeling, an alarm of fire called the
people into the streets on the night of March 5, 1770. The alarm was
false, and a crowd of men and boys, having nothing to do, amused
themselves by annoying a sentinel on guard at one of the public
buildings. He called for help, and a corporal and six men were soon on
the scene. But the crowd would not give way. Forty or fifty men came
armed with sticks and pressed around the soldiers, shouting, "Rascals!
Lobsters! Bloody-backs!" throwing snowballs and occasionally a stone,
till in the excitement of the moment a soldier fired his gun. The rest
followed his example, and when the reports died away, five of the
rioters lay on the ground dead or dying, and six more dangerously
wounded.[1]
[Footnote 1: The soldiers were tried for murder and were defended by
John Adams and Josiah Quincy. Two were found guilty of manslaughter. The
rest were acquitted. On the massacre read Frothingham's _Life of
Warren,_ Chaps. 6, 7; Kidder's _The Boston Massacre_; Joseph Warren's
Oration on March 6, 1775, in _Library of American Literature_, Vol.
III., p. 256.]
This riot, this "Boston Massacre," or, as the colonists delighted to
call it, "the bloody massacre," excited and aroused the whole land,
forced the government to remove the soldiers from Boston to an island in
the bay, and did more than anything else which had yet happened, to help
on the Revolution.
%123. Tea sent to America and not received.%--While these things were
taking place in America--indeed, on the very day of the Boston riot--a
motion was made in Parliament for the repeal of all the taxes laid by
the Townshend Acts except that on tea. The tea tax of 3d. a pound,
payable in the colonies, was retained in order that the right of
Parliament to tax America might be vindicated. But the people held fast
to their agreements not to consume articles taxed by Great Britain. No
tea was drunk, save such as was smuggled from Holland, and at the end of
three years' time the East India Company had 17,000,000 pounds of tea
stored in its warehouses (1773). This was because the company was not
permitted to send tea out of England. It might only bring tea to London
and there sell it at public sale to merchants and shippers, who exported
it to America. But now when the merchants could not find anybody to buy
tea in the colonies, they bought less from the company, and the tea lay
stored in its warehouses. To relieve the company, and if possible tempt
the people to use the tea, the exportation tax was taken off and the
company was given leave to export tea to America consigned to
commissioners chosen by itself. Taking off the shilling a pound export
tax in England, and charging but 3d. import tax in America, made it
possible for the company to sell tea cheaper than could the merchants
who smuggled it. Yet even this failed. The people forced the tea
commissioners to resign or send the tea ships back to England. In
Charleston, S.C., the tea was landed and stored for three years, when it
was sold by South Carolina. In Philadelphia the people met, and having
voted that the tea should not be landed, they stopped the ship as it
came up the Delaware, and sent it back to London.
%124. The Boston Tea Party.%--At Boston also the people tried to send
the tea ships to England, but the authorities would not allow them to
leave, whereupon a band of young men disguised as Indians boarded the
vessels, broke open the boxes, and threw the tea into the water.
%125. The Five Intolerable Acts.%--When Parliament heard of these
events, it at once determined to punish Massachusetts, and in order to
do this passed five laws which were so severe that the colonists called
them the "Intolerable Acts." They are generally known as
1. The Boston Port Bill, which shut the port of Boston to trade and
commerce, forbade ships to come in or go out, and moved the customhouse
to Marblehead.
2. The Transportation Bill, which gave the governor power to send
anybody accused of murder in resisting the laws, to another colony or to
England for trial.
3. The Massachusetts Bill, which changed the old charter of
Massachusetts, provided for a military governor, and forbade the people
to hold public meetings for any other purpose than the election of town
officers, without permission from the governor.
4. The Quartering Act, which legalized the quartering of troops on the
people.
5. The Quebec Act, which enlarged the province of Quebec (pp. 111, 124)
to include all the territory between the Great Lakes, the Ohio River,
the Mississippi River, and Pennsylvania. This territory was claimed by
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia under their "sea to sea"
charters (pp. 33, 46, 52, 156).
%126. A Congress called.%--When the Virginia legislature in May,
1774, heard of the passage of the Boston Port Bill, it passed a
resolution that the day on which the law went into effect in Boston
should be a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer" in Virginia. For
this the governor at once dissolved the legislature. But the members met
and instructed a committee to correspond with the other colonies on the
expediency of holding another general congress of delegates. All the
colonies approved, and New York requested Massachusetts to name the time
and place of meeting. This she did, selecting Philadelphia as the place,
and September 1, 1774, as the time.
%127. The First Continental Congress.%--From September 5 to October
26, accordingly, fifty-five delegates, representing every colony except
Georgia, held meetings in Carpenter's Hall at Philadelphia, and issued:
1. An address to the people of the colonies.
2. An address to the Canadians.
3. An address to the people of Great Britain.
4. An address to the King.
5. A declaration of rights.
%128. The Declaration of Rights.%[1]--In this declaration the rights
of the colonists were asserted to be:
1. Life, liberty, and property.
2. To tax themselves.
3. To assemble peaceably to petition for the redress of grievances.
4. To enjoy the rights of Englishmen and all the rights granted by the
colonial charters.
[Footnote 1: Printed in Preston's _Documents_, pp. 192-198. The best
account of the coming of the Revolution is Frothingham's _Rise of the
Republic of the United States,_ Chaps. 5-11.]
These rights it was declared had been violated:
1. By taxing the people without their consent.
2. By dissolving assemblies.
3. By quartering troops on the people in time of peace.
4. By trying men without a jury.
5. By passing the five Intolerable Acts.
Before the Congress adjourned it was ordered that another Congress
should meet on May 10, 1775, in order to take action on the result of
the petition to the King.
SUMMARY
1. As soon as Great Britain acquired Canada and the eastern part of the
Mississippi valley from France, and Florida from Spain, she did
three things:
A. She established the provinces of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida,
and the Indian country.
B. She drew a line round the sources of all the rivers flowing into the
Atlantic from the west and northwest, and commanded the colonial
governors to grant no land and to allow no settlements to be made west
of this line.
C. She decided to send a standing or permanent army to America to take
possession of the new territory and defend the colonies.
2. A part of the cost of keeping up this army she decided to meet by
taxing the colonists. This she had never done before.
3. The chief tax was the stamp duty on paper, vellum, etc. This the
colonists refused to pay, and Parliament repealed it.
4. The colonists having denied the right of Parliament to tax them, that
body determined to establish its right and passed the "Townshend Acts."
But the colonists refused to buy British goods, and Parliament repealed
all the Townshend duties except that on tea.
5. As the Americans would not order tea from London, the East India
Company was allowed to send it. But the people in the five cities to
which the tea was sent destroyed it or sent it back.
6. Parliament thereupon attempted to punish Massachusetts and passed the
Intolerable Acts.
7. These acts led to the calling and the meeting of the First
Continental Congress.
/---------------------------------------------\
France Spain
/----------------\ /-------\
Cape Breton. Florida
Canada.
Louisiana east of
the Mississippi.
\--------------------------------------------
and cuts the new territory (1763) into
Province of Quebec,
East Florida,
West Florida,
Indian country,
and draws proclamation line
limiting colonies in the west.
\-------------------------------/
New colonial policy necessary.
/----------------------------------------------\
Country to be defended by 10,000 royal troops.
Cost of troops to be paid
|
|---------------------------------------------
Partly by crown. Partly by colonies.
|
/----------------------------------
Share of colonies to be raised by
Enforcing acts of trade and navigation.
Taxes on sugar and molasses.
Stamp tax (1765).
/---------------------------^--------------------------------\
Resisted. Principle involved.
Action of Virginia and Massachusetts.
Stamp Act Congress.
Act repealed (1766).
Declaratory Act (1766).
--------------- / \
| | Glass. |
| | Red and white lead. |
--------------- | Painters' colors | Resisted and repealed (1770)
Townshend Acts | Paper. |
(1767). | Tea. /
\
/--------^-------\
Enforced.
Resisted (1773).
Resistance / \
punished by | Five Intoler- | Continental
| able Acts. | Congress called(1774).
\ /
CHAPTER XI
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
[Illustration: Statue of the Minute Man at Concord]
%129%. When the 10th of May, 1775, came, the colonists had ceased to
petition and had begun to fight. In accordance with the Massachusetts
Bill, General Thomas Gage had been appointed military governor of
Massachusetts. He reached Boston in May, 1774, and summoned an assembly
to meet him at Salem in October. But, alarmed at the angry state of the
people, he fortified Boston Neck,--the only land approach to the city,
and countermanded the meeting. The members, claiming that an assembly
could not be dismissed before it met, gave no heed to the proclamation,
but gathered at Salem and adjourned to Concord and then to Cambridge. At
Cambridge a Committee of Safety was chosen and given power to call out
the troops, and steps were taken to collect ammunition and military
stores. A month later at another meeting, 12,000 "minute men" were
ordered to be enrolled. These minute men were volunteers pledged to be
ready for service at a minute's notice, and lest 12,000 should not be
enough, the neighboring colonies were asked to raise the number
to 20,000.
[Illustration: Map of Country around Boston]
%130. Concord and Lexington.%--Meantime the arming and drilling went
actively on, and powder was procured, and magazines of provisions and
military stores were collected at Concord, at Worcester, at Salem, and
at many other towns. Aware of this, Gage, on the night of April 18,
1775, sent off 800 regulars to destroy the stores at Concord, a town
some twenty miles from Boston. Gage wished to keep this expedition
secret, but he could not. The fact that the troops were to march became
known to the patriots in Boston, who determined to warn the minute men
in the neighborhood. Messengers were accordingly stationed at
Charlestown and told to ride in every direction and rouse the people,
the moment they saw lights displayed from the tower of the Old North
Church in Boston. The instant the British began to march, two lights
were hung out in the tower, and the messengers sped away to do
their work.[1]
[Footnote 1: The ride of one of these men, that of Paul Revere, has
become best known because of Longfellow's poem, _Paul Revere's Ride._
Read it. ]
The road taken by the British lay through the little village of
Lexington, and there (so well had the messengers done their work), about
sunrise, on the morning of the 19th, the British came suddenly on a
little band of minute men drawn up on the green before the meeting
house. A call to disperse was not obeyed; whereupon the British fired a
volley, killing or wounding sixteen minute men, and passed on to
Concord. There they spiked three cannon, threw some cannon balls and
powder into the river, destroyed some flour, set fire to the courthouse,
and started back toward Boston. But "the shot heard round the world" had
indeed been fired.[2] The news had spread far and wide. The minute men
came hurrying in, and from farmhouses and hedges, from haystacks, and
from behind trees and stone fences, they poured a deadly fire on the
retreating British. The retreat soon became a flight, and the flight
would have ended in capture had they not been reënforced by 900 men at
Lexington. With the help of these they reached Charlestown Neck by
sundown and entered Boston.[3] All night long minute men came in from
every quarter, so that by the morning of April 20th great crowds were
gathered outside of Charlestown and at Roxbury, and shut the British
in Boston.
[Footnote 2: Read R. W. Emerson's fine poem, _Concord Hymn._ ]
[Footnote 3: Force's _American Archives,_ Vol. II.; Hudson's _History of
Lexington,_ Chaps. 6, 7; Phinney's _Battle of Lexington;_ Shattuck's
_History of Concord,_ Chap. 7. ]
When the news of Concord and Lexington reached the Green Mountain Boys
of Vermont, they too took up arms, and, under Ethan Allen, captured Fort
Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775.
%131. Congress becomes a Governing Body.%--The first Continental
Congress had been chosen by the colonies in 1774, to set forth the views
of the people, and remonstrate against the conduct of the King and
Parliament. This Congress, it will be remembered, having done so, fixed
May 10, 1775, as the day whereon a second Congress should meet to
consider the results of their remonstrance. But when the day came,
Lexington and Concord had been fought, all New England was in arms, and
Congress was asked to adopt the army gathered around Boston, and assume
the conduct of the war. Congress thus unexpectedly became a governing
body, and began to do such things as each colony could not do by itself.
%132. Origin of the Continental Army.%--After a month's delay it did
adopt the little band of patriots gathered about Boston, made it the
Continental Army, and elected George Washington, then a delegate in
Congress, commander in chief. He was chosen because of the military
skill he had displayed in the French and Indian War, and because it was
thought necessary to have a Virginian for general, Virginia being then
the most populous of the colonies.
Washington accepted the trust on June 16, and set out for Boston on June
21; but he had not ridden twenty miles from Philadelphia when he was met
by the news of Bunker Hill.
%133. Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.%--On a narrow peninsula to the
north of Boston, and separated from it by a sheet of water half a mile
wide, was the village of Charlestown; behind it were two small hills.
The nearer of the two to Charlestown was Breeds Hill. Just beyond it was
Bunker Hill, and as the two overlooked Boston and the harbor where the
British ships lay at anchor, the possession of them was of much
importance. The Americans, learning of Gage's intention to fortify the
hills, sent a force of 1200 men, under Colonel Prescott, on the night of
June 16, to take possession of Bunker Hill. By some mistake Prescott
passed Bunker Hill, reached Breeds Hill, and before dawn had thrown up a
large earthwork. The moment daylight enabled it to be seen, the British
opened fire from their ships. But the Americans worked steadily on in
spite of cannon shot, and by noon had constructed a line of
intrenchments extending from the earthwork down the hill toward the
water. Gage might easily have landed men and taken this intrenchment in
the rear. He instead sent Howe[1] and 2500 men over in boats from
Boston, to land at the foot of the hill and charge straight up its steep
side toward the Americans on its summit. The Americans were bidden not
to fire till they saw the whites of the enemy's eyes, and obeyed. Not a
shot came from their line till the British were within a few feet. Then
a sheet of flames ran along the breastworks, and when the smoke blew
away, the British were running down the hill in confusion. With great
effort the officers rallied their men and led them up the hill a second
time, to be again driven back to the landing place. This fire exhausted
the powder of the Americans, and when the British troops were brought up
for the third attack, the Americans fell back, fighting desperately with
gunstocks and stones. The results of this battle were two fold. It
proved to the Americans that the British regulars were not invincible,
and it proved to the British that the American militia would fight.
[Footnote 1: General William Howe had come to Boston with more British
troops not long before. In October, 1775, he was given chief command.]
[Illustration: BOSTON, CHARLESTOWN, ETC.]
%134. Washington takes Command.%--Two weeks after this battle
Washington reached the army, and on July 3, 1775, took command beneath
an elm still standing in Cambridge. Never was an army in so sorry a
plight. There was no discipline, and not much more than a third as many
men as there had been a few weeks before. But the indomitable will and
sublime patience of Washington triumphed over all difficulties, and for
eight months he kept the British shut up in Boston, while he trained
and disciplined his army, and gathered ammunition and supplies.
%135. Montreal taken.%--Meanwhile Congress, fearing that Sir Guy
Carleton, who was governor of Canada, would invade New York by way of
Lake Champlain, sent two expeditions against him. One, under Richard
Montgomery, went down Lake Champlain, and captured Montreal. Another,
under Benedict Arnold, forced its way through the dense woods of Maine,
and after dreadful sufferings reached Quebec. There Montgomery joined
Arnold, and on the night of December 31, 1775, the two armies assaulted
Quebec, the most strongly fortified city in America, and actually
entered it. But Montgomery was killed, Arnold was wounded, the attack
failed, and, six months later, the Americans were driven from Canada.
[Illustration: Bunker Hill Monument]
%136. The British driven from Boston, March 17, 1776.%--After eight
months of seeming idleness, Washington, early in March, 1776, seized
Dorchester Heights on the south side of Boston, fortified them, and so
gave Howe his choice of fighting or retreating. Fight he could not; for
the troops, remembering the dreadful day at Bunker Hill, were afraid to
attack intrenched Americans. Howe thereupon evacuated Boston and sailed
with his army for Halifax, March 17, 1776. Washington felt sure that the
British would next attack New York, so he moved his army there in April,
1776, and placed it on the Brooklyn hills.
%137. Independence resolved on.%--Just one year had now passed since
the memorable fights at Concord and Lexington. During this year the
colonies had been solemnly protesting that they had no thought of
independence and desired nothing so much as reconciliation with the
King. But the King meantime had done things which prevented any
reconciliation:
1. He had issued a proclamation declaring the Americans to be rebels.
2. He had closed their ports and warned foreign nations not to trade
with them.
3. He had hired 17,000 Hessians[1] with whom to subdue them.
[Footnote 1: The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse and other small
German states.]
These things made further obedience to the King impossible, and May 15,
1776, Congress resolved that it was "necessary to suppress every kind of
authority under the crown," and asked the colonies to form governments
of their own and so become states.
On the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, acting under instructions from
Virginia, offered this resolution:
Resolved
That these United Colonies are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent states, that
they are absolved from all allegiance to the British
Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be,
totally dissolved.
Prompt action in so serious a matter was not to be expected, and
Congress put it off till July 1. Meanwhile Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were
appointed to write a declaration of independence and have it ready in
case it was wanted. As Jefferson happened to be the chairman of the
committee, the duty of writing the declaration was given to him. July
2, Congress passed Lee's resolution, and what had been the United
Colonies became free and independent states.
[Illustration: Campaigns of 1775-1776]
[Illustration: %The Pennsylvania Statehouse, or Independence Hall[1]]
[Footnote 1: From the _Columbian Magazine_ of July, 1787. The tower
faces the "Statehouse yard." The posts are along Chestnut Street. For
the history of the building, read F. M. Etting's _Independence Hall._]
%138. Independence declared.%--Independence having thus been decreed,
the next step was to announce the fact to the world. As Jefferson says
in the opening of his declaration, "When, in the course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands
which have connected them with another ... a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation." It was this "decent respect to the
opinions of mankind," therefore, which now led Congress, on July 4,
1776, to adopt the Declaration of Independence, and to send copies to
the states. Pennsylvania got her copy first, and at noon on July 8 it
was read to a vast crowd of citizens in the Statehouse yard.[1] When
the reading was finished, the people went off to pull down the royal
arms in the court room, while the great bell in the tower, the bell
which had been cast twenty-four years before with the prophetic words
upon its side, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the
inhabitants thereof," rang out a joyful peal, for then were announced to
the world the new political truths, "that all men are created equal,"
and "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights," and "that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."
[Footnote 1: The declaration was read from a wooden platform put up
there in 1769 to enable David Rittenhouse to observe a transit
of Venus.]
[Illustration: The royal arms]
%139. The Retreat up the Hudson.%--A few days later the Declaration
was read to the army at New York. The wisdom of Washington in going to
New York was soon manifest, for in July General Howe, with a British
army of 25,000 men, encamped on Staten Island. In August he crossed to
Long Island, and was making ready to besiege the army on Brooklyn
Heights, when, one dark and foggy night, Washington, leaving his camp
fires burning, crossed with his army to New York.
Howe followed, drove him foot by foot up the Hudson from New York to
White Plains; carried Fort Washington, on the New York shore, by storm
(November 16, 1776); and sent a force across the Hudson under cover of
darkness and storm to capture Fort Lee. But the British were detected in
the very nick of time, and the Americans, leaving their fires burning
and their tents standing, fled towards Newark, N. J.
%140. The Retreat across the Jerseys.%--Washington, meanwhile, had
gone from White Plains to Hackensack in New Jersey, leaving 7000 men
under Charles Lee in New York state at North Castle. These men he now
ordered Lee to bring over to Hackensack, but the jealous and mutinous
Lee refused to obey. This forced Washington to begin his famous retreat
across the Jerseys, going first to Newark, then to New Brunswick, then
to Trenton, and then over the Delaware into Pennsylvania, with the
British under Cornwallis in hot pursuit.
[Illustration]
%141. The Surprise at Trenton.%--Lee crossed the Hudson and went to
Morristown, where a just punishment for his disobedience speedily
overtook him. One night while he was at an inn outside of his lines,
some British dragoons made him a prisoner of war. The capture of Lee
left Sullivan in command, and by him the troops were hurried off to join
Washington. Thus reënforced, Washington turned on the enemy, and on
Christmas night in a blinding snowstorm he recrossed the Delaware,
marched nine miles to Trenton, surprised a force of Hessians, took 1000
prisoners, and went back to Pennsylvania.
The effect of this victory was tremendous. At first the people could not
believe it, and, to convince them, the Hessians had to be marched
through the streets of Philadelphia, and one of their flags was sent to
Baltimore (whither Congress had fled from Philadelphia), and hung up in
the hall of Congress. When the people were convinced of the truth of the
report, their joy was unbounded; militia was hurried forward, the
Jerseymen gathered at Morristown, money was raised; the New England
troops, whose time of service was out, were persuaded to stay six weeks
longer, and, December 30, 1776, Washington again entered Trenton.
Meantime Cornwallis, who had heard of the capture of the Hessians, came
thundering down from New Brunswick with 8000 men and hemmed in the
Americans between his army and the Delaware. But on the night of January
2, 1777, Washington slipped away, passed around Cornwallis, hurried to
Princeton, and there, on the morning of January 3, put to rout three
regiments of British regulars. Cornwallis, who was not aware that the
Americans had left his front till he heard the firing in his rear, fell
back to New Brunswick, while Washington marched unmolested to
Morristown, where he spent the rest of the winter.
%142. The Capture of Philadelphia.%--Late in May, 1777, Washington
entered New York state. But Howe paid little attention to this movement,
for he had fully determined to attack and capture Philadelphia, and on
July 23 set sail from New York. As the fleet moved southward, its
progress was marked by signal fires along the Jersey coast, and the news
of its position was carried inland by messengers. At the end of a week
the fleet was off the entrance of Delaware Bay. But Lord Howe fearing to
sail up the river, the fleet went to sea and was lost to sight.
Washington, who had hurried southward to Philadelphia, was now at a loss
what to do, and was just about to go back to New York when he heard
that the British were coming up Chesapeake Bay, and at once marched to
Wilmington, Del.
[Illustration]
It was the 25th of August that Howe landed his men and began moving
toward Washington, who, lest the British should push by him, fell back
from Wilmington, to a place called Chadds Ford on the Brandywine, where,
on September 11, 1777, a battle was fought.[1] The Americans were
defeated and retreated in good order to Chester, and the next day
Washington entered Philadelphia. But public opinion demanded that
another battle should be fought before the city was given up, and after
a few days he recrossed the Schuylkill, and again faced the enemy. A
violent storm ruined the ammunition of both armies and prevented a
battle, and the Americans retreated across the Schuylkill at a point
farther up the stream.
[Footnote: 1 Among the wounded in this battle was a brilliant young
Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette, who, early in 1777, came to America
and offered his services to Congress as a volunteer without pay.]
Congress, which had returned to Philadelphia from Baltimore, now fled to
Lancaster and later to York, Pa., and (September 26, 1777) Howe entered
Philadelphia in triumph. October 4, Washington attacked him at
Germantown, but was repulsed, and went into winter quarters at
Valley Forge.
[Illustration]
%143. New York invaded.%--Though Washington had been defeated in the
battles around Philadelphia, and had been forced to give that city to
the British, his campaign made it possible for the Americans to win
another glorious victory in the north. At the beginning of 1777 the
British had planned to conquer New York and so cut the Eastern States
off from the Middle States. To accomplish this, a great army under John
Burgoyne was to come up to Albany by way of Lake Champlain. Another,
under Colonel St. Leger, was to go up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario
to Oswego and come down to Mohawk valley to Albany; while the third
army, under Howe, was to go up the Hudson from New York and meet
Burgoyne at Albany. True to this plan, Burgoyne came up Lake Champlain,
took Ticonderoga (July 5), and, driving General Schuyler before him,
reached Fort Edward late in July. There he heard that the Americans had
collected some supplies at Bennington, a little village in the
southwestern corner of Vermont, whither he sent 1000 men. But Colonel
John Stark met and utterly destroyed them on August 16. Meanwhile St.
Leger, as planned, had landed at Oswego, and on August 3 laid siege to
Fort Stanwix, which then stood on the site of the present city of Rome,
N.Y. On the 6th the garrison sallied forth, attacked a part of St.
Leger's camp, and carried off five British flags. These they hoisted
upside down on their ramparts, and high above them raised a new flag
which Congress had adopted in June, and which was then for the first
time flung to the breeze.
[Illustration: Flag of the East India Company]
%144. Our National Flag.%--It was our national flag, the stars and
stripes, and was made of a piece of a blue jacket, some strips of a
white shirt, and some scraps of old red flannel.[1]
[Footnote 1: The flags used by the continental troops between 1775 and
1777 were of at least a dozen different patterns. A colored plate
showing most of them is given in Treble's _Our Flag_, p. 142. In 1776,
in January, Washington used one at Cambridge which seems to have been
suggested by the ensign of the East India Company. That of this company
was a combination of thirteen horizontal red and white stripes (seven
red and six white) and the red cross of St. George. That of Washington
was the same, with the British Union Jack substituted for the cross of
St. George. After the Declaration of Independence, the British Jack was
out of place on our flag; and in June, 1777, Congress adopted a union of
thirteen white stars in a circle, on a blue ground, in place of the
British Union. After Vermont and Kentucky were admitted, in 1791 and
1792, the stars and stripes were each increased to fifteen. In 1818, the
original number of stripes was restored, and since that time each new
state, when admitted, is represented by a star and not by a stripe.]
[Illustration: Flag of the United Colonies]
[Illustration: British Union Jack]
%145. Capture of Burgoyne.%--When Schuyler heard of the siege of
Fort Stanwix, he sent Benedict Arnold to relieve it, and St. Leger fled
to Oswego. Then was the time for the expedition from New York to have
hurried to Burgoyne's aid. But Howe and his army were then at sea. No
help was given to Burgoyne, who, after suffering defeats at Bemis
Heights (September 19) and at Stillwater (October 7), retreated to
Saratoga, where (October 17, 1777) he surrendered his army of 6000 men
to General Horatio Gates, whom Congress, to its shame, had just put in
the place of Schuyler. Gates deserves no credit for the capture. Arnold
and Daniel Morgan deserve it, and deserve much; for, judged by its
results, Saratoga was one of the great battles of the world. The results
of the surrender were four fold:
1. It saved New York state.
2. It destroyed the plan for the war.
3. It induced the King to offer us peace with representation in
Parliament, or anything else we wanted except independence.
4. It secured for us the aid of France.
[Illustration: %Flag of the United States, 1777%]
%146. Valley Forge.%--The winter at Valley Forge marks the darkest
period of the war. It was a season of discouragement, when mean spirits
grew bold. Some officers of the army formed a plot, called from one of
them the "Conway cabal," to displace Washington and put Gates in
command. The country people, tempted by British gold, sent their
provisions into Philadelphia and not to Valley Forge. There the
suffering of the half-clad, half-fed, ill-housed patriots surpasses
description.
But the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Then it was that an able
Prussian soldier, Baron Steuben, joined the army, turned the camp into a
school, drilled the soldiers, and made the army better than ever. Then
it was that France acknowledged our independence, and joined us in
the war.
%147. France acknowledges our Independence.%--In October, 1776,
Congress sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to try to persuade the French
King to help us in the war. Till Burgoyne surrendered and Great Britain
offered peace, Franklin found all his efforts vain.[1] But now, when it
seemed likely that the states might again be brought under the British
crown, the French King promptly acknowledged us to be an independent
nation, made a treaty of alliance and a treaty of commerce (February 6,
1778), and soon had a fleet on its way to help us.
[Footnote 1: For an account of Franklin in France, see McMaster's _With
the Fathers_, pp. 253-270.]
%148. The British leave Philadelphia.%--Hearing of the approach of
the French fleet, Sir Henry Clinton, who in May had succeeded Howe in
command, left Philadelphia and hurried to the defense of New York.
Washington followed, and, coming up with the rear guard of the enemy at
Monmouth in New Jersey, fought a battle (June 28, 1778), and would have
gained a great victory had not the traitor, Charles Lee, been in
command.[2] Without any reason he suddenly ordered a retreat, which was
fortunately prevented from becoming a rout by Washington, who came on
the field in time to stop it.
[Footnote 2: After remaining a prisoner in the hands of the British from
December, 1776, to April, 1778, Lee had been exchanged for a
British officer.]
After the battle the British hurried on to New York, where Washington
partially surrounded them by stretching out his army from Morristown in
New Jersey to West Point on the Hudson.
%149. Stony Point.%--In hope of drawing Washington away from New
York, Clinton in 1779 sent a marauding party to plunder and ravage the
farms and towns of Connecticut. But Washington soon brought it back by
dispatching Anthony Wayne to capture Stony Point, which he did (July,
1779) by one of the most brilliant assaults in military history.
%150. Indian Raids.%--That nothing might be wanting to make the
suffering of the patriots as severe as possible, the Indians were let
loose. Led by a Tory[1] named Butler, a band of whites and Indians of
the Seneca tribe of the Six Nations[2] marched from Fort Niagara to
Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, and there perpetrated one
of the most awful massacres in history. Another party, led by a son of
Butler, repeated the horrors of Wyoming in Cherry Valley, N.Y.
[Footnote 1: Not all the colonists desired independence. Those who
remained loyal to the King were called Tories.]
[Footnote 2: By this time the Five Nations had admitted the Tuscaroras
to their confederacy and had thus become the Six Nations.]
%151. George Rogers Clark%.--Meantime the British commander at
Detroit tried hard to stir up the Indians of the West to attack the
whole frontier at the same moment. Hearing of this, George Rogers Clark
of Virginia marched into the enemy's country, and in two fine campaigns
in 1778-1779 beat the British, and conquered the country from the Ohio
to the Great Lakes and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi.
%152. Sullivan's Expedition%.--In 1779 it seemed so important to
punish the Indians for the Wyoming and Cherry Valley massacres that
General Sullivan with an army invaded the territory of the Six Nations,
in central New York, burned some forty Indian villages, and utterly
destroyed the Indian power in that state.
%153. The South invaded%.--For a year and more there had been a lull
in military operations on the part of the British. But they now began an
attack in a new quarter. Having failed to conquer New England in
1775-1776, having failed to conquer the Middle States in 1776-1777, they
sent an expedition against the South in December, 1778. Success attended
it. Savannah was captured, Georgia was conquered, and the royal governor
reinstated. Later, in 1779, General Lincoln, with a French fleet to help
him, attempted to recapture Savannah, but was driven off with dreadful
loss of life.
These successes in Georgia so greatly encouraged the British that in the
spring of 1780 Clinton led an expedition against South Carolina, and
(May 12) easily captured Charleston, with Lincoln and his army. By dint
of great exertions another army was quickly raised in North Carolina,
and the command given to Gates by Congress. He was utterly unfit for it,
and (August 16, 1780) was defeated and his army almost destroyed at
Camden by Lord Cornwallis. Never in the whole course of the war had the
American army suffered such a crushing defeat. All military resistance
in South Carolina was at an end, save such as was offered by gallant
bands of patriots led by Marion, Sumter, and Pickens.
%154. The Treason of Arnold.%--The outlook was now dark enough;
but it was made darker still by the treachery of Benedict Arnold. No
officer in the Revolutionary army was more trusted. His splendid march
through the wilderness to Quebec, his bravery in the attack on that
city, the skill and courage he displayed at Saratoga, had marked him
out as a man full of promise. But he lacked that moral courage without
which great abilities count for nothing. In 1778 he was put in command
of Philadelphia, and while there so abused his office that he was
sentenced to be reprimanded by Washington. This aroused a thirst for
revenge, and led him to form a scheme to give up the Hudson River to the
enemy. With this end in view, he asked Washington in July, 1780, for the
command of West Point, the great stronghold on the Hudson, obtained it,
and at once made arrangements to surrender it to Clinton. The British
agent in the negotiation was Major John André, who one day in September
met Arnold near Stony Point. But most happily, as he was going back to
New York, three Americans[1] stopped him near Tarrytown, searched him,
and in his stockings found some papers in the handwriting of Arnold.
News of the arrest of André reached Arnold in time to enable him to
escape to the British; he served with them till the end of the war, and
then sought a refuge in England. André was tried as a spy, found guilty,
and hanged.
[Footnote 1: The names of these men were Paulding, Williams, and Van
Wart.]
%155. Victory at Kings Mountain.%--After the defeat of Gates at
Camden, the British overran South Carolina, and in the course of their
marauding a band of 1100 Tories marched to Kings Mountain, on the border
line between the two Carolinas. There the hardy mountaineers attacked
them (Oct. 7, 1780) and killed, wounded, or captured the entire band.
[Map: %CAMPAIGNS IN THE SOUTH 1778-1781%]
%156. Victory at the Cowpens%.--Meantime a third army was raised for
use in the South and placed under the command of Nathanael Greene, than
whom there was no abler general in the American army. With Greene was
Daniel Morgan, who had distinguished himself at Saratoga, and by him a
British force under Tarleton was attacked January 17, 1781, at a place
called the Cowpens, and not only defeated, but almost destroyed.
Enraged at these reverses, Cornwallis took the field and hurried to
attack Greene, who, too weak to fight him, began a masterly retreat of
200 miles across Carolina to Guilford Courthouse, where he turned about
and fought. He was defeated, but Cornwallis was unable to go further,
and retreated to Wilmington, N.C., with Greene in hot pursuit. Leaving
the enemy at Wilmington, Greene went back to South Carolina, and by
September, 1781, had driven the British into Charleston and Savannah.
Cornwallis, as soon as Greene left him, hurried to Petersburg, Va. A
British force during the winter and spring had been plundering and
ravaging in Virginia, under the traitor Arnold. Cornwallis took command
of this, sent Arnold to New York, and had begun a campaign against
Lafayette, when orders reached him to seize and fortify some
Virginian seaport.
%157. Surrender of Cornwallis.%--Thus instructed, Cornwallis selected
Yorktown, and began to fortify it strongly. This was early in August,
1781. On the 14th Washington heard with delight that a French fleet was
on its way to the Chesapeake, and at once decided to hurry to Virginia,
and surround Cornwallis by land while the French cut him off by sea.
Preparations were made with such secrecy and haste that Washington had
reached Philadelphia while Clinton supposed he was about to attack New
York. Clinton then sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut to burn New
London, in the hope of forcing Washington to return. But Washington kept
straight on, hemmed Cornwallis in by land and sea, and October 19, 1781,
forced the British general to surrender.
%158. The War on the Sea.%--The first step towards the foundation of
an American navy was taken on October 13, 1775. Congress, hearing that
two British ships laden with powder and guns were on their way from
England to Quebec, ordered two swift sailing vessels to be fitted out
for the purpose of capturing them. Two months later Congress ordered
thirteen cruisers to be built, and named the officers to command them.
Meantime some merchant ships were purchased and collected at
Philadelphia, from which city, one morning in January, 1776, a fleet of
eight vessels set sail. As they were about to weigh anchor, John Paul
Jones, a lieutenant on the flagship, flung to the breeze a yellow silk
flag on which were a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake, with this
motto: "Don't tread on me." This was the first flag ever hoisted on an
American man-of-war.
Ice in the Delaware kept the fleet in the river till the middle of
February, when it went to sea, sailed southward to New Providence in the
Bahamas, captured the town, brought off the governor, some powder and
cannon, and after taking several prizes got safely back to New London.
Soon after the squadron had left the Delaware, the _Lexington_, Captain
John Barry in command, while cruising off the Virginia coast, fell in
with the _Edward_, a British vessel, and after a spirited action
captured her. This was the first prize brought in by a commissioned
officer of the American navy.[1]
[Footnote 1: John Barry was a native of Ireland; he came to America at
thirteen, entered the merchant marine, and at twenty-five was captain of
a ship. At the opening of the war Barry offered his services to
Congress, and in February, 1776, was put in command of the _Lexington_.
After his victory he was transferred to the twenty-eight-gun frigate
_Effingham_, and in 1777 (while blockaded in the Delaware) with
twenty-seven men in four boats captured and destroyed a ten-gun schooner
and four transports. When the British captured Philadelphia, Barry took
the _Effingham_ up the river; but she was burned by the enemy. In 1778,
in command of the thirty-two-gun frigate _Raleigh_, he sailed from
Boston, fell in with two British frigates, and after a fight was forced
to run ashore in Penobscot Bay. Barry and his crew escaped, and in 1781
carried Laurens to France in the frigate _Alliance_. On the way out he
took a privateer, and while cruising on the way home captured the
_Atalanta_ and the _Trepassey_ after a hard fight. As Barry brought in
the first capture by a commissioned officer of the United States navy,
so he fought the last action of the war in 1782; but the enemy escaped.
When the navy was reorganized in 1794, Barry was made senior captain,
with the title of Commodore. In 1798 he commanded the frigate _United
States_ in the war with France. He died in 1803.]
In March, 1776, Congress began to issue letters of marque, or licenses
to citizens to engage in war against the enemy; and then the sea fairly
swarmed with privateers.
In 1777 the American flag was seen for the first time in European
waters, when a little squadron of three ships set sail from Nantes in
France, and after cruising on the Bay of Biscay went twice around
Ireland and came back to France with fifteen prizes. As France had not
then acknowledged our independence, they were ordered to depart. Two did
so; but one of them, the _Lexington_, was captured by the British, and
the other, the _Reprisal_, was wrecked at sea.
%159. Paul Jones.%--Meanwhile our commissioners in France, Benjamin
Franklin and Silas Deane, fitted out a cruiser called the _Surprise_.
She sailed from Dunkirk on May 1, 1777, and the next week was back with
a British packet as a prize. For this violation of French neutrality she
was seized. But another ship, the _Revenge_, was quickly secured, which
scoured the British waters, and actually entered two British ports
before she sailed for America. The exploits of these and a score of
other ships are cast into the shade, however, by the fights of John Paul
Jones, the great naval hero of the Revolution. He sailed from
Portsmouth, N.H., November 1, 1777, refitted his ship in the harbor of
Brest, and in 1778 began one of the most memorable cruises in our naval
history. In the short space of twenty-eight days he sailed into the
Irish Channel, destroyed four vessels, set fire to the shipping in the
port of Whitehaven, fought and captured the British armed schooner
_Drake_, sailed around Ireland with his prize, and reached France
in safety.
For a year he was forced to be idle. But at last, in 1779, he was given
command of a squadron of five vessels, and in August sailed from France.
Passing along the west coast of Ireland, the fleet went around the north
end of Scotland and down the east coast, capturing and destroying vessel
after vessel on the way. On the night of September 23, 1779, Jones (in
his ship, named _Bonhomme Richard_ in honor of Franklin's famous _Poor
Richard's Almanac_) fell in with the _Serapis_, a British frigate. The
two ships grappled, and, lashed side by side in the moonlight, fought
one of the most desperate battles in naval annals. At the end of three
hours the _Serapis_ surrendered, but the _Bonhomme Richard_ was a wreck,
and next morning, giving a sudden roll, she filled and plunged bow first
to the bottom of the North Sea. Jones sailed away in the _Serapis_.
[Illustration: Benjamin Franklin]
In the Revolution the British lost 102 vessels of war, while the
Americans lost 24--most of their navy.
%160. Revolutionary Heroes.%--It is not possible to mention all the
revolutionary heroes entitled to our grateful remembrance. We should,
however, remember Lafayette, Steuben, Pulaski, and DeKalb, foreigners
who fought for us; Samuel Adams and James Otis of Massachusetts, and
Patrick Henry of Virginia, who spoke for freedom; Robert Morris, the
financier of the Revolution; Putnam who fought and Warren who died at
Bunker Hill; Mercer who fell at Princeton; Nathan Hale, the martyr spy;
Herkimer, Knox, Moultrie, and that long list of noble patriots whose
names have already been mentioned.
%161. The Treaty of Peace.%--The story is told that when Lord North,
the Prime Minister of England, heard of the surrender of Yorktown, he
threw up his hands and said, "It is all over." He was right; it was all
over, and on September 3, 1783, a treaty of peace (negotiated by
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay) was signed at Paris.
Meantime the British, in accordance with a preliminary treaty of peace
signed in November, 1782, were slowly leaving the country, till on
November 25, 1783, the last of them sailed from New York.[1] Washington
now resigned his commission, and in December went home to Mt. Vernon.
[Footnote 1: They did not leave Staten Island in New York Bay till a
week later. For an account of the evacuation of New York see McMaster's
_With the Fathers_, pp. 271-280.]
%162. Bounds of the United States.%--By the treaty of 1783 the
boundary of the United States was declared to be about what is the
present northern boundary from the mouth of the St. Croix River in Maine
to the Lake of the Woods, and then due west to the Mississippi (which
was, of course, an impossible line, for that river does not rise in
Canada); then down the Mississippi to 31° north latitude; then eastward
along that parallel of latitude to the Apalachicola River, and then by
what is the present north boundary of Florida to the Atlantic.
But these bounds were not secured without a diplomatic struggle. As soon
as France joined us in 1778, she began to persuade Spain to follow her
example. Very little persuasion was needed, for the opportunity to
regain the two Floridas (which Spain had been forced to give to England
in 1763) was too good to be lost. In June, 1779, therefore, Spain
declared war on England, and sent the governor of Lower Louisiana into
West Florida, where he captured Pensacola, Mobile, Baton Rouge, and
Natchez. Made bold by this success, Spain, which cared nothing for the
United States, next determined to conquer the region north of Florida
and east of the Mississippi, the Indian country of the proclamation of
1763. (See map of The British Colonies in 1764.) The commandant at St.
Louis[2] was, therefore, sent to seize the post at St. Joseph on Lake
Michigan, built by La Salle in 1679. He succeeded, and taking possession
of the country in the name of Spain, carried off the English flags as
evidence of conquest. Now when the time came to make the treaty of
peace, Spain insisted that she must have East and West Florida and the
country west of the Alleghany Mountains, because she had conquered it.
France partly supported Spain in this demand. The country north of the
Ohio she proposed should be given to Great Britain, and the country
south to Spain and the United States.
[Footnote 2: It will be remembered that Spain now held Louisiana, or the
country west of the Mississippi. (See Chapter VIII.)]
[Illustration: RESULTS OF THE %WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE% BOUNDARY DEFINED
BY TREATY 1783. AND TERRITORY HELD BY GREAT BRITAIN 1783-1796., AND
SPAIN 1783-1795]
The American commissioners, seeing in all this a desire to bound the
United States on the west by the Alleghany Mountains, made the treaty
with Great Britain secretly, and secured the Mississippi as our
western limit.
Spain at the same time secured the Floridas from Great Britain, and
insisting that West Florida must have the old boundary given in 1764,[1]
and not 31° as provided in our treaty of peace, she seized and held the
country by force of arms; and for twelve years the Spanish flag waved
over Baton Rouge and Natchez.[2]
[Footnote 1: See Chapter X.]
[Footnote 2: Read Hinsdale's _Old Northwest_, pp. 170-191; McMaster's
_With the Fathers_, pp. 280-292.]
The area of the territory thus acquired by the United States was 827,844
square miles, and the population not far from 3,250,000. Apparently an
era of great prosperity and happiness was before the people. But
unhappily the government they had established in time of war was quite
unfit to unite them and bring them prosperity in time of peace.
[Illustration: Washington's sword]
SUMMARY
1. In accordance with one of the Intolerable Acts, General Gage became
governor of Massachusetts in 1774.
2. Seeing that the people were gathering stores and cannon, he attempted
to destroy the stores, and so brought on the battles of Lexington and
Concord, which opened the War for Independence.
3. The Congress of colonial delegates, which met in 1774 and adjourned
to meet again in 1775, assembled soon after these battles, and assumed
the conduct of the war, adopted the army around Boston, and made
Washington commander in chief.
4. Washington reached Boston soon after the battle of Bunker Hill, which
taught the British that the Americans would fight, and he besieged the
British in Boston. In March, 1776, they left the city by water, and
Washington moved his army to the neighborhood of New York.
5. There he was attacked by the British, and was driven up the Hudson
River to White Plains. Thence he crossed into New Jersey, only to be
driven across the state and into Pennsylvania.
6. On Christmas night, 1776, he recrossed the Delaware to Trenton, and
the next morning won a victory over the Hessians. Then on January 3,
1777, he fought the battle of Princeton, and he spent the remainder of
the winter at Morristown.
7. In July, 1777, Howe sailed from New York for Philadelphia, to which
city Washington hurried by land. The Americans were defeated at the
Brandy wine, and the city fell into the hands of Howe. Washington passed
the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge.
8. Meantime an attempt had been made to cut the states in two by getting
possession of New York state from Lake Champlain to New York city, and
an army under Burgoyne came down from Canada. He and his troops were
captured at Saratoga.
9. In February, 1778, France made a treaty of alliance with us and sent
over a fleet. Fearing this would attack New York, Clinton left
Philadelphia with his army. Washington followed from Valley Forge,
overtook the enemy at Monmouth, and fought a battle there. The British
then went on to New York, while Washington stretched out his army from
Morristown to West Point.
10. So matters remained till December, 1778, when the British attacked
the Southern States. They conquered Georgia in the winter of 1778-1779.
11. In the spring of 1780 they attacked South Carolina and captured
General Lincoln. Gates then took the field, was defeated, and succeeded
by Greene, who after many vicissitudes drove the British forces in South
Carolina and Georgia into Charleston and Savannah, during 1781.
12. Meantime a force sent against Greene under Cornwallis undertook to
fortify Yorktown and hold it, and while so engaged was surrounded by
Washington and the French fleet and forced to surrender.
THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
CAMPAIGNS OF 1775-1776
_In New England_.
1775. Concord and Lexington.
Continental Army formed.
Washington, commander in chief.
Battle of Bunker Hill.
1775-1776. Siege of Boston.
1776. Evacuation of Boston.
_In Canada_.
1775. Arnold's march to Quebec.
Montgomery's march to Montreal.
Capture of Montreal.
1776. Defeat and death of Montgomery at Quebec.
Americans return to Ticonderoga.
1776. Howe sails for New York.
Washington marches to New York.
The Declaration of Independence.
Capture of New York.
Retreat across the Jerseys.
Surprise at Trenton.
1777. Battle of Princeton.
Washington at Morristown.
Burgoyne and St. Leger move down from Canada to
capture New York state and cut the colonies in two.
St. Leger defeated at Fort Stanwix.
Burgoyne captured at Saratoga.
Howe sails from New York to Chesapeake Bay and
moves against Philadelphia.
Washington moves from New York to Philadelphia.
Battles of Brandywine and Germantown.
Philadelphia captured by the British.
1777-1778. Americans winter at Valley Forge.
1778. Alliance with France.
Fleet and army sent from France.
Clinton leaves Philadelphia and hurries to New York.
Washington follows him from Valley Forge.
Battle of Monmouth.
Washington on the Hudson.
CAMPAIGNS CHIEFLY IN THE SOUTH, 1778-1781.
1778. The South invaded.
Savannah captured and Georgia overrun.
1779. Clinton ravages Connecticut to draw Washington away
from the Hudson.
Wayne captures Stony Point.
Lincoln attacks Savannah.
1780. Clinton captures Charleston.
Campaign of Gates in South Carolina.
Battles of Camden and Kings Mountain.
Treason of Arnold.
1781. Greene in command in the South.
Battle of the Cowpens.
March of Cornwallis from Charleston.
Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
Cornwallis goes to Wilmington and Greene to South Carolina.
Cornwallis goes to Yorktown.
Washington hurries from New York.
Surrender of Cornwallis.
1782-1783. Peace negotiations at Paris.
1783. Evacuation of New York.
THE STRUGGLE FOR A GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER XII
UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION
%163. How the Colonies became States.%--When the Continental Congress
met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, a letter was received from
Massachusetts, where the people had penned up the governor in Boston and
had taken the government into their own hands, asking what they should
do. Congress replied that no obedience was due to the Massachusetts
Regulating Act or to the governor, and advised the people to make a
temporary government to last till the King should restore the old
charter. Similar advice was given the same year to New Hampshire and
South Carolina, for it was not then supposed that the quarrel with the
mother country would end in separation. But by the spring of 1776 all
the governors of the thirteen colonies had either fled or been thrown
into prison. This put an end to colonial government, and Congress,
seeing that reconciliation was impossible, (May 15, 1776) advised all
the colonies to form governments for themselves (p. 132). Thereupon they
adopted constitutions, and by doing so turned themselves from British
colonies into sovereign and independent states.[1]
[Footnote 1: All but two made new constitutions; but Connecticut and
Rhode Island used their old charters, the one till 1818, the other till
1842. Vermont also formed a constitution, but she was not admitted to
the Congress (p. 243).]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES WHEN PEACE WAS DECLARED in 1783 SHOWING
THE STATE CLAIMS]
%164. Articles of Confederation.%--While the colonies were thus
gradually turning themselves into the states, the Continental
Congress was trying to bind them into a union by means of a sort of
general constitution called "Articles of Confederation." By order of
Congress, Articles had been prepared and presented by a committee in
July, 1776, but it was not till November 17, 1777, that they were sent
out to the states for adoption. Now it must be remembered that six
states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia, claimed that their "from sea to sea" charters
gave them lands between the mountains and the Mississippi River, and
that one, New York, had bought the Indian title to land in the Ohio
valley. It must also be remembered that the other six states did not
have "from sea to sea" charters, and so had no claims to western lands.
As three of them, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, held that the
claims of their sister states were invalid, they now refused to adopt
the Articles unless the land so claimed was given to Congress to be used
to pay for the cost of the Revolution. For this action they gave
four reasons:
1. The Mississippi valley had been discovered, explored, settled, and
owned by France.
2. England had never owned any land there till France ceded the country
in 1763.
3. When at last England had got it, in 1763, the King drew the
"proclamation line," turned the Mississippi valley into the Indian
country, and so cut off any claim of the colonies in consequence of
English ownership.
4. The western lands were therefore the property of the King, and now
that the states were in arms against him, his lands ought to be seized
by Congress and used for the benefit of all the states.
For three years the land-claiming states refused to be convinced by
these arguments. But at length, finding that Maryland was determined not
to adopt the Articles till her demands were complied with, they began to
yield. In February, 1780, New York ceded her claims to Congress, and in
January, 1781, Virginia gave up her claim to the country north of the
Ohio River. Maryland had now carried her point, and on March 1, 1781,
her delegates signed the Articles of Confederation. As all the other
states had ratified the Articles, this act on the part of Maryland made
them law, and March 2, 1781, Congress met for the first time under a
form of government the states were pledged to obey.
%165. Government under the Articles of Confederation.%--The form of
government that went into effect on that day was bad from beginning to
end. There was no one officer to carry out the laws, no court or judge
to settle disputed points of law, and only a very feeble legislature.
Congress consisted of one house, presided over by a president elected
each year by the members from among their own number. The delegates to
Congress could not be more than seven, nor less than two from each
state, were elected yearly, could not serve for more than three years
out of six, and might be recalled at any time by the states that sent
them. Once assembled on the floor of Congress, the delegates became
members of a secret body. The doors were shut; no spectators were
allowed to hear what was said; no reports of the debates were taken
down; but under a strict injunction to secrecy the members went on
deliberating day after day. All voting was done by states, each casting
but one vote, no matter how many delegates it had. The affirmative votes
of nine states were necessary to pass any important act, or, as it was
called, "ordinance."
To this body the Articles gave but few powers. Congress could declare
war, make peace, issue money, keep up an army and a navy, contract
debts, enter into treaties of commerce, and settle disputes between
states. But it could not enforce a treaty or a law when made, nor lay
any tax for any purpose.
%166. Origin of the Public Domain%.--In 1784 Massachusetts ceded her
strip of land in the west, following the example set by New York (1780),
and Virginia (1781).
As three states claiming western territory had thus by 1784 given their
land to Congress, that body came into possession of the greater part of
the vast domain stretching from the Lakes to the Ohio and from the
Mississippi to Pennsylvania.[1] Now this public domain, as it was
called, was given on certain conditions:
1. That it should be cut up into states.
2. That these states should be admitted into the Union (when they had a
certain population) on the same footing as the thirteen original states.
3. That the land should be sold and the money used to pay the debts of
the United States.
[Footnote 1: The strip owned by Connecticut had been offered to Congress
in October, 1789, but not accepted. It still belonged to Connecticut in
1785. In 1786 it was again ceded, with certain reservations, and
accepted.]
Congress, therefore, as soon as it had received the deeds to the tracts
ceded, trusting that the other land-owning states would cede their
western territory in time, passed a law (in 1785) to prepare the land
for sale by surveying it and marking it out into sections, townships,
and ranges, and fixed the price per acre.
%167. Virginia and Connecticut Reserves.%--When Virginia made her
cession in 1781, she expressly reserved two tracts of land north of the
Ohio. One, called the Military Lands, lay between the Scioto and Miami
rivers, and was held to pay bounties promised to the Virginia
Revolutionary soldiers. The other (in the present state of Indiana) was
given to General George Rogers Clark and his soldiers. A third piece was
reserved by Connecticut when she ceded her strip in 1786. This, called
the Western Reserve of Connecticut, stretched along the shore of Lake
Erie (map, p. 175). In 1800 Connecticut gave up her jurisdiction, or
right of government, over this reserve in return for the confirmation of
land titles she had granted.
[Illustration: TERRITORY OF THE %UNITED STATES% NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO
RIVER %1787%]
%168. Ordinance of 1787; Origin of the Territories.%--Hardly had
Congress provided for the sale of the land, when a number of
Revolutionary soldiers formed the Ohio Land Company, and sent an agent
to New York, where Congress was in session, and offered to buy 5,000,000
acres on the Ohio River: 1,500,000 acres were for themselves, and
3,500,000 for another company called the Scioto Company. The land was
gladly sold, and as the purchasers were really going to send out
settlers, it became necessary to establish some kind of government for
them. On the 13th of July, 1787, therefore, Congress passed another very
famous law, called the Ordinance of 1787, which ordered:
1. That the whole region from the Lakes to the Ohio, and from
Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, should be called "The Territory of the
United States northwest of the river Ohio."
2. That it should be cut up into not less than three nor more than five
states, each of which might be admitted into the Union when it had
60,000 free inhabitants.
3. That within it there was to be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude except in punishment for crime.
4. That until such time as there were 5000 free male inhabitants
twenty-one years old in the territory, it was to be governed by a
governor and three judges. They could not make laws, but might adopt
such as they pleased from among the laws in force in the states. After
there were 5000 free male inhabitants in the territory the people were
to elect a house of representatives, which in its turn was to elect ten
men from whom Congress was to select five to form a council. The house
and the council were then to elect a territorial delegate to sit in
Congress with the right of debating, not of voting. The governor, the
judges, and the secretary were to be elected by Congress. The council
and house of representatives could make laws, but must send them to
Congress for approval.
Thus were created two more American institutions, the territory and the
state formed out of the public domain. The ordinance was but a few
months old when South Carolina ceded (1787) her little strip of country
west of the mountains (see map on p. 157) with the express condition
that it _should_ be slave soil. In 1789 North Carolina ceded what is
now Tennessee on the same condition. Congress accepted both and out of
them made the "Territory southwest of the Ohio River." In that slavery
was allowed.[1]
[Footnote 1: The only remaining land-holding state, Georgia, ceded her
claim in 1802 (p. 246).]
%169. Defects of the Articles of Confederation.%--While Congress at
New York was framing the Ordinance of 1787, a convention of delegates
from the states was framing the Constitution at Philadelphia. A very
little experience under the Articles of Confederation showed them to
have serious defects.
_No Taxing Power_.--In the first place, Congress could not lay a tax of
any kind, and as it could not tax it could not get money with which to
pay its expenses and the debt incurred during the Revolution. Each of
the states was in duty bound to pay its share. But this duty was so
disregarded that although Congress between 1782 and 1786 called on the
states for $6,000,000, only $1,000.000 was paid.
_No Power to regulate Trade_.--In the second place, Congress had no
power to regulate trade with foreign nations, or between the states.
This proved a most serious evil. The people of the United States at that
time had few manufactures, because in colonial days Parliament would not
allow them. All the china, glass, hardware, cutlery, woolen goods,
linen, muslin, and a thousand other things were imported from Great
Britain. Before the war the Americans had paid for these goods with
dried fish, lumber, whale oil, flour, tobacco, rice, and indigo, and
with money made by trading in the West Indies. Now Great Britain forbade
Americans to trade with her West Indies. Spain would not make a trade
treaty with us, so we had no trade with her islands, and what was worse,
Great Britain taxed everything that came to her from the United States
unless it came in British ships. As a consequence, very little lumber,
fish, rice, and other of our products went abroad to pay for the immense
quantity of foreign-made goods that came to us. These goods therefore
had to be paid for in money, which about 1785 began to be boxed up and
shipped to London. When the people found that specie was being carried
out of the country, they began to hoard it, so that by 1786 none was in
circulation.
%170. Paper Money issued.%--This left the people without any money
with which to pay wages, or buy food and clothing, and led at once to a
demand that the states should print paper money and loan it to their
citizens. Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North and
South Carolina, and Georgia did so. But the money was no sooner issued
than the merchants and others who had goods to sell refused to take it,
whereupon in some of the states laws called "tender acts" were passed to
compel people to use the paper. This merely put an end to business, for
nobody would sell. In Massachusetts, when the legislature refused to
issue paper money, many of the persons who owed debts assembled, and,
during 1786-87, under the lead of Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary soldier,
prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of money owed or
loaned.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read McMaster's _History of the People of the United
States_, Vol. I., pp. 281-295, 304-329, 331-340; Fiske's _Critical
Period of American History_, pp. 168-186.]
%171. Congress proposes Amendments.%--Of the many defects in the
Articles, the Continental Congress was fully aware, and it had many a
time asked the states to make amendments. One proposed that Congress
should have power for twenty-five years to lay a tax of five per cent on
all goods imported, and use the money to pay the Continental debts.
Another was to require each state to raise by special tax a sum
sufficient to pay its yearly share of the current expenses of Congress.
A third was to bestow on Congress for fifteen years the sole power to
regulate trade and commerce. A fourth provided that in future the share
each state was to bear of the current expenses should be in proportion
to its population.
But the Articles of Confederation could not be amended unless all
thirteen states consented, and, as all thirteen never did consent, none
of these amendments were ever made.
%172. The States attempt to regulate Trade and fail.%--In the
meantime the states attempted to regulate trade for themselves. New York
laid double duties on English ships. Pennsylvania taxed a long list of
foreign goods. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island passed
acts imposing heavy duties on articles unless they came in American
vessels. But these laws were not uniform, and as many states took no
action, very little good was accomplished.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. I., pp. 246-259, 266-280; Fiske's _Critical Period of American
History_, 134-137, 145-147.]
%173. A Trade Convention called to meet at Annapolis,
1786.%[2]--Under these conditions, the business of the whole country
was at a standstill, and as Congress had no power to do anything to
relieve the distress, the state of Virginia sent out a circular letter
to her sister states. She asked them to appoint delegates to meet and
"take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States."
Four (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) responded, and
their delegates, with those from Virginia, met at Annapolis in
September, 1786.
[Footnote 2: The report of this Annapolis convention is printed in
_Bulletin of Bureau of Rolls and Library of the Department of State_,
No. 1, Appendix, pp. 1-5.]
CHAPTER XIII
MAKING THE CONSTITUTION
%174. Call for the Constitutional Convention.%--Finding that it could
do nothing, because so few states were represented, and because the
powers of the delegates were so limited, the convention recommended that
all the states in the Union be asked by Congress to send delegates to a
new convention, to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787, "to take into
consideration the situation of the United States," and "to devise such
further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the
Constitution of the Federal government adequate to the exigencies of
the Union."
%175. The Philadelphia Convention.%[1]--Early in 1787 Congress
approved this movement, and during the summer of 1787 (May to September)
delegates from twelve states (Rhode Island sent none), sitting in secret
session at Philadelphia, made the Constitution of the United States.
[Footnote 1: All we know of the proceedings of this convention is
derived from the journals of the convention, the notes taken down by
James Madison, the notes of Yates of New York, and a speech by Luther
Martin of Maryland. They may be found in Elliot's _Debates_, Vol. IV.]
[Illustration: Independence Chamber[2]]
[Footnote 2: The room where the Constitution was framed.]
%176. The Virginia and New Jersey Plans%.--The story of that
convention is too long and too complicated to be told in full.[1] But
some of its proceedings must be noticed. While the delegates were
assembling, a few men, under the lead of Madison, met and drew up the
outline of a constitution, which was presented by the chairman of the
Virginia delegation, and was called the "Virginia plan." A little later,
delegates from the small states met and drew up a second plan, which was
the old Articles of Confederation with amendments. As the chairman of
the New Jersey delegation offered this, it was called the "New Jersey
plan." Both were discussed; but the convention voted to accept the
Virginia plan as the basis of the Constitution.
[Footnote 1: For short accounts, read "The Framers and the Framing of
the Constitution" in the _Century Magazine_, September, 1887, or
"Framing the Constitution," in McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp.
106-149, or Thorpe's _Story of the Constitution_, Chautauqua Course,
1891-92, pp. 111-148.]
%177. The Three Compromises.%--This plan called, among other things,
for a national legislature of two branches: a Senate and a House of
Representatives. The populous states insisted that the number of
representatives sent by each state to Congress should be in proportion
to her population. The small states insisted that each should send the
same number of representatives. For a time neither party would yield;
but at length the Connecticut delegates suggested that the states be
given an equal vote and an equal representation in the Senate, and an
unequal representation, based on population, in the House. The
contending parties agreed, and so made the first compromise.
But the decision to have representation according to population at once
raised the question, Shall slaves be counted as population? This divided
the convention into slave states and free (see p. 186), and led to a
second compromise, by which it was agreed that three fifths of all
slaves should be counted as population, for the purpose of apportioning
representation.
A third compromise sprang from the conflicting interests of the
commercial and the planting states. The planting states wanted a
provision forbidding Congress to pass navigation acts, except by a
two-thirds vote, and forbidding any tax on exports; three states also
wished to import slaves for use on their plantations. The free
commercial states wanted Congress to pass navigation laws, and also
wanted the slave trade stopped, because of the three-fifths rule. The
result was an agreement that the importation of slaves should not be
forbidden by Congress before 1808, and that Congress might pass
navigation acts, and that exports should never be taxed.
%178. The Election of President.%--Another feature of the Virginia
plan was the provision for a President whose business it should be to
see that the acts of Congress were duly enforced or executed. But when
the question arose, How shall he be chosen? all manner of suggestions
were made. Some said by the governors of the states; some, by the United
States Senate; some, by the state legislatures; some, by a body of
electors chosen for that purpose. When at last it was decided to have a
body of electors, the difficulty was to determine the manner of electing
the electors. On this no agreement could be reached; so the convention
ordered that the legislature of each state should have as many electors
of the President as it had senators and representatives in Congress, and
that these men should be appointed in such way as the legislatures of
the states saw fit to prescribe.
%179. Sources of the Constitution.%--An examination of the
Constitution shows that some of its features were new; that some were
drawn from the experience of the states under the Confederation; and
that others were borrowed from the various state constitutions. Among
those taken from state constitutions are such names as President,
Senate, House of Representatives, and such provisions as that for a
census, for the veto, for the retirement of one third of the Senate
every two years, that money bills shall originate in the House, for
impeachment, and for what we call the annual message.[1]
[Footnote 1: On the sources of the Constitution, read "The First Century
of the Constitution" in _New Princeton Review,_ September, 1887,
pp. 175-190.]
The features based directly on experience under the Articles of
Confederation are the provisions that the acts of Congress must be
_uniform_ throughout the Union; that the President may call out the
militia to repel invasion, to put down insurrection, and to maintain the
laws of the Union; that Congress shall have _sole_ power to regulate
_foreign trade_ and _trade between the states._ No state can now coin
money or print paper money, or make anything but gold or silver legal
tender. Congress now has power to lay taxes, duties, and excises. The
Constitution divides the powers of government between the legislative
department (Senate and House of Representatives); the executive
department (the President, who sees that laws and treaties are obeyed);
and the judicial department (Supreme Court and other United States
courts, which interpret the Constitution, the acts of Congress, and the
treaties).
The new features are the definition of treason and the limitation of its
punishment; the guarantee to every state of a republican form of
government; the swearing of state officials to support the Federal
Constitution; and the provision for amendment.
Among other noteworthy features are the creation of a United States
citizenship as distinct from a state citizenship, the limitation of the
powers of the states; and the provision that the Constitution, the acts
of Congress, and the treaties are "the supreme law of the land."
%180. Constitution submitted to the People.%--The convention ended
its work, and such members as were willing signed the Constitution on
September 17, 1787. Washington, as president of the convention, then
sent the Constitution to the Continental Congress sitting at New York
and asked it to transmit copies to the states for ratification. This was
done, and during the next few months the legislatures of most of the
states called on the people to elect delegates to conventions which
should accept or reject the Constitution.
%181. Ratification by the States.%--In many of these conventions
great objection was made because the new plan of federal government was
so unlike the Articles of Confederation, and certain changes were
insisted on. The only states that accepted it just as it was framed were
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Maryland.
Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia
ratified with amendments. (For dates, see p. 176.)
%182. "The New Roof."%--The Constitution provided that when nine
states had ratified, it should go into effect "between the states so
ratifying." While it was under discussion the Federalists, as the
friends of the Constitution were named, had called it "the New Roof,"
which was going to cover the states and protect them from political
storms. They now represented it as completed and supported by eleven
pillars or states. Two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had not
ratified, and so were not under the New Roof, and were not members of
the new Union. Eleven states having approved, nothing remained but to
fix the particular day on which the electors of President should be
chosen, and the time and place for the meeting of the new Congress. This
the Continental Congress did in September, 1788, by ordering that the
electors should be chosen on the first Wednesday in January, 1789, that
they should meet and vote for President on the first Wednesday in
February, and that the new Congress should meet at New York on the first
Wednesday in March, which happened to be the fourth day of the month.
Later, Congress by law fixed March 4 as the day on which the terms of
the Presidents begin and end.[1]
[Footnote 1: The question is often asked, When did the Constitution go
into force? Article VII. says, "The ratification of the conventions of
nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this
Constitution between the states so ratifying the same." New Hampshire,
the ninth state, ratified June 21, 1788, and on that day, therefore, the
constitution was "established" between the nine.]
%183. How Presidents were elected%.--It must not be supposed that our
first presidents were elected just as presidents are now. In our time
electors are everywhere chosen by popular vote. In 1788 there was no
uniformity. In Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia the people had a
complete, and in Massachusetts and New Hampshire a partial, choice. In
Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia the
electors were appointed by the legislatures. In New York the two
branches of the legislature quarreled, and no electors were chosen.
As the Constitution required that the electors should vote by ballot for
two persons, such as had been appointed met at their state capitals on
the first Wednesday in February, 1789, made lists of the persons voted
for, and sent them signed and certified under seal to the president of
the Senate. But when March 4, 1789, came, there was no Senate. Less than
a majority of that body had arrived in New York, so no business could be
done. When at length the Senate secured a majority, the House was still
without one, and remained so till April. Then, in the presence of the
House and Senate, the votes on the lists were counted, and it was found
that every elector had given one of his votes for George Washington, who
was thus elected President. No separate ballot was then required for
Vice President. Each elector merely wrote on his ballot the names of two
men. He who received the greatest number of votes, if, in the words of
the Constitution, "such number be a majority of the whole number of
electors appointed," was elected President. He who received the next
highest, even if less than a majority, was elected Vice President. In
1789 this man was John Adams of Massachusetts.
[Illustration: Federal Hall, New York[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old print made in 1797.]
[Illustration: G Washington]
%184. The First Inauguration.%--As soon as Washington received the
news of his election, he left Mount Vernon and started for New York. His
journey was one continuous triumphal march. The population of every town
through which he passed turned out to meet him. Men, women, and children
stood for hours by the roadside waiting for him to go by. At New York
his reception was most imposing, and there, on April 30, 1789, standing
on the balcony in front of Federal Hall (p. 171), he took the oath of
office in the presence of Congress and a great multitude of people that
filled the streets, and crowded the windows, and sat on the roofs of the
neighboring houses.[1]
[Footnote 1: Full accounts of the inauguration of Washington may be
found in _Harper's Magazine_, and also in the _Century Magazine_, for
April, 1889.]
SUMMARY
1. When independence was about decided on, Congress appointed a
committee to draft a general plan of federal government.
2. This plan, called Articles of Confederation, Maryland absolutely
refused to ratify till the states claiming land west of the Alleghany
Mountains ceded their claims to Congress.
3. New York and Virginia having ceded their claims, Maryland ratified in
March, 1781.
4. These cessions were followed by others from Massachusetts and
Connecticut; and from them all, Congress formed the public domain to be
sold to pay the debt.
5. The sale of this land led to the land ordinance of 1785 and the
ordinance of 1787, for the government of the domain and the new
political organism called the territory.
6. The defects of the Articles made revision necessary, and produced
such distress that two conventions were called to consider the state of
the country. That at Annapolis attempted nothing. That at Philadelphia
framed the Constitution of the United States.
7. The Constitution was then passed to the Continental Congress, which
sent it to the legislatures of the states to be by them referred to
conventions elected by the people for acceptance or rejection.
8. Eleven having ratified, Congress in 1788 fixed a day in 1789 (which
happened to be March 4), when the First Congress under the Constitution
was to assemble.
9. The date of the first presidential election was also fixed, and
George Washington was made our first President.
/1776. New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode
The Colonies adopt | Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Constitutions and --| Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North
become States. | Carolina, South Carolina.
|1777. New York, Georgia.
\1780. Massachusetts.
/Framed by Congress 1776-1777.
|Adopted by the states 1777-1781.
Articles of |In force March 1, 1781.
Confederation --|Kind of government.
|Defects. Result of the defects.
|Trade convention at Annapolis.
\Constitutional convention called.
/Proceedings of the convention.
|The three compromises.
Constitution of |Sources of the Constitution.
the United States.-|Original features.
|Derived features.
| Ratification by the states.
\The Constitution in force.
/Land claims of seven states.
|Demands for the surrender of \
|the western territory. |
The Territories. --|The cessions by the states. |--The Public
|Ordinance of 1785. | Domain.
|Ordinance of 1787. |
\Territorial government created./
The President. /Manner of electing.
\Inauguration of Washington.
The Congress. /Organization of the First
\under the Constitution.
/The Supreme Court
The Judiciary. --|The Circuit Court
\The District Court
/Secretary of State
The Secretaries. --|Secretary of Treasury
|Secretary of War
|The Attorney-general.
\Origin of the "Cabinet."
CHAPTER XIV
OUR COUNTRY IN 1790
%185. The States.%--What sort of a country, and what sort of people,
was Washington thus chosen to rule over? When, he was elected, the Union
was composed of eleven states, for neither Rhode Island nor North
Carolina had accepted the Constitution.[1] Vermont had never been a
member of the Union, because the Continental Congress would not
recognize her as a state.
[Footnote 1: The states ratified the Constitution on the dates given below:
1. Delaware Dec. 7, 1787
2. Pennsylvania Dec. 12, 1787
3. New Jersey Dec. 18, 1787
4. Georgia Jan. 2, 1788
5. Connecticut Jan. 9, 1788
6. Massachusetts Feb. 7, 1788
7. Maryland April 28, 1788
8. South Carolina May 23, 1788
9. New Hampshire June 21, 1788
10. Virginia June 26, 1788
11. New York July 26, 1788
12. North Carolina Nov. 21, 1789
13. Rhode Island May 29, 1790]
[Illustration: The %UNITED STATES% March 4, 1789]
%186. Only a Part inhabited.%--Three fourths of our country was then
uninhabited by white men, and almost all the people lived near the
seaboard. Had a line been drawn along what was then the frontier, it
would (as the map on p. 177 shows) have run along the shore of Maine,
across New Hampshire and Vermont to Lake Champlain, then south to the
Mohawk valley, then down the Hudson River, and southwestward across
Pennsylvania to Pittsburg, then south along the Blue Ridge Mountains to
the Altamaha River in Georgia, and by it to the sea. How many people
lived here was never known till 1790. The Constitution of the United
States requires that the people shall be counted once in each ten years,
in order that it may be determined how many representatives each state
shall have in the House of Representatives; and for this purpose
Congress ordered the first census to be taken in 1790. It then appeared
that, excluding Indians, there were living in the eleven United States
3,380,000 human beings, or less than half the number of people who now
live in the single state of New York.
%187. How the People were scattered.%--More were in the Southern than
in the Eastern States. Virginia, then the most populous, contained one
fifth. Pennsylvania had a ninth, while in the five states of Maryland,
Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia were almost one half of the
English-speaking people of the United States. These were the planting
states, and, populous as they were, they had but two cities--Baltimore
and Charleston. Savannah, Wilmington, Alexandria, Norfolk, and
Richmond were small towns. Not one had 8000 people in it. Indeed, the
inhabitants of the six largest cities of the country (Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and Salem) taken together were
but 131,000.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES FIRST
CENSUS, 1790/]
[Illustration: Boston in 1790[1]]
[Footnote 1: From the _Massachusetts Magazine_, November, 1790.]
%188. The Cities.%--And how different these cities were from those of
our day! What a strange world Washington would find himself in if he
could come back and walk along the streets of the great city which now
stands on the banks of the Potomac and bears his name! He never in his
life saw a flagstone sidewalk, nor an asphalted street, nor a pane of
glass six feet square. He never heard a factory whistle; he never saw a
building ten stories high, nor an elevator, nor a gas jet, nor an
electric light; he never saw a hot-air furnace, nor entered a room
warmed by steam.
In the windows of shop after shop would be scores of articles familiar
enough to us, but so unknown to him that he could not even name them. He
never saw a sewing machine, nor a revolver, nor a rubber coat, nor a
rubber shoe, nor a steel pen, nor a piece of blotting paper, nor an
envelope, nor a postage stamp, nor a typewriter. He never struck a
match, nor sent a telegram, nor spoke through a telephone, nor touched
an electric bell. He never saw a railroad, though he had seen a rude
form of steamboat. He never saw a horse car, nor an omnibus, nor a
trolley car, nor a ferryboat. Fancy him boarding a street car to take a
ride. He would probably pay his fare with a "nickel." But the "nickel"
is a coin he never saw. Fancy him trying to understand the
advertisements that would meet his eye as he took his seat! Fancy him
staring from the window at a fence bright with theatrical posters, or at
a man rushing by on a bicycle!
[Illustration: Philadelphia in 1800 (Arch Street)]
%189. Newspapers and Magazines.%--A boy enters the car with half a
dozen daily newspapers all printed in the same city. In Washington's day
there were but four daily papers in the United States! On the news
counter of a hotel, one sees twenty illustrated papers, and fifty
monthly magazines. In his day there was no illustrated paper, no
scientific periodical, no trade journal, and no such illustrated
magazines as _Harper's, Scribner's_, the _Century, St. Nicholas_. All
the printing done in the country was done on presses worked by hand.
To-day the Hoe octuple press can print 96,000 eight-page newspapers an
hour. To print this number on the hand press shown in the picture would
have taken so long that when the last newspaper was printed the first
would have been three months old!
[Illustration: A Franklin press]
[Illustration: A fire bucket [1]]
[Footnote 1: Original in the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]
%190. The Fire Service.%--the ambulance, the steam fire engine, the
hose cart, the hook and ladder company, the police patrol, the police
officer on the street corner, the letter carrier gathering the mail, the
district messenger boy, the express company, the delivery wagon of the
stores, have all come in since Washington died. In his day the law
required every householder in the city to be a fireman. His name might
not appear on the rolls of any of the fire companies, he might not help
to drag through the streets the lumbering tank which served as a fire
engine, but he must have in his hall, or beneath the stairs, or hanging
up behind his shop door, at least one leathern bucket inscribed with his
name, and a huge bag of canvas or of duck. Then, if he were aroused at
the dead of night by the cry of fire and the clanging of every church
bell in the town, he seized this bucket and his bag, and, while his
wife put a lighted candle in the window to illuminate the street, set
off for the fire. The smoke or the flame was his guide, for the custom
of indicating the place by a number of strokes on a bell had not yet
come in. When at last he arrived at the scene he found there no idle
spectators. Every one was busy. Some hurried into the building and
filled their sacks with such movable goods as came nearest to hand. Some
joined the line that stretched away to the water, and helped to pass the
full buckets to those who stood by the fire. Others took posts in a
second line, down which the empty buckets were hastened to the pump. The
house would often be half consumed when the shouting made known that the
engine had come. It was merely a pump mounted over a tank. Into the tank
the water from the buckets was poured, and it was pumped thence by the
efforts of a dozen men.
[Illustration: Fire engine of 1800[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old cut]
%191. The Post Office.%--Washington sees a great wagon or a white
trolley car marked United States Mail, and on inquiry is told that the
money now spent by the government each year for the support of the post
offices would have more than paid the national debt when he was
President. He hears with amazement that there are now 75,000 post
offices, and recalls that in 1790 there were but seventy-five. He picks
up from the sidewalk a piece of paper with a little pink something on
the corner. He is told that the portrait on it is his own, that it is a
postage stamp, that it costs two cents, and will carry a letter to San
Francisco, a city he never heard of, and, if the person to whom it is
addressed cannot be found, will bring the letter back to the sender, a
distance of over 5000 miles. In his day a letter was a single sheet of
paper, no matter how large or small, and the postage on it was
determined not by weight, but by distance, and might be anything from
six to twenty-five cents.
At that time postage must always be prepaid, and as the post office must
support itself, letters were not sent from the country towns till enough
postage had been deposited at the post office to pay the expense of
sending them. Newspapers and books could not be sent by mail.
%192. The Franchise.%--Taking the country through, the condition of
the people was by no means so happy as ours. They had government of the
people, but it was not by the people nor for the people. Everywhere the
right to vote and to hold office was greatly restricted. The voter must
have an estate worth a certain sum, or a specified number of acres, or
an annual income of so many dollars. But the right to vote did not carry
with it the right to hold office. More property was required for office
holding than for voting, and there were besides certain religious
restrictions. In New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia, the governor, the members of the legislature, and
the chief officers of state must be Protestants. In Massachusetts and
Maryland they must be Christians. All these restrictions were long since
swept away.
%193. Cruel Punishments.%--The humane spirit of our times was largely
wanting. The debtor was cast into prison. The pauper might be sold to
the highest bidder. The criminal was dragged out into open day and
flogged or branded. From ten to nineteen crimes were punishable with
death. No such thing as a lunatic asylum, or a deaf and dumb asylum, or
a penitentiary existed. The prisons were dreadful places. Men came out
of them worse than they went in.
%194. The Condition of the Laborer; of the well to do.%--Men worked
harder and for less money then than now. A regular working day was from
sunrise to sunset, with an hour for breakfast and an hour for dinner.
Sometimes the laborer was fed and lodged by the employer, in which case
he was paid four dollars a month in winter and six in summer. Two
shillings (30 cents) a day for unskilled labor was thought high wages.
[Illustration: %Washington's flute and Miss Custis's harpsichord at
Mount Vernon%]
Even the houses of the well to do were much less comfortable places than
are such abodes in our day. There were no furnaces, no gas, no
bathrooms, no plumbing. Wood was the universal fuel. Coal from Virginia
and Rhode Island was little used. All cooking was done in "Dutch ovens,"
or in "out ovens," or in the enormous fireplaces to be found in every
household. Wood fuel made sooty chimneys, and sooty chimneys took fire.
In every city, therefore, were men known as "sweeps," whose business it
was to clean chimneys.
[Illustration: %Earthenware stove--Moravian%]
[Illustration: %Dutch oven%[1]]
[Footnote 1: The bread, or meat, to be baked was put into the pot, and
hot coals were heaped all around the sides and on the lid, which had a
rim to keep the coals on it.]
[Illustration: a foot stove]
Washington was a farmer, yet he never in his life beheld a tomato, nor a
cauliflower, nor an eggplant, nor a horserake, nor a drill, nor a reaper
and binder, nor a threshing machine, nor a barbed wire fence.
[Illustration: Kitchen in Washington's headquarters in Morristown,
N.J.[1]]
[Footnote 1: This shows a fine specimen of the old-fashioned fireplace.
Notice the andirons, the bellows, the lamp, the spinning wheel, the old
Dutch clock, and the kettles hanging on the crane over the logs.]
[Illustration: A plow used in 1776]
His land was plowed with a wooden plow partly shod with iron. His seed
was sown by hand; his hay was cut with scythes; his grain was reaped
with sickles, and threshed on the barn floor with flails in the hands of
his slaves.
%195. Negro Slavery.%--No living person under thirty years of age has
ever seen a negro slave in our country. When Washington was President
there were 700,000 slaves. When the Revolution opened, slavery was
permitted by law in every colony. But the feeling against it in the
North had always been strong, and when the war ended, the people began
the work of abolition. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire the
constitutions of the states declared that "all men are born free and
equal," and that "all men are born equally free," and this was
understood to abolish slavery. In Pennsylvania, slavery was abolished in
1780. In Rhode Island and Connecticut gradual abolition laws were passed
which provided that all children born of slave parents after a certain
day should be free at a certain age, and that their children should
never be slaves. The Ordinance of 1787 had prohibited slavery in the
Northwest Territory. But in 1790 New York, New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, and all the states south of these were slave states. (See map
on the next page.)
Though slaves were men and women and children, they had no civil rights
whatever. They could be bought and sold, leased, seized for a debt,
bequeathed by will, given away. If they made anything, or found
anything, or earned anything, it belonged not to them, but to their
owners. They were property just as oxen or horses were in the North. It
was unlawful to teach them to read or write. They were not allowed to
give evidence against a white man, nor to travel in bands of more than
seven unless a white man was with them, nor to quit the plantation
without leave.
If a planter provided coarse food, coarse clothes, and a rude shelter
for his slaves, if he did not work them more than fifteen hours out of
twenty-four in summer, nor more than fourteen in winter, and if he gave
them every Sunday to themselves, he did quite as much for their comfort
as the law required he should.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE AREA OF %SLAVE AND FREE SOIL IN 1790%]
If the slave committed any offense, if he stole anything, or refused to
work, or ran away, it was lawful to load him with irons, to confine him
for any length of time in a cell, and to beat him and whip him till the
blood ran in streams from the wounds, and he grew too weak to stand.
Old advertisements are still extant in which runaway blacks are
described by the scars left upon their bodies by the lash. When such
lashings were not prescribed by the court, they were commonly given
under the eye of the overseer, or inflicted by the owner himself.
%196. Six Days from Boston to New York.%--Our country was small when
Washington was President. The people lived on the seaboard. The towns
and cities were not actually very far apart; but the means of travel
were so poor, the time consumed in going even fifty miles was so great,
that the country was practically immense in extent. Now we step into a
beautifully fitted car, heated by steam, lighted by electricity, richly
carpeted, and provided with most comfortable seats and beds, and are
whirled across the continent from Philadelphia to San Francisco in less
time than it took Washington to go from New York to Boston.
[Illustration: Old mill at West Falmouth, Mass.[1]]
[Footnote 1: In many parts of the country where there was no water
power, as Cape Cod, Long Island, Nantucket, etc., flour was ground at
windmills. The windmill shown in the picture was built in 1787, and is
still in use.]
If you had lived in 1791 and started, say, from Boston, to go to
Philadelphia to see the President and the great city where independence
had been declared, you would very likely have begun by making your will,
and bidding good-by to your friends. You would then have gone down to
the office of the proprietor of the stagecoach, and secured a seat to
New York. As the coach left but twice a week, you would have waited
till the day came and would then have presented yourself, at three
o'clock in the morning, at the tavern whence the coach started.
The stagecoach was little better than a huge covered box mounted on
springs. It had neither glass windows, nor door, nor steps, nor closed
sides. The roof was upheld by ten posts which rose from the body of the
vehicle, and the body was commonly breast high. From the top were hung
curtains of leather, to be rolled up when the day was fine, and let down
and buttoned when it was rainy and cold. Within were four seats. Without
was the baggage. Fourteen pounds of luggage were allowed to be carried
free by each passenger. But if your portmanteau or your
brass-nail-studded hair trunk weighed more, you would have paid for it
at the rate per mile that you paid for yourself. Under no circumstances,
however, would you be permitted to take on the journey more than 150
pounds. When the baggage had all been weighed and strapped on the coach,
when the horses had been attached, and the waybill, containing the names
of the passengers, made out, the passengers would clamber to their seats
through the front of the stage and sit down with their faces toward the
driver's seat.
One pair of horses usually dragged the coach eighteen miles, when a
fresh pair would be attached, and if all went well, you would be put
down about ten at night at some wayside inn or tavern after a journey of
forty miles. Cramped and weary, you would eat a frugal supper and hurry
off to bed with a notice from the landlord to be ready to start at three
the next morning. Then, no matter if it rained or snowed, you would be
forced to make ready by the dim light of a horn lantern, unknown now,
for another ride of eighteen hours.
If no mishaps occurred, if the coach was not upset by the ruts, if storm
or flood did not delay you at Springfield, where the road met the
Connecticut, or at Stratford, where it met the Housatonic, each of which
had to be crossed on clumsy flatboats, the stage would roll into New
York at the end of the sixth day.
%197. Two Days from New York to Philadelphia.%--And here a serious
delay was almost certain to occur, for even in the best of weather it
was no easy matter to cross the Hudson to New Jersey. When the wind was
high and the water rough, or the river full of ice, the boldest did not
dare to risk a crossing. Once over the river, you would again go on by
coach, and at the end of two more days would reach Philadelphia. In our
time one can travel in eight hours the entire distance between Boston
and Philadelphia, a distance which Washington could not have traversed
in less than eight days.
[Illustration: Stagecoach and inn[1]]
[Footnote 1: From a print of 1798.]
%198. The Roads and the Inns.%--The newspapers and the travelers of
those days complained bitterly of the roads and the inns. On the best
roads the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the passengers
were often forced to get out and help the driver pull the wheels out of
the mud. Breakdowns and upsets were of everyday occurrence. Yet bad as
the roads were, the travel was so considerable that very often the inns
and taverns even in the large cities could not lodge all who applied
unless they slept five or six in a room.
%199. A Steamboat on the Delaware.%--Rude as this means of travel
seems to us, the men of 1790 were quite satisfied with it, and
absolutely refused to make use of a better one. Had you been in
Philadelphia during the summer of 1790 and taken up a copy of _The
Pennsylvania Packet_, you could not have failed to notice this
advertisement of the first successful steamboat in the world:
%The Steam-Boat
Is now ready to take Passengers, and is intended to
set off from Arch Street Ferry in Philadelphia every
_Monday, Wednesday_ and _Friday_, for _Burlington,
Bristol, Bordentown_ and _Trenton_, to return on _Tuesdays,
Thursdays_ and _Saturdays_--Price for Passengers, 2/6 to
Burlington and Bristol, 3/9 to Bordentown, 5/. to
Trenton. June 14. tu.th ftf.%
This boat was the invention of John Fitch, and from June to September
ran up and down the Delaware; but so few people went on it that he could
not pay expenses, and the boat was withdrawn.
%200. To the Great West.%--From Philadelphia went out one of the
great highways to what was then the far West, but to what we now know as
the valley of the Ohio. The traveler who to-day makes the journey from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg is whisked on a railroad car through an
endless succession of cities and villages and rich farms, and by great
factories and mills and iron works, which in the days of Washington had
no existence. He makes the journey easily between sunrise and sunset. In
1790 he could not have made it in twelve days.
%201. Towns beyond the Alleghany Mountains.%--Though the country
between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi had been closed to
settlement from 1763 to 1776 by the King's proclamation, it was by no
means without population in 1790. At Detroit and Kaskaskia and Vincennes
were old French settlements, made long before France was driven out of
Louisiana. But there were others of later date. The hardy frontiersman
of 1763 cared no more for the King's proclamation than he did for the
bark of the wolf at his cabin door. The ink with which the document was
written had not dried before emigrants from Maryland and Virginia and
Pennsylvania were hurrying into the valley of the Monongahela.
In 1769 William Bean crossed the mountains from North Carolina, and,
building a cabin on the banks of Watauga Creek, began the settlement of
Tennessee. James Robertson and a host of others followed in 1770, and
soon the valleys of the Clinch and the Holston were dotted with cabins.
In 1769 Daniel Boone, one of the grandest figures in frontier history,
began his exploits in what is now Kentucky, and before 1777 Boonesboro,
Harrodsburg, and Lexington were founded.
[Illustration: %Model of Fitch's steamboat%[l]]
[Footnote 1: Now in the National Museum, Washington.]
%202. State of Franklin.%--Before the Revolution closed, emigrants
under James Robertson and John Donelson planted Nashville and half a
dozen other settlements on the Cumberland, in middle Tennessee. After
the Revolution ended, so many settlers were in eastern Tennessee that
they tried to make a new state. North Carolina, following the example
of her Northern sisters, ceded to Congress her claim to what is now
Tennessee in 1784. But the people on the Watauga no sooner heard, of it
than under the lead of John Sevier they organized the state of Franklin,
whereupon North Carolina repealed the act of cession and absorbed the
new state by making the Franklin officials her officials for the
district of Tennessee. In 1789 she again ceded the district, and in May
of that year Tennessee became part of the public domain.
%203. Squatters in Ohio.%--The cession to Congress of the land north
of the Ohio led to an emigration from Virginia and Kentucky to what is
now the state of Ohio. As this territory was to be sold to pay the
national debt, Congress was forced to order the squatters away, and when
they refused to go, sent troops to burn their cabins, destroy their
crops, and drive them across the Ohio. The lawful settlement of the
territory began after the Ohio and Scioto companies bought their lands
in 1787, and John C. Symmes purchased his in 1788.
%204. Pittsburg in 1790.%--At Pittsburg, then the greatest town in
the United States west of the Alleghany Mountains, were some 200 houses,
mostly of logs, and 2000 people, a newspaper, and a few rude
manufactories. The life of the town was its river trade. Pittsburg was
the place where emigrants "fitted out" for the West. A settler intending
to go down the Ohio valley with his family and his goods would lay in a
stock of powder and ball, buy flour and ham enough to last him for a
month, and secure two rude structures which passed under the name
of boats.
[Illustration: %The first millstones and salt kettle in Ohio%]
%205. A Trip down the Ohio in 1790.%--In the long keel boat he would
put his wife, his children, and such travelers as had been waiting at
Pittsburg for a chance to go down the river. In the flatboat would be
his cattle or his stores. Two dangers beset the voyager on the Ohio. His
boat might become entangled in the branches of the trees that overhung
the river, or be fired into by the Indians who lurked in the woods. The
cabin of the keel boat, therefore, was low, that it might glide under
the trees, and the roof and sides were made as nearly bullet-proof as
possible. The whole craft was steered by a huge oar mounted on a pivot
at the stern.[1]
[Footnote 1: See the boats in the pictures on next page.]
[Illustration: Map of Ohio]
%206. Towns along the Ohio.%--As the emigrant in such an ark floated
down the river, he would come first to Wheeling, a town of fifty log
cabins, and then to Marietta, a town planted in Ohio in 1788 by settlers
sent by the Ohio Company. Below Marietta were Belpre and Gallipolis, a
settlement made by Frenchmen brought there by the Scioto Company. Yet
farther down, on the Kentucky side, were Limestone (now Maysville) and
Newport, opposite which some settlers were founding the city of
Cincinnati. Once past Cincinnati, all was unbroken wilderness till one
reached Louisville in Kentucky, beyond which few emigrants had yet
ventured to go.
[Illustration: %Cincinnati in 1802 (Fort Washington)%]
%207. Cotton Planting.%--The South, in 1790, was on the eve of a
great industrial revolution. The products of the states south of
Virginia had been tar, pitch, resin, lumber, rice, and indigo. But in
the years following the peace the indigo plants had been destroyed year
after year by an insect. As the plant was not a native of our country,
but was brought from the West Indies, it became necessary either to
import more seed plants, or to raise some other staple. Many chose the
latter course, and about 1787 began to grow cotton.
[Illustration: %Farmers' Castle (Belpre) in 1791%]
%208. Whitney and the Cotton Gin.%--The experiment succeeded, but a
serious difficulty arose. The cotton plant has pods which when ripe
split open and show a white woolly substance attached to seeds. Before
the cotton could be used, these seeds must be picked out, and as the
labor of cleaning was very great, only a small quantity could be sent to
market. It happened, however, that a young man from Massachusetts, named
Eli Whitney, was then living in Georgia, and he, seeing the need of a
machine to clean cotton, invented the cotton gin.[1] Till then, a negro
slave could not clean two pounds of cotton in a day. With the gin the
same slave in the same time could remove the seeds from a hundred
pounds. This solved the difficulty, and gave to the United States
another staple even greater in value than tobacco. In 1792 one hundred
and ninety-two thousand pounds of cotton were exported to Europe; in
1795, after the gin was invented, six million pounds were sent out of
the country. In 1894 no less than 4275 million pounds were raised and
either consumed or exported. Of all the marvelous inventions of our
countrymen, this produced the very greatest consequences. It made
cotton planting profitable; it brought immense wealth to the people of
the South every year; it covered New England with cotton mills; and by
making slave labor profitable it did more than anything else to fasten
slavery on the United States for seventy years, and finally to bring on
the Civil War, the most terrible struggle of modern times.
[Footnote 1: The word "gin" is a contraction of "engine."]
[Illustration: %The cotton gin% _A_. Whitney's original gin. _B_. A
later form.]
SUMMARY
1. When Washington was inaugurated, the United States consisted of
eleven states, with a population of about 3,380,000.
2. These people lived not far from the Atlantic coast. Few cities
existed; not one had 50,000 inhabitants. Even the largest was without
many conveniences which we consider necessaries.
3. Travel was slow and difficult, and though a steamboat had been
invented and used, it was too far ahead of the times to succeed.
4. West of the Alleghany Mountains a few settlements had been made
between 1763 and 1783. But it was after 1783, when streams of emigrants
poured over the mountains, that settlement really began.
6. In the South cotton was just beginning to be cultivated; there all
labor was done by slaves. In the North slavery was dying out, and in
five of the states had been abolished.
State of the Country in 1790
- _On the Seaboard._
The population. {Number.
{Distribution.
{Movement west.
The cities {Size.
{Absence of many conveniences known to us.
{Newspapers and magazines.
Communication between states. {Bad roads. Slow travel.
{The post offices.
{The stagecoaches. The inns.
{The early steamboat.
- _In the Ohio Valley._ {Population. Squatters.
{Pittsburg in 1790.
{A trip down the Ohio.
{Towns in the valley.
- _In the South._ {Slavery.
{Cotton planting.
{Whitney and the cotton gin.
CHAPTER XV
THE RISE OF PARTIES
%209. Organizing the New Government.%--he President having been
inaugurated, and the new government fairly established, it became the
duty of Congress to enact such laws as were needed immediately. The
first act passed by Congress in 1789 was therefore a tariff act laying
duties on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States.
Customhouses were then established and customs districts marked out, and
ports of entry and ports of delivery designated; provision was made for
the support of lighthouses and beacons; the Ordinance of 1787 for the
government of the territories was slightly changed and reenacted; the
departments of State, War, and Treasury were established; and a call was
made on the Secretary of the Treasury to report a plan for payment of
the old Continental debt.
%210. The United States Courts.%--The Constitution declares that the
judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court
and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain
and establish. Acting under this power, Congress made provision for a
Supreme Court, consisting of a Chief Justice and five Associate
Justices, and marked out the United States into circuits and districts.
The circuits were three in number. In the first were the Eastern States;
in the second, the Middle States; and in the third, the Southern States.
To each were assigned two Justices of the Supreme Court, whose business
it was to go to some city in each state in the circuit, and there, with
the district judge of that state, hold a circuit court. The district
courts were thirteen in number, one being established in each state.[1]
Washington appointed John Jay the first Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court.
[Footnote 1: For later changes, see Andrews's _Manual of the
Constitution,_ p. 183.]
%211. The Secretaries.%--During the management of affairs by the
Continental Congress three great executive departments had gradually
grown up and been placed in charge of three men, called the
"Superintendent of Finance," the "Secretary of the United States for the
Department of Foreign Affairs," and the "Secretary of War." These the
Constitution recognized in the expression "principal officer in each of
the executive departments." Congress by law now continued the
departments and placed them in charge of a Secretary of the Treasury, a
Secretary of State, and a Secretary of War. Washington filled the
offices promptly, making Alexander Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury,
Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State, and General Henry Knox Secretary
of War.
%212. The "Cabinet."%--It has long been the custom for the President
to gather his secretaries about him on certain days in each week for the
purpose of discussing public measures. To these gatherings has been
given the name "Cabinet meetings," while the secretaries have come to be
called "Cabinet officers." The Constitution, however, never intended to
give the President a body of advisers. Indeed, a proposition to provide
him with a council was voted down in the constitutional convention. But
Washington at once began to consult the Chief Justice, the Vice
President, his three secretaries, and the Attorney-general on matters of
importance. At first he asked their opinions individually and in
writing, but toward the end of his first term he convened a general
meeting of the heads of departments, and by so doing set a custom out of
which, in time, the "Cabinet" has grown.
%213. The Origin of the National Debt.%--As soon as Hamilton was made
Secretary of the Treasury, it became his duty, in accordance with an
order from Congress, to prepare a plan for the payment of the debts
contracted by the Continental Congress. When that body was unexpectedly
called on, in May, 1775, to conduct the war, it had nothing with which
to pay expenses, and was forced to use all sorts of means to
raise money.
[Illustrations: Continental money]
%214. Paper Money.%--The first resort was the issue, during 1775 and
1776, of six batches of Continental "bills of credit," amounting in all
to $36,000,000. These "bills" were rudely engraved bits of paper,
stating on their face that "This bill entitles the bearer to receive
---- Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in gold or silver."
They were issued in sums of various denominations, from one sixth of a
dollar up, and were to be redeemed by the states. The amount assigned
each state for redemption was in proportion to the supposed number of
its inhabitants.
%215. Loan-office Certificates.%--In 1776 Congress tried another
means. It opened a loan office in each state and called on patriotic
people to come forward and loan it money, receiving in return pieces of
paper called "loan-office certificates." Interest was to be paid on
these; but after a while Congress, having no money with which to pay
interest, was forced to resort to another form of paper, called
"interest indents."
%216. The Congress Lottery.%--The loan office having failed to bring
in as much money as was needed, Congress, toward the close of 1776, was
driven to seek some other way, and resorted to a lottery. A certain
number of tickets were sold, after which a drawing took place, and all
who drew prizes were given certificates payable at the end of
five years.
%217. More Bills of Credit.%--But the sale of tickets went off so
slowly that Congress had to go back to the issue of bills of credit. In
1777, therefore, the printing press was again put to work, and issues
were made in rapid succession, till more than $200,000,000 in
Continental paper were in circulation.
%218. The "New Tenor".%--Then the Continental bills ceased to
circulate, and in March, 1780, Congress called in the old money and
offered to exchange it for a new issue, giving one dollar of the new
paper money, or "new tenor," for forty dollars of the old. But the
attempt to restore credit by such means was a failure, and by the end of
the year 1781 all paper money ceased to circulate.
%219. Certificates.%--Long before this time officials had been forced
to pay debts contracted in the name of Congress with other kinds of
paper, called certificates, and known as treasury, commissary,
quartermaster, marine, and hospital certificates, according to the
department issuing them. To these must be added the "final settlements,"
or certificates given to the soldiers at the end of the war in payment
of their services.
%220. Foreign Debt.%--Besides the debt thus contracted at home,
Congress had borrowed a great sum in Europe.
%221. The National Debt in 1790.%--Thus the debt contracted by the
Continental Congress consisted of two parts. 1. The foreign debt, due to
France, Holland, and Spain, and amounting, Hamilton found, to
$11,700,000. 2. The domestic or home debt, of $42,000,000. But the
states had also fallen into debt because of their exertions in the war.
Just how great the state debts were could not be determined, but they
were estimated to be $21,500,000.
%222. Assumption and Funding.%--For the redemption of this debt
Hamilton prepared two measures,--the funding, or, as we should say, the
bonding, of the foreign and Continental debt, and the assuming and
funding of the state debts. This was done, and Congress ordered stock
bearing interest to be issued in exchange for the old debts, and so
established our national debt, which in 1790 amounted to $75,000,000.
%223. The National Capital.%--Funding the state debts was strongly
opposed by many congressmen, and was not carried till a bargain was made
by which it was agreed that if enough members from Virginia and
Pennsylvania would support the measure to secure its passage through the
House of Representatives, the national government should be removed from
New York to Philadelphia for ten years, and after that to a city to be
built on the Potomac. This was faithfully carried out, and in the summer
of 1790 the government offices were removed to Philadelphia, where they
remained till the summer of 1800, when they were removed to Washington
in the District of Columbia.
%224. The Bank of the United States.%--The troublesome questions of
funding and assumption thus disposed of, Congress called on Hamilton for
a report on the further support of public credit, and when it met in the
session of 1790-91, received a plan for a great National Bank, with a
capital of $10,000,000. The United States was to raise $2,000,000; the
rest was to be subscribed for by the people. The bank was to keep the
public revenues, was to aid the government in making payments all over
the country. To do this, power was given to the parent bank (which must
be at Philadelphia) to establish branches in the chief cities and towns,
and to issue bank bills which should be received all over the United
States for public lands, taxes, duties, postage, and in payment of any
debt due the government. Great opposition was made; but the charter was
granted for twenty years, and in 1791 the Bank of the United States
began business.
The effect of these two measures, funding the debt and establishing a
bank, was immediate. Confidence and credit were restored. Money that the
people had long been hiding away was brought out and invested in all
sorts of new enterprises, such as banks, canal companies, manufacturing
companies, and turnpike companies.
[Illustration: The first Bank of the United States]
%225. "Federalists" and "Republicans."%--When the Constitution was
before the people for acceptance or rejection in 1788, they were divided
into two bodies. Those who wanted a strong and vigorous federal
government, who wanted Congress to have plenty of power to regulate
trade, pay the debts of the country, and raise revenue, supported the
Constitution just as it was and were called "Federalists."
Others, who wanted the old Articles of Confederation preserved and
amended so as to give Congress a revenue and only a little more power,
opposed the Constitution and wanted it altered. To please these
"Anti-Federalists," as they were a large part of the people, Congress,
in 1789, drew up twelve amendments to the Constitution and sent them to
the states.
With the ratification of ten of these amendments, opposition to the
Constitution ceased. But as soon as Congress began to pass laws,
difference of opinion as to the expediency of them, and even as to the
right of Congress to pass them, divided the people again into two
parties, and sent a good many Federalists into the Anti-Federalist
party.
A very large number of men, for instance, opposed the funding of the
Continental Congress debt at its face value, because the people never
had taken a bill at the value expressed on its face, but at a very much
less value; some opposed the assumption of the state debts, because
Congress, they said, had power to pay the debt of the United States, but
not state debts; others opposed the National Bank because the
Constitution did not give Congress express power in so many words to
charter a bank. Others complained that the interest on the national debt
and the great salary of the President ($25,000 a year) and the pay of
Congressmen ($6 a day) and the hundreds of tax collectors made taxes too
heavy. They complained again that men in office showed an undemocratic
fondness for aristocratic customs. The President, they said, was too
exclusive, and owned too fine a coach. The Justices of the Supreme Court
must have black silk gowns, with red, white, and blue scarfs. The Senate
for some years to come held its daily session in secret; not even a
newspaper reporter was allowed to be present.
As early as 1792 there were thus a very great number of men in all parts
of the country who were much opposed to the measures of Congress and the
President, and who accused the Federalists of wishing to set up a
monarchy. A great national debt, they said, a funding system, a national
bank, and heavy internal taxes are all monarchical institutions, and if
you have the institutions, it will not be long before you have the
monarchy. They began therefore in 1792 to organize for election
purposes, and as they were opposed to a monarchy, they called themselves
"Republicans." [1] Their great leaders were Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
John Randolph, and Albert Gallatin.
[Footnote 1: This party was the forerunner of the present Democratic
party.]
%226. The Whisky Rebellion, 1794.%--One of the taxes to which the
Republicans objected, that on whisky, led to the first rebellion against
the government of the United States. In those days, 1791, the farmers
living in the region around Pittsburg could not send grain or flour down
the Ohio and the Mississippi, because Spain had shut the Mississippi to
navigation by Americans. They could not send their flour over the
mountains to Philadelphia or Baltimore, because it cost more to haul it
there than it would sell for. Instead, therefore, of making flour, they
grew rye and made whisky on their own farms. This found a ready sale.
Now, when the United States collectors attempted to collect the whisky
tax, the farmers of western Pennsylvania drove them away. An appeal was
then made to the courts; but when the marshal came to make arrests he,
too, was driven away. Under the Articles of Confederation this would
have been submitted to. But the Constitution and the acts of Congress
were now "the supreme law of the land," and Washington in his oath of
office had sworn to see them executed. To accomplish this, he used the
power given him by an act of Congress, and called out 12,900 militia
from the neighboring states and marched them to Pittsburg. Then the
people yielded. Two of the leaders were tried and convicted of treason;
but Washington pardoned them.
The insurrection or rebellion was a small affair. But the principles at
stake were great. It was now shown that the Constitution and the laws
must be obeyed; that it was treason to resist them by force, and that if
necessary the people would, at the call of the President, turn out and
put down rebellion by force of arms.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read McMaster's _History of the People of the United
States_, Vol. II., pp. 189-204; Findley's _History of the Insurrection
in Pennsylvania_.]
SUMMARY
1. As soon as Washington was inaugurated, Congress proceeded to organize
the new government.
2. The Supreme Court and circuit and district courts were established.
3. The departments of State, War, and Treasury were formed.
4. Twelve amendments to the Constitution were proposed.
5. Three financial measures were adopted:
A. A tariff act was passed.
B. The debts of the states were assumed, and, with that of the
Continental Congress, funded.
C. A national bank was chartered.
6. The price of funding was the ultimate location of the national
capital on the Potomac.
7. The first census was taken in 1790.
8. The result of the financial measures of Congress was the rise of the
Republican party (the forerunner of the present Democratic party).
THE ORIGIN OF POLITICAL PARTIES
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
Funding the
Continental Debt.
/------------\
/ Money borrowed in \ Shall it be \
Foreign debt. | France, Holland, | funded at | Yes ------+
\ and Spain. / face value? / |
|
/ Bills of credit. \ |
| Loan-office | |
| certificates. | Shall it be \ |
| Lottery | funded at | Yes ----+ |
Domestic debt. | certificates. | face value / | |
| Interest indents. | or market \ | |
| New tenor. | value? / Yes --+ | |
| Certificates of | | | |
| officials. | | | |
\ Final settlements. / | | | \
| | | |
Assumption of / Yes ---------------------------------------+-+ |[1]
state debts. \ No ----------------------------------+ | | |
| | | /
Establishment / Yes -----------------------------------------+
of a national | | |
bank. \ No ------------------------------------+ |
| | |
Internal revenue / Too heavy ----------------------- \ | | |
taxes. \ | | | |
| | | |
/ / President too | | | |
| | exclusive. | | | | \
| Aristocratic | Secret sessions | | | | |
Administration | customs. | of the Senate. |--+-+-+ |[2]
not democratic. | | Gowns of the | |
| \ justices. | /
| Monarchial / Great debt. |
| institutions. | National bank. |
\ \ Heavy taxes. /
\ / Leaders.
[1]---| Federalists | Washington.
/ | Adams.
\ Hamilton.
\ / Leaders.
| | Jefferson.
[2]---| Republicans | Madison.
| | Monroe.
| | Randolph.
/ \ Gallatin.
CHAPTER XVI
THE STRUGGLE FOR NEUTRALITY
%227. Trouble with Great Britain and France.%--From the congressional
election in 1792 we may date the beginning of organized political
parties in the United States. They sprang from differences of opinion as
to domestic matters. But on a sudden in 1793 Federalists and Republicans
became divided on questions of foreign affairs.
Ever since 1789 France had been in a state of revolution, and at last
(in 1792) the people established the French Republic, cut off the heads
of the King and Queen (in 1793), and declared war on England and sent a
minister, Genet, to the United States. At that time we had no treaty
with Great Britain except the treaty of peace. With France, however, we
had two treaties,--one of alliance, and one of amity and commerce. The
treaty of alliance bound us to guarantee to France "the possessions of
the crown of France in America," by which were meant the French West
Indian Islands. When Washington heard that war had been declared by
France, and that a French minister was on his way to America, he became
alarmed lest this minister should call on him to make good the guarantee
by sending a fleet to the Indies. On consulting his secretaries, they
advised him that the guarantee applied only when France was attacked,
and not when she was the attacking party. The President thereupon issued
a proclamation of neutrality; that is, declared that the United States
would not side with either party in the war, but would treat both alike.
%228. Sympathy for France; the French Craze.%--Then began a long
struggle for neutrality. The Republicans were very angry at Washington
and denounced him violently. France, they said, had been our old friend;
Great Britain had been our old enemy. We had a treaty with France; we
had none with Great Britain. To treat her on the same footing with
France was therefore a piece of base ingratitude to France. A wave of
sympathy for France swept over the country. The French dress, customs,
manners, came into use. Republicans ceased to address each other as Mr.
Smith, Mr. Jones, Sir, or "Your Honor," and used Citizen Smith and
Citizen Jones. The French tricolor with the red liberty cap was hung up
in taverns and coffeehouses, which were the clubhouses of that day.
Every French victory was made the occasion of a "civic feast," while the
anniversaries of the fall of the Bastile and of the founding of the
Republic were kept in every great city.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read McMaster's _History of the People of the United
States_, Vol. II., pp. 89-96; _Harpers Magazine_, April, 1897.]
%229. England seizes our Ships; the Rule of 1756%.--To preserve
neutrality in the face of such a public sentiment was hard enough; but
Great Britain made it more difficult yet. When war was declared, France
opened the ports of her West Indian Islands and invited neutral nations
to trade with them. This she did because she knew that the British navy
could drive her merchantmen from the sea, and that all trade between
herself and her colonies must be carried on in the ships of
neutral nations.
Now the merchants of the United States had never been allowed to trade
with the French Indies to an unlimited extent. The moment, therefore,
they were allowed to do so, they gladly began to trade, and during the
summer of 1793 hundreds of ships went to the islands. There were at that
time four questions of dispute between us and Great Britain:
1. Great Britain held that she might seize any kind of food going to a
French port in our ships. We held that only military stores might be
so seized.
2. Great Britain held that when a port had been declared to be
blockaded, a ship bound to that port might be seized even on the high
seas. We held that no port was blockaded unless there was a fleet
actually stationed at it to prevent ships from entering or leaving it.
3. Great Britain held that our ships might be captured if they had
French goods on board. We held that "free ships made free goods," and
that our ships were not subject to capture, no matter whose goods they
had on board.
4. Great Britain in 1756 had adopted a rule that no neutral should have
in time of war a trade she did not have in time of peace.
The United States was now enjoying a trade in time of war she did not
have in time of peace, and Great Britain began to enforce her rule.
British ships were ordered to stop American vessels going to or coming
from the French West Indies, and if they contained provisions, to seize
them. This was done, and in the autumn of 1793 great numbers of American
ships were captured.
%230. Our Sailors impressed.%--All this was bad enough and excited
the people against our old enemy, who made matters a thousand times
worse by a course of action to which we could not possibly submit. She
claimed the right to stop any of our ships on the sea, send an officer
on board, force the captain to muster the crew on the deck, and then
search for British subjects. If one was found, he was seized and carried
away. If none were found, and the British ships wanted men, native-born
Americans were taken off under the pretext that one could not tell an
American from an English sailor. Our fathers could stand a great deal,
but this was too much, and a cry for war went up from all parts of
the country.
But Washington did not want war, and took two measures to prevent it.
He persuaded Congress to lay an embargo for thirty days, that is, forbid
all ships to leave our ports, and induced the Senate to let him send
John Jay, the Chief Justice, to London to make a treaty of amity and
commerce with Great Britain.
%231. Jay's Treaty, 1794.%--In this mission Jay succeeded; and though
the treaty was far from what Washington wanted, it was the best that
could be had, and he approved it.[1] At this the Republicans grew
furious. They burned copies of the treaty at mass meetings and hung Jay
in effigy. Yet the treaty had some good features. By it the King agreed
to withdraw his troops from Oswego and Detroit and Mackinaw, which
really belonged to us but were still occupied by the English. By it our
merchants were allowed for the first time to trade with the British West
Indies, and some compensation was made for the damage done by the
capture of ships in the West Indies.
[Footnote 1: The Senate ratified this treaty in the summer of 1795.]
%232. Treaty with Spain.%--About the same time (October, 1795) we
made our first treaty with Spain, and induced her to accept the
thirty-first degree of latitude as the south boundary of our country,
and to consent to open the Mississippi to trade. As Spain owned both
banks at the mouth of the river, she claimed that American ships had no
right to go in or out without her consent, and so prevented the people
of Kentucky and Tennessee from trading in foreign markets. She now
agreed that they might float their produce to New Orleans and pay a
small duty, and then ship it wherever they pleased.
%233. The Election of Adams and Jefferson, 1796%.--Washington had
been reëlected President in 1792, but he was now tired of office, and in
September, 1796, issued his "Farewell Address," in which he declined to
be the candidate for a third presidential term. In those days there were
no national conventions to nominate candidates, yet it was well
understood that John Adams, the Vice President, was the candidate of the
Federalists, and Thomas Jefferson, of the Republicans. When the votes
were counted in Congress, it was found that Adams had 71 electoral
votes, and Jefferson 68; so they became President and Vice President.
[Illustration: John Adams]
%234. Trouble with France.%--Adams was inaugurated on March 4, 1797,
and three days later heard that C. C. Pinckney, our minister to the
French Republic, had been driven from France. Pinckney had been sent to
France by Washington in 1796, but the French Directory (as the five men
who then governed France were called) had taken great offense at Jay's
treaty: first because it was favorable to Great Britain, and in the
second place because it put an end for the present to all hope of war
between her and the United States. The Directory, therefore, refused to
receive Pinckney until the French grievances were redressed.
The President was very angry at the insult, and summoned Congress to
meet and take such action as, said he, "shall convince France and the
whole world that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a
colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." But the Republicans
declared so vigorously that if a special mission were sent to France all
would be made right, that Adams yielded, and sent John Marshall and
Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney as envoys extraordinary. On reaching
Paris, three men acting as agents for the Directory met them, and
declared that before they could be received as ministers they must do
three things:
1. Apologize for Adams's denunciation of the conduct of France.
2. Pay each Director $50,000.
3. Pay tribute to France.
When the President reported this demand to Congress, the names of the
three French agents were suppressed, and instead they were called Mr. X,
Mr. Y, Mr. Z. This gave the mission the nickname "X, Y, Z mission."
%235. "Millions for Defense, not a Cent for Tribute."%--As the
newspapers published these dispatches, a roar of indignation, in which
the Federalists and Republicans alike joined, went up from the whole
country. "Millions for defense, not a cent for tribute," became the
watchword of the hour. Opposition in Congress ceased, and preparations
were at once made for war. The French treaties were suspended. The Navy
Department was created, and a Secretary of the Navy appointed. Frigates
were ordered to be built, money was voted for arms, a provisional army
was formed, and Washington was again made commander in chief, with the
rank of lieutenant general. The young men associated for defense, the
people in the seaports built frigates or sloops of war, and gave their
services to erect forts and earthworks. Every French flag was now pulled
down from the coffeehouses, and the black cockade of our own
Revolutionary days was once more worn as the badge of patriotism. Then
was written, by Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia,[1] and sung for the
first time, our national song _Hail, Columbia!_
[Footnote 1: The music to which we sing _Hail, Columbia!_ was called
_The President's March_, and was played for the first time when the
people of Trenton were welcoming Washington on his way to be inaugurated
President in 1789. For an account of the trouble with France read
McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_, Vol. II, pp.
207-416, 427-476.]
%236. The Alien and Sedition Acts.%--Carried away by the excitement
of the hour, the Federalists now passed two most unwise laws. Many of
the active leaders and very many of the members of the Republican party
were men born abroad and naturalized in this country. Generally they
were Irishmen or Frenchmen, and as such had good reason to hate England,
and therefore hated the Federalists, who they believed were too friendly
to her. To prevent such becoming voters, and so taking an active part in
politics, the Federalists passed a new naturalization law, which forbade
any foreigner to become an American citizen until he had lived fourteen
years in our country. Lest this should not be enough to keep them
quiet, a second law was passed by which the President had power for two
years to send any alien (any of these men who for fourteen years could
not become citizens) out of the country whenever he thought it proper.
This law Adams never used.
For five years past the Republican newspapers had been abusing
Washington, Adams, the acts of Congress, the members of Congress, and
the whole foreign policy of the Federalists. The Federalist newspapers,
of course, had retaliated and had been just as abusive of the
Republicans. But as the Federalists now had the power, they determined
to punish the Republicans for their abuse, and passed the Sedition Act.
This provided that any man who acted seditiously (that is, interfered
with the execution of a law of Congress) or spoke or wrote seditiously
(that is, abused the President, or Congress, or any member of the
Federal government) should be tried, and if found guilty, be fined and
imprisoned. This law was used, and used vigorously, and Republican
editors all over the country were fined and sometimes imprisoned.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Alien and Sedition acts are in Preston's _Documents_,
pp. 277-282.]
%237. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.%--The passage of these Alien
and Sedition laws greatly excited the Republicans, and led Jefferson to
use his influence to have them condemned by the states. For this purpose
he wrote a set of resolutions and sent them to a friend in Kentucky who
was to try to have the legislature adopt them.[2] Jefferson next asked
Madison to write a like set of resolutions for the Virginia legislature
to adopt. Madison became so interested that he gave up his seat in
Congress and entered the Virginia legislature, and in December, 1798,
induced it to adopt what have since been known as the Virginia
Resolutions of 1798.
[Footnote 2: Kentucky had been admitted to the Union in 1792 (see p.
213).]
Meantime the legislature of Kentucky, November, 1798, had adopted the
resolutions of Jefferson.[3]
[Footnote 3: E. D. Warfield's _Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions_. The
Resolutions are printed in Preston's _Documents_, pp. 283-298;
_Jefferson's Works_, Vol. IX., p. 494.]
Both sets declare 1. That the Constitution of the United States is a
compact or contract. 2. That to this contract each state is a party;
that is, the united states are equal partners in a great political firm.
So far they agree; but at this point they differ. The Kentucky
Resolutions assert that when any question arises as to the right of
Congress to pass any law, _each state_ may decide this question for
itself and apply any remedy it likes. The Virginia Resolutions declare
that _the states_ may judge and apply the remedy.
Both declared that the Alien and Sedition laws were wholly
unconstitutional. Seven states answered by declaring that the laws were
constitutional, whereupon Kentucky in 1799 framed another set of
resolutions in which she said that when a state thought a law to be
illegal she had the right to nullify it; that is, forbid her citizens to
obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, afterwards
became of very serious importance.[1]
[Footnote 1: The answers of the states are printed in Elliot's
_Debates_, Vol. IV., pp. 532-539.]
%238. The Naval War with France.%--Meantime war opened with France.
The Navy Department was created in April, 1798, and before the year
ended, a gallant little navy of thirty-four frigates, corvettes, and gun
sloops of war had been collected and sent with a host of privateers to
scour the sea around the French West Indies, destroy French commerce,
and capture French ships of war.[1] One of our frigates, the
_Constellation_, Captain Thomas Truxton in command, captured the French
frigate _Insurgente_, after a gallant fight. On another occasion,
Truxton, in the _Constellation_, fought the _Vengeance_ and would have
taken her, but the Frenchman, finding he was getting much the worst of
it, spread his sails and fled. Yet another of our frigates, the
_Boston_, took the _Berceau_, whose flag is now in the Naval Institute
Building at Annapolis. In six months the little American twelve-gun
schooner _Enterprise_ took eight French privateers, and recaptured and
set free four American merchantmen. These and a hundred other actions
just as gallant made good the patriotic words of John Adams, "that we
are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and
sense of inferiority." So impressed was France with this fact that the
war had scarcely begun when the Directory meekly sent word that if
another set of ministers came they would be received. They ought to have
been told that they must send a mission to us. But Adams in this respect
was weak, and in 1800, the Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth, William R.
Davie, and William Vans Murray were sent to Paris. The Directory had
then fallen from power, Napoleon was ruling France as First Consul, and
with him in September, 1800, a convention was concluded.
[Footnote 2: For an account of this war, read Maclay's _History of the
United States Navy_, Vol. I., pp. 155-213.]
%239. The Stamp Tax; the Direct Tax and Fries's Rebellion,
1798.%--The heavy cost of the preparations for war made new taxes
necessary. Two of these, a stamp tax very similar to the famous one of
1765, and a direct tax, greatly excited the people. The direct tax was
the first of its kind in our history, and was laid on lands, houses, and
negro slaves. In certain counties of eastern Pennsylvania, where the
population was chiefly German, the purpose of the tax was not
understood, and the people refused to make returns of the value of their
farms and houses. When the assessors came to measure the houses and
count the windows as a means of determining the value of the property,
the people drove them off. For this some of the leaders were arrested.
But the people under John Fries rose and rescued the prisoners. At this
stage President Adams called out the militia, and marched it against the
rebels. They yielded. But Fries was tried for treason, was sentenced to
be hanged, and was then pardoned. Thus a second time was it proved that
the people of the United States were determined to support the
Constitution and the laws and put down rebellion.
%240. Washington the National Capital.%--In accordance with the
bargain made in 1790, Washington selected a site for the Federal city
on both banks of the Potomac. This great square tract of land was ten
miles long on each side, and was given to the government partly by
Maryland and partly by Virginia.[1] It was called the District of
Columbia, and in it were marked out the streets of Washington city.
[Footnote 1: In 1846 so much of the District as had belonged to Virginia
was given back to her.]
Though all possible haste was made, the President's house was still
unfinished, the Capitol but partly built, and the streets nothing but
roads cut through the woods, when, in the summer of 1800, the
secretaries, the clerks, the books and papers of the government left
Philadelphia for Washington. With the opening of the new century, and
the occupation of the new Capitol, came a new President, and a new party
in control of the government.
[Illustration: The National Capitol as it was in 1825]
%241. The Election of Thomas Jefferson.%--The year 1800 was a
presidential year, and though no formal nomination was made, a caucus of
Republican leaders selected as candidates Thomas Jefferson for
President, and Aaron Burr for Vice President. A caucus or meeting of
Federalist leaders selected John Adams and C. C. Pinckney as their
candidates. When the returns were all in, it appeared that Jefferson had
received seventy-three votes, Burr seventy-three votes, Adams sixty-five
votes, Pinckney sixty-four votes. The Constitution provided that the man
who received the highest number of electoral votes, if the choice of
the majority of the electors, should be President. But as Jefferson and
Burr had each seventy-three, neither had the highest, and neither was
President. The duty of electing a President then devolved on the House
of Representatives, which after a long and bitter struggle elected
Jefferson President; Burr then became Vice President. To prevent such a
contest ever arising again, the twelfth amendment was added to the
Constitution. This provides for a separate ballot for Vice President.
March 4, 1801, Jefferson, escorted by the militia of Georgetown and
Alexandria, walked from his lodgings to the Senate chamber and took the
oath of office.{1} He and his party had been placed in power in order to
make certain reforms, and this, when Congress met in the winter of 1801,
they began to do.
[Footnote 1: For a fine description of Jefferson's personality, read
Henry Adams's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 185-191. As
to the story of Jefferson riding alone to the Capitol and tying his
horse to the fence, see Adams's _History_, Vol. I, pp. 196-199;
McMaster's _History_, Vol. II., pp. 533-534.]
%242. The Annual Message.%--While Washington and Adams were
presidents, it was their custom when Congress met each year to go in
state to the House of Representatives, and in the presence of the House
and Senate read a speech. The two branches of Congress would then
separate and appoint committees to answer the President's speech, and
when the answers were ready, each would march through the streets to the
President's house, where the Vice President or the Speaker would read
the answer to the President. When Congress met in 1801, Jefferson
dropped this custom and sent a written message to both houses--a
practice which every President since that time has followed.
%243. Republican Reforms.%--True to their promises, the Republicans
now proceeded to repeal the hated laws of the Federalists. They sold all
the ships of the navy except thirteen, they ordered prosecutions under
the Sedition law to be stopped, they repealed all the internal taxes
laid by the Federalists, they cut down the army to 2500 men, and
reduced the expenses of government to $3,700,000 per year--a sum which
would not now pay the cost of running the government for three days. As
the annual revenue collected at the customhouses, the post office, and
from the sale of land was $10,800,000, the treasury had some $7,000,000
of surplus each year. This was used to pay the national debt, which fell
from $88,000,000 in 1801 to $45,000,000 in 1812, and this in spite of
the purchase of Louisiana.
[Illustration: Thomas Jefferson]
%244. The Purchase of Louisiana.%--When France was driven out of
America, it will be remembered, she gave to Spain all of Louisiana west
of the Mississippi River, together with a large tract on the east bank,
at the river's mouth. Spain then owned Louisiana till 1800, when by a
secret treaty she gave the province back to France.[1]
[Footnote 1: Adams's _History of the United States, _Vol. I., pp.
352-376.]
For a while this treaty was really kept secret; but in April, 1802, news
that Louisiana had been given to France and that Napoleon was going to
send out troops to hold it, reached this country and produced two
consequences. In the first place, it led the Spanish intendant (as the
man who had charge of all commercial matters was called) to withdraw the
"right of deposit" at New Orleans, and so prevent citizens of the United
States sending their produce out of the Mississippi River. In the second
place, this act of the intendant excited the rage of all the settlers in
the valley from Pittsburg to Natchez, and made them demand the instant
seizure of New Orleans by American troops. To prevent this, Jefferson
obtained the consent of Congress to make an effort to buy New Orleans
and West Florida, and sent Monroe to aid our minister in France in
making the purchase.
When the offer was made, Napoleon was about going to war with England,
and, wanting money very much, he in turn offered to sell the whole
province to the United States--an offer that was gladly accepted. The
price paid was $15,000,000, and in December, 1803, Louisiana was
formally delivered to us.
%245. Louisiana.%--Concerning this splendid domain hardly anything
was known. No boundaries were given to it either on the north, or on the
west, or on the south. What the country was like nobody could tell.[1]
Where the source of the Mississippi was no white man knew. In the time
of La Salle a priest named Hennepin had gone up to the spot where
Minneapolis now stands, and had seen the Falls of St. Anthony (p. 63).
But the country above the falls was still unknown.
[Footnote 1: In a description of it which Jefferson sent to Congress in
1804, he actually stated that "there exists about one thousand miles up
the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain. This
mountain is said to be one hundred and eighty miles long and forty-five
in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even
shrubs on it."]
%246. Explorations of Lewis and Clark.%--That this great region ought
to be explored had been a favorite idea of Jefferson for twenty years
past, and he had tried to persuade learned men and learned societies to
organize an expedition to cross the continent. Failing in this, he
turned to Congress, which in 1803 (before the purchase of Louisiana)
voted a sum of money for sending an exploring party from the mouth of
the Missouri to the Pacific. The party was in charge of Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark. Early in May, 1804, they left St. Louis, then a
frontier town of log cabins, and worked their way up the Missouri River
to a spot not far from the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where
they passed the winter with the Indians. Resuming their journey in the
spring of 1805, they followed the Missouri to its source in the
mountains, after crossing which they came to the Clear Water River; and
down this they went to the Columbia, which carried them to a spot where,
late in November, 1805, they "saw the waves like small mountains rolling
out in the sea." They were on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. After
spending the winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the party made its way
back to St. Louis in 1806.
%247. The Oregon Country.%--Lewis and Clark were not the first of our
countrymen to see the Columbia River. In 1792 a Boston ship captain
named Gray was trading with the Pacific coast Indians. He was collecting
furs to take to China and exchange for tea to be carried to Boston, and
while so engaged he discovered the mouth of a great river, which he
entered, and named the Columbia in honor of his ship. By right of this
discovery by Gray the United States was entitled to all the country
drained by the Columbia River. By the exploration of this country by
Lewis and Clark our title was made stronger still, and it was finally
perfected a few years later when the trappers and settlers went over the
Rocky Mountains and occupied the Oregon country.[1]
[Footnote 1: Barrows's _Oregon_; McMaster's _History_, Vol. II., pp.
633-635.]
[Illustration: Mouth of the Columbia River]
%248. Pike explores the Southwest.%--While Lewis and Clark were
making their way up the Missouri, Zebulon Pike was sent to find the
source of the Mississippi, which he thought he did in the winter of
1805-06. In this he was mistaken, but supposing his work done, he was
dispatched on another expedition in 1806. Traveling up the Missouri
River to the Osage, and up the Osage nearly to its source, he struck
across Kansas to the Arkansas River, which he followed to its head
waters, wandering in the neighborhood of that fine mountain which in
honor of him bears the name of Pikes Peak. Then he crossed the mountains
and began a search for the Red River. The march was a terrible one. It
was winter; the cold was intense. The snow lay waist deep on the plains.
Often the little band was without food for two days at a time. But Pike
pushed on, in spite of hunger, cold, and suffering, and at last saw,
through a gap in the mountains, the waters of the Rio Grande. Believing
that it was the Red, he hurried to its banks, only to be seized by the
Spaniards (for he was on Spanish soil), who carried him a prisoner to
Santa Fé, from which city he and his men wandered back to the United
States by way of Mexico and Texas.
[Illustration: %EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTHWEST% BY ZEBULON M. PIKE
%1806-1807%]
%249. Astoria founded.%--The immediate effect of these explorations
was greatly to stimulate the fur trade. One great fur trader, John Jacob
Astor of New York, now founded the Pacific Fur Company and made
preparations to establish a line of posts from the upper Missouri to the
Columbia, and along it to the Pacific, and supply them from St. Louis by
way of the Missouri, or from the mouth of the Columbia, where in 1811 a
little trading post was begun and named Astoria. This completed our
claim to the Oregon country. Gray had discovered the river; Lewis and
Clark had explored the territory drained by the river; the Pacific Fur
Company planted the first lasting settlement.
SUMMARY
1. In 1793 France made war on Great Britain. The United States was bound
by the treaty of alliance of 1778 to "guarantee" the French possessions
in America.
2. This treaty, and the coming of the French minister, forced Washington
to declare the United States neutral in the war.
3. His proclamation of neutrality was resented by the Republicans, who
now became sympathizers with France. The Federalists, who were strongest
in the commercial states, became the anti-French or English party.
4. When France declared war on England, she opened her ports in the West
Indies to the merchant trade of the United States.
5. England held that we should not have a trade with France when at war,
for we had not had it when France was at peace. This was an application
of the "Rule of 1756." In 1793-1794, therefore, England began to seize
our ships coming from the French ports.
6. This so excited the Republicans that they attempted to force the
country into war with England.
7. To prevent war, Washington sent Jay to London, where he made our
first commercial treaty with Great Britain.
8. This offended the French Directory, who refused to receive our new
minister and sent him out of France.
9. War with France now seemed likely. But Adams, in the interest of
peace, sent three commissioners to Paris to make a new treaty. They were
met with demands for tribute and came home.
10. The greatest excitement now prevailed in the country. The Navy
Department was created, a navy was built by the people, and a
provisional army raised. The old French treaties were suspended, and a
naval war began.
11. The popular anger against the Republicans (the French party) gave
the Federalists control of Congress, whereupon they passed the Alien and
Sedition laws.
12. Against these Virginia and Kentucky protested in a set of
resolutions.
13. In the election of 1800 the Federalists were defeated, and the
Republicans secured control of the Federal government.
14. In 1800 Spain ceded Louisiana to France, whereupon the Spanish
official at New Orleans shut the Mississippi to American commerce.
15. The whole West cried out against this and demanded war. But
Jefferson offered to buy West Florida from France. Napoleon thereupon
offered to sell all Louisiana, and we bought it (1803).
16. The new territory as yet had no boundaries; but it was explored in
the northwest by Lewis and Clark, and in the southwest by Pike.
17. The discovery of the Columbia River in 1792, the exploration of the
country by Lewis and Clark, and the founding of Astoria established our
claim to the Oregon country.
FRANCE A REPUBLIC, 1792.
------------------------
|
______________|________________
DECLARES WAR ON ENGLAND (1793).
|
______________________|___________________________
| |
| |
Opens her ports |
to neutral trade. Sends a minister to the United States.
------------------------- ---------------------------------------
1. England asserts rule This brought up the questions:
of 1756. 1. Shall he be received?--Yes.
2. Seizes our ships in 2. Is the old alliance applicable
the West Indies. to offensive war?--No.
3. Impresses our sailors. 3. Shall the United States
| be neutral?--Yes.
|
| Washington issues a proclamation
| of neutrality.
| |
--------------------------------
|
Struggle for neutrality.
-----------------------------------------------
| |
Republicans oppose it. Federalists support it.
Attempt retaliation on Great Britain. Lay embargo.
Are aided by Federalists. Prepare for war.
| |
-----------------------------------------------
|
Washington sends Jay to England. Jay's treaty made (1794).
|
-------------------------------------------
| |
1. France takes offense. Violently opposed by the Republicans.
2. Rejects Pinckney.
3. Republicans demand a special mission.
4. Adams yields and sends X, Y, Z mission.
5. Insulted by Directory.
6. Excitement at home leads to
|
_________________________|__________________________________
Establishment of Navy Department. Creation of a navy.
Provisional army. Washington, Lt. Gen.
Naval war with France.
Alien and Sedition laws. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Increased taxation. The direct tax.
Fries's rebellion.
Defeat of Adams and election of Jefferson (1800).
|
----------------------------
Introduces reforms.
Annual message.
Buys Louisiana.
Exploration of the Northwest.
CHAPTER XVII
STRUGGLE FOR "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS"
%250. France and Great Britain renew the War.%--The war between
France and Great Britain, which had been the cause of the sale of
Louisiana to us, began in May, 1803. The United States became again a
neutral power, but, as in 1793, was soon once more involved in the
disputes of France.
Towards the end of the previous war, Great Britain had so changed her
ideas of neutrality that the merchants of the United States, according
to her rules,
1. Could trade directly between a port of the United States and the
ports of the French West Indies.
2. Could trade directly between the United States and ports in France or
Europe.
3. But could not trade directly between a French West India island and
France, or a Spanish West India island and Spain, or a Dutch colony
and Holland.
To evade this last restriction, by combining the voyages allowed in
numbers 1 and 2, was easy. A merchant had but to load his ship at New
York or Philadelphia, go to some port in the French West Indies, take on
a new cargo and bring it to Savannah, enter it at the customhouse and
pay the import duties. This voyage was covered by number 1. He could
then, without disturbing his cargo in the least, clear his vessel for
France, and get back from the collector of customs all the duty he had
paid except three per cent. He was now exporting goods from the United
States and was protected by number 2. This was called "the broken
voyage," and by using it thousands of shipowners were enabled to carry
goods back and forth between France and her colonies, by merely stopping
a few hours at an American port to clear for Europe. So universal was
this practice that in 1804 the customs revenue rose from $16,000,000 to
$20,000,000.
In May, 1805, however, the British High Court of Admiralty decided that
goods which started from the French colonies in American ships and were
on their way to France could be captured even if they had been landed
and reshipped in the United States. The moment that decision was made,
the old trouble began again. British frigates were stationed off the
ports of New York and Hampton Roads, and vessels coming in and going out
were stopped, searched, and their sailors impressed. Before 1805 ended,
116 of our ships had been seized and 1000 of our sailors impressed.
%251. Orders in Council, 1806.%--In 1806 matters grew worse. Napoleon
was master of Europe, and in order to injure Great Britain he cut off
her trade with the continent. For this she retaliated by issuing, in
May, 1806, an Order in Council, which declared the whole coast of
Europe, from Brest to the mouth of the river Elbe, to be blockaded. This
was a mere "paper blockade"; that is, no fleets were off the coast to
keep neutrals from running into the blockaded ports. Yet American
vessels were captured at sea because they were going to those ports.
%252. The Berlin Decree.%--Napoleon waited to retaliate till
November, 1806, when he issued the Berlin Decree,[1] declaring the
British Islands to be blockaded.
[Footnote 1: So called because he was at Berlin when he issued it.]
%253. Orders in Council, 1807.%--Great Britain felt that every time
Napoleon struck at her she must strike back at him, and in January,
1807, a new Order in Council forbade neutrals to trade from one European
port to another, if both were in the possession of France or her allies.
Finding it had no effect, she followed it up with another Order in
Council in November, 1807, which declared that every port on the face
of the earth from which for any reason British ships were excluded was
shut to neutrals, unless they first stopped at some British port and
obtained a license to trade.
%254. The Milan Decree, 1807.%--It was now Napoleon's turn to strike,
which he did in December, 1807, by issuing the Milan Decree.[1]
Thenceforth any ship that submitted to be searched by British cruisers
or took out a British license, or entered any port from which French
ships were excluded, was to be captured wherever found.
[Footnote 1: So called because he was in Milan at the time, and dated it
from that city.]
As a result of this series of French Decrees and British Orders in
Council,[2] the English took 194 of our ships, and the French almost
as many.
[Footnote 2: On the Orders in Council and French Decrees, read Adams's
_History of the United States_, Vol. III., Chap. 16; Vol. IV., Chaps. 4,
5, and 6; McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 219-223;
249-250; 272-274.]
%255. Jefferson's Policy; Non-importation Act.%--The policy by which
Jefferson proposed to meet this emergency consisted of three parts:
1. Lay up the frigates and defend our coast and harbors by a number of
small, swift-sailing craft, each carrying one gun in the stern. In time
of peace they were to be hauled up under sheds. In time of war they were
to be shoved into the water and manned by volunteers. Between 1806 and
1812, 176 of these gunboats were built.
2. Make a new treaty with Great Britain, because that made by Jay in
1794 was to expire in 1806. Under the instructions of Jefferson,
therefore, Monroe and Pinckney signed a new treaty in December, 1806.
But it said nothing about the impressment of our sailors, or about the
right of our ships to go where they pleased, and was so bad in general
that Jefferson would not even send it to the Senate.[3]
[Footnote 3: No treaty can become a law unless approved by the President
and two thirds of the Senate.]
3. The third part of his policy consisted in doing what we should call
"boycotting." He wanted a law which would forbid the importation into
the United States of any article made, grown, or produced in Great
Britain or any of her colonies. Congress accordingly, in April, 1806,
passed what was called a "Non-importation Act," which prohibited not the
importation of every sort of British goods, wares, and merchandise, but
only a few which the people could make in this country; as paper, cards,
leather goods, etc. This was to go into force at the President's
pleasure.
%256. The Chesapeake and the Leopard.%--Such an attempt to punish
Great Britain by cutting off a part of her trade was useless, and only
made her more insolent than before. Indeed, just a week after the
President signed the non-importation bill, as one of our coasting
vessels was entering the harbor of New York, a British vessel, wishing
to stop and search her, fired a shot which struck the helmsman and
killed him at the wheel.
About a year later, June, 1807, an attack more outrageous still was made
on our frigate _Chesapeake_. She was on her way from Washington to the
Mediterranean, and was still in sight of land when a British vessel, the
_Leopard_, hailed and stopped her and sent an officer on board with a
demand for the delivery of deserters from the English navy. The captain
of the _Chesapeake_ refused, the officer returned, and the _Leopard_
opened fire. To return the fire was impossible, for only a few of the
guns of the _Chesapeake_ were mounted. At last one was discharged, and
as by that time three men had been killed and eighteen wounded,
Commander Barron of the _Chesapeake_ surrendered. Four men then were
taken from her deck. Three were Americans. One was an Englishman, and he
was hanged for desertion.[1]
[Footnote 1: Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Vol. I., pp. 305-308;
McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 255-259.]
%257. The Long Embargo.%--The attack on the _Chesapeake_ ought to
have been followed by war. But Jefferson merely demanded reparation from
Great Britain, and when Congress met in December, 1807, asked for an
embargo. The request was granted, and merchant vessels in all the ports
of the United States were forbidden to sail for a foreign country till
the President saw fit to suspend the law. The restriction was so
sweeping and the damage done to American farmers, merchants, and
shipowners so great, that the people began to evade it at once. They
would send their vessels to New Orleans and stop at the West Indies on
the way. They would send their flour, pork, rice, and lumber to St.
Marys in Georgia and smuggle it over the river to Florida, or take it to
the islands near Eastport in Maine and then smuggle it into New
Brunswick. Because of this, more stringent embargo laws were passed, and
finally, in 1809, a "Force Act," to compel obedience. But smuggling went
on so openly that there was nothing to do but use troops or lift the
embargo. In February, 1809, accordingly, the embargo laws, after
fourteen months' duration, were repealed. Instead of them the
Republicans enacted a Non-intercourse law which allowed the people to
trade with all nations except England and France.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 279-338; Adams's
_History_, Vol. IV., Chaps. 7, 11, 13, 15.]
%258. Jefferson refuses a Third Term.%--During 1806, the states of
New Jersey, Vermont,[2] Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland,
Georgia, and North Carolina invited Jefferson to be President a third
time. For a while he made no reply, but in December, 1807, he declined,
and gave this reason: "That I should lay down my charge at a proper
period is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some
termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the
Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years,
will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that
degenerates into an inheritance." This wise answer was heartily
approved by the people all over the country, and with Washington's
similar action established a custom which has been generally followed
ever since.
[Footnote 2: Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1791 (p. 243).]
As Jefferson would not accept a third term, a caucus of Republican
members of Congress met one evening at the Capitol in Washington and
nominated James Madison and George Clinton. The Federalists held no
caucus, but agreed among themselves to support C.C. Pinckney and Rufus
King. Madison and Clinton were easily elected, and were sworn into
office March 4, 1809.
[Illustration: James Madison]
%259. The Macon Bill; Non-intercourse.%--When Congress met in 1809
one more effort was made to force France and England to respect our
rights on the sea. Non-importation had failed. The embargo had failed.
Non-intercourse had failed, and now in desperation they passed a law
which at the time was called the "Macon Bill," from the member of
Congress who introduced it. This restored trade with France and England,
but declared that if either would withdraw its Decrees or Orders, the
United States would stop all trade with the other.
%260. Trickery of Napoleon.%--And now Napoleon came forward and
assured the American minister that the Berlin and Milan Decrees should
be recalled on November 1, 1810, provided the United States would
restore non-intercourse with England. To this Madison agreed, and on
November 1, 1810, issued a proclamation saying that unless Great Britain
should, before February 1, 1811, recall her Orders in Council, trade
with her should stop on that day. Great Britain did not recall her
Orders, and in February, 1811, we once more ceased to trade with her.
Trade with France was resumed on November 1, 1810, and of course a great
fleet of merchants went off to French ports. But they were no sooner
there than the villainy of Napoleon was revealed, for on December 25, by
general order, every American ship in the French ports was seized, and
$10,000,000 worth of American property was confiscated. He had not
recalled his Decrees, but pretended to do so in order to get the
American goods and provisions which he sorely needed.
It is surprising how patient the Americans of those days were. But their
patience as to Great Britain now gave out, and our minister at London
was recalled in 1811. This alarmed the British, who promptly began to
take steps to keep the peace, and offered to make amends for the
_Leopard-Chesapeake_ outrage which had occurred four years before (June,
1807). They agreed to replace the three American sailors on the deck of
the _Chesapeake_ and did so (June, 1812). But the day for peaceful
settlement was gone. The people were aroused and angry, and this feeling
showed itself in many ways.
%261. The President and the Little Belt.%--In the early part of May,
1811, a British frigate was cruising off the harbor of New York with her
name _Guerrière_ painted in large letters on her fore-topsail, and one
day her captain stopped an American vessel as it was about to enter New
York, and impressed a citizen of the United States. Three years earlier
this outrage would have been made the subject of a proclamation. Now,
the moment it was known at Washington, an order was sent to Captain
Rogers of the frigate _President_ to go to sea at once, search for the
_Guerrière_, and demand the delivery of the man, Rogers was only too
glad to go, and soon came in sight of a vessel which looked like the
_Guerrière_; but it was half-past eight o'clock at night before he came
within speaking distance. A battle followed and lasted till the stranger
became unmanageable, when the _President_ stopped firing; and the next
morning Rogers found that his enemy was the British twenty-two-gun ship,
_Little Belt_.
%262. The War Congress.%--Another way in which the anger of the
people showed itself was in the election, in the autumn of 1810, of a
Congress which met in December, 1811, fully determined to make war on
Great Britain. In that Congress were two men who from that day on for
forty years were great political leaders. One was John C. Calhoun of
South Carolina; the other was Henry Clay of Kentucky.
Clay was made Speaker of the House of Representatives, and under his
lead preparations were instantly begun for war, which was finally
declared June 18, 1812. There was no Atlantic cable in those days. Had
there been, it is very doubtful if war would have been declared; for on
June 23, 1812, five days after Congress authorized Madison to issue the
proclamation, the Orders in Council were recalled.
The causes of war, as set forth in the proclamation, were:
1. Tampering with the Indians, and urging them to attack our citizens on
the frontier.
2. Interfering with our trade by the Orders in Council.
3. Putting cruisers off our ports to stop and search our vessels.
4. Impressing our sailors, of whom more than 6000 were in the British
service.
SUMMARY
1. One reason which led Napoleon to sell Louisiana was his determination
to go to war with England. This he did in 1803.
2. Renewal of war in Europe made the United States again a neutral
nation, and brought up the old quarrel over neutral rights.
3.In 1806, Napoleon, who was master of nearly all western Europe, cut
off British trade with the continent. Great Britain in return declared,
by an Order in Council, the coast from Brest to the Elbe blockaded; that
is, shut to neutral trade.
4. Later in the year 1806 Napoleon retaliated with the Berlin Decree,
declaring the British Islands blockaded.
5. Great Britain, by another Order in Council (1807), shut all European
ports, under French control, to neutrals.
6. Napoleon struck back with the Milan Decree.
7. Our commerce was now attacked by both powers, and to force them to
repeal their Decrees and Orders in Council, certain commercial
restrictions were adopted by the United States.
A. Non-importation, 1806.
B. Embargo, 1807-1809.
C. Non-intercourse, 1809.
8. Each of them failed to have any effect, and in 1812 war was declared.
[Illustration]
%1803. Renewal of War between France and Great Britain%
-----------------------------+-------------------------------
|
-------------+--------------
The United States a neutral.
-------------+--------------
|
+----------------+-------------------+----------------------------------+
| | |
_British views of _American views._ _Napoleon's view._
neutrality._ ------------^----------- ------------^----------
------------^------------------ Free ships, free goods. Shall be no neutrals.
The broken voyage. No paper blockades. -------------^-------------
The new Admiralty ruling. No search. Attacks neutral commerce by
Stations vessels off our ports. No impressment. -------------v-------------
Retaliates for French Decrees -----------v----------- |
by | |
--------------v---------------- -----------^----------- |
| / Non-importation. \ French decrees.
| | Long embargo. | -------^-------
Orders in Council. }---------< Non-intercourse with >-------------/ 1806. Berlin.
| France and Great | \ 1807. Milan.
\ Britain. /
-----------v-----------
|
+---------------------------+
|
---------------^---------------
Great Britain denies that French \ / France pretends to lift Berlin
Decrees are lifted, and / -- -------------------- < and Milan Decrees.
Refuses to revoke the Orders \ \ Trade with France is restored.
in Council. |
Tampers with Indians. > --------------+
Insists on the right of search | |
and impressment. / |
|
%DECLARATION OF WAR BY UNITED STATES, 1812.%
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE
%263. Fighting on the Frontier.%--"Mr. Madison's War," as the
Federalists delighted to call our war for commercial independence,
opened with three armies in the field ready to invade and capture
Canada. One under Hull, then governor of the territory of Michigan, was
to cross the river at Detroit, and march eastward through Canada. A
second, under General Van Rensselaer, was to cross the Niagara River,
take Queenstown, and join Hull, after which the two armies were to
capture York, now Toronto, and go on eastward toward Montreal. Meantime,
the third army, under Dearborn, was to go down Lake Champlain, and meet
the troops under Hull and Van Rensselaer before Montreal. The three were
then to capture Montreal and Quebec, and complete the conquest
of Canada.
The plan failed; for Hull was driven from Canada, and surrendered his
army and the whole Northwest, at Detroit; Van Rensselaer, defeated at
Queenstown, was unable even to get a footing in Canada; while Dearborn,
after reaching the northern boundary line of New York, stopped, and the
year 1812 ended with nothing accomplished.
The surrender of Hull filled the people with indignation, aroused their
patriotism, and forced the government to gather a new army for the
recapture of Detroit. The command was given to William Henry Harrison,
who hurried from Cincinnati across the wilderness of Ohio, and in the
dead of winter reached the shores of Lake Erie. General Winchester, who
commanded part of the troops, was now called on to drive the British
from Frenchtown, a little hamlet on the river Raisin, and (in January,
1813) tried to do so. But the British and Indians came down on him in
great numbers, and defeated and captured his army, after which the
Indians were allowed to massacre and scalp the wounded.
[Illustration: The Canadian Frontier and Vicinity of Washington]
And now the British became aggressive, invaded Ohio, and attacked the
Americans under Harrison at Fort Meigs, and then at Fort Stephenson,
where Major Croghan and 160 men, with the aid of one small cannon,
defeated and drove off 320 Canadians and Indians.
%264. Battle of Lake Erie.%--Again the Americans in turn became
aggressive. Since the early winter, a young naval officer named Oliver
Hazard Perry had been hard at work, with a gang of ship carpenters, at
Erie, in Pennsylvania, cutting down trees, and had used this green
timber to build nine small vessels. With this fleet he sailed, in
September, in search of the British squadron, which had been just as
hastily built, and soon found it near Sandusky, Ohio. His own ship he
had named the _Lawrence_, in honor of a gallant American captain who had
been killed a few months before in a battle with an English frigate. As
Perry saw the enemy in the distance, he flung to the breeze a blue flag
on which was inscribed, "Don't give up the ship" (the dying order of
Lawrence to his men), sailed down to meet the enemy, and fought the two
largest British ships till the _Lawrence_ was a wreck. Then, with his
flag on his arm, he jumped into a boat, and amidst a shower of shot and
bullets was rowed to the _Niagara_. Once on her deck, he again hastened
to the attack, broke the British line of battle, and captured the entire
fleet. His dispatch to Harrison is as famous as his victory: "We have
met the enemy, and they are ours--two ships, two brigs, one schooner,
and one sloop."
%265. Battle of the Thames.%--Perry's victory was a grand one. It
gave him command of Lake Erie, and enabled him to carry Harrison's
soldiers over to Canada, where, on the Thames River, Harrison defeated
the British and Indians. These two victories regained all that had been
lost by the surrender of Hull.
Along the New York border little was done during 1813. The Americans
made a raid into Canada, and to their shame burned York. The British
attacked Sacketts Harbor and were driven off. The Americans sent an
expedition down the St. Lawrence against Montreal, but the leaders got
frightened and took refuge in northern New York.
%266. Campaign of 1814.%--In 1814 better officers were put in
command, and before winter came the Americans, under Jacob Brown and
Winfield Scott, had won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, and
captured Fort Erie. But the British returned in force, burned Black Rock
and Buffalo in revenge for the burning of York, and forced the Americans
to leave Canada.
The fighting along the Niagara River, by holding the army in that place,
prevented the Americans from attacking Montreal, and enabled the
British to gather a fleet on Lake Champlain, and send an army down from
Quebec to invade New York state just as Burgoyne had in 1777. But the
land force was defeated by General Macomb at Plattsburg, while Thomas
McDonough utterly destroyed the fleet in Plattsburg Bay. This was one of
the great victories of the war.
%267. The Sea Fights.%--While our army on the frontier was
accomplishing little, our war ships were winning victory after victory
on the sea. At the opening of the war, our navy was the subject of
English ridicule and contempt. We had sixteen ships; she had 1200. She
laughed at ours as "fir-built things with a bit of striped bunting at
their mastheads." But before 1813 came, these "fir-built things" had
destroyed her naval supremacy.[1] With the details of all these
victories on the sea we will not concern ourselves. Yet a few must be
mentioned because the fame of them still endures, and because they are
examples of naval warfare in the days when the ships fought lashed
together, and when the boarders, cutlass and pistol in hand, climbed
over the bulwarks and met the enemy on his own deck, man to man. During
1812 the frigate _Constitution_, whose many victories won her the name
of "Old Ironsides," sank the _Guerrière_; the _United States_ captured
and brought to port the _Macedonian_; and the _Wasp_, a little sloop of
eighteen guns, after the most desperate engagement of the whole war,
captured the British sloop _Frolic_.
[Footnote 1: One reason for the success of the American navy was the
experience it had gained in the clash with France, and also in a war
with Tripoli in 1801-1805. At that time the Christian nations whose
ships sailed the Mediterranean Sea were accustomed to pay annual tribute
to Tripoli and other piratical states on the north coast of Africa,
under pain of having their ships seized and their sailors reduced to
slavery. A dispute with the United States led to a war which gained for
our ships the freedom of the Mediterranean.]
When these sloops were some two hundred feet apart, the _Wasp_ opened
with musketry and cannon. The sea, lashed into fury by a two days'
cyclone, was running mountain high. The vessels rolled till the muzzles
of their guns dipped in the water. But the crews cheered lustily and
the fight went on. When at last the crew of the _Wasp_ boarded the
_Frolic_, they were amazed to find that, save the man at the wheel and
three officers who threw down their swords, not a living soul was
visible. The crew had gone below to avoid the terrible fire of the
_Wasp_. Scarcely was the battle over when the British frigate
_Poictiers_ bore down under a press of sail, recaptured what was left of
the _Frolic_, and took the _Wasp_ in addition.
During 1813 the _Constitution_ took the _Java_; the _Hornet_ sank the
_Peacock_; the _Enterprise_ captured the _Boxer_ off Portland, Maine.
These and many more made up the list of American victories. But there
were British victories also. The _Argus_, after destroying twenty-seven
vessels in the English Channel, was taken by the _Pelican_; the _Essex_,
after a marvelous cruise around South America, was captured by two
frigates. The _Chesapeake_ was forced to strike to the _Shannon._
The _Chesapeake_ was at anchor in Boston harbor, in command of James
Lawrence, when the British frigate _Shannon_ ran in and challenged her.
Lawrence went out at once, and after a short, fierce fight was defeated
and killed. As his men were carrying him below, mortally wounded, he
cried, "Don't give up the ship!" words which Perry, as we have seen,
afterwards put on his flag, and which his countrymen have never since
forgotten.[1]
[Footnote 1: On the naval war read Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Part
Third; Roosevelt's _Naval War of 1812_; McMaster, Vol. IV., pp. 70-108.]
%268. The British blockade the Coast.%--Never, in the course of her
existence, had England suffered such a series of defeats as we inflicted
on her navy in 1812 and 1813. The record of those years caused a
tremendous excitement in Great Britain, all the vessels she could spare
were sent over, and with the opening of 1814, the whole coast of the
United States was declared to be in a state of blockade.[1] In New
England, Eastport (Moose Island) and Nantucket Island quickly fell. A
British force went up the Penobscot to Hampden, and burned the _Adams_.
The eastern half of Maine was seized, and Stonington, in Connecticut,
was bombarded.
[Footnote 1: All except New England had been blockaded since 1812; and
in 1813 the coast of Chesapeake Bay had been ravaged.]
%269. Burning of Washington.%--Further down the coast a great fleet
and army from Bermuda, under General Ross and Admiral Cockburn, came up
the Chesapeake Bay, landed in Maryland, and marched to Washington. At
Bladensburg, a little hamlet near the capital, the Americans made a
feeble show of resistance, but soon fled; and about dark on an August
night, 1814, a detachment of the British reached Washington, marched to
the Capitol, fired a volley through the windows, entered, and set fire
to the building. When the fire began to burn brightly, Ross and Cockburn
led the troops to the President's house, which was sacked and burned.
Next morning the torch was applied to the Treasury building and to the
Departments of State and War. Several private houses and a printing
office were also destroyed before the British began a hasty retreat to
the Chesapeake.[1]
[Footnote 1: Adams's _History_, Vol. VIII., Chaps. 5, 6; McMaster's
_History_, Vol. IV., pp. 135-148; _Memoirs of Dolly Madison_, Chap. 8.]
%270. Baltimore attacked.%--Once on the bay, the army was hurried on
board the ships and carried to Baltimore, where for a day and a night
they shelled Fort McHenry.[2] Failing to take it, and Ross having been
killed, Cockburn reëmbarked and sailed away to Halifax.
[Footnote 2: Francis S. Key, an American held prisoner on one of the
British ships, composed the words of _The Star-Spangled Banner_ while
watching the bombardment.]
%271. The Victory at New Orleans.%--The army was taken to Jamaica in
order that it might form part of one of the greatest war expeditions
England had ever fitted out. Fifty of the finest ships her navy could
furnish, mounting 1000 guns and carrying on their decks 20,000 veteran
soldiers and sailors, had been quietly assembled at Jamaica during the
autumn of 1814, and in November sailed for New Orleans.
News of this intended attack had reached Madison, and he had given the
duty of defending New Orleans to Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, one of the
most extraordinary men our country has produced. The British landed at
the entrance of Lake Borgne in December, 1814, and hurried to the banks
of the Mississippi. But Jackson was more than a match for them.
Gathering such a force of fighting men as he could, he hastened from the
city and with all possible speed threw up a line of rude earthworks, and
waited to be attacked. This line the British under General Pakenham
attacked on January 8, 1815, and were twice driven back with frightful
loss of life. Never had such a defeat been inflicted on a British army.
The loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 2036 men. Jackson lost
seventy-one men. Five British regiments which entered the battle 3000
strong reported 1750 men killed, wounded, and missing.[1]
[Footnote 1: Adams's _History_, Vol. VIII., Chaps. 12-14; McMaster, Vol.
IV., pp. 182-190]
%272. Peace.%--For a month after this defeat the British lingered in
their camp. At last, in February, the army departed to attack a fort on
Mobile Bay. The fort was taken, and two days later the news of peace put
an end to war. The treaty was signed at Ghent in December, 1814; but it
did not reach the United States till February, 1815.
In the treaty not a word was said about the impressment of our sailors,
nor about the right of search, nor about the Orders in Council, nor
about inciting the Indians to attack our frontier, all of which Madison
had declared to be causes of the war. Yet we gained much. Our naval
victories made us the equal of any maritime power, while at home the war
did far more to arouse a national sentiment, consolidate the union, and
make us a nation than any event which had yet occurred.
SUMMARY
1. The land war may be divided into:
A. War along the frontier.
B. War along the Atlantic coast.
C. War along the Gulf coast.
2. War along the Canadian frontier resulted in a gain to neither side.
In 1812 Americans were beaten at Detroit and at Queenstown, and failed
to invade Canada. In 1813 the Americans were beaten at Frenchtown, but
defeated the Canadians at Forts Meigs and Stephenson, and at the Thames
River, and recovered Detroit. Perry won the battle of Lake Erie. The
Americans failed in the attempt to take Montreal. In 1814 the battles of
Chippewa and Lundys Lane were won, and Fort Erie was taken. But the
British burned Buffalo and Black Rock and drove the Americans out of
Canada. McDonough won the battle of Lake Champlain.
3. During 1812-13 the British blockaded the coast from the east end of
Long Island south to the Mississippi. New England was not blockaded till
1814. Then depredations began, and during the year Washington was taken
and partly burned, and Baltimore attacked.
4. Later in the year the British, after the attack on Baltimore, went
south, and early in 1815 were beaten by Jackson at New Orleans.
5. The navy won a series of successive victories. The defeats were about
half as numerous as the victories.
6. Peace was announced in February, 1815.
[Illustration]
/ / / / 1812. Hull surrenders Detroit.
| | | | 1812. Harrison attempts to recover it.
| | | Detroit . . < 1813. Frenchtown.
| | | | Battle of Lake Erie.
| | The | | Harrison invades Canada and wins
| | expeditions | \ the battle of the Thames.
| | against |
| | Canada. < / 1812. Van Rensselaer repulsed.
| War | | | 1813. York taken and burned.
Second | on < | Niagara . . < 1814. Battles of Chippewa and Lundys
War for | land | | | Lane, and capture of Fort Erie.
Independence < | | \ Americans driven from Canada.
| | |
| | | / 1813. Expedition against Montreal.
| | | St. Lawrence < 1814. British come down from Canada.
| | \ \ Defeated on Lake Champlain.
| |
| | / 1812. Blockade of the coast south of Rhode Island.
| | War on | 1813. Ravages on the coast of Chesapeake Bay.
| | the | 1814. Entire coast blockaded.
| | Seaboard. < New England attacked.
| | | Washington taken and partly burned.
| | | Baltimore attacked.
| \ \ 1815. Victory at New Orleans.
|
| War on / The ship duels.
\ the sea. \ The fleet victories on the Lakes.
CHAPTER XIX
PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1790 AND 1815
%273.% Twenty-five years had now gone by since Washington was
inaugurated, and in the course of these years our country had made
wonderful progress. In 1790 the United States was bounded west by the
Mississippi River. By 1815 Louisiana had been purchased, the Columbia
River had been discovered, and the Oregon country had been explored to
the Pacific. In 1790 the inhabitants of the United States numbered less
than four millions. In 1815 they were eight millions. In 1790 there were
but thirteen states in the Union, and two territories. In 1815 there
were eighteen states and five territories.
%274. The Three Streams of Westward Emigration.%--Sparse as was the
population in 1789, the rage for emigration had already seized the
people, and long before 1790 the emigrants were pouring over the
mountains in three great streams. One, composed of New England men, was
pushing along the borders of Lake Champlain and up the Mohawk valley. A
second, chiefly from Pennsylvania and Virginia, was spreading itself
over the rich valleys of what are now West Virginia and Kentucky.
Further south a third stream of emigrants, mostly from Virginia and
North Carolina, had gone over the Blue Ridge Mountains, and was creeping
down the valley of the Tennessee River.[1]
[Footnote 1: For an account of the movement of population westward along
these routes, see _The First Century of the Republic_, pp. 211-238.]
For months each year the Ohio was dotted with flatboats. One observer
saw fifty leave Pittsburg in five weeks. Another estimated that ten
thousand emigrants floated by Marietta during 1788. As this never-ending
stream of population spread over the wilderness, building cabins,
felling trees, clearing the land, and driving off the game, the Indians
took alarm and determined to expel them.
%275. The Indian War.%--During the summer of 1786 the tribes whose
hunting grounds lay in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky took the warpath,
sacked and burned a little settlement on the Holston, and spread terror
along the whole frontier. But the settlers in their turn rose, and
inflicted on the Indians a signal punishment. One expedition from
Tennessee burned three Cherokee towns. Another from Kentucky crossed the
Ohio, penetrated the Indian country, burned eight towns, and laid waste
hundreds of acres of standing corn. Had the Indians been left to
themselves, they would, after this punishment, have remained quiet. But
the British, who still held the frontier post at Detroit, roused them,
and in 1790 they were again at work, ravaging the country north of the
Ohio. They rushed down on Big Bottom (northwest of Marietta) and swept
it from the face of the earth. St. Clair, who was governor of the
Northwest Territory, sent against them an expedition which won some
success--just enough to enrage and not enough to cow them.
%276. St. Clair; Wayne.%--Not a settlement north of the Ohio was now
safe, and had it not been for the men of Kentucky, who came to the
relief, and in two expeditions held the Indians in check till the
Federal government could act, every one of them would have been
destroyed. The plan of the Secretary of War was to build a chain of
forts from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan, and late in 1791 St. Clair set
off to begin the work. But the Indians surprised him on a branch of the
Wabash River, and inflicted on him one of the most dreadful defeats in
our history. Public opinion now forced him to resign his command, which
was given to Anthony Wayne, who, after two years of careful
preparation, crushed the Indian power at the falls of the Maumee River
in northwestern Ohio. The next year, 1795, a treaty was made at
Greenville, by which the Indians gave up all claim to the soil south and
east of a boundary line drawn from what is now Cleveland southwest to
the Ohio River.
%277. Kentucky and Vermont become States.%--These Indian wars almost
stopped emigration to the country north of the Ohio, though not into
Kentucky or Tennessee. For several years past the people of the District
of Kentucky had been desirous to come into the Union, but had been
unable to make terms with Virginia, to which Kentucky belonged. At last
consent was obtained and the application made to Congress. But the
Kentuckians were slave owners, were identified with Southern and Western
interests, and cared little for the commercial interests of the East,
and as this influence could be strongly felt in the Senate, where each
state had two votes, it was decided to offset those of Kentucky by
admitting the Eastern state of Vermont.
What is now Vermont was once the property of New Hampshire, was settled
by people from New England under town rights granted by the governor of
New Hampshire, and was called "New Hampshire Grants." In 1764, however,
the governor of New York obtained a royal order giving New York
jurisdiction over the Grants on the ground that in 1664 the possessions
of the Duke of York extended to the Connecticut River. Then began a
controversy which was still raging bitterly when the Revolution opened,
and the Green Mountain Boys asked recognition as a state and admission
into the Congress, a request which the other states were afraid to grant
lest by so doing they should offend New York. Thereupon the people chose
delegates to a convention (in 1777), which issued a declaration of
independence, declared "New Connecticut, alias Vermont," a state, and
made a constitution. In this shape matters stood in 1791, when as an
offset to Kentucky Vermont was admitted into the Union. As she was a
state with governor, legislature, and constitution, she came in at once.
Kentucky had to make a constitution, and so was not admitted till 1792.
Four years later (1796) Congress admitted Tennessee.
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES July 4, 1801.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER INDEPENDENCE]
%278. The New Territories; Ohio becomes a State.%--The quieting of
the Indians by Wayne in 1794, the opening of the Mississippi River to
American trade by Spain in 1795, coupled with cheap lands and low
taxes, caused another rush of population into the Ohio valley. Between
1795 and 1800 so many came that the Northwest Territory was cut in twain
and the new territory of Indiana was organized in 1800. The acceptance
by Spain in 1795 of 31° north latitude as the boundary of the Floridas,
gave the United States control of the greater part of old West Florida,
which in 1798 was organized as the Mississippi Territory. Hardly a year
now elapsed without some marked sign of Western development. In 1800
Congress, under the influence of William Henry Harrison, the first
delegate from the Northwest Territory, made a radical change in its land
policy. Up to that time every settler must pay cash. After 1800 he could
buy on credit, pay in four annual installments, and west of the
Muskingum River could purchase as little as 320 acres. This credit
system led to another rush into the Ohio valley, and so many people
entered the Northwest Territory, that in 1803 the southern part of it
was admitted into the Union as the state of Ohio.
[Illustration: Cincinnati in 1810[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old print.]
In 1802 Georgia ceded her western lands, which were added to the
Mississippi Territory. From the Louisiana purchase there was organized
in 1804 the territory of Orleans, and in 1805 the territory of Louisiana
(see p. 247). In 1805, also, the lower peninsula of Michigan was cut off
from Indiana and organized as Michigan Territory. In 1809 the territory
of Illinois was organized (p. 247). In 1812 the territory of Orleans
became the state of Louisiana.
The third census showed that in 1810 the population of the United States
was 7,200,000, and that of these over 1,000,000 were in the states and
territories west of the Alleghanies.
%279. Indian Troubles; Battle of Tippecanoe.%--As the settlers north
of the Ohio moved further westward, and as more came in, their farms and
settlements touched the Indian boundary line. In Indiana, where, save a
strip sixty miles wide along the Ohio River, and a few patches scattered
over the territory, every foot of soil was owned by the Indians, this
crowding led to serious consequences. The Indians first grew restive.
Then, under the lead of Tecumthe, or Tecumseh, they founded a league or
confederacy against the whites, and built a town on Tippecanoe Creek,
just where it enters the Wabash. Finally, when Harrison, who was
governor of Indiana Territory, bought the Indian rights to the Wabash
valley, the confederacy refused to recognize the sale, and gave such
signs of resistance that Harrison marched against them, and in 1811
fought the battle of Tippecanoe and burned the Indian village. For a
time it was thought the victory was as signal as that of Wayne. But the
Indians were soon back on the old site, and in our second war with Great
Britain they sided with the British.
[Illustration: The United States and Territories in 1813]
%280. Industrial Progress.%--In 1789 our country had no credit and no
revenue, and was burdened with a great debt which very few people
believed would ever be paid. But when the government called in all the
old worthless Continental money and certificates and gave the people
bonds in exchange for them, when it began to lay taxes and pay its
debts, when it had power to regulate trade, when the National Bank was
established and the merchants were given bank bills that would pass at
their face value all over the country, business began to revive. The
money which the people had been hiding away for years was brought out
and put to useful purposes. Banks sprang up all over the country, and
companies were founded to manufacture woolen cloth and cotton cloth, to
build bridges, to construct turnpike roads, and to cut canals. Between
1789 and 1795 the first carpet was woven in the United States, the first
broom made from broom corn, the first cotton factory opened, the first
gold and silver coins of the United States were struck at the mint, the
first newspaper was printed in the territory northwest of the Ohio
River, the first printing press was set up in Tennessee, the first
geography of the United States was published, and daily newspapers were
issued in Baltimore and Boston. It was during this period that a hunter
named Guinther discovered anthracite coal in Pennsylvania; that Whitney
invented the cotton gin; that Samuel Slater built the first mill for
making cotton yarns; that Eli Terry started the manufacture of clocks as
a business; that cotton sewing thread was first manufactured in the
United States at Pawtucket, R.I.; and that the first turnpike in our
country was completed. This extended from Philadelphia to Lancaster, a
distance of sixty-two miles.
%281. The Period of Commercial and Agricultural Prosperity.%--Just at
this time came another change of great importance. Till 1793 we had
scarcely any commerce with the West Indies. England would not allow our
vessels to go to her islands. Neither would Spain, nor France, except to
a very limited degree. It was the policy of these three countries to
confine such trade as far as possible to their own merchants. But in
1793 France, you remember, made war on England and opened her West
Indian ports to all neutral nations. The United States was a neutral,
and our merchants at once began to trade with the islanders. What these
people wanted was lumber, flour, grain, provisions, salt pork, and fish.
All this led to a demand, first, for ships, then for sailors, and then
for provisions and lumber--to the benefit of every part of the country
except the South. New England was the lumber, fishing, shipbuilding, and
commercial section. New York and Pennsylvania produced grain, flour,
lumber, and carried on a great commerce as well. So profitable was it to
raise wheat, that in many parts of Virginia the people stopped raising
tobacco and began to make flour, and soon made Virginia the second
flour-producing state in the Union. Until after 1795 the people of the
Western States were cut off from this trade. But in that year the treaty
with Spain was made, and the people of the West were then allowed to
float their produce to New Orleans and there sell it or ship it to the
West Indies. Kentucky then became a flour-producing state.
As a consequence of all this, people stopped putting their money into
roads and canals and manufactures, and put it into farming,
shipbuilding, and commerce. Between 1793 and 1807, therefore, our
country enjoyed a period of commercial and agricultural prosperity. But
with 1807 came another change. In that year the embargo was laid, and
for more than fifteen months no vessels were allowed to leave the ports
of the United States for foreign countries. Up to this time our people
had been so much engaged in commerce and agriculture, that they had not
begun to manufacture. In 1807 all the blankets, all the woolen cloth,
cotton cloth, carpets, hardware, china, glass, crockery, knives, tools,
and a thousand other things used every day were made for us in Great
Britain. Cotton grown in the United States was actually sent to England
to be made into cloth, which was then carried back to the United States
to be used.
%282. "Infant Manufactures."%--As the embargo prevented our ships
going abroad and foreign ships coming to us, these goods could no longer
be imported. The people must either go without or make them at home.
They decided, of course, to make them at home, and all patriotic
citizens were called on to help, which they did in five ways.
First, in each of the cities and large towns people met and formed a
"Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures." Every
patriotic man and woman was expected to join one of them, and in so
doing to take a pledge not to buy or use or wear any article of foreign
make, provided it could be made in this country.
In the second place, these societies for the encouragement of domestic
manufactures, "infant manufactures," as they were called, offered prizes
for the best piece of homemade linen, homemade cotton cloth, or
woolen cloth.
In the third place, they started "exchanges," or shops, in the cities
and large towns, to which anybody who could knit mittens or socks, or
make boots and shoes or straw bonnets, or spin flax or wool, or make
anything else that the people needed, could send them to be sold.
In the fourth place, men who had money came forward and formed companies
to erect mills and factories for the manufacture of all sorts of things.
If you were to see the acts passed by the legislatures of the states
between 1808 and 1812, you would find that very many of them were
charters for iron works, paper mills, thread works, factories for making
cotton and woolen cloth, oilcloth, boots, shoes, rope.
In the fifth place, the legislatures of the states passed resolutions
asking their members to wear clothes made of material produced in the
United States,[1] offered bounties for the best wool, and exempted the
factories from taxation and the mill hands from militia and jury duty.
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. III., pp. 496-509.]
Thus encouraged, manufactures sprang up in the North, and became so
numerous that in 1810, when the census of population was taken, Congress
ordered that statistics of manufactures should be collected at the same
time. It was then found that the value of the goods manufactured in the
United States in 1810 was $173,000,000.
%283. Internal Improvements: Roads; Canals; Steamboats.%--But there
was yet another great change for the better which took place between
1790 and 1815. We have seen how during this quarter of a century our
country grew in area, how the people increased in number, how new states
and territories were made, how agriculture and commerce prospered, and
how manufactures arose. It is now time to see how the people improved
the means of interstate commerce and communication.
You will remember that in 1790 there were no bridges over the great
rivers of the country, that the roads were very bad, that all journeys
were made on horseback or in stagecoaches or in boats, and that it was
not then possible to go as far in ten hours as we can now go in one. You
will remember, also, that the people were moving westward in
great numbers.
As the people thus year by year went further and further westward, a
demand arose for good roads to connect them with the East. The merchants
on the seaboard wanted to send them hardware, clothing, household goods,
farming implements, and bring back to the seaports the potash, lumber,
flour, skins, and grain with which the settlers paid for these things.
If they were too costly, frontiersmen could not buy them. If the roads
were bad, the difficulty of getting merchandise to the frontier would
make them too costly. People living in the towns and cities along the
seaboard were no longer content with the old-fashioned slow way of
travel. They wanted to get their letters more often, make their journeys
and have their freight carried more quickly.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States,_
Vol. III., pp. 462-465.]
About 1805, therefore, men began to think of reviving the old idea of
canals, which had been abandoned in 1793, and one of these canal
companies, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, applied to Congress for
aid. This brought up the question of a system of internal improvements
at national expense, and Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury,
was asked to send a plan for such a system to Congress, which he did.
Congress never approved it.
%284. The National Pike.%--Public sentiment, however, led to the
commencement of a highway to the West known as the National Pike, or the
Cumberland Road. When Ohio was admitted into the Union as a state in
1803, Congress promised that part of the money derived from the sale of
land in Ohio should be used to build a road from some place on the Ohio
River to tide water. By 1806 the money so set apart amounted to $12,000,
and with this was begun the construction of a broad pike from Cumberland
(on the Potomac) in Maryland to Wheeling (on the Ohio) in West
Virginia.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 469-470.]
[Illustration: Phoenix[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an oil painting.]
%285. Steamboats.%--This increasing demand for cheap transportation
now made it possible for Fulton to carry into successful operation an
idea he had long had in mind. For twenty years past inventors had been
exhibiting steamboats. James Rumsey had exhibited one on the Potomac.
John Fitch had shown one on the Delaware in 1787. (See p. 190.) In 1804
Robert Fulton exhibited a steamboat on the Seine at Paris in France;
Oliver Evans had a steam scow on the Delaware River at Philadelphia; and
John Stevens crossed the Hudson from Hoboken to New York in a steamboat
of his own construction. In 1806 Stevens built another, the
_Phoenix_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Preble's _History of Steam Navigation _, pp. 35-66;
Thurston's _Robert Fulton_ in Makers of America Series.]
These men were ahead of their time, and it was not till the August day,
1807, when Robert Fulton made his experiment on the Hudson, that the era
of the steamboat opened. His vessel, called the _Clermont_, made the
trip up the river from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours.
[Illustration: Model of the Clermont[2]]
[Footnote 2: Made from the original drawings, and now in the National
Museum.]
Then the usefulness of the invention was at last appreciated, and in
1808 a line of steam vessels went up and down the Hudson. In 1809
Stevens sent his _Phoenix_ by sea to Philadelphia and ran it on the
Delaware. Another steamboat was on the Raritan River, and a third on
Lake Champlain. In 1811 a boat steamed from Pittsburg to New Orleans,
and in 1812 steam ferryboats plied between what is now Jersey City and
New York, and between Philadelphia and Camden.[3]
[Footnote 3: On the early steamboats see McMaster's _History of the
People of the United States_, Vol. III., pp. 486-494.]
%286. The Currency; the Mint.%--Quite as marvelous was the change
which in five and twenty years had taken place in money matters. When
the Constitution became law in 1789, there were no United States coins
and no United States bills or notes in circulation. There was no such
thing as a national currency. Except the gold and silver pieces of
foreign nations, there was no money which would pass all over our
country. To-day a treasury note, a silver certificate, a national bank
bill, is received in payment of a debt in any state or territory. In
1789 the currency was foreign coins and state paper. But the
Constitution forbade the states ever to make any more money, and as
their bills of credit already issued would wear out by use, the time was
near when there would be no currency except foreign coins. To prevent
this, Congress in 1791 ordered a mint to be established at Philadelphia,
and in 1792 named the coins to be struck, and ordered that whoever would
bring gold or silver to the mint should have it made into coins without
cost to him. This was _free coinage._ As both gold and silver were to be
coined, the currency was to be _bimetallic_, or of two metals.[1] The
ratio of silver and gold was 15 to 1. That is, fifteen pounds' weight of
silver must be made into as many dollars' worth of coins as one pound of
gold. The silver coins were to be the dollar, half and quarter dollar,
dime and half dime; the gold were to be the eagle, half eagle, and
quarter eagle. Out of copper were to be struck cents and half cents. As
some years must elapse before our national coins could become abundant,
certain foreign coins were made legal tender.
[Footnote 1: The first silver coin was struck in 1794; the first gold,
in 1795; the first cent and half cent, in 1793.]
%287. "Federal Money."%--The appearance of the new money was followed
by another change for the better. In colonial days the merchants and the
people expressed the debts they owed, or the value of the goods they
sold, in pounds, shillings, and pence, or in Spanish dollars. During the
Revolution, and after it, this was continued, although the Continental
Congress always kept its accounts, and made its appropriations, in
dollars. But when the people began to see dollars, half dollars, and
dimes bearing the words "United States of America," they knew that
there really was a national coinage, or "Federal money," as they called
it, and between 1795 and 1798, one state after another ordered its
treasurer to use Federal money instead of pounds, shillings, and pence;
and thereafter in laying taxes, and voting appropriations for any
purpose, the amount was expressed in dollars and cents. The merchants
and the people were much slower in adopting the new terms; but they came
at last into general use.
%288. Rise of the State Banks.%--Had the people been forced to depend
on the United States mint for money wherewith to pay the butcher and the
baker and the shoemaker, they would not have been able to make their
payments, for the machinery at the mint was worked by hand, and the
number of dimes and quarters turned out each year was small. But they
were not, for as soon as confidence was restored, banks chartered by the
states sprang up in the chief cities in the East, and as each issued
notes, the people had all the currency they wanted.
In 1790, when Congress established the National Bank, there were but
four state banks in the whole country: one in Philadelphia, one in New
York, one in Boston, and one in Baltimore. By 1800 there were
twenty-six, in 1805 there were sixty-four, and in 1811 there were
eighty-eight.
In that year (1811) the charter of the National Bank expired, and as
Congress would not renew it, many more state banks were created, each
hoping to get a part of the business formerly done by the National Bank.
Such was the "mania," as it was called, for banks, that the number rose
from eighty-eight in 1811, to two hundred and eight in 1814, which was
far more than the people really needed.
Nevertheless, all went well until the British came up Chesapeake Bay and
burned Washington. Then the banks in that part of the country boxed up
all their gold and silver and sent it away, lest the British should get
it. This forced them to "suspend specie payments"; that is, refuse to
give gold or silver in exchange for their own paper. As soon as they
suspended, others did the same, till in a few weeks every one along the
seaboard from Albany to Savannah, and every one in Ohio, had stopped
paying coin. The New England banks did not suspend.
%289. No Small Change.%--The consequences of the suspension were very
serious. In the first place, all the small silver coins, the dimes, half
dollars, and quarter dollars, disappeared at once, and the people were
again forced to do as they had done in 1789, and use "ticket money." All
the cities and towns, great and small, printed one, two, three, six and
one fourth, twelve and one half, twenty-five, and fifty-cent tickets,
and sold them to the people for bank notes. Steamboats, stagecoaches,
and manufacturing companies, merchants, shopkeepers--in fact, all
business men--did the same.
In the second place, as the banks would not exchange specie for their
notes, people who did not know all about a bank would not take its bills
except at very much less than their face value. That is, a dollar bill
of a Philadelphia bank was not worth more than ninety cents in paper
money at New York, and seventy-five cents at Boston. This state of
things greatly increased the cost of travel and business between the
states, and prevented the government using the money collected at the
seaports in the East to pay debts due in the West.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. IV., pp. 280-318.]
%290. The Second Bank of the United States.%--Lest this state of
affairs should occur again, Congress, exercising its constitutional
"power to regulate the currency," chartered a second National Bank in
1816, and modeled it after the old one. Again the parent bank was at
Philadelphia; but the capital was now $35,000,000. Again the public
money might be deposited in the bank and its branches, which could be
established wherever the directors thought proper. Again the bank could
issue paper money to be received by the government in payment of taxes,
land, and all debts.
The Republicans had always denied the right of Congress to charter a
bank. But the question was never tested until 1819, when Maryland
attempted to collect a tax laid on the branch at Baltimore. The case
reached the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided that a
state could not tax a corporation chartered by Congress; and that
Congress had power to charter anything, even a bank.
SUMMARY
1. The census returns of 1790 showed that population was going west
along three highways.
2. As a result of this movement, Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792),
Tennessee (1796), and Ohio (1803) entered the Union.
3. The population of the country increased from 3,380,000 in 1790 to
7,200,000 in 1810; and the area from about 828,000 to 2,000,000
square miles.
4. The period 1790-1810 was one of marked industrial progress, and of
great commercial and agricultural prosperity. It was during this time
that manufactures arose, that many roads and highways and bridges were
built, and that the steamboat was introduced.
5. A national mint had been established. The charter of the National
Bank had expired, and numbers of state banks had arisen to take its
place. These banks had suspended specie payment, and the government had
been forced to charter a new National Bank.
PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1709 TO 1815
_Territorial Changes. 1790-1812.
_ Movement of Population into the West._
Northern Stream. Checked by Indian war.
Indians quieted by Wayne.
Population again moved westward.
New states. 1791. Vermont.
1792. Kentucky.
1796. Tennessee.
1803. Ohio.
1812. Louisiana.
New Territories. 1798. Mississippi.
1800. Indiana.
1802. Mississippi enlarged.
1804. Orleans.
1805. Michigan.
1805. Louisiana (called Missouri
after 1812).
1809. Illinois.
_Expansion of Territory._ 1795. Spain accepts 31° as the boundary.
1802. Georgia cedes her western territory.
1803. Louisiana purchased from France.
_Industrial Progress_
First carpet mill.
First brooms.
First United States gold and silver coins.
First press in Tennessee.
Daily newspapers.
Discovery of hard coal.
Cotton gin.
Manufacture of clocks.
Sewing thread.
Rise of manufactures.
Dependence of United States on Great Britain before 1807.
Effect of the embargo.
Manner of encouraging manufactures.
_Agricultural Progress_
Effect of the French war.
State of agriculture in
New England.
New York and Pennsylvania.
The South.
_Improvements in Transportation_
Demand for roads and canals.
The national pike.
Steamboats.
Early forms.
Fitch's.
Fulton's.
Stevens's.
Rapid introduction of.
_Financial Condition_
Federal money.
The United States mint established.
Free coinage.
Bimetallism.
Coins struck.
Federal money comes slowly into use.
State Banks.
What led to the chartering of state banks.
Their rapid increase.
Effect of the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the
United States.
General suspension in 1814.
Reason for chartering the second Bank of the United States.
CHAPTER XX
SETTLEMENT OF OUR BOUNDARIES
%291. Monroe inaugurated.%--The administration of Madison ended on
March 4, 1817, and on that day James Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins were
sworn into office. They had been nominated at Washington in February,
1816, by a caucus of Republican members of Congress, for no such thing
as a national convention for the nomination of a President had as yet
been thought of. The Federalists did not hold a caucus; but it was
understood that their electors would vote for Rufus King for
President.[1]
[Footnote 1: In 1816 there were nineteen states in the Union (Indiana
having been admitted in that year), and of these Monroe carried sixteen
and King three. The inauguration took place in the open air for the
first time since 1789.]
[Illustration: on the right of the previous paragraph, with caption
"James Monroe"]
%292. Death of the Federalist Party.%--The inauguration of Monroe
opens a new era of great interest and importance in our history. From
1793 to 1815, the questions which divided the people into Federalists
and Republicans were all in some way connected with foreign countries.
They were neutral rights, Orders in Council, French Decrees,
impressment, embargoes, non-intercourse acts, the conduct of England,
the insolence of the French Directory, the triumphs and the treachery of
Napoleon. Every Federalist sympathized with England; every Republican
was a warm supporter of France.
But with the close of the war in 1815, all this ended. Napoleon was sent
to St. Helena. Europe was at peace, and there was no longer any foreign
question to divide the people into Federalists and Republicans. This
division, therefore, ceased to exist, and after 1816 the Federalist
party never put up a candidate for the presidency. It ceased to exist
not only as a national but even as a state party, and for twelve years
there was one great party, the Republican, or, as it soon began to be
called, the Democratic.
%293. The "Era of Good Feeling."%--A sure sign of the disappearance
of party and party feeling was seen very soon after Monroe was
inaugurated. In May, 1817, he left Washington with the intention of
visiting and inspecting all the forts and navy yards along the eastern
seaboard and the Great Lakes. Beginning at Baltimore, he went to New
York, then to Boston, and then to Portland; where he turned westward,
and crossing New Hampshire and Vermont to Lake Champlain, made his way
to Ogdensburg, where he took a boat to Sacketts Harbor and Niagara,
whence he went to Buffalo, and Detroit, and then back to Washington.
Wherever he went, the people came by thousands to greet him; but nowhere
was the reception so hearty as in New England, the stronghold of
Federalism. "The visit of the President," said a Boston newspaper,
"seems wholly to have allayed the storms of party. People _now meet in
the same room_ who, a short while since, _would scarcely pass along the
same street_". Another said that since Monroe's arrival at Boston "party
feeling and animosities have been laid aside, and but one great
_national feeling_ has animated every class of our citizens." So it was
everywhere, and when, therefore, the Boston Sentinel_ called the times
the "era of good feeling," the whole country took up the expression and
used it, and the eight years of Monroe's administration have ever since
been so called.
%294. Trouble with the Seminole Indians.%--Though all was quiet and
happy within our borders, events of great importance were happening
along our northern, western, and southern frontier. During the war with
England, the Creek Indians in Georgia and Alabama had risen against the
white settlers and were beaten and driven out by Jackson and forced to
take refuge with the Seminoles in Florida. As they had been the allies
of England, they fully expected that when peace was made, England would
secure for them the territory of which Jackson had deprived them. When
England did not do this, they grew sullen and savage, and in 1817 began
to make raids over the border, run off cattle and murder men, women, and
children. In order to stop these depredations, General Jackson was sent
to the frontier, and utterly disregarding the fact that the Creeks and
Seminoles were on Spanish soil, he entered West Florida, took St. Marks
and Pensacola, destroyed the Indian power, and hanged two English
traders as spies.[1]
[Footnote 1: Parton's _Life of Jackson_, Chaps. 34-36; McMaster's
_History_, Vol. IV., pp. 430-456.]
%295. The Canadian Boundary; Forty-ninth Parallel.%--This was
serious, for at the time the news reached Washington that Jackson had
invaded Spanish soil and hanged two English subjects, important treaties
were under way with Spain and Great Britain, and it was feared his
violent acts would stop them. Happily no evil consequences followed, and
in 1818 an agreement was reached as to the dividing line between the
United States and British America.
When Louisiana came to us, no limit was given to it on the north, and
fifteen years had been allowed to pass without attempting to establish
one. Now, however, the boundary was declared to be a line drawn south
from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods to the
forty-ninth parallel of north latitude and along this parallel to the
summit of the Rocky Mountains.
%296. Joint Occupation of Oregon.%--The country beyond the Rocky
Mountains, the Oregon country, was claimed by both England and the
United States; so it was agreed in the treaty of 1818 that for ten years
to come the country should be held in joint occupation.
%297. The Spanish Boundary Line.%--One year later (1819) the boundary
of Louisiana was completed by a treaty with Spain, which now sold us
East and West Florida for $5,000,000. Till this time we had always
claimed that Louisiana extended across Texas as far as the Rio Grande.
By the treaty this claim was given up, and the boundary became the
Sabine River from the Gulf of Mexico to 32°, then a north line to the
Red River; westward along this river to the 100th meridian; then
northward to the Arkansas River, and westward to its source in the Rocky
Mountains; then a north line to 42°, and then along that parallel to the
Pacific Ocean.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. IV., pp. 457-480.]
%298. Russian Claims on the Pacific.%--The Oregon country was thus
restricted to 42° on the south, and though it had no limit on the north
the Emperor of Russia (in 1822) undertook to fix one at 51°, which he
declared should be the south boundary of Alaska. Oregon was thus to
extend from 42° to 51°, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. But
Russia had also founded a colony in California, and seemed to be
preparing to shut the United States from the Pacific coast. Against all
this John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, protested, telling the
Russian minister that European powers no longer had a right to plant
colonies in either North or South America.
%299. The Holy Allies and the South American Republics.%--This was a
new doctrine, and while the United States and Russia were discussing the
boundary of Oregon, it became necessary to make another declaration
regarding the rights of European powers in the two Americas.
Ever since 1793, when Washington issued his proclamation of neutrality
(p. 206), the policy of the United States had been to take no part in
European wars, nor meddle in European politics. This had been asserted
repeatedly by Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe,[1] and during all the
wars from 1793 to 1815 had been carefully adhered to. It was supposed,
of course, that if we did not meddle in the affairs of the Old World
nations, they would not interfere in affairs over here. But about 1822
it seemed likely that they would interfere very seriously.
[Footnote 1: See Washington's _Farewell Address_; Jefferson's _Inaugural
Address_, March 4, 1801; also his message to Congress, Oct. 17, 1803;
Monroe's _Inaugural Address_, March 4, 1817, and messages, Dec. 2, 1817,
Nov. 17, 1818, Nov. 14, 1820; see also _American History Leaflets_,
No. 4.]
[Illustration: %NORTH AMERICA AFTER 1824%]
Beginning with 1810, the Spanish colonies of Mexico and South America
(Chile, Peru, Buenos Ayres, Colombia) rebelled, formed republics, and in
1822 were acknowledged as free and independent powers by the United
States. Spain, after vainly attempting to subdue them, appealed for help
to the powers of Europe, which in 1815 had formed a Holy Alliance for
the purpose of maintaining monarchical government. For a while these
powers (Russia, Prussia, Austria, France) held aloof. But in 1823 they
decided to help Spain to get back her old colonies, and invited Great
Britain to attend a Congress before which the matter was to be
discussed. But Great Britain had no desire to see the little republics
destroyed, and in the summer of 1823, the British Prime Minister asked
the American minister in London if the United States would join with
England in a declaration warning the Holy Allies not to meddle with the
South American republics. Thus, just at the time when Adams was
protesting against European colonization in the Northwest, England
suggested a protest against European meddling in the affairs of Spanish
America. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and Adams succeeded in
persuading President Monroe to make a protest in behalf of the nation
against both forms of European interference in American affairs. Monroe
thought it best to make the declaration independent of Great Britain,
and in his annual message to Congress, December 2, 1823, he announced
three great guiding principles now known as the
%300. Monroe Doctrine.%--
1. Taking up the matter in dispute with Russia, he declared that the
American continents were no longer open to colonization by
European nations.
Referring to the conduct of the Holy Allies, he said,
2. That the United States would not meddle in the political affairs of
Europe.
3. That European governments must not extend their system to any part of
North or South America, nor oppress, nor in any other manner seek to
control the destiny of any of the nations of this hemisphere.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp. 1-54; Tucker's _Monroe
Doctrine_.]
The protest was effectual. The Holy Allies did not meddle in South
American affairs, and the next year (1824) Russia agreed to make no
settlement south of 54° 40'.
SUMMARY
1. At the presidential election of 1816 the Federalist party, for the
last time, voted for a presidential candidate. Party politics were dead,
and the "era of good feeling" opened.
2. Many important matters which were not settled by the Treaty of Ghent
were disposed of:
A. The forty-ninth parallel was made the boundary from a
point south of the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
B. Oregon was held in joint occupation.
C. The line 54° 40' was established.
3. The boundary between the United States and the Spanish possessions
was drawn, and Florida was acquired.
4. The Monroe doctrine was announced.
* * * * *
SOME RESULTS OF THE WAR.
_Death of the Federalist party_ ...
End of the European war.
Disappearance of old party issues.
Monroe elected President.
The "era of good feeling."
_Seminole War_ ...
Creek Indians join the English.
Driven out of Alabama by Jackson.
Take refuge with Florida Seminoles.
After the war rise against the settlers in Georgia.
Destroyed by Jackson.
_The boundaries_ ...
1818. Northern boundary of Louisiana
settled to the Rocky Mountains.
1819. Treaty with Spain settled the south
boundary of Louisiana.
1818. Joint occupation of Oregon.
1824. North boundary of Oregon established at 54° 40'.
_The Monroe Doctrine._
The Holy Allies.
The South American republics.
Proposal of the Holy Allies to reduce the
South American republics.
The Monroe Doctrine announced (1823).
CHAPTER XXI
THE RISING WEST
%301. Rush into the West.%--The settlement of our boundary disputes,
especially with Spain, was most timely, for even then people were
hurrying across the mountains by tens of thousands, and building up new
states in the Mississippi valley. The great demand for ships and
provisions, which from 1793 to 1807 had made business so brisk, had kept
people on the seaboard and given them plenty of employment. But after
1812, and particularly after 1815, trade, commerce, and business on the
seaboard declined, work became scarce, and men began to emigrate to the
West, where they could buy land from the government on the installment
plan, and where the states could not tax their farms until five years
after the government had given them a title deed. Old settlers in
central New York declared they had never seen so many teams and sleighs,
loaded with women, children, and household goods, traveling westward,
bound for Ohio, which was then but another name for the West.
As the year wore away, the belief was expressed that when autumn came it
would be found that the worst was over, and that the good times expected
to follow peace would keep people on the seaboard. But the good times
did not return. The condition of trade and commerce, of agriculture and
manufactures, grew worse instead of better, and the western movement of
population became greater than ever.
%302. Rapid Growth of Towns.%--Fed by this never-ending stream of
newcomers, the West was almost transformed. Towns grew and villages
sprang up with a rapidity which even in these days of rapid and easy
communication would be thought amazing. Mt. Pleasant, in Jefferson
County, Ohio, was in 1810 a little hamlet of seven families living in
cabins. In 1815 it contained ninety families, numbering 500 souls. The
town of Vevay, Ind., was laid out in 1813, and was not much better than
a collection of huts in 1814. But in 1816 the traveler down the Ohio who
stopped at Vevay found himself at a flourishing county seat, with
seventy-five dwellings, occupied by a happy population who boasted of
having among them thirty-one mechanics of various trades; of receiving
three mails each week, and supporting a weekly newspaper called the
_Indiana Register_. Forty-two thousand settlers are said to have come
into Indiana in 1816, and to have raised the population to 112,000.
Letters from New York describe the condition of that state west of Utica
as one of astonishing prosperity. Log cabins were disappearing, and
frame and brick houses taking their place. The pike from Utica to
Buffalo was almost a continuous village, and the country for twenty
miles on either side was filling up with an industrious population.
Auburn, where twenty years before land sold for one dollar an acre, was
the first town in size and wealth west of Utica, and land within its
limits brought $7000 an acre. Fourteen miles west was Waterloo, on the
Seneca River, a village which did not exist in 1814, and which in 1816
had fifty houses. Rochester, the site of which in 1815 was a wilderness,
had a printing press, a bookstore, and a hundred houses in 1817.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. IV., pp. 381-386.]
%303. Scenes on the Western Highways.%--By 1817 this migration was at
its height, and in the spring of that year families set forth from
almost every village and town on the seaboard. The few that went from
each place might not be missed; but when they were gathered on any one
of the great roads to the West, as that across New York, or that across
Pennsylvania, they made an endless procession of wagons and
foot parties.
A traveler who had occasion to go from Nashville to Savannah in January,
1817, declares that on the way he fell in with crowds of emigrants from
Carolina and Georgia, all bound for the cotton lands of Alabama; that he
counted the flocks and wagons, and that--carts, gigs, coaches, and
wagons, all told--there were 207 conveyances, and more than 3800 people.
At Haverhill, in Massachusetts, a train of sixteen wagons, with 120 men,
women, and children, from Durham, Me., passed in one day. They were
bound for Indiana to buy a township, and were accompanied by their
minister. Within thirteen days, seventy-three wagons and 450 emigrants
had passed through the same town of Haverhill. At Easton, Pa., which lay
on the favorite westward route for New Englanders, 511 wagons, with 3066
persons, passed in a month. They went in trains of from six to fifty
wagons each day. The keeper of Gate No. 2, on the Dauphin turnpike, in
Pennsylvania, returned 2001 families as having passed his gate, bound
west, between March and December, 1817, and gave the number of people
accompanying the vehicles as 16,000. Along the New York route, which
went across the state from Albany to Buffalo, up Lake Erie, and on by
way of Chautauqua Lake to the Allegheny, the reports are just as
astonishing. Two hundred and sixty wagons were counted going by one
tavern in nine days, besides hundreds of people on horseback and
on foot.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_. Vol. IV., pp. 387, 388.]
%304. Life on the Frontier.%--The "mover," or, as we should say, the
emigrant, would provide himself with a small wagon, very light, but
strong enough to carry his family, provisions, bedding, and utensils;
would cover it with a blanket or a piece of canvas or with linen which
was smeared with tar inside to make it waterproof; and with two stout
horses to pull it, would set out for the West, and make his way across
Pennsylvania to Pittsburg, then the greatest city of the West, with a
population of 7000. Some, as of old, would take boats and float down the
Ohio; others would go on to Wheeling, be ferried across the river, and
push into Ohio or Indiana or Illinois, there to "take up" a quarter
section (160 acres) of government land, or buy or rent a "clearing" from
some shiftless settler of an earlier day. Government land intended for
sale was laid out in quarter sections of 160 acres, and after being
advertised for a certain time was offered for sale at public auction.
What was not sold could then be purchased at the land office of the
district at two dollars an acre, one quarter to be paid down, and three
fourths before the expiration of four years. The emigrant, having
gathered eighty dollars, would go to some land office, "enter" a quarter
section, pay the first installment, and make his way in the two-horse
wagon containing his family and his worldly goods to the spot where was
to be his future home. Every foot of it in all probability would be
covered with bushes and trees.
[Illustration: Distribution of the Population of the United States
Fourth Census, 1820]
%305. The Log Cabin.%--In that case the settler would cut down a few
saplings, make a "half-faced camp," and begin his clearing. The
"half-faced camp" was a shed. Three sides were of logs laid one on
another horizontally. The roof was of saplings covered with branches or
bark. The fourth side was open, and when it rained was closed by hanging
up deerskin curtains. In this camp the newcomer and his family would
live while he grubbed up the bushes and cut down trees enough to make a
log cabin. If he were a thrifty, painstaking man, he would smooth each
log on four sides with his ax, and notch it half through at each end so
that when they were placed one on another the faces would nearly touch.
Saplings would make the rafters, and on them would be fastened planks
laid clapboard fashion, or possibly split shingles.
An opening was of course left for a door, although many a cabin was
built without a window, and when the door was shut received no light
save that which came down the chimney, which was always on the outside
of the house. To form it, an opening eight feet long and six feet high
was left at one end of the house, and around this a sort of bay window
was built of logs and lined with stones on the inside. Above the top of
the opening the chimney contracted and was made of branches smeared both
inside and out with clay. Generally the chimney went to the peak of the
roof; but it was by no means unusual for it to stop about halfway up the
end of the cabin.
[Illustration: Log cabin[1]]
[Footnote 1: The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, restored (reproduced,
together with the first picture on the next page, from Tarbell's _Early
Life of Abraham Lincoln_, by permission of the publishers, S.S.
McClure, Limited).]
If the settler was too poor to buy glass, or if glass could not be had,
the window frame was covered with greased paper, which let in the light
but could not be seen through. The door was of plank with leather
hinges, or with iron hinges made from an old wagon tire by the nearest
blacksmith or by the settler himself. There was no knob, no lock,
no bolt.
In place of them there was a wooden latch on the inside, which could be
lifted by a person on the outside of the door by a leather strip which
came through a hole in the door and hung down. When this latch string
was out, anybody could pull it, lift the latch, and come in. When it was
drawn inside, nobody could come in without knocking. The floor was made
of "puncheons," or planks split and hewn with an ax from the trunk of a
tree, and laid with the round side down. The furniture the settler
brought with him, or made on the spot.
[Illustration: Hand mill [1]]
The household utensils were of the simplest kind. Brooms and brushes
were made of corn husks. Corn was shelled by hand and was then either
carried in a bag slung over a horse's back to the nearest mill, perhaps
fifteen miles away, or was pounded in a wooden hominy mortar with a
wooden pestle, or ground in a hand mill. Chickens and game were roasted
by hanging them with leather strings before the open fire. Cooking
stoves were unknown, and all cooking was done in a "Dutch oven," on the
hearth, or in a clay "out oven" built, as its name implies, out
of doors.
[Illustration: Corn-husk broom [1]]
[Illustration: Kitchen utensils [1]]
[Footnote 1: From originals in the National Museum, Washington.]
%306. Clearing and Planting.%--The land about the cabin was cleared
by grubbing the bushes and cutting down trees under a foot in diameter
and burning them. Big trees were "deadened," or killed, by cutting a
"girdle" around them two or three feet above the ground, deep enough to
destroy the sap vessels and so prevent the growth of leaves.[1]
[Footnote 1: For a delightful account of life in the West, read W. C.
Howells's _Recollections of Life in Ohio_ (edited by his son, William
Dean Howells).]
In the ground thus laid open to the sun were planted corn, potatoes, or
wheat, which, when harvested, was threshed with a flail and fanned and
cleaned with a sheet. At first the crop would be scarcely sufficient for
home use. But, as time passed, there would be some to spare, and this
would be wagoned to some river town and sold or exchanged for
"store goods."
If the settler chose his farm wisely, others would soon settle near by,
and when a cluster of clearings had been made, some enterprising
speculator would appear, take up a quarter section, cut it into town
lots, and call the place after himself, as Piketown, or Leesburg, or
Gentryville. A storekeeper with a case or two of goods would next
appear, then a tavern would be erected, and possibly a blacksmith shop
and a mill, and Piketown or Leesburg would be established. Hundreds of
such ventures failed; but hundreds of others succeeded and are to-day
prosperous villages.
[Illustration: Mississippi produce boat[1]]
[Footnote 1: From a model in the National Museum at Washington.]
%307. The New States._--While the northern stream of population was thus
traveling across New York, northern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and into
Michigan, the middle stream was pushing down the Ohio. By 1820 it had
greatly increased the population of southern Indiana and Illinois, and
crossing the Mississippi was going up the Missouri River. In the South
the destruction of the Indian power by Jackson in 1813, and the opening
of the Indian land to settlement, led to a movement of the southern
stream of population across Alabama to Mobile. Now, what were some of
the results of this movement of population into the Mississippi valley?
In the first place, it caused the formation and admission into the Union
of six states in five years. They were Indiana, 1816; Mississippi, 1817;
Illinois, 1818; Alabama, 1819; Maine, 1820; Missouri, 1821.
%308. Slave and Free States.%--In the second place, it brought about
a great struggle over slavery. You remember that when the thirteen
colonies belonged to Great Britain slavery existed in all of them; that
when they became independent states some began to abolish slavery; and
that in time five became free states and eight remained slave states.
Slavery was also gradually abolished in New York and New Jersey, so that
of the original thirteen only six were now to be counted as slave
states. You remember again that when the Continental Congress passed the
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory lying between the
Ohio River and the Great Lakes, Pennsylvania and the Mississippi River,
it ordained that in the Northwest Territory there should be no slavery.
In consequence of this, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were admitted into
the Union as free states, as Vermont had been. Kentucky was originally
part of Virginia, and when it was admitted, came in as a slave state.
Tennessee once belonged to North Carolina, and hence was also slave
soil; and when it was given to the United States, the condition was
imposed by North Carolina that it should remain so. Tennessee,
therefore, entered the Union (in 1796) as a slave state. Much of what is
now Alabama and Mississippi was once owned by Georgia, and when she
ceded it in 1802, she did so with the express condition that it should
remain slave soil; as a result of this, Alabama and Mississippi were
slave states. Louisiana was part of the Louisiana Purchase, and was
admitted (1812) as a slave state because it contained a great many
slaves at the time of the purchase.
Thus in 1820 there were twenty-two states in the Union, of which eleven
were slave, and eleven free. Notice now two things: 1. That the dividing
line between the slave and the free states was the south and west
boundary of Pennsylvania from the Delaware to the Ohio, and the Ohio
River; 2. That all the states in the Union except part of Louisiana lay
east of the Mississippi River. As to what should be the character of our
country west of that river, nothing had as yet been said, because as yet
no state lying wholly in that region had asked admittance to the Union.
%309. Shall there be Slave States West of the Mississippi
River?%--But when the people rushed westward after the war, great
numbers crossed the Mississippi and settled on the Missouri River, and
as they were now very numerous they petitioned Congress in 1818 for
leave to make the state of Missouri and to be admitted into the Union.
The petitioners did not say whether they would make a slave or a free
state; but as the Missourians owned slaves, everybody knew that Missouri
would be a slave state. To this the free states were opposed. If the
tobacco-growing, cotton-raising, and sugar-making states wanted slaves,
that was their affair; but slavery must not be extended into states
beyond the Mississippi, because it was wrong. No man, it was said, had
any right to buy and sell a human being, even if he was black. The
Southern people were equally determined that slavery should cross the
Mississippi. We cannot, said they, abolish slavery; because if our
slaves were set free, they would not work, and as they are very
ignorant, they would take our property and perhaps our lives. Neither
can we stop the increase of negro slave population. We must, then, have
some place to send our surplus slaves, or the present slave states will
become a black America.
%310. The Missouri Compromise.%--Each side was so determined, and it
was so clear that neither would yield, that a compromise was suggested.
The country east of the Mississippi, it was said, is partly slave,
partly free soil. Why not divide the country west of the great river in
the same way? At first the North refused. But it so happened that just
at this moment Maine, having secured the consent of Massachusetts,
applied to Congress for admission into the Union as a free state. The
South, which had control of the Senate, thereupon said to the North,
which controlled the House of Representatives, If you will not admit
Missouri as a slave state, we will not admit Maine as a free state. This
forced the compromise, and after a bitter and angry discussion it
was agreed
1. That Maine should come in as a free, and Missouri as a slave, state.
2. That the Louisiana Purchase should be cut in two by the parallel of
36° 30', and that all north of the line except Missouri should be free
soil[1]. This parallel was thereafter known as the "Missouri
Compromise Line."
[Footnote 1: The Compromise was violated in 1836, when the present
northwest corner of Missouri was taken from the free territory and added
to that state. See maps, pp. 299 and 348]
[Illustration: AREAS OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 1820]
The admission of Maine and Missouri raised the number of states to
twenty-four.[1] No more were admitted for sixteen years. When Missouri
applied for admission as a state, Arkansas was (1819) organized as a
territory.
[Footnote 1: For the compromise read Woodburn's _Historical Significance
of the Missouri Compromise_ (in _Report American Historical
Association_, 1893, pp. 251-297); McMaster's _History of the People of
the United States_, Vol. IV., Chap. 39.]
%311. The Second Election of Monroe.%--This bitter contest over the
exclusion of slavery from the country west of the Mississippi shows how
completely party lines had disappeared in 1820. In the course of that
year, electors of a President were to be chosen in the twenty-four
states. That slavery would play an important part in the campaign, and
that some candidate would be put in the field by the people opposed to
the compromise, might have been expected. But there was no campaign, no
contest, no formal nomination. The members of Congress held a caucus,
but decided to nominate nobody. Every elector, it was well known, would
be a Republican, and as such would vote for the reëlection of Monroe and
Tompkins. And this almost did take place. Every one of the 229 electors
who voted was a Republican, and all save one in New Hampshire cast votes
for Monroe. But this one man gave his vote to John Quincy Adams. He said
he did not want Washington to be robbed of the glory of being the only
President who had ever received the unanimous vote of the electors.
March 4, 1821, came on Sunday. Monroe was therefore inaugurated on
Monday, March 5.
SUMMARY
1. The dull times on the seaboard, the cheap land in the West, the love
of adventure, and the desire to "do better" led, during 1814-1820, to a
most astonishing emigration westward.
2. The rush of population into the Mississippi valley caused the
admission of six states into the Union between 1816 and 1821.
3. The question of the admission of Missouri brought up the subject of
shutting slavery out of the country west of the Mississippi, which ended
in a compromise and the establishment of the line 36° 30'.
MOVEMENT OF POPULATION.
_Northern Stream._
Effect of hard times in the East.--
Scenes along the highways.--Arrival
of the emigrants in the West.--The
half-faced camp.--The log cabin.--
Household utensils.--Clearing the
land.--Growth of towns.
_Middle Stream._
Moves down the Ohio valley,
across southern Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and pushes up
the Missouri.
_Southern Stream._
The defeat of the Creek Indians
opens their lands in
Mississippi Territory to settlement.
* * * * *
This settlement of the West leads to:
Admission into the Union of:
1816. Indiana.
1817. Mississippi.
1818. Illinois.
1819. Alabama.
Admission of these states brings up the question of slavery.
1820. Maine.
1821. Missouri.
Organization of new territories.
1819. Arkansas.
1822. 1823. Florida.
_Status of slavery after 1820_.
FREE STATES.
N.H.,
Vt.,
Mass.,
R.I.,
Conn.
N.Y.,
N.J.,
Pa.,
Ohio,
Ind.,
Ill.,
Maine.
SLAVE STATES.
Del.,
Md.,
Va.,
N.C.,
S.C.,
Ga.,
Ala.,
Miss.
La.,
Ky.,
Tenn.,
Missouri.
_Country west of the Mississippi._
1804. Not settled.
1819. Attempt to make Missouri a slave state.
1820. The compromise.
CHAPTER XXII
THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND COMMERCE
%312. Improvement in Means of Travel%.--We have now considered two of
the results of the rush of population from the seaboard to the
Mississippi valley; namely, the admission of five new Western states
into the Union, and the struggle over the extension of slavery, which
resulted in the Missouri Compromise. But there was a third result,--the
actual construction of highways of transportation connecting the East
with the West. Along the seaboard, during the five years which followed
the war, great improvements were made in the means of travel. The
steamboat had come into general use, and, thanks to this and to good
roads and bridges, people could travel from Philadelphia to New York
between sunrise and sunset on a summer day, and from New York to Boston
in forty-eight hours. The journey from Boston to Washington was now
finished in four days and six hours, and from New York to Quebec in
eight days.
[Illustration: Bordentown, NJ.[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old engraving. Passengers from Philadelphia landed
here from the steamboat and took stage for New Brunswick.]
[Illustration: map: OLD ROUTE FROM NEW YORK TO PITTSBURG]
In the West there was much the same improvement. The Mississippi and
Ohio swarmed with steamboats, which came up the river from New Orleans
to St. Louis in twenty-five days and went down with the current in
eight. Little, however, had been done to connect the East with the West.
Until the appearance of the steamboat in 1812, the merchants of
Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, and a host of other towns in the
interior bought the produce of the Western settlers, and floating it
down the Ohio and the Mississippi sold it at New Orleans for cash, and
with the money purchased goods at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York,
and carried them over the mountains to the West. Some went in sailing
vessels up the Hudson from New York to Albany, were wagoned to the Falls
of the Mohawk, and then loaded in "Schenectady boats," which were
pushed up the Mohawk by poles to Utica, and then by canal and river to
Oswego, on Lake Ontario. From Oswego they went in sloops to Lewiston on
the Niagara River, whence they were carried in ox wagons to Buffalo, and
then in sailing vessels to Westfield, and by Chautauqua Lake and the
Allegheny River to Pittsburg. Goods from Philadelphia and Baltimore were
hauled in great Conestoga wagons drawn by four and six horses across the
mountains to Pittsburg. The carrying trade alone in these ways was
immense. More than 12,000 wagons came to Pittsburg in a year, bringing
goods on which the freight was $1,500,000.
[Illustration: Boats on the Mohawk[1]]
[Footnote 1: From an old print.]
[Illustration: THOMAS HARPER, AGENT FOR INLAND TRANSPORTATION]
With the appearance of the steamboat on the Mississippi and Ohio, this
trade was threatened; for the people of the Western States could now
float their pork, flour, and lumber to New Orleans as before, and bring
back from that city by steamboat the hardware, pottery, dry goods,
cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, which till then they had been forced to buy
in the East[1].
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History of the People of the United States_,
Vol. IV., pp. 397-410, 419-421.]
This new way of trading was so much cheaper than the old, that it was
clear to the people of the Eastern States that unless they opened up a
still cheaper route to the West, their Western trade was gone.
[Illustration: The Erie Canal]
%313. The Erie Canal.%--In 1817 the people of New York determined to
provide such a route, and in that year they began to cut a canal across
the state from the Hudson at Albany to Lake Erie at Buffalo. To us, with
our steam shovels and drills, our great derricks, our dynamite, it would
be a small matter to dig a ditch 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide, and 363
miles long. But on July 4, 1817, when Governor De Witt Clinton turned
the first sod, and so began the work, it was considered a great
undertaking, for the men of those days had only picks, shovels,
wheelbarrows, and gunpowder to do it with.
Opposition to the canal was strong. Some declared that it would swallow
up millions of dollars and yield no return, and nicknamed it "Clinton's
Big Ditch." But Clinton was not the kind of man that is afraid of
ridicule. He and his friends went right on with the work, and after
eight years spent in cutting down forests, in blasting rocks, in
building embankments to carry the canal across swamps, and high
aqueducts to carry it over the rivers, and locks of solid masonry to
enable the boats to go up and down the sides of hills, the canal was
finished.[1]
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. IV., pp. 415-418.]
[Illustration: Model of a canal packet boat]
Then, one day in the autumn of 1825, a fleet of boats set off from
Buffalo, passed through the canal to Albany, where Governor De Witt
Clinton boarded one of them, and went down the Hudson to New York. A keg
of water from Lake Erie was brought along, and this, when the fleet
reached New York Harbor, Clinton poured with great ceremony into the
bay, to commemorate, as he said, "the navigable communication opened
between our Mediterranean seas [the Great Lakes] and the
Atlantic Ocean."
%314. Effect of the Erie Canal%.--The building of the canal changed
the business conditions of about half of our country. Before the canal
was finished, goods, wares, merchandise, going west from New York, were
carried from Albany to Buffalo at a cost of $120 a ton. After the canal
was opened, it cost but $14 a ton to carry freight from Albany to
Buffalo. This was most important. In the first place, it enabled the
people in New York, in Ohio, in Indiana, in Illinois, and all over the
West, to buy plows and hoes and axes and clothing and food and medicine
for a much lower price than they had formerly paid for such things. Life
in the West became more comfortable and easy than ever before.
In the next place, the Eastern merchant could greatly extend his
business. How far west he could send his goods depended on the expense
of carrying them. When the cost was high, they could go but a little way
without becoming so expensive that only a few people could buy them.
After 1825, when the Erie Canal made transportation cheap, goods from
New York city could be sold in Michigan and Missouri at a much lower
price than they had before been sold in Pittsburg or Buffalo.
%315. New York City the Metropolis.%--The New York merchant, in other
words, now had the whole West for his market. That city, which till 1820
had been second in population, and third in commerce, rushed ahead and
became the first in population, commerce, and business.
The same was true of New York state. As the canal grew nearer and nearer
completion, the people from other states came in and settled in the
towns and villages along the route, bought farms, and so improved the
country that the value of the land along the canal increased
$100,000,000.
A rage for canals now spread over the country. Many were talked of, but
never started. Many were started, but never finished. Such as had been
begun were hurried to completion. Before 1830 there were 1343 miles of
canal open to use in the United States.
%316. The Pennsylvania Highway to the West.%--In Pennsylvania the
opening of the Erie Canal caused great excitement. And well it might;
for freight could now be sent by sailing vessels from Philadelphia to
Albany, and then by canal to Buffalo, and on by the Lake Erie and
Chautauqua route to Pittsburg, for one third what it cost to go
overland. It seemed as if New York by one stroke had taken away the
Western commerce of Philadelphia, and ruined the prosperity of such
inland towns of Pennsylvania as lay along the highway to the West. The
demand for roads and canals at state expense was now listened to, and
in 1826 ground was broken at Harrisburg for a system of canals to join
Philadelphia and Pittsburg. But in 1832 the horse-power railroad came
into use, and when finished, the system was part railroad and
part canal.
%317. The Baltimore Route to the West.%--This energy on the part of
Pennsylvania alarmed the people of Baltimore. Unless their city was to
yield its Western trade to Philadelphia they too must have a speedy and
cheap route to the West. In 1827, therefore, a great public meeting was
held at Baltimore to consider the wisdom of building a railroad from
Baltimore to some point on the Ohio River. The meeting decided that it
must be done, and on July 4, 1828, the work of construction was begun.
In 1830 the road was opened as far as Ellicotts Mills, a distance of
fifteen miles. The cars were drawn by horses.
The early railroads, as the word implies, were roads made of wooden
rails, or railed roads, over which heavy loads were drawn by horses. The
very first were private affairs, and not intended for carrying
passengers.[1]
[Footnote 1: The first was used in 1807 at Boston to carry earth from a
hilltop to a street that was being graded. The second was built near
Philadelphia in 1810, and ran from a stone quarry to a dock. It was in
use twenty-eight years. The third was built in 1826, and extended from
the granite quarries at Quincy, Mass., to the Neponset River, a distance
of three miles. The fourth was from the coal mines of Mauchchunk, Pa.,
to the Lehigh River, nine miles. The fifth was constructed in 1828 by
the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company to carry coal from the mines to
the canal.]
%318. Public Railroads.%--In 1825 John Stevens, who for ten years
past had been advocating steam railroads, built a circular road at
Hoboken to demonstrate the possibility of using such means of
locomotion. In 1823 Pennsylvania chartered a company to build a railroad
from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna. But it was not till 1827, when the
East was earnestly seeking for a rapid and cheap means of transportation
to the West, that railroads of great length and for public use were
undertaken. In that year the people of Massachusetts were so excited
over the opening of the Erie Canal that the legislature appointed a
commission and an engineer to select a line for a railroad to join
Boston and Albany.
At this time there was no such thing as a steam locomotive in use in the
United States. The first ever used here for practical purposes was built
in England and brought to New York city in 1829, and in August of that
year made a trial trip on the rails of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company. The experiment was a failure; and for several years horses were
the only motive power in use on the railroads. In 1830, however, the
South Carolina Railroad having finished six miles of its road, had a
locomotive built in New York city, and in January, 1831, placed it on
the tracks at Charleston. Another followed in February, and the era of
locomotive railroading in our country began.
%319. The Portage Railroad.%--As yet the locomotive was a rude
machine. It could not go faster than fifteen miles an hour, nor climb a
steep hill. Where such an obstacle was met with, either the road went
around it, or the locomotive was taken off and the cars were let down or
pulled up the hill on an inclined plane by means of a rope and
stationary engine.[1] When Pennsylvania began her railroad over the
Alleghany Mountains, therefore, she used the inclined-plane system on a
great scale, so that in its time the Portage Railroad, as it was called,
was the most remarkable piece of railroading in the world.
[Footnote 1: Such an inclined plane existed at Albany, where passengers
were pulled up to the top of the hill. Another was at Belmont on the
Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, and another on the Paterson and Hudson
road near Paterson.]
The Pennsylvania line to the West consisted of a horse railroad from
Philadelphia to Columbia on the Susquehanna River; of a canal out the
Juniata valley to Hollidaysburg on the eastern slope of the Alleghany
Mountains, where the Portage Railroad began, and the cars were raised to
the summit of the mountains by a series of inclined planes and levels,
and then by the same means let down the western slope to Johnstown; and
then of another canal from Johnstown to Pittsburg.
[Illustration: Inclined plane at Belmont in 1835]
As originally planned, the state was to build the railroad and canal,
just as it built turnpikes. No cars, no motive power of any sort, except
at the inclined planes, were to be supplied. Anybody could use it who
paid two cents a mile for each passenger, and $4.92 for each car sent
over the rails. At first, therefore, firms and corporations engaged in
the transportation business owned their own cars, their own horses,
employed their own drivers, and charged such rates as the state tolls
and sharp competition would allow. The result was dire confusion. The
road was a single-track affair, with turnouts to enable cars coming in
opposite directions to pass each other. But the drivers were an unruly
set, paid no attention to turnouts, and would meet face to face on the
track, just as if no turnouts existed. A fight or a block was sure to
follow, and somebody was forced to go back. To avoid this, the road was
double-tracked in 1834, when, for the first time, two locomotives
dragging long trains of cars ran over the line from Lancaster to
Philadelphia. As the engine went faster than the horses, it soon became
apparent that both could not use the road at the same time; and after
1836 steam became the sole motive power, and the locomotive was
furnished by the state, which now charged for hauling the cars.[1]
[Footnote 1: On the early railroads see Brown's _History of the First
Locomotives in America._]
[Illustration: The first railroad train in New Jersey (1831)]
The puffing little locomotive bore little resemblance to its beautiful
and powerful successors. No cab sheltered the engineer, no brake checked
the speed, wood was the only fuel, and the tall smokestack belched forth
smoke and red-hot cinders. But this was nothing to what happened when
the train came to a bridge. Such structures were then protected by
roofing them and boarding the sides almost to the eaves. But the roof
was always too low to allow the smokestack to go under. The stack,
therefore, was jointed, and when passing through a bridge the upper half
was dropped down and the whole train in consequence was enveloped in a
cloud of smoke and burning cinders, while the passengers covered their
eyes, mouths, and noses.
%320. Railroads in 1835.%--In 1835 there were twenty-two railroads in
operation in the United States. Two were west of the Alleghanies, and
not one was 140 miles long. For a while the cars ran on "strap rails"
made of wooden beams or stringers laid on stone blocks and protected on
the top surface, where the car wheel rested, by long strips or straps
of iron spiked on. The spikes would often work loose, and, as the car
passed over, the strap would curl up and come through the bottom of the
car, making what was called a snake head. It was some time before the
all-iron rail came into use, and even then it was a small affair
compared with the huge rails that are used at present.
%321. Mechanical Inventions.%--The introduction of the steamboat and
the railroad, the great development of manufactures, the growth of the
West, and the immense opportunity for doing business which these
conditions offered, led to all sorts of demands for labor-saving and
time-saving machinery. Another very marked characteristic of the period
1825-1840, therefore, is the display of the inventive genius of the
people. Articles which a few years before were made by hand now began to
be made by machinery.
Before 1825 every farmer in the country threshed his grain with a flail,
or by driving cattle over it, or by means of a large wooden roller
covered with pegs. After 1825 these rude devices began to be supplanted
by the threshing machine. Till 1826 no axes, hatchets, chisels, planes,
or other edge tools were made in this country. In 1826 their manufacture
was begun, and in the following year there was opened the first hardware
store for the sale of American-made hardware.
The use of anthracite coal had become so general that the wood stove was
beginning to be displaced by the hard-coal stove, and in 1827 fire
bricks were first made in the United States. It was at about this time
that paper was first made of hay and straw; that boards were first
planed by machine; that bricks were first made by machinery; that
penknives and pocketknives were first manufactured in America; that
Fairbanks invented the platform weighing scales; that chloroform was
discovered; that Morse invented the recording telegraph; that a man in
New York city, named Hunt, made and sold the first lock-stitch sewing
machine ever seen in the world; that pens and horseshoes were made by
machine; that the reaping machine was given its first public trial (in
Ohio); and that Colt invented the revolver.
%322. Condition of the Cities.%--Yet another characteristic of the
period was the great change which came over the cities and towns. The
development of canal and railroad transportation had thrown many of the
old highways into disuse, had made old towns and villages decline in
population, and had caused new towns to spring up and flourish.
Everybody now wanted to live near a railroad or a canal. The rapid
increase in manufactures had led to the occupation of the fine
water-power sites, and to the creation of many such manufacturing towns
as Lowell (in Massachusetts) and Cohoes (in New York). The rise of so
many new kinds of business, of so many corporations, mills, and
factories, caused a rush of people to the cities, which now began to
grow rapidly in size.
[Illustration: New York in 1830 (St. Paul's Chapel, on Broadway)]
This made a change in city government necessary. The constable and the
watchman with his rattle had to give place to the modern policeman. The
old dingy oil lamps, lighted only when the moon did not shine, gave
place to gas. The cities were now so full of clerks, workingmen,
mechanics, and other people who had to live far away from the places
where they were employed, that a cheap means of transportation about the
streets became necessary. Accordingly, in 1830, an omnibus line was
started in New York.[1] It succeeded so well that in 1832 the first
street horse-car line in America was operated in New York city.
[Footnote 1: Many did not know what the word "Omnibus" painted along the
top of the stages meant. Some thought it was the name of the man who
owned them. It is, of course, a Latin word, and means "for all"; that
is, the stages were public conveyances for the use of all.]
%323. The Owenite Communities.%--The efforts thus made everywhere and
in every way to increase the comforts and conveniences of mankind turned
the years 1820-1840 into a period of reform. Anything new was eagerly
taken up. When, therefore, a Welshman named Robert Owen came over to
this country, and introduced what he considered a social reform, numbers
of people in the West became his followers. Owen believed that most of
the hardships of life came from the fact that some men secured more
property and made more money than others. He believed that people should
live together in communities in which the farms, the houses, the cattle,
the products of the soil, should be owned not by individual men, but by
the whole community. He held that there should be absolute social
equality, and that no matter what sort of work a man did, whether
skilled or unskilled, it should be considered just as valuable as the
work of any other man.
All this was very alluring, and in a little while Owenite communities
were started in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and New York,
only to end in failure.[2]
[Footnote 2: Noyes's _History of American Socialism._]
%324. The Mormons.%--But there was a social movement started at this
time which still exists. In 1827, at Palmyra, in New York, a young man
named Joseph Smith announced that he had received a new bible from an
angel of the Lord. It was written, he said, on golden plates, which he
claimed to have read by the aid of two wonderful stones; and in 1830 he
gave to the world _The Book of Mormon_.
After the book appeared, Smith and a few others organized a church. Many
at once began to believe in the new religion. But the West seemed so
much better a field that in 1831 Smith and his followers started for
Ohio, and at Kirtland established a Mormon community. There the Mormons
lived for several years, and then went to Missouri, whence they were
expelled, partly because they were an antislavery people. In 1840 they
settled on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois and built the town
of Nauvoo. At Nauvoo they remained till 1846, when, having adopted
polygamy, they were driven off by the people of Illinois, and, led by
Brigham Young, marched to Council Bluffs, in Iowa. There they stopped to
look about them for a safe place of abode, and finally, in 1847, left
Council Bluffs for Great Salt Lake, then in the dominions of Mexico.[1]
[Footnote 1: Kennedy's _Early Days of Mormonism_.]
SUMMARY
1. The rise of the new states in the West, and the appearance of the
steamboat on the Mississippi, were the causes of a great revival of
public interest in internal improvements.
2. The first to build a great western highway was New York state, which,
between 1817 and 1825, built the Erie Canal.
3. This cut down the cost of moving freight to the West, led to
settlement along the banks of the canal, and made New York city the
metropolis of the country.
4. It was during this period, 1815-1830, that many inventions,
discoveries, and improvements were made in the arts and sciences.
5. The railroad was introduced, and the steam locomotive successfully
used.
6. The cities grew, and in New York the omnibus and the street car began
to be used.
The movement of population into the West.--The formation of new states
there.--The rise of manufactures in the East.--The fine market the West
offers for the products and importations of the Eastern States.
* * * * *
Lead to great rivalry between the Atlantic seaboard cities for Western
trade.
* * * * *
This rivalry leads to the development of three routes to the West.
_The New York Route._
1807. Steamboats on the Hudson.
1817-25. Erie Canal
1818. Steamboats on the Lakes.
Chautauqua Lake and Allegheny valley.
Effect of Erie Canal.
_The Pennsylvania Route._
Old Conestoga wagons.
Effect of Erie Canal.
1827. Pennsylvania state canals and railroads.
The Portage Railroad.
_The Baltimore Route._
1828. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad commenced.
* * * * *
The expansion of the country.--The development of the steamboat, the
railroad, and manufactures, and the increased opportunities for
doing business.
* * * * *
Lead to demand for labor-saving and time-saving machinery.
Hard-coal grate and stove.
Fire bricks.
Paper made from straw.
Brick-making machine.
Planing machine.
Platform scales.
Reaping machine.
Colt's revolver.
Sewing machine (Hunt).
Steel pens.
Threshing machine.
Telegraph (electric).
Steam printing press.
Matches, etc., etc.
CHAPTER XXIII
POLITICS FROM 1824 TO 1845
%325. New Political Institutions.%--Of the political leaders of
Washington's time few were left in 1825. The men who then conducted
affairs had almost all been born since the Revolution, or were children
at the time.[1] The same is true of the mass of the people. They too had
been born since the Revolution, and, growing up under different
conditions, held ideas very different from the men who went before them.
They were more democratic and much less aristocratic, more humane, more
practical. They abolished the old and cruel punishments, such as
branding the cheeks and foreheads of criminals with letters, cutting off
their ears, putting them in the pillory and the stocks; they partly
abolished imprisonment for debt; they established free schools,
reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries. They amended their state
constitutions or made new ones, and extended the right to vote, and
introduced new political institutions, some of which were of doubtful
value, but are still used.
[Footnote 1: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were born in 1767;
Henry Clay, in 1777; John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Martin Van Buren,
and Thomas H. Benton, in 1782.]
%326. Political Proscription; the Gerrymander.%--One of these was the
custom of turning men out of public office because they did not belong
to the party in power, or did not "work" for the election of the
successful candidate. As early as 1792 this vicious practice was in use
in Pennsylvania, and a few years later was introduced in New York by De
Witt Clinton. Jefferson resorted to it when he became President, but it
was not till 1820 that it was firmly established by Congress. In that
year William H. Crawford, who was Secretary of the Treasury and a
presidential candidate, secured the passage of a "tenure of office" act,
limiting the term of collectors of revenue, and a host of other
officials, to four years, and thus made the appointments to these places
rewards for political service.
Another institution dating from this time is the gerrymander. In 1812,
when Elbridge Gerry was the Republican governor of Massachusetts, his
party, finding that at the next election they would lose the
governorship and the House of Representatives, decided to hold the
Senate by marking out new senatorial districts. In doing this they drew
the lines in such wise that districts where there were large Federalist
majorities were cut in two, and the parts annexed to other districts,
where there were yet larger Republican majorities.
[Illustration]
The story is told that a map of the Essex senatorial district was
hanging on the office wall of the editor of the _Columbian Centinel_,
when a famous artist named Stuart entered. Struck by the peculiar
outline of the towns forming the district, he added a head, wings, and
claws with his pencil, and turning to the editor, said: "There, that
will do for a salamander." "Better say a Gerrymander," returned the
editor, alluding to Elbridge Gerry, the Republican governor who had
signed the districting act. However this may be, it is certain that the
name "gerrymander" was applied to the odious law in the columns of the
_Centinel_, that it came rapidly into use, and has remained in our
political nomenclature ever since. Indeed, a huge cut of the monster was
prepared, and the next year was scattered as a broadside over the
commonwealth, and so aroused the people that in the spring of 1813,
despite the gerrymander, the Federalists recovered control of the
Senate, and repealed the law. But the example was set, and was quickly
imitated in New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. This established the
institution, and it has been used over and over again to this day.
%327. The Third-term Tradition.%--Another political custom which had
grown to have the force of law was that of never electing a President to
three terms. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent a President
serving any number of terms; but, as we have seen, when Washington
finished his second he declined another, and when Jefferson (in
1807-1808) was asked by the legislatures of several states to accept a
third term, he declined, and very seriously advised the people never to
elect any man President more than twice.[1] The example so set was
followed by Madison and Monroe and had thus by 1824 become an
established usage.
[Footnote 1: McMaster's _With the Fathers,_ pp. 64-70.]
%328. New Political Issues.%--The most important change of all was
the rise of new political issues. We have seen how the financial
questions which divided the people in 1790-1792 and gave rise to the
Federalist and Republican parties, were replaced during the wars between
England and France by the question, "Shall the United States be
neutral?" It was not until the end of our second war with Great Britain
that we were again free to attend to our home affairs.
During the long embargo and the war, manufactures had arisen, and one
question now became, "Shall home manufactures be encouraged?" With the
rapid settlement of the Mississippi valley and the demand for roads,
canals, and river improvements by which trade might be carried on with
the West, there arose a second political question: "Shall these internal
improvements be made at government expense?"
Now the people of the different sections of the country were not of one
mind on these questions. The Middle States and Kentucky and some parts
of New England wanted manufactures encouraged. In the West and the
Middle States people were in favor of internal improvements at the cost
of the government. In the South Atlantic States, where tobacco and
cotton and rice were raised and shipped (especially the cotton) to
England, people cared nothing for manufactures, nothing for internal
improvements.
%329. Presidential Candidates in 1824.%--This diversity of opinion on
questions of vital importance had much to do with the breaking up of the
Republican party into sectional factions after 1820. The ambition of
leaders in these sections helped on the disruption, so that between 1821
and 1824 four men, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of
Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, John C. Calhoun of South
Carolina, were nominated for President by state legislatures or state
nominating conventions, by mass meeting or by gatherings of men who had
assembled for other purposes but seized the occasion to indorse or
propose a candidate. A fifth, William H. Crawford, was nominated by the
congressional caucus, which then acted for the last time in our history.
Before election day this list was reduced to four: Calhoun had become
the candidate of all factions for the vice presidency.
[Illustration: John Quincy Adams]
%330. Adams elected by the House of Representatives.%--The
Constitution provides that no man is chosen President by the electors
who does not receive a majority of their votes. In 1824 Jackson received
ninety-nine; Adams, eighty-four; Crawford, forty-one; and Clay,
thirty-seven. There was, therefore, no election, and it became the duty
of the House of Representatives to make a choice. But according to the
Constitution only the three highest could come before the House. This
left out Clay, who was Speaker and who had great influence. His friends
would not vote for Jackson on any account, nor for Crawford, the
caucus candidate. Adams they liked, because he believed in internal
improvements at government expense and a protective tariff. Adams
accordingly was elected President. Calhoun had been elected Vice
President by the electoral college.
[Illustration: The United States July 4, 1826]
The election of John Quincy Adams was a matter of intense disappointment
to the friends of Jackson. In the heat of party passion and the
bitterness of their disappointment they declared that it was the result
of a bargain between Adams and Clay. Clay, they said, was to induce his
friends in the House of Representatives to vote for Adams, in return for
which Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was
ever made. But when Adams did appoint Clay Secretary of State, Jackson
and his followers were fully convinced of the contrary[1].
[Footnote 1: Parton's _Life of Jackson_, Chap. 10; Schurz's _Life of
Clay_, Vol. I., pp. 203-258]
As a consequence, the legislature of Tennessee at once renominated
Jackson for the presidency, and he became the people's candidate and
drew about him not only the men who voted for him in 1824, but those
also who had voted for Crawford, who was paralyzed and no longer a
candidate. They called themselves "Jackson men," or Democratic
Republicans.
Adams, it was known, would be nominated to succeed himself, and about
him gathered all who wanted a tariff for protection, roads and canals at
national expense, and a distribution among the states of the money
obtained from the sale of public lands. These were the "Adams men," or
National Republicans.
%331. Antimasons.%--But there was a third party which arose in a very
curious way and soon became powerful. In 1826, at Batavia in New York, a
freemason named William Morgan announced his intention to publish a book
revealing the secrets of masonry; but about the time the book was to
come out Morgan disappeared and was never seen again. This led to the
belief that the masons had killed him, and stirred up great excitement
all over the twelve western counties of New York. The "antimasons" said
that a man who was a freemason considered his duty to his order superior
to his duty to his country; and a determined effort was made to prevent
the election of any freemason to office.
[Illustration: Andrew Jackson ]
At first the "antimasonic" movement was confined to western New York,
but the moment it took a political turn it spread across northern Ohio,
Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and
was led by some of the most distinguished men and aspiring politicians
of the time[1].
[Footnote 1: Stanwood's _Presidential Elections_, Chap. 18]
%332. The Election of Jackson.%--When the presidential election
occurred in 1828, there were thus three parties,--the "Jackson men," the
"Administration," and the Antimasonic. But politics had very little to
do with the result. In the early days of the republic, the mass of men
were ignorant and uneducated, and willingly submitted to be led by men
of education and what was called breeding. From Washington down to John
Quincy Adams, the presidents were from the aristocratic class. They were
not men of the people. But in course of time a great change had come
over the mass of Americans. Their prosperity, their energy in developing
the country, had made them self-reliant, and impatient of all claims of
superiority. One man was now no better than another, and the cry arose
all over the country for a President who was "a man of the people."
Jackson was just such a man, and it was because he was "a man of the
people" that he was elected. Of 261 electoral votes he received 178,
and Adams 83.
%333. The North and the South Two Different Peoples.%--Before
entering on Jackson's administration, it is necessary to call attention
to the effect produced on our country by the industrial revolution
discussed in Chaps. 19 and 22. In the first place, it produced two
distinct and utterly different peoples: the one in the North and the
other in the South. In the North, where there were no great
plantations, no great farms, and where the labor was free, the marvelous
inventions, discoveries, and improvements mentioned were eagerly seized
on and used. There cities grew up, manufactures nourished, canals were
dug, railroads were built, and industries of every sort established.
Some towns, as Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Cohoes, Paterson,
Newark, and Pittsburg, were almost entirely given up to mills and
factories. No such towns existed in the South. In the South men lived on
plantations, raised cotton, tobacco, and rice, owned slaves, built few
large towns, cared nothing for internal improvements, and established no
industries of any sort.
This difference of occupation led of course to difference of interests
and opinions, so that on three matters--the extension of slavery,
internal improvements, and tariff for protection--the North and the
South were opposed to each other. In the West and the Middle States
these questions were all-important, and by a union of the two sections
under the leadership of Clay a new tariff was passed in 1824, and in the
course of the next four years $2,300,000 were voted for internal
improvements.
The Virginia legislature (1825) protested against internal improvements
at government expense and against the tariff. But the North demanded
more, and in 1827 another tariff bill was prevented from passing only by
the casting vote of Vice President Calhoun. And now the two sections
joined issue. The South, in memorials, resolutions, and protests,
declared a tariff for protection to be unconstitutional, partial, and
oppressive. The wool growers and manufacturers of the North called a
national convention of protectionists to meet at Harrisburg, and when
Congress met, forced through the tariff of 1828. The South answered with
anti-tariff meetings, addresses, resolutions, with boycotts on the
tariff states, and with protests from the legislatures. Calhoun then
came forward as the leader of the movement and put forth an argument,
known as the South Carolina Exposition, in which he urged that a
convention should meet in South Carolina and decide in what manner the
tariff acts should "be declared null and void within the limits of
the state."
%334. May a State nullify an Act of Congress?%--The right of a state
to nullify an act of Congress thus became the question of the hour, and
was again set forth yet more fully by Calhoun in 1831. That the South
was deeply in earnest was apparent, and in 1832 Congress changed the
tariff of 1828, and made it less objectionable. But it was against
tariff for protection, not against any particular tariff, that South
Carolina contended, and finding that the North would not give up its
principles, she put her threat into execution. The legislature called a
state convention, which declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were
null and void and without force in South Carolina, and forbade anybody
to pay the duties laid by these laws after February 1, 1833.[1]
[Footnote 1: Houston's _A Critical Study of Nullification in South
Carolina_; Parton's _Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 32-34; Schurz's _Life
of Clay_, Vol. II., Chap. 14; Von Holst's _Life of Calhoun_, Chap. 4;
Lodge's _Life of Webster_, Chaps. 6, 7; Rhodes's _History of the United
States_, Vol. I., pp. 40-50.]
Jackson, who had just been reëlected, was not terrified. He bade the
collector at Charleston go on and collect the revenue duties, and use
force if necessary, and he issued a long address to the Nullifiers. On
the one hand, he urged them to yield. On the other, he told them that
"the laws of the United States must be executed.... Those who told you
that you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived you.... Their
object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason."
%335. Webster's Great Reply to Calhoun.%--Calhoun, who since 1825 had
been Vice President of the United States, now resigned, and was at once
made senator from South Carolina. When Congress met in December, 1832,
the great question before it was what to do with South Carolina. Jackson
wanted a "Force Act," that is, an act giving him power to collect the
tariff duties by force of arms. Hayne, who was now governor of South
Carolina, declared that if this was done, his state would leave
the Union.
A great debate occurred on the Force Act, in which Calhoun, speaking for
the South, asserted the right of a state to nullify and secede from the
Union, while Webster, speaking for the North, denied the right of
nullification and secession, and upheld the Union and the
Constitution.[1]
[Footnote 1: Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. I., pp. 196-212;
Webster's _Works_, Vol. III., pp. 248-355, 448-505; Rhodes's _History
of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 50-52.]
%336. The Compromise of 1833%.--Meantime, Henry Clay, seeing how
determined each side was, and fearing civil war might follow, came
forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be
reduced gradually till July, 1842, when on all articles imported there
should be a duty equal to twenty per cent of their value. This was
passed, and the Compromise Tariff, as it is called, became a law in
March, 1833. A new convention in South Carolina then repealed the
ordinance of nullification.
%337. War on the Bank of the United States%.--While South Carolina
was thus fighting internal improvements and the tariff, the whole
Jackson party was fighting the Bank of the United States. You will
remember that this institution was chartered by Congress in 1816; and
its charter was to run till 1836. Among the rights given it was that of
having branches in as many cities in the country as it pleased, and,
exercising this right, it speedily established branches in the chief
cities of the South and West. The South and West were already full of
state banks, and, knowing that the business of these would be injured if
the branches of the United States Bank were allowed to come among them,
the people of that region resented the reëstablishment of a national
bank. Jackson, as a Western man, shared in this hatred, and when he
became President was easily persuaded by his friends (who wished to
force the Bank to take sides in politics) to attack it. The charter had
still nearly eight years to run; nevertheless, in his first message to
Congress (December, 1829) he denounced the Bank as unconstitutional,
unnecessary, and as having failed to give the country a sound currency,
and suggested that it should not be rechartered. Congress paid little
attention to him. But he kept on, year after year, till, in 1832, the
friends of the Bank made his attack a political issue[1].
[Footnote 1: Roosevelt's _Life of Benton_, Chap. 6; Parton's _Life of
Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 29-31; Tyler's _Memoir of Roger B. Taney_,
Vol. I., Chap. 3; Von Hoist's _Constitutional History_, Vol. II., pp.
31-52; Schurz's _Clay_, Vol. L, Chap. 13; _American History
Leaflets_, No. 24]
%338. The First National Nominating Convention; the First Party
Platform.%--To do this was easy, because in 1832 it was well known
that Jackson would again be a candidate for the presidency. Now the
presidential contest of that year is remarkable for two reasons:
1. Because each of the three parties held a national convention for the
nomination of candidates.
2. Because a party platform was then used for the first time.
The originators of the national convention were the Antimasons. State
conventions of delegates to nominate state officers, such as governors
and congressmen and presidential electors, had long been in use. But
never, till September, 1831, had there been a convention of delegates
from all parts of the country for the purpose of nominating the
President and Vice President. In that year Antimasonic delegates from
twenty-two states met at Baltimore and nominated William Wirt and
Amos Ellmaker.
The example thus set was quickly followed, for in December, 1831, a
convention of National Republicans nominated Henry Clay. In May, 1832, a
national convention of Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren for Vice
President[1]; and in that same month, a "national assembly of young
men," or, as the Democrats called it, "Clay's Infant School," met at
Washington and framed the first party platform. They were friends of
Clay, and in their platform they demanded protection to American
industries, and internal improvements at government expense, and
denounced Jackson for his many removals from office. They next issued an
address to the people, in which they declared that if Jackson were
reëlected, the Bank would "be abolished." [2]
[Footnote 1: It was not necessary to nominate Jackson. That he should be
re-elected was the wish of the great body of voters. The convention,
therefore, merely nominated a Vice President]
[Footnote 2: For party platform see McKee's _National Platforms of all
Parties._]
%339. Jackson destroys the Bank.%--The friends of the Bank meantime
appealed to Congress for a new charter and found little difficulty in
getting it. But when the bill went to Jackson for his signature, he
vetoed it, and, as its friends had not enough votes to pass the bill
over the veto, the Bank was not rechartered.
The only hope left was to defeat Jackson at the polls. But this too was
a failure, for he was reëlected by greater majorities than he had
received in 1828.[1]
[Footnote 1: Of the 288 electoral votes, Jackson received 219, and Clay
49. Wirt, the Antimason, secured 7.]
%340. Jackson withdraws the Government Money from the Bank.%--This
signal triumph was understood by Jackson to mean that the people
approved of his treatment of the Bank. So he continued to hurt it all he
could, and in 1833 ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to remove the
money of the United States from the Bank and its branches. This the
Secretary[1] refused to do; whereupon Jackson removed him and put
another,[2] who would, in his place. After 1833, therefore, the
collectors of United States revenue ceased to deposit it in the Bank of
the United States, and put it in state banks ("pet banks") named by the
Secretary of the Treasury. The money already on deposit was gradually
drawn out, till none remained.[3]
[Footnote 1: William J. Duane. ]
[Footnote 2: Roger B. Taney. ]
[Footnote 3: Parton's _Jackson,_ Vol. III., Chaps. 36-39; _American
History Leaflets,_ No. 24; Sumner's _Jackson_, Chaps. 13, 14; Von
Hoist's _Constitutional History,_ Vol. II., pp. 52-79; Roosevelt's
_Benton_, Chap. 6. ]
For this act the Senate, when it met in December, 1833, passed a vote of
censure on Jackson and entered the censure on its journal. Jackson
protested, and asked to have his protest entered, but the Senate
refused. Whereupon Benton of Missouri declared that he would not rest
till the censure was removed or "expunged" from the journal. At first
this did not seem likely to occur. But Benton kept at it, and at last,
in 1837, the Senate having become Democratic, he succeeded[1].
[Footnote 1: When the resolution had passed, the Clerk of the Senate was
ordered to bring in the journal, draw a thick black line around the
censure, and write across it "Expunged by order of the Senate, January
16, 1837."]
%341. Wildcat State Banks.%--As soon as the reëlection of Jackson
made it certain that the charter of the Bank of the United States would
not be renewed, the same thing happened in 1833 that had occurred in
1811. The legislature of every state was beset with applications for
bank charters, and granted them. In 1832 there were but 288 state banks
in the country. In 1836 there were 583. Some were established in order
to get deposits of the government money. Others were started for the
purpose of issuing paper money with which the bank officials might
speculate. Others, of course, were founded with an honest purpose. But
they all issued paper money, which the people borrowed on very poor
security and used in speculation.
%342. The Period of Speculation.%--Never before had the opportunity
for speculation been so great. The new way of doing business, the rise
of corporations and manufactures, drew people into the cities, which
grew in area and afforded a chance for investors to get rich by
purchasing city lots and holding them for a rise in price. Railroads and
canals were being projected all over the country. Another favorite way
of speculating, therefore, was to buy land along the lines of railroads
building or to be built. Suddenly cotton rose a few cents a pound, and
thousands of people began to speculate in slaves and cotton land. Others
bought land in the West from the government, at $1.25 an acre, and laid
it out into town lots,[1] which they sold for $10 and $20 apiece to
people in the East. In short, everybody who could was borrowing paper
money from the banks and speculating.
[Footnote 1: Sometimes ten such lots would be laid out on an acre]
Under these conditions, any cause which should force the banks to stop
loaning money, or to call in that already loaned, would bring on a
panic. And this is just what happened.
%343. The Specie Circular.%--Speculation in government land was so
general that the annual sales rose from $2,300,000 in 1831, to
$24,900,000 in 1836.[2] Finding that these great purchases were paid for
not in gold and silver, but in state bank paper money, Jackson became
alarmed. Many of the banks were of doubtful soundness, and if they
failed, all their money which the government had taken for land would be
lost. In 1836, therefore, Jackson issued his "Specie Circular," which
commanded all officials authorized to sell government land to receive
payment in nothing but gold or silver or land scrip. A great demand for
specie and a removal of it from the banks in the East to those in the
West followed, which of course hurt the Eastern banks, because it took
away some of their money, and that kind of money which they were holding
for the purpose of redeeming their paper.
[Footnote 2: Shepard's _Van Buren_, Chap. 8; Sumner's _Jackson_, pp.
322-325]
Another thing which hurt the banks, by forcing them to stop loaning and
to call for a settlement of debts, was the distribution of the surplus
revenue among the states.
%344. The Surplus Revenue.%--What caused this surplus revenue? Many
things.
1. The United States had no debt. The national debt, you remember, was
created in 1790 by funding the foreign and Congress debt and assuming
those of the states, and amounted to $75,000,000. When Jefferson was
elected President in 1801, this debt had risen to $80,000,000; but
during his administration it fell to $57,000,000. The war with England
raised it to $127,000,000, after which it once more decreased year by
year till 1835, when every dollar was paid off, and the United States
was out of debt[1].
[Footnote 1: As bonds, etc., to the value of $35,000 were never
presented for payment, the United States appears to have always been in
debt. This $35,000 probably represents evidences of indebtedness lost by
the owners]
2. The expenses of the government were not large.
3. There was a heavy importation of foreign goods, which produced a
great revenue under the tariff act.
4. The immense speculation in government lands already described
produced a large income to the government[1].
[Footnote 1: The land sales were $4,800,000 in 1834, $14,757,000 in
1835, and $24,877,000 in 1836]
In consequence of these causes, the government on June 1, 1836, had in
the banks $41,500,000 more than it needed.
What to do with this useless money sorely puzzled Congress. It could not
reduce the tariff, because that was gradually being reduced under the
compromise of 1833. Some wanted the money derived from the sale of land
distributed. But at last it was decided to take all the surplus the
government had on January 1, 1837, subtract $5,000,000 from it, and
divide the rest by the number of senators and representatives in
Congress, and give each state as many parts as it had senators and
representatives[1].
[Footnote 1: One state, New York, was to receive $4,000,000, three
states over $2,000,000, six over $1,000,000, and eight over $500,000]
On January 1, 1837, the surplus was $42,468,000, which, after
subtracting the $5,000,000, left $37,468,000 to be distributed. It was
to be paid in four installments[1]; but only three of them were ever
paid, for, when October 1, 1837, came, the whole country was suffering
from a panic[2].
[Footnote 1: The days of payment were Jan. 1, April 1, July 1, and Oct.
1, 1837]
[Footnote 2: Bourne's _History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837_]
%345. The Panic of 1837.%--Now, when the banks in which the
government surplus was kept were suddenly called on to give it up in
order that it might be distributed among the states, (as they had
loaned this surplus) they were all forced to call it in. More than that,
they would make no new loans. This made credit hard to get. As a
consequence, mills and factories shut down, all buying and selling
stopped, and thousands of workmen were thrown out of employment. As
everybody wanted money, it followed that houses, lands, property of
every sort, was offered for sale at ridiculously low prices. But there
were no buyers. In New York the distress was so great that bread riots
occurred. The merchants, unable to pay their debts, began to fail, and
to make matters worse the banks all over the country suspended specie
payment; that is, refused to give gold and silver in exchange for their
paper bills. Then the panic set in, and for a while the people, the
states, and the government were bankrupt[1].
[Footnote 1: Shepard's _Van Buren_, Chap. 8.]
%346. Election of Martin Van Buren; Eighth President.%--In accordance
with the well-established custom that no President shall have more than
two terms, Jackson [Illustration: Martin Van Buren] would not accept a
renomination in 1836. So the Democratic national convention nominated
Martin Van Buren and R.M. Johnson. The Whigs, as the National
Republicans called themselves after 1834, did not hold a national
nominating convention, but agreed to support William Henry Harrison. Van
Buren was elected, and inaugurated March. 4, 1837[1].
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., Chap. 7.]
%347 The New National Debt; the Independent Treasury.%--But scarcely
had he taken the oath of office when the panic swept over the country,
and his whole term was one of financial distress or hard times. The
suspension of specie payment and the failures of many banks and
merchants left the government without money, and forced Van Buren to
call an extra session of Congress in September, 1837. Before adjourning,
Congress ordered the fourth or October installment of the distributed
revenue to be suspended. It has never been given to the states.
Congress also authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to issue
$10,000,000 in treasury notes, and so laid the foundation for the second
national debt, which one cause or another has continued ever since.
The experience the government had thus twice passed through (1814 and
1837) led the people to believe it ought not to keep its money in state
banks. But just where the money should be kept was a disputed party
question. The Whigs insisted on a third National Bank like the old one
Jackson had destroyed. Van Buren wanted what was called an "Independent
Treasury," and after four attempts the act establishing it was passed
in 1840.
The law created four "receivers general" (one each at Boston, New York,
Charleston, and St. Louis), to whom all money collected by the United
States officials should be turned over, and directed that "rooms,
vaults, and safes" should be provided for the safe keeping of
the money.[1]
[Footnote 1: Shepard's _Van Buren,_ Chap. 9.]
As might be expected, the people laid all the blame for the hard times
on Van Buren and his party. The Democrats, they said, had destroyed the
National Bank; they had then removed the United States money, and given
it to "pet" state banks; they had then distributed the surplus, and by
taking the surplus from the state banks had brought on the panic.
Whether this was true or not, the people believed it, and were
determined to "turn out little Van."
The campaign of 1840 was the most novel, exciting, and memorable that
had yet taken place. Three parties had candidates in the field. The
Antislavery party put forward James Gillespie Birney and Thomas Earle.
The Democrats in their convention renominated Van Buren, but no Vice
President. The Whigs nominated W.H. Harrison, and John Tyler of
Virginia. The mention of the Antislavery party makes it necessary to
account for its origin.
%348. The Antislavery Movement%.--The appearance of the Antislavery
or Liberty party marks the beginning in national affairs of an
antislavery movement which had long been going on in the states. When
the Missouri Compromise was made in 1820, many people believed that the
troublesome matter of slavery was settled. This was a mistake, and the
compromise really made matters worse. In the first place, it encouraged
the men in Illinois who favored slavery to attempt to make it a slave
state by amending the state constitution, an attempt which failed in
1824 after a long struggle. In the second place, it aroused certain men
who had been agitating for freeing the slaves to redoubled energy. Among
these were Benjamin Lundy, James Gillespie Birney, and William Lloyd
Garrison, who in 1831 established an abolition newspaper called the
_Liberator_, which became very famous. In the third place, it led to the
formation all over the North, and in many places in the South, of new
abolition societies, and stirred up the old ones and made them more
active.[1]
[Footnote 1: _James G. Birney and his Times_, Chap. 12.]
For a time these societies carried on their work, each independent of
the others. But in 1833, a convention of delegates from them met at
Philadelphia, and formed a national society called the American
Antislavery Society.[1]
[Footnote 1: Its constitution declared (1) that each state has exclusive
right to regulate slavery within it; (2) that the society will endeavor
to persuade Congress to stop the interstate slave trade, to abolish
slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia, and to admit
no more slave states into the Union.]
%349. Antislavery Documents shut out of the Mails.%--Thus organized,
the society went to work at once and flooded the South with newspapers,
pamphlets, pictures, and handbills, all intended to arouse a sentiment
for instant abolition or emancipation of slaves. The South declared that
these were inflammatory, insurrectionary, and likely to incite the
slaves to revolt, and called on the North to suppress abolition
societies and stop the spread of abolition papers. To do such a thing by
legal means was impossible; so an attempt was made to do it by illegal
means. In the Northern cities such as Philadelphia, Utica, Boston,
Haverhill, mobs broke up meetings of abolitionists, and dragged the
leaders about the streets. In the South, the postmasters, as at
Charleston, seized antislavery tracts and pamphlets going through the
mails, and the people burned them. In New York city such matter was
taken from the mails and destroyed by the postmaster. When these
outrages were reported to Amos Kendall, the Postmaster-General, he
approved of them; and when Congress met, Jackson asked for a law that
would prohibit the circulation "in the Southern States, through the
mails, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to
insurrection." From the legislatures of five Southern states came
resolutions calling on the people of the North to suppress the
abolitionists.[1] Congress and the legislatures of New York and Rhode
Island responded; but the bills introduced did not pass.[2]
[Footnote 1: South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and
Georgia.]
[Footnote 2: _James G. Birney and his Times_, pp. 184-194.]
This attempt having failed, the mobs again took up the work, and began
to smash and destroy the presses of antislavery newspapers. One paper,
twice treated in this manner in 1836, was the _Philanthropist_ published
at Cincinnati by James Gillespie Birney. Another was the _Observer_,
published at Alton by Elijah Lovejoy, who was murdered in defending his
property.[1] The _Pennsylvania Freeman_ was a third.
[Footnote 1: Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Vol.
II., Chap. 27; _James G. Birney and his Times_, pp. 204-219, 241-255.]
%350. The Gag Rule%.--Not content with attacking the liberty of the
press, the proslavery men attacked the right of petition. The
Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ...
the right of the people ... to petition the government for a redress of
grievances." Under this right the antislavery people had long been
petitioning Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and
the petitions had been received; but of course not granted. Now, in
1836, when John Quincy Adams presented one to the House of
Representatives, a member moved that it be not received. A fierce debate
followed, and out of it grew a rule which forbade any petition,
resolution, or paper relating in any way to slavery, or the abolition of
slavery, to be received. This famous "Gag Rule" was adopted by Congress
after Congress until 1844.[1]
[Footnote 1: Morse's _Life of John Quincy Adams, _pp. 249-253, 306-308.]
%351. The Liberty Party formed%.--The effect of these extreme
measures was greatly to increase the antislavery sentiment. But the men
who held these sentiments were largely members of the Whig and
Democratic parties. In the hope of drawing them from their parties, and
inducing them to act together, the antislavery conventions about 1838
began to urge the formation of an antislavery party, which was finally
accomplished at Albany, N.Y., in April, 1840, where James G. Birney was
nominated for President, and Thomas Earle for Vice President. No name
was given to the new organization till 1844, when it was christened
"Liberty party."
%352. The Log Cabin, Hard Cider Campaign%.--The candidate of the
Democrats (Martin Van Buren) was a shrewd and skillful politician. The
candidate of the Whigs (Harrison) was the ideal of a popular favorite.
To defeat him at such a time, when the people were angry with the
Democrats, would have been hard, but they made it harder still by
ridiculing his honorable poverty and his Western surroundings. At the
very outset of the campaign a Democratic newspaper declared that
Harrison would be more at home "in a log cabin, drinking hard cider and
skinning coons, than living in the White House as President." The Whigs
instantly took up the sneer and made the log cabin the emblem of their
party. All over the country log cabins (erected at some crossroads, or
on the village common, or on some vacant city lot) became the Whig
headquarters. On the door was a coon skin; a leather latch string was
always hanging out as a sign of hospitality, and beside the door stood a
barrel of hard cider. Every Whig wore a Harrison and Tyler badge, and
knew by heart all the songs in the _Log Cabin Songster_. Immense mass
meetings were held, at which 50,000, and even 80,000, people attended.
Weeks were spent in getting ready for them. In the West, where
railroads were few, the people came in covered wagons with provisions,
and camped on the ground days before the meeting. At the monster meeting
at Dayton, O., 100,000 people were present, covering ten acres of
ground.[1]
[Footnote 1: Shepard's _Van Buren_, pp. 323-335.]
[Illustration: William H. Harrison]
%353. William Henry Harrison, Ninth President; John Tyler, Tenth
President%.--Harrison was triumphantly elected, and inaugurated March
4, 1841. But his career was short, for on April 4 he died,[2] and John
Tyler took his place. Tyler had never been a Whig. He had always been a
Democrat. Nevertheless, the Whigs, confident of his aid, tried to carry
out certain reform measures.
[Footnote 2: His death was a great shock to the people. Two vice
presidents, George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry, had died in office. But
nobody seems to have thought it likely that a president would die.]
[Illustration: John Tyler]
%354. The Quarrel between Tyler and the Whigs%.--The first thing they
did was to repeal the law establishing the Independent Treasury. This
Tyler approved. They next attempted to reëstablish the Bank of the
United States under the name of the "Fiscal Bank of the United States."
Tyler, who was opposed to banks, vetoed the bill, and when the Whigs
sent him another to create a "Fiscal Corporation," he vetoed that also.
Then every member of the cabinet save Webster resigned, and at a meeting
of the great Whig leaders Tyler was formally "read out of the party."
%355. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty%.--Webster was Secretary of State,
and though a Whig, retained his place in order that he might complete a
treaty which determined our boundary line from the source of the St.
Croix to the St. Lawrence, thus settling a long dispute between Maine
and the British provinces of New Brunswick and Canada. The difficulty
arose over the meaning of terms in the treaty of 1783, and though twice
submitted to a joint commission, and once to arbitration, seemed further
than ever from a peaceful settlement when Webster and Lord Ashburton
arranged it in 1842. The treaty ratified, Webster soon resigned.
[Illustration:]
The people meanwhile had recovered from the excitement of the campaign
of 1840, and at the congressional election of 1842 they made the House
of Representatives Democratic. There were thus a Whig Senate, a
Democratic House, and a President who was neither a Whig nor a Democrat.
As a consequence few measures of any importance were passed till 1845.
SUMMARY
1. During 1789-1825 a marked change had taken place in the ideas of
government, and this led to new state constitutions; to an extension of
the right to vote; to the belief that no President should have more than
two terms; to the belief that political offices should be given to
political workers; and to the introduction of the "gerrymander."
2. The disappearance of issues which divided the Federalists and
Republicans; the loss of old leaders; the appearance of a new generation
with new political issues, destroyed old party lines.
3. First to disappear were the Federalists. In 1820 there was but one
presidential candidate (Monroe), and but one political party (the
Republican).
4. During Monroe's second term the new issues began to break up the
Republican party, and in the election of 1824 the people of the four
great sections of the country presented candidates. For the second time
a President (John Quincy Adams) was elected by the House of
Representatives.
5. In 1828 the Republicans again supported Jackson, and his opponents
under Adams were defeated. In 1827 the antimasonic party arose.
6. The issues now before the people were the tariff, the recharter of
the National Bank, and the use of the surplus revenue, and these became
the leading questions of Jackson's eight years (1829-1837).
7. The general use of the steamboat, and the good roads, so reduced the
cost of transportation that it was possible to introduce a new piece of
political machinery--the national convention--to nominate candidates for
President and Vice President.
8. In Jackson's second term the antislavery movement began in earnest;
the Whig party was organized and named; the national debt was paid off,
and the surplus distributed.
9. Jackson was followed by Van Buren, in whose administration the great
panic of 1837 occurred. Because of this and hard times a second national
debt was started. A new financial measure was the establishment of the
Independent Treasury.
10. This the Whigs under Tyler destroyed. They attempted to replace it
with a third National Bank, but were prevented from doing so by
Tyler's vetoes.
* * * * *
THE INDUSTRIAL, MECHANICAL, AGRICULTURAL, AND SOCIAL PROGRESS
OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1800 AND 1840 LEADS TO
_New political ideas_
Gerrymandering.
Extension of the franchise.
No third term for a President.
No nomination by congressional caucus.
_New political issues_.
Use of public lands.
Tariff.
Internal improvements.
* * * * *
These issues and ideas break up the Republican
party into factions led in 1824 by
Crawford and Gallatin, Caucus candidates.
Anti-caucus candidates.
Clay,
Calhoun,
Adams,
Jackson
Elected
Adams by House of Representatives.
Calhoun by electoral college.
Renominated in 1828.
Adams defeated.
Jackson and Calhoun elected.
________________________________|____________________
| | 18|32
| | ______________|_________________________________
Tariff. | | | |
Of 1824, opposed | Clay defeated. Jackson reëlected. 1827, Rise of Antimasons.
by the South. Finance Van Buren Vice President 1831, Originate national
Of 1828, \ ________________ | nominating convention.
Of 1832, / Nullified | | ________________|___________________________________
by South Attack on the | | | | |
Carolina Bank of the Removal of the Surplus. Specie | Speculation
in 1832. United States. deposits. Cause of Circular |
|___________| Renewal of Censure of the amount. | +--------+
| charter vetoed. President. "Deposit" or | Payments of the
Compromise Censure distribution | national dept,
of 1833. | expunged. among the | 1835.
|_____________________| states. |
| |____________| |
Great increase of | |
state banks. | |
|______________________________|__________|_________|
Van Buren elected in 1836.
Inaugurated, March, 1837.
Panic of 1837.
_______________________________|__________________
| |
Causes of the panic. Great opposition to the Democratic party.
Suspension of the banks. Union of this opposition in 1840 with the Whigs.
New national debt. ___________________|______________________________
Suspension of distribution of | | |
the revenue. Democrats. Whigs. Antislavery
Establishment of Independent Issue their first Issue no platform. party.
Treasury. party platform. Nominate Harrison. Origin of.
Nominate Van Buren. Elect him. Nominates J.
Are defeated. G. Birney.
CHAPTER XXIV
EXPANSION OF THE SLAVE AREA
%356. Texas secures Independence.%--The fact that Tyler now belonged
to no party enabled him to commit an act which, had he belonged to
either, he would not have ventured to commit at that time,--to make a
treaty of annexation with Texas.
[Illustration: %TERRITORY CLAIMED BY TEXAS% WHEN ADMITTED INTO THE
UNION %1845%]
In 1821 Mexico, which for years past had been fighting for independence,
was set free by Spain, and soon established herself as a republic under
the name of the United States of Mexico. The old Spanish provinces were
the states, and one of these provinces was Texas. As a country Texas had
been very attractive to Americans, and the eastern part would have been
settled early in the century if it had been definitely known who owned
it. Now that Mexico owned it, a citizen of the United States, Moses
Austin, asked for a large grant of land and for leave to bring in
settlers. A grant was made on condition that he should bring in 300
families within a given time. Moses Austin died; but his son Stephen
went on with the scheme and succeeded so well that others followed his
example till seventeen such grants had been perfected.
For some years the settlers managed their own affairs in their own way.
But about 1830 Mexico began to rule them harshly, and when they were
unable to stand it any longer they rebelled against her in 1833, and in
1836 set up the republic of Texas. At first the Texans were defeated,
and on two memorable occasions bands of them were massacred by the
Mexican soldiers after they had surrendered. Money and troops and aid of
every sort, however, were sent from the United States, and at length
Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, who commanded the Mexicans, was
defeated and captured and his army destroyed by the Texans under Samuel
Houston at the battle of San Jacinto (1836). The victory was hailed with
delight all over our country, and the independence of Texas was
acknowledged by the United States (1837), England, France, and Belgium.
%357. Texas applies for Admission to the Union.%--As soon as
independence was acknowledged, the people of Texas became very anxious
to have their republic become a state in our Union; but slavery existed
in Texas, and the men of the free states opposed her admission.
At last in 1844 Tyler secretly negotiated a treaty of annexation with
the Texan authorities, and surprised the Senate by submitting it
in April.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Senate rejected the treaty]
The politicians were very indignant, for the national nominating
conventions were to meet in May, and the President by his act had made
the annexation of Texas a political issue. The Democrats, however, took
it up and in their platform declared for "the reannexation of Texas,"
and nominated James K. Polk of Tennessee for President and George
Mifflin Dallas of Pennsylvania for Vice President.
%358. The Joint Occupation of Oregon is continued.%--But there was
another plank in the Democratic platform of 1844 which promised the
acquisition of a great piece of free soil. We left the question of the
ownership of Oregon at the time when the United States and Great Britain
(in 1818) agreed to hold the country in joint occupation for ten years;
and when Russia, the United States, and Great Britain had (in 1824 and
1825) made 54° 40' the boundary line between the Oregon country and
Alaska. Before the ten-year period of joint occupation expired, Great
Britain and the United States, in 1827, agreed to continue it
indefinitely. Either party could end the agreement after a year's notice
to the other.
%359. Attempts to end Joint Occupation.%--Before this time the men
who came to the Oregon country were explorers, trappers, hunters,
servants of the great fur companies, who built forts and trading
stations, but did little for the settlement of the region. After this
time missionaries were sent to the Indians, and serious efforts were
made to persuade men to emigrate to Oregon. Some parties did go, and as
a result of their work, and of the labors of the missionaries, Oregon,
in the course of ten years, became better known to the people of the
United States.
Efforts were then begun to persuade Congress to extend the jurisdiction
of the United States over Oregon, order the occupation of the country,
and end the old agreement with Great Britain. Petitions were sent
(1838-1840), reports were made, bills were introduced; but Congress
stood firmly by the agreement, and would not take any steps toward the
occupation of Oregon. In 1842, Elijah White, a former missionary, came
to Washington and so impressed the authorities with the importance of
settling Oregon that he was appointed Indian Agent for that country, and
told to take back with him as many settlers as he could. Returning to
Missouri, he soon gathered a band of 112 persons and with these, the
largest number of settlers that had yet started for Oregon, he set off
across the plains in the spring of 1842. At the next session of Congress
(1842-1843) another effort was made to provide for the occupation of
Oregon at least as far north as 49°, and a bill for that purpose passed
the Senate.
Meanwhile a rage for emigration to Oregon broke out in the West, and in
the early summer of 1843, nearly a thousand persons, with a long train
of wagons, moved out of Westport, Missouri, and started northwestward
over the plains. Like the emigrants of 1842, they succeeded in reaching
Oregon, though they encountered many hardships.
%360. "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight."%--So much attention was thus
attracted to Oregon, in 1843, that the people by 1844 began to demand a
settlement of the boundary and an end of joint occupation. The Democrats
therefore gladly took up the Oregon matter. Their plan to reannex Texas,
which was slave soil, could, they thought, be offset by a declaration in
favor of acquiring all Oregon, which was free soil. The Democratic
platform for 1844, therefore, declared that "our title to the whole of
Oregon is clear; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to
England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the
reannexation of Texas" were great American measures, which the people
were urged to support. The people thought they were great American
measures, and with the popular cries of "The reannexation of Texas,"
"Texas or disunion," "The whole of Oregon or none," "Fifty-four forty or
fight," the Democrats entered the campaign and won it, electing James K.
Polk and George M. Dallas.
The Whigs were afraid to declare for or against the annexation, so they
said nothing about it in their platform, and nominated Henry Clay of
Kentucky and Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. The real question of
the campaign was of course the annexation of Texas, and though the
platform was silent on that subject their leader spoke out. In a public
letter which appeared in a newspaper and was copied all over the Union,
Clay said that he believed slavery was doomed to end at no far away day;
that the admission of Texas could neither hasten nor put off the arrival
of that day, and that he "should be glad to see" Texas annexed if it
could be done "without dishonor, without war, and with the common
consent of the Union and upon just and fair terms."
[Illustration: James K. Polk]
Language of this sort did not please the antislavery Whigs; and in New
York numbers of them voted for James G. Birney and Thomas Morris,
candidates of the Liberty party. The result was that the vote for Birney
in New York in 1844 was more than twice as great as he received in the
whole Union in 1840. Had half of these New Yorkers voted for Clay
instead, he would have received the electoral vote of New York and would
have been President.
[Illustration: %THE OREGON COUNTRY%]
%361. Texas annexed to the United States.%--Tyler, who saw in the
result of the election a command from the people to acquire Texas, urged
Congress in December, 1844, to annex it at once. But in what manner
should it be acquired? Some said by a treaty. This would require the
consent of two thirds of the Senate. But the Democrats did not have the
votes of two thirds of the Senate and so could not have secured the
ratification of such a treaty. It was decided, therefore, to annex by
joint resolution, which required but a majority for its passage. The
House of Representatives accordingly passed such a resolution for the
admission of Texas, and with her consent for the formation of four
additional states out of the territory, those north of 36° 30' to be
free. The Senate amended this resolution and gave the President power to
negotiate another treaty of annexation, or submit the joint resolution
to Texas. The House accepted the amendment. Tyler chose to offer the
terms in the joint resolution. Texas accepted them, and in December,
1845, her senators and representatives took their seats in Congress.
%362. Oregon.%--By the admission of Texas, the Democrats made good
one of the pledges in their platform of 1844. They were now called on to
make good the other, which promised the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40'.
To suppose that England would yield to this claim, and so cut herself
off entirely from the Pacific coast, was absurd. Nevertheless, because
of the force of popular opinion, the one year's notice necessary to
terminate joint occupation was served on Great Britain in 1846. The
English minister thereupon presented a treaty extending the 49th
parallel across Oregon from the Rocky Mountains to the coast, and
drawing a line down the strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific. Polk and
the Senate accepted this boundary, and the treaty was proclaimed on
August 5, 1846. Two years later, August 14, 1848, Oregon was made a
territory.
%363. General Taylor enters Texas; War with Mexico begins.%--When
Texas came into the Union, she claimed as her western boundary the Rio
Grande from its mouth to its source and then a line due north to 42°.
Now this line was disputed by Mexico, which claimed that the Nueces
River was the western boundary of Texas. The disputed strip of territory
was thus between the Nueces and the Rio Grande (p. 321).
President Polk, however, took the side of Texas, claimed the country as
far as the Rio Grande, and in January, 1846, ordered General Zachary
Taylor to march our army across the Nueces, go to the Rio Grande, and
occupy the disputed strip. This he did, and on April 25, 1846, the
Mexicans crossed the river and attacked the Americans. Taylor instantly
sent the news to Washington, and, May 12, Polk asked for a declaration
of war. "Mexico," said he, "has passed the boundary of the United
States; has invaded our territory and shed American blood on American
soil." Congress declared that war existed, and Polk called for 50,000
volunteers (May 13, 1846).
When the Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the Americans at
Fort Brown, Taylor was at Point Isabel. Hurrying southward to the relief
of the fort, he met the enemy at Palo Alto, beat them, pushed on to
Resaca de la Palma, beat them again, and soon crossed the river and took
possession of the town of Matamoras. There he remained till August,
1846, waiting for supplies, reinforcements, and means of transportation,
when he began a march toward the city of Monterey. The Mexicans,
profiting by Taylor's long stay at Matamoras, had gathered in great
force at Monterey, and had strongly fortified every position. But Taylor
attacked with vigor, and after three days of continuous fighting, part
of the time from street to street and house to house, the Mexican
General Ampudia surrendered the city (September 24, 1846). An armistice
of six weeks' duration was then agreed on, after which Taylor moved on
leisurely to Saltillo (sahl-teel'-yo).
%364. Scott in Mexico.%--Meantime, General Winfield Scott was sent to
Mexico to assume chief command. He reached the mouth of the Bio Grande
in January, 1847, and called on Taylor to send him 10,000 men. Santa
Anna (sahn'-tah ahn'-nah), who commanded the Mexicans, hearing of this
order, marched at once against Taylor, who took up a strong position at
Buena Vista (bwa'-nah vees'-tah), where a desperate battle was fought
February 23, 1847. The Americans won, and Santa Anna hurried off to
attack Scott, who was expected at Vera Cruz. Scott landed there in
March, and, after a siege of a few days, took the castle and city, and
ten days later began his march westward along the national highway
towards the ancient capital of the Aztecs. It was just 328 years since
Cortez with his little band started from the same point on a precisely
similar errand. At every step of the way the ranks of Scott grew thinner
and thinner. Hundreds perished in battle. Hundreds died by the wayside
of disease more terrible than battle. But Scott would not turn back, and
victory succeeded victory with marvelous rapidity. April 8 he left Vera
Cruz. April 18 he stormed the heights of Cerro Gordo. April 19 he was at
Jalapa (hah-lah'-pah). On the 22d Perote (pa-ro'-ta) fell. May 15 the
city of Puebla (pweb'-lah) was his. There Scott staid till August 7,
when he again pushed westward, and on the 10th saw the city of Mexico.
Then followed in rapid succession the victories of Contreras
(con-tra'-rahs), Churubusco (choo-roo-boos'-ko), Molino del Rey
(mo-lee'-no del ra), the storming of Chapultepec (chah-pool-ta-pek'),
and the triumphal entry into Mexico, September 14, 1847. Never before in
the history of the world had there been made such a march.
[Illustration: %CAMPAIGN OF GEN. SCOTT%]
%365. The "Wilmot Proviso."%--In 1846 the Mexican War was very
hateful to many Northern people, and as a new House of Representatives
was to be elected in the autumn of that year, Polk thought it wise to
end the war if possible, and in August asked for $2,000,000 "for the
settlement of the boundary question with Mexico." This, of course, meant
the purchase of territory from her. But Mexico had abolished slavery in
1827, and lest any territory bought from her should be made slave soil,
David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved that the money should be granted,
_provided_ all territory bought with it should be free soil. The proviso
passed the House, but not the Senate. Next year (1847) a bill to give
Polk $3,000,000 with which to settle the boundary dispute was
introduced, and again the proviso was attached. But the Senate rejected
it, and the House then gave way, and passed the bill without
the proviso.
%366. Conquest of New Mexico and California.%--While Taylor was
winning victories in northeastern Mexico, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny was
ordered to march into New Mexico. Leaving Fort Leavenworth in June,
1846, he went by the Upper Arkansas River to Bents Fort, thence
southwest through what is now Colorado, and by the old Santa Fe trail to
the Rio Grande valley and Santa Fe (p. 330). After taking the city
without opposition, he declared the whole of New Mexico to be the
property of the United States, and then started to seize California. On
arriving there, he found the conquest completed by the combined forces
of Stockton and Frémont.
%367. The Great American Desert.%--But how came Frémont to be in
California in 1846?
If you look at any school geography published between 1820 and 1850 you
will find that a large part of what is now Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado,
Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas is put down as "THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT."
Many believed it was not unlike the Desert of Sahara, and that nobody
would ever want to cross it, while there was so much fertile land to the
eastward. This view made people very indifferent as to our claims to
Oregon, so that when Thomas H. Benton, one of the senators from
Missouri, and one of the far-sighted statesmen of the day, wanted
Congress to seize and hold Oregon by force of arms, he was told that it
was not worth the cost. "Oregon," said one senator, "will never be a
state in the Union." "Build a railroad to Oregon?" said another. "Why,
all the wealth of the Indies would not be sufficient for such a work."
[Illustration: ROUTES OF THE %EARLY EXPLORERS% of the West]
%368. The Santa Fé and Oregon Trails.%--Some explorations you
remember had been made. Lewis and Clark went across the Northwest to the
mouth of the Columbia in 1804-1805, and Zebulon M. Pike had penetrated
in 1806 to the wild mountainous region about the head waters of the
Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande and had probably seen the great
mountain that now bears his name. Major Long followed Pike in 1820, gave
his name to Longs Peak, and brought back such a dismal account of the
West that he was largely responsible for the belief in a desert. The
great plains from the sources of the Sabine, Brazos, and Colorado rivers
to the northern boundary Were, he said, "peculiarly adapted as a range
for buffaloes, wild Goats, and other wild game," and "might serve as a
barrier to prevent too great an expansion of our population westward;"
but nobody would think of cultivating the plains. For years after that
the American Fur Trading Company of St. Louis had annually sent forth
its caravans into Oregon and New Mexico. Because the way was beset by
hostile Indians, these caravans were protected by large and strongly
armed bands, and in time wore out well-beaten tracks across the prairies
and over the mountain passes, which came to be known on the frontier as
the Santa Fé and Oregon Trails. In 1832 Captain Bonneville[1] took a
wagon train over the Rocky Mountain divide into the Green River Valley,
and Nathaniel J. Wyeth led a party from New England to the Oregon
country, and in 1834 established Fort Hall in what is now Idaho. Still
later in the thirties went Marcus Whitman and his party.
[Footnote 1: Bead his adventures as told by Washington Irving.]
%369. %Explorations of Frémont.%--By this time it was clear that the
tide of westward emigration would soon set in strongly towards Oregon.
Then at last Benton succeeded in persuading Congress to order an
exploration of the far West, and in 1842 Lieutenant Frémont was sent to
see if the South Pass of the rocky Mountains, the usual crossing place,
would best accommodate the coming emigration. He set out from Kansas
City (then a frontier hamlet, now a prosperous city) with Kit Carson, a
famous hunter, for guide, and following the wagon trails of those who
had gone before him, made his way to the pass. He found its ascent so
gradual that his party hardly knew when they reached the summit. Passing
through it to the valley beyond, he climbed the great peak which now
bears his name and stands 13,570 feet above the sea.
Though Frémont discovered no new route, he did much to dispel the
popular idea created by Long that the plains were barren, and the
American Desert began to shrink. In 1843 Frémont was sent out again.
Making his way westward through the South Pass, where his work ended in
1842, he turned southward to visit Great Salt Lake, and then pushed on
to Walla Walla on the Columbia River (see map on p. 330). Thence he went
on to the Dalles, and then by boat to Fort Vancouver, and then, after
returning to the Dalles, southward to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento
valley, and so back to the States in 1844.
In 1845 Frémont, who had now won the name of "Pathfinder," was sent out
a third time, and crossing what are now Nebraska and Utah, reached the
vicinity of Monterey in California. The Mexican authorities ordered him
out of the country. But he spent the winter in the mountains, and in the
spring was on his way to Oregon, when a messenger from Washington
overtook him, and he returned to Sutter's Fort.
%370. The Bear State Republic.%--This was in June, 1846. Rumors of
war between Mexico and the United States were then flying thick and
fast, and the American settlers in California, fearing they would be
attacked, revolted, and raising a flag on which an image of a grizzly
bear was colored in red paint, proclaimed California an independent
republic. These Bear State republicans were protected and aided by
Frémont and Commodore Stockton, who was on the California coast with a
fleet, and together they held California till Kearny arrived.
[Illustration: %TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO 1818 and 1853%]
%371. Terms of Peace.%--Thus when the time came to make peace, our
armies were in military possession of vast stretches of Mexican
territory which Polk refused to give up. Mexico, of course, was forced
to yield, and in February, 1848, at a little place near the city of
Mexico, called Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty was signed by which Mexico
gave up the land and received in return $15,000,000. The United States
was also to pay claims our citizens had against Mexico to the amount of
$3,500,000. This added 522,568 square miles to the public domain.[1]
[Footnote 1: This new territory included not only the present California
and New Mexico, but also Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Colorado
and Wyoming.]
%372. The Gadsden Purchase.%--When the attempt was made to run the
boundary line from the Rio Grande to the Gila River, so many
difficulties occurred that in 1853 a new treaty was made with Mexico,
and the present boundary established from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of
California. The line then agreed on was far south of the Gila River, and
for this new tract of land, 45,535 square miles, the United States paid
Mexico $10,000,000. It is generally called the Gadsden Purchase, after
James Gadsden, who negotiated it.
Much of this territory acquired in 1848, especially New Mexico and
California, had long been settled by the Spaniards. But the acquisition
of it by the United States at once put an end to the old Mexican
government, and made it necessary for Congress to provide new
governments. There must be American governors, American courts, American
judges, customhouses, revenue laws; in a word, there must be a complete
change from the Mexican way of governing to the American way. To do this
ought not to have been a hard thing; but Mexico had abolished slavery in
all this territory in 1827. It was free soil, and such the
anti-extension-of-slavery people of the North insisted on keeping it.
The proslavery people of the South, on the other hand, insisted that it
should be open to slavery, and that any slaveholder should be allowed to
emigrate to the new territory with his slaves and not have them set
free. The political question of the time thus became, Shall, or shall
not, slavery exist in New Mexico and California?
%373. The Free-soil Party.%--As a President to succeed Polk was to be
elected in 1848, the two great parties did their best to keep the
troublesome question of slavery out of politics. When the Whig
convention met, it positively refused to make a platform, and nominated
General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, and Millard Fillmore of New York,
without a statement of party principles.
When the Democratic convention met, it made a long platform, but said
nothing about slavery in the territories, and nominated Lewis Cass of
Michigan and William O. Butler.
This refusal of the two parties to take a stand on the question of the
hour so displeased many Whigs and Wilmot-Proviso Democrats that they
held a convention at Buffalo, where the old Liberty party joined them,
and together they formed the "Free-soil party." They nominated Martin
Van Buren and Charles F. Adams, and in their platform made four
important declarations:
1. That Congress has no more power to make a slave, than to make a king.
2. That there must be "free soil for a free people."
3. "No more slave states, no more slave territories."
4. That we will inscribe on our banners "Free soil, free speech, free
labor, and free men."
They also asked for cheaper postage, and for free grants of land to
actual settlers.
The Whigs won the election.
%374. Zachary Taylor, Twelfth President.%--Taylor and Fillmore were
inaugurated on March 5,1849, because the 4th came on Sunday. Their
election and the triumph of the Whigs now brought on a crisis in the
question of slavery extension.
[Illustration: %Zachary Taylor%]
%375. State of Feeling in the South.%--Southern men, both Whigs and
Democrats, were convinced that an attempt would be made by Northern and
Western men opposed to the extension of slavery to keep the new
territory free soil. Efforts were at once made to prevent this. At a
meeting of Southern members of Congress, an address written by Calhoun
was adopted and signed, and published all over the country. It
1. Complained of the difficulty of capturing slaves when they escaped to
the free states.
2. Complained of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the
abolitionists.
3. And demanded that the territories should be open to slavery.
A little later, in 1849, the legislature of Virginia adopted resolutions
setting forth:
1. That "the attempt to enforce the Wilmot Proviso" would rouse the
people of Virginia to "determined resistance at all hazards and to the
last extremity."
2. That the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia
would be a direct attack on the institutions of the Southern States.
The Missouri legislature protested against the principle of the Wilmot
Proviso, and instructed her senators and representatives to vote with
the slaveholding states. The Tennessee Democratic State Central
Committee, in an address, declared that the encroachments of their
Northern brethren had reached a point where forbearance ceased to be a
virtue. At a dinner to Senator Butler, in South Carolina, one of the
toasts was "A Southern Confederacy."
%376. State of Feeling in the North.%--Feeling in the free states ran
quite as high.
1. The legislatures of every one of them, except Iowa,[1] resolved that
Congress had power and was in duty bound to prohibit slavery in the
territories.
[Footnote 1: Iowa had been admitted December 28, 1846.]
2. Many of them bade their congressmen do everything possible to abolish
slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
The struggle thus coming to an issue in the summer of 1849 was
precipitated by a most unlooked-for discovery in California, which led
the people of that region to take matters into their own hands.
%377. Discovery of Gold in California.%--One day in the month of
January, 1848, while a man named Marshall was constructing a mill race
in the valley of the American River in California, for a Swiss immigrant
named Sutter, he saw particles of some yellow substance shining in the
mud. Picking up a few, he examined them, and thinking they might be
gold, he gathered some more and set off for Sutter's Fort, where the
city of Sacramento now stands.
[Illustration: %Sutter's mill%]
As soon as he had reached the fort and found Mr. Sutter, the two locked
themselves in a room and examined the yellow flakes Marshall had
brought. They were gold! But to keep the secret was impossible. A Mormon
laborer, watching their excited actions at the mill race, discerned the
secret, and then the news spread fast, and the whole population went
wild. Every kind of business stopped. The stores were shut. Sailors left
the ships. Soldiers defiantly left their barracks, and by the middle of
the summer men came rushing to the gold fields from every part of the
Pacific coast. Later in the year reports reached the East, but so slowly
did news travel in those days that it was not till Polk in his annual
message confirmed it, that people really believed there were gold fields
in California. Then the rush from the East began. Some went overland,
some crossed by the Isthmus of Panama, some went around South America,
filling California with a population of strong, adventurous, and daring
men. These were the "forty-niners."
[Illustration: %San Francisco in 1847%]
%378. The Californians make a Free-State Constitution.%--When Taylor
heard that gold hunters were hurrying to California from all parts of
the world, he was very anxious to have some permanent government in
California; and encouraged by him the pioneers, the "forty-niners," made
a free-state constitution in 1849 and applied for admission into
the Union.[1]
[Footnote 1: For an account of this movement to make California a state,
see Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 111-116.]
%379. Clay proposes a Compromise.%--When Congress met in 1849 there
were therefore a great many things connected with slavery to be settled:
1. Southern men complained that the existing fugitive-slave law was not
enforced in the free states and that runaway slaves were not returned.
2. The Northern men insisted that slavery should be abolished in the
District of Columbia.
3. Southern men demanded the right to go into any territory of the
United States, as New Mexico or Utah or even California, and take their
slaves with them.
4. The Free-soilers demanded that there should be no more slave states,
no more slave territories.
5. The North wanted California admitted as a free-soil state. The South
would not consent.
So violent and bitter was the feeling aroused by these questions, that
it seemed in 1850 as if the Union was about to be broken up, and that
there were to be two republics,--a Northern one made up of free states,
and a Southern one made up of slave states.
Happily this was not to be; for at this crisis Henry Clay, the
"Compromiser," the "Pacificator," the "Peacemaker," as he was fondly
called, came forward with a plan of settlement.
To please the North, he proposed, first, that California should be
admitted as a free state; second, that the slave trade--that is, the
buying and selling of slaves--should be abolished in the District of
Columbia. To please the South, he proposed, third, that there should be
a new and very stringent fugitive-slave law; fourth, that New Mexico and
Utah should be made territories without reference to slavery--that is,
the people should make them free or slave, as they pleased. This was
called "popular sovereignty" or "squatter sovereignty." Fifth, that as
Texas claimed so much of New Mexico as was east of the Rio Grande, she
should give up her claim and be paid money for so doing.
%380. Clay, Calhoun, Seward, and Webster on the Compromise.%--The
debate on the compromise was a great one. Clay's defense of his plan was
one of the finest speeches he ever made.[1] Calhoun, who was too feeble
to speak, had his argument read by another senator. Webster, on the "7th
of March," made the famous speech which still bears that name. In it he
denounced the abolitionists and defended the compromise, because, he
said, slavery could not exist in such an arid country as New Mexico.
William H. Seward of New York spoke for the Free-soilers and denounced
all compromise, and declared that the territories were free not only by
the Constitution, but by a "higher law" than the Constitution, the law
of justice and humanity.[2]
[Footnote 1: Henry Clay's _Works_, Vol. II., pp. 602-634.]
[Footnote 2: Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. II., pp. 123-219, for
the speeches of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay.]
After these great speeches were made, Clay's plan was sent to a
committee of thirteen, from which came seven recommendations:
1. The consideration of the admission of any new state or states formed
out of Texas to be postponed till they present themselves for admission.
2. California to be admitted as a free state.
3. Territorial governments without the Wilmot Proviso to be established
in New Mexico and Utah.
4. The combination of No. 2 and No. 3 in one bill.
5. The establishment of the present northern and western boundary of
Texas. In return for ceding her claims to New Mexico, Texas to receive
$10,000,000. This last provision to be inserted in the bill provided
for in No. 4.
6. A new and stringent fugitive-slave law.
7. Abolition of the slave trade, but not of slavery, in the District of
Columbia.
Three bills to carry out these recommendations were presented:
1. The first bill provided for (a) the admission of California as a free
state; (b) territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah without any
_restriction_ on slavery; (c) the present northern and western boundary
for Texas, with a gift of money. President Taylor nicknamed this "the
Omnibus Bill," because of its many provisions.
2. The second bill prohibited the slave trade, but not slavery, in the
District of Columbia.
3. The third provided for the capture and delivery of fugitive-slaves.
During three months these bills were hotly debated, and threats of
disunion and violence were made openly.
%381. Death of Taylor; Fillmore becomes President.%--In the midst of
the debate, July 9, 1850, Taylor died, and Fillmore was sworn into
office. Calhoun had died in March. Webster was made Secretary of State
by Fillmore. In some respects these changes helped on the measures, all
of which were carried through. Two of them were of great importance.
[Illustration: Millard Fillmore]
%382. Popular Sovereignty.%--The first provided that the two new
territories, New Mexico and Utah, when fit to be admitted as states,
should come in with or without slavery as their constitutions might
determine; meantime, the question whether slavery could or could not
exist there, if it arose, was to be settled by the Supreme Court.
%383. The Fugitive-Slave Law.%--The other important measure of the
compromise was the fugitive-slave law. The old fugitive-slave law
enacted in 1793 had depended for its execution on state judges. This new
law of 1850
1. Gave United States commissioners power to turn over a colored man or
woman to anybody who claimed the negro as an escaped slave.
2. Provided that the negro could not give testimony.
3. "Commanded" all good citizens, when summoned, to aid in the capture
of the slave, or, if necessary, in his delivery to his owners.
4. Prescribed fine and imprisonment for anybody who harbored a fugitive
slave or prevented his recapture.
[Illustration: %Results of the COMPROMISE of 1850%]
No sooner was this law enacted than the slave owners began to use it,
and during the autumn of 1850 a host of "slave catchers" and "man
hunters," as they were called, invaded the North, and negroes who had
escaped twenty or thirty years before were hunted up and dragged back to
slavery by the marshals of the United States. This so excited the free
negroes and the people of the North, that several times during 1851 they
rose and rescued a slave from his captors. In New York a slave named
Hamet, in Boston one named Shadrach, in Syracuse one named Jerry, and at
Ottawa, Illinois, one named Jim, regained their liberty in this way. So
strong was public feeling that Vermont in 1850 passed a "Personal
Liberty Law," for the protection of negroes claimed as slaves.[1]
[Footnote 1: On the Compromise of 1850 read Rhodes's _History of the
United States_, Vol. I., pp. 104-189; Schurz's _Life of Clay_, Vol. II.,
Chap. 26. Do not fail to read the speeches of Calhoun, Clay, Webster,
Seward; also Lodge's _Life of Webster_, pp. 264-332. For the rescue
cases read Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_,
Chap. 26.]
The North was now becoming strongly antislavery. It had long been
opposed to the extension of slavery, but was now becoming opposed to its
very existence. How deep this feeling was, became apparent in the summer
of 1852, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_. It was not so much a picture of what slavery was, as of
what it might be, and was so powerfully written that it stirred and
aroused thousands of people in the North who, till then, had been quite
indifferent. In a few months everybody was laughing and crying over
"Topsy" and "Eva" and "Uncle Tom"; and of those who read it great
numbers became abolitionists.
SUMMARY
1. The Mexican state of Texas revolts and in 1837 becomes independent.
2. President Tyler secretly negotiates a treaty for the annexation of
Texas to the United States, but this is defeated (1844).
3. The labors of Elijah White and others lead to the rapid settlement of
the Oregon country.
4. The annexation of Texas and the occupation of the whole of Oregon
become questions in the campaign of 1844. The Democrats carry the
election, Texas is annexed, and the Oregon country is divided between
Great Britain and the United States.
5. The question of the boundary of Texas brings on the Mexican War, and
in 1848 another vast stretch of country is acquired.
6. The acquisition of this new territory, which was free soil, causes a
struggle for the introduction of slavery into it.
7. The refusal of the Whigs and Democrats to take issue on slavery in
the territories leads to the formation of the Free-soil party.
8. The discovery of gold in California, the rush of people thither, and
the formation of a free state seeking admission into the Union force the
question of slavery on Congress.
9. In 1850 an attempt is made to settle it by the "Compromise of 1850."
THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1844 CALLED FOR
The reannexation of Texas.
Texas annexed, August, 1845.
Rio Grande asserted as boundary.
Disputed territory, Nueces to Rio Grande.
1845-46. Taylor sent to occupy the disputed territory.
1846. Attacked by Mexicans.
1846. War declared by the United States.
The reoccupation of Oregon to 54° 40'.
Our claims to Oregon.
Colonization of Oregon.
"Fifty-four forty or fight."
Notice served on Great Britain.
The parallel of 49° extended to the Pacific.
Oregon a territory (1848).
The Mexican War.
_Taylor_.
1846. Wins battles of Palo Alto.
Resaca de la Palma.
Matamoras.
Monterey.
1847. Buena Vista.
_Scott_.
1847. Vera Cruz.
Cerro Gordo.
Jalapa.
Perote.
Contreras.
Churubusco.
Molino del Rey.
Chapultepec.
Mexico.
_Kearny_.
Santa Fé.
Conquest of New Mexico.
_Frémont.
Stockton._
Conquest of California.
PEACE 1848.
Territory acquired from 42° to Gila River; from Rio Grande to the Pacific.
Effort to make the territory slave soil.
1848. _The Whigs._
No platform.
Elect Taylor and Fillmore.
1848. _The Democrats._
Nothing in platform as to slavery in new territory.
Defeated, 1848.
Complaints of the South against the North:
Popular sovereignty
1. Fugitive slaves.
2. Slavery in District of Columbia.
3. Territory acquired from Mexico to be open to slavery.
Discovery of gold in California, 1848.
Rush to California.
The three routes.
Free state of California, 1849.
Effort to keep the territory free.
The Wilmot Proviso, 1846, 1847.
The Free-soil party, 1848.
Demands of the party.
Defeated in 1848.
Demand--
1. California a free state.
2. No slavery in District of Columbia.
3. No more slave states.
No more slave territories.
Whigs attempt a compromise.
COMPROMISE OF 1850.
1. California a free state.
2. Popular sovereignty in territory acquired from Mexico.
3. No slave trade in District of Columbia.
4. Texas takes present boundaries.
5. Two new territories, Utah and New Mexico.
6. New fugitive-slave law.
CHAPTER XXV
THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL
%384. Franklin Pierce, Fourteenth President.%--Although the struggle
with slavery was thus growing more and more serious, the two great
parties pretended to consider the question as finally settled. In 1852
the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce and William E. King, and
declared in their platform that they would "abide by and adhere to" the
Compromise of 1850, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in
Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs
nominated General Winfield Scott, and declared that they approved the
fugitive-slave law, and accepted the compromise measures of 1850 as "a
settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and would do all they
could to prevent any further discussion of it.
[Illustration: Franklin Pierce]
So far as the Whigs were concerned, the question was settled; for the
Northern people, angry at their acceptance of the Compromise of 1850 and
the fugitive-slave law, refused to vote for Scott, and Pierce was
elected.[1]
[Footnote 1: Pierce carried every state except Massachusetts, Vermont,
Tennessee, and Kentucky.]
The Free-soilers had nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian.
%385. The Nebraska Bill.%--Pierce was inaugurated March 4, 1853. He,
too, believed that all questions relating to slavery were settled. But
he had not been many months in office when the old quarrel was raging as
bitterly as ever. In 1853 all that part of our country which lies
between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, the south boundary
of Kansas and 49°, was wilderness, known as the Platte country, and was
without any kind of territorial government. In January, 1854, a bill to
organize this great piece of country and call it the territory of
Nebraska was reported to the Senate by the Committee on Territories, of
which Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was chairman. Every foot of it was
north of 36° 30', and according to the Missouri Compromise was free
soil. But the bill provided for popular sovereignty; that is, for the
right of the people of Nebraska, when they made a state, to have it free
or slave, as they pleased.
%386. The Kansas-Nebraska Law.%--An attempt was at once made to
prevent this. But Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another,
providing for two territories, one to be called Kansas[1] and the other
Nebraska, expressly repealing the Missouri Compromise,[2] and opening
the country north of 36° 30' to slavery.[3] The Free-soilers, led on by
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Seward of New York, and Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, did all they could to defeat the bill; but it passed, and
Pierce signed it and made it law.[4]
[Footnote 1: The northern and southern boundaries of Kansas were those
of the present state, but it extended westward to the Rocky Mountains.]
[Footnote 2: It declared that the slavery restriction of the Missouri
Compromise "was suspended by the principles of the legislation of 1850,
commonly called the compromise measures, and is hereby declared
inoperative."]
[Footnote 3: The "true intent and meaning" of this act, said the law,
is, "not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States." Read Rhodes's _History
of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 425-490.]
[Footnote 4: May 30, 1854.]
%387. The Struggle for Kansas.%--Thus was it ordained that Kansas and
Nebraska, once expressly set apart as free soil, should become free or
slave states according as they were settled while territories by
antislavery or proslavery men. And now began a seven years' struggle for
Kansas. "Come on, then," said Seward of New York in a speech against
the Kansas Bill; "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since
there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on behalf of freedom.
We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God
give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in
the right."
[Illustration: %THE UNITED STATES in 1851 SEVENTY FIVE YEARS AFTER
INDEPENDENCE Showing Railroads and Overland Routes]
This described the situation exactly. The free-state men of the North
and the slave-state men of the South were to rush into Kansas and
struggle for its possession. The moment the law opening Kansas for
settlement was known in Missouri, numbers of men crossed the Missouri
River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings,[1] drove a few
stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and
called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas. Many did so, and
began to erect tents and huts on the Missouri River at a place which
they called Atchison.[2]
[Footnote 1: At one of their meetings it was resolved: "That we will
afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this country."
"That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in
this territory, and advise stockholders to introduce their property as
early as possible."]
[Footnote 2: Called after Senator Atchison of Missouri.]
But the men of the North had not been idle, and in July a band of
free-state men, sent on by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[1]
entered Kansas and founded a town on the Kansas River some miles to the
south and west of Atchison. Other emigrants came in a few weeks later,
and their collection of tents received the name of Lawrence.[2]
[Footnote 1: The New England Emigrant Aid Society was founded in 1854 by
Hon. Eli Thayer of Worcester, Mass., in order "to plant a free state in
Kansas," by aiding antislavery men to go out there and settle.]
[Footnote 2: After Amos A. Lawrence, secretary of the Aid Society. It
was a city of tents. Not a building existed. Later came the log cabin,
which was a poor affair, as timber was scarce. The sod hut now so common
in the Northwest was not thought of. In the early days the "hay tent"
was the usual house, and was made by setting up two rows of poles, then
bringing their tops together, thatching the roof and sides with hay. The
two gable ends (in which were the windows and doors) were of sod.]
What was thus taking place at Lawrence happened elsewhere, so that by
October, 1854, that part of Kansas along the Missouri River was held by
the slave-state men, and the part south of the Kansas River by the
free-state men.[1]
[Footnote 1: The proslavery towns were Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton,
Kickapoo. The antislavery towns were Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan,
Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie.]
In November of the same year the struggle began. There was to be an
election of a territorial delegate[1] to represent Kansas in Congress,
and a day or two before the time set for it the Missourians came over
the border in armed bands, took possession of the polls, voted
illegally, and elected a proslavery delegate.
[Footnote 1: Each territory is allowed to send a delegate to the House
of Representatives, where he can speak, but not vote.]
%388. Kansas a Slave Territory.%--The election of members of the
territorial legislature took place in March, 1855, and for this the
Missourians made great preparations. On the principle of popular
sovereignty the people of Kansas were to decide whether the territory
should be slave or free. Should the majority of the legislature consist
of free-state men, then Kansas would be a free territory. Should a
majority of proslavery men be chosen, then Kansas was doomed to have
slavery fastened on her, and this the Missourians determined should be
done. For weeks before the election, therefore, the border counties of
Missouri were all astir. Meetings were held, and secret societies,
called Blue Lodges, were formed, the members of which were pledged to
enter Kansas on the day of election, take possession of the polls, and
elect a proslavery legislature. The plan was strictly carried out, and
as election day drew near, the Missourians, fully armed, entered Kansas
in companies, squads, and parties, like an invading army, voted, and
then went home to Missouri. Every member of the legislature save one was
a proslavery man, and when that body met, all the slave laws of Missouri
were adopted and slavery was formally established in Kansas.
%389. The Topeka Free-State Constitution.%--The free-state men
repudiated the bogus legislature, held a convention at Topeka, made a
free-state constitution, and submitted it to the popular vote. The
people having ratified it (of course no proslavery men voted), a
governor and legislature were chosen. When the legislature met, senators
were elected and Congress was asked to admit Kansas into the Union as
a state.
%390. Personal Liberty Laws; the Underground Railroad.%--The feeling
of the people of the free states toward slavery can be seen from many
signs. The example set by Vermont in 1850 was followed in 1854 by Rhode
Island, Connecticut, and Michigan, and in 1855 by Maine and
Massachusetts, in each of which were passed "Personal Liberty laws,"
designed to prevent free negroes from being carried into slavery on the
claim that they were fugitive slaves. Certain state officers were
required to act as counsel for any one arrested as a fugitive, and to
see that he had a fair trial by jury. To seize a free negro with intent
to reduce him to slavery was made a crime.
Another sign of the times was the sympathy manifested for the operations
of what was called the Underground Railroad. It was, of course, not a
railroad at all, but an organization by which slaves escaping from their
masters were aided in getting across the free states to Canada.
%391. Breaking up of Old Parties.%--Thus matters stood when, in 1856,
the time came to elect a President, and found the old parties badly
disorganized. The political events of four years had produced great
changes. The death of Clay[1] and Webster[2] deprived the Whigs of their
oldest and greatest leaders. The earnest support that party gave to the
Compromise of 1850 and the execution of the fugitive-slave law estranged
thousands of voters in the free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
opposed as it was by every Northern Whig, completed the ruin and left
the party a wreck.
[Footnote 1: June 29, 1852.]
[Footnote 2: October 24, 1852.]
But the Democrats had also suffered because of the Kansas-Nebraska law
and the repeal of the Compromise of 1820. No anti-extension-of-slavery
Democrat could longer support the old party. Thousands had therefore
broken away, and, acting with the dissatisfied Whigs, formed an
unorganized opposition known as "Anti-Nebraska men."
%392. The Movement against Immigrants.%--Many old Whigs, however,
could not bring themselves to vote with Democrats. These joined the
American or Know-nothing party. From the close of the Revolution there
had never been a year when a greater or less number of foreigners did
not come to our shores. After 1820 the numbers who came each twelvemonth
grew larger and larger, till they reached 30,000 in 1830, and 60,000 in
1836, while in the decade 1830-1840 more than 500,000 immigrants landed
at New York city alone.
As the newcomers hurried westward into the cities of the Mississippi
valley, the native population was startled by the appearance of men who
often could not speak our language. In Cincinnati in 1840 one half the
voters were of foreign birth. The cry was now raised that our
institutions, our liberties, our system of government, were at the mercy
of men from the monarchical countries of Europe. A demand was made for a
change in the naturalization law, so that no foreigner could become a
citizen till he had lived here twenty-one years.
%393. The American Republicans or Native Americans.%--Neither the
Whigs nor the Democrats would endorse this demand, so the people of
Louisiana in 1841 called a state convention and founded the American
Republican, or, as it was soon called, the Native American party. Its
principles were
1. Put none but native Americans in office.
2. Require a residence of twenty-one years in this country before
naturalization.
3. Keep the Bible in the schools.
4. Protect from abuse the proceedings necessary to get naturalization
papers.
As the members would not tell what the secrets of this party were, and
very often would not say whom they were going to vote for, and when
questioned would answer "I don't know," it got the name of
"Know-nothing" party.[1]
[Footnote 1: Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. II., pp.
51-58; McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp. 87-106.]
For a time the party flourished greatly and secured six members of the
House of Representatives, then it declined in power; but the immense
increase in immigration between 1846 and 1850 again revived it, and.
somewhere in New York city in 1852 a secret, oath-bound organization,
with signs, grips, and passwords, was founded, and spread with such
rapidity that in 1854 it carried the elections in Massachusetts, New
York, and Delaware. Next year (1855) it elected the governors and
legislatures of eight states, and nearly carried six more. Encouraged by
these successes, the leaders determined to enter the campaign of 1856,
and called a party convention which nominated Millard Fillmore and
Andrew Jackson Donelson. Delegates from seven states left the convention
because it would not stand by the Missouri Compromise, and taking the
name North Americans nominated N. P. Banks. He would not accept, and the
bolters then joined the Republicans.
%394. Beginning of the Republican Party.%--As early as 1854, when the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was before Congress, the question was widely
discussed all over the North and West, whether the time had not come to
form a new party out of the wreck of the old. With this in view a
meeting of citizens of all parties was held at Ripon, Wisconsin, at
which the formation of a new party on the slavery issue was recommended,
and the name Republican suggested. This was before the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
After its passage a thousand citizens of Michigan signed a call for a
state mass meeting at Jackson, where a state party was formed, named
Republican, and a state ticket nominated, on which were Free-soilers,
Whigs, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Similar "fusion tickets" were
adopted in Wisconsin and Vermont, where the name Republican was used,
and in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
The success of the new party in Wisconsin and Michigan in 1854, and its
yet greater success in 1855, led the chairmen of the Republican state
committees of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Wisconsin
to issue a call for an informal convention at Pittsburg on February 22,
1856. At this meeting the National Republican party was formed, and from
it went a call for a national nominating convention to meet (June 17,
1856) at Philadelphia, where John C. Frémont and William L. Dayton were
nominated.
The Free-soilers had joined the Republicans and so disappeared from
politics as a party.
The Whigs, or "Silver Grays," met and endorsed Fillmore.
The Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and
carried the election. The Whigs and the Know-nothings then disappeared
from national politics.
[Illustration: James Buchanan]
%395. James Buchanan, Fifteenth President; the "Bred Scott
Decision."%--When Buchanan and Breckinridge were inaugurated, March
4, 1857, certain matters regarding slavery were considered as legally
settled forever, as follows:
1. Foreign slave trade forbidden.
2. Slave trade between the states allowed.
3. Fugitive slaves to be returned.
4. Whether a state should permit or abolish slavery to be determined by
the state.
5. Squatter sovereignty to be allowed in Kansas and Nebraska, Utah and
New Mexico territories.
6. The people in a territory to determine whether they would have a
slave or a free state when they made a state constitution.
Now there were certain questions regarding slavery which were not
settled, and one of them was this: If a slave is taken by his master to
a free state and lives there for a while, does he become free?
To this the Supreme Court gave the answer two days after Buchanan was
inaugurated. A slave by the name of Dred Scott had been taken by his
master from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois,
and then to the free soil of Minnesota, and then back to the state of
Missouri, where Scott sued for his freedom, on the ground that his
residence on free soil had made him a free man. Two questions of vast
importance were thus raised:
1. Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves become a
citizen of one of the states in the Union? For unless Dred Scott was a
citizen of Missouri, where he then lived, he could not sue in the United
States court.
2. Did Congress have power to enact the Missouri Compromise? For if it
did not then the restriction of slavery north of 36°30' was illegal, and
Dred Scott's residence in Minnesota did not make him free.
From the lower courts the case came on appeal to the Supreme Court,
which decided
1. That Dred Scott was not a citizen, and therefore could not sue in the
United States courts. His residence in Minnesota had not made him free.
2. That Congress could not shut slave property out of the territories
any more than it could shut out a horse or a cow.
3. That the piece of legislation known as the Missouri Compromise of
1820 was null and void. This confirmed all that had been gained for
slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and opened to slavery Oregon
and Washington, which were free territories.
%396. Effect of the Dred Scott Decision.%--Hundreds of thousands of
copies of this famous decision were printed at once and scattered
broadcast over the country as campaign documents. The effect was to fill
the Southern people with delight and make them more reckless than ever,
to split the Democratic party in the North; to increase the number of
Republicans in the North, and make them more determined than ever to
stop the spread of slavery into the territories.
[Illustration: %EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL IN THE UNITED STATES
1790-1860%]
%397. Struggle for Freedom in Kansas.%--We left Kansas in 1856 with a
proslavery governor and legislature in actual possession, and a
free-state governor, legislature, and senators seeking recognition at
Washington. In 1857 there were so many free-state men in Kansas that
they elected an antislavery legislature. But just before the proslavery
men went out of power they made a proslavery constitution,[1] and
instead of submitting to the people the question, Will you, or will you
not, have this constitution? they submitted the question, Will you have
this constitution with or without slavery? On this the free settlers
would not vote, and so it was adopted with slavery. But when the
antislavery legislature met soon after, they ordered the question, Will
you, or will you not, have this constitution? to be submitted to the
people. Then the free settlers voted, and it was rejected by a great
majority. Buchanan, however, paid no attention to the action of the free
settlers, but sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress and urged it
to admit Kansas as a slave state. But Senator Douglas of Illinois came
forward and opposed this, because to force a slave constitution on the
people of Kansas, after they had voted against it, was contrary to the
doctrine of "popular sovereignty." He, with the aid of other Northern
Democrats, defeated the attempt, and Kansas remained a territory
till 1861.
[Footnote 1: The convention met at the town of Lecompton; in consequence
of which the constitution is known as the "Lecompton constitution."]
%398. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates.%--The term of Douglas as senator
from Illinois was to expire on March 4, 1859. The legislature whose duty
it would be to elect his successor was itself to be elected in 1858. The
Democrats, therefore, announced that if they secured a majority of the
legislators, they would reelect Douglas. The Republicans declared that
if they secured a majority, they would elect Abraham Lincoln United
States senator. The real question of the campaign thus became, Will the
people of Illinois have Stephen A. Douglas or Abraham Lincoln for
senator?[1]
[Footnote 1: The Republican state convention at Springfield, June 16,
1858, "resolved, that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of
the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the
successor of Stephen A. Douglas."]
The speech making opened in June, 1858, when Lincoln addressed the
convention that nominated him at Springfield. A month later Douglas
replied in a speech at Chicago. Lincoln, who was present, answered
Douglas the next evening. A few days later, Douglas, who had taken the
stump, replied to Lincoln at Bloomington, and the next day was again
answered by Lincoln at Springfield. The deep interest aroused by this
running debate led the Republican managers to insist that Lincoln should
challenge Douglas to a series of joint debates in public. The challenge
was sent and accepted, and debates were arranged for at seven towns[1]
named by Douglas. The questions discussed were popular sovereignty, the
Dred Scott decision, the extension of slavery to the territories; and
the discussion of them attracted the attention of the whole country.
Lincoln was defeated in the senatorial election; but his great speeches
won for him a national reputation.[2]
[Footnote 1: One in each Congressional district except those containing
Chicago and Springfield, where both Lincoln and Douglas had already
spoken. For a short account of their debates see the _Century Magazine_
for July, 1887, p. 386.]
[Footnote 2: Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. II., pp.
308-339. Nicolay and Hay's _Life of Lincoln_, Vol. II., Chaps. 10-16.
John T. Morse's _Life of Lincoln_, Vol. I., Chap. 6.]
%399. John Brown's Raid into Virginia%.--As slavery had become the
great political issue of the day, it is not surprising that it excited a
lifelong and bitter enemy of slavery to do a foolish act. John Brown was
a man of intense convictions and a deep-seated hatred of slavery. When
the border ruffianism broke out in Kansas in 1855, he went there with
arms and money, and soon became so prominent that he was outlawed and a
price set on his head. In 1858 he left Kansas, and in July, 1859,
settled near Harpers Ferry, Va. (p. 360). His purpose was to stir up a
slave insurrection in Virginia, and so secure the liberation of the
negroes. With this in view, one Sunday night in October, 1859, he with
less than twenty followers seized the United States armory at Harpers
Perry and freed as many slaves and arrested as many whites as possible.
But no insurrection or uprising of slaves followed, and before he could
escape to the mountains he was surrounded and captured by Robert E. Lee,
then a colonel in the army of the United States. Brown was tried on the
charges of murder and of treason against the state of Virginia, was
found guilty, and in December, 1859, was hanged.
[Illustration: Harpers Ferry]
%400. Split in the Democratic Party.%--Thus it was that one event
after another prolonged the struggle with slavery till 1860, when the
people were once more to elect a President.
The Democratic nominating convention assembled at Charleston, S.C., in
April, and at once went to pieces. A strong majority made up of Northern
delegates insisted that the party should declare--"That all questions in
regard to the rights of property in states or territories arising under
the Constitution of the United States are judicial in their character,
and the Democratic party is pledged to abide by and faithfully carry out
such determination of these questions as has been or may be made by the
Supreme Court of the United States."
This meant to carry out the doctrine laid down in the Dred Scott
decision, and was in conflict with the "popular sovereignty" doctrine of
Douglas, which was that right of the people to make a slave territory or
a free territory is perfect and complete. The minority, composed of the
extreme Southern men, rejected the former plan and insisted
1. "That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal
principles on the subject of slavery in the territories: First, that
Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the territories. Second,
that the territorial legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any
territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any
power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any right to destroy or impair
the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever."
2. That the Federal government must protect slavery "on the high seas,
in the territories, and wherever else its constitutional
authority extends."
Both majority and minority agreed in asserting
1. That the Personal Liberty laws of the free states "are hostile in
their character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in
their effect."
2. That Cuba ought to be acquired by the United States.
3. That a railroad ought to be built to the Pacific.
Their agreement was a minor matter. Their disagreement was so serious
that when the minority could not have its way, it left the convention,
met in another hall, and adopted its resolutions.
The majority of the convention then adjourned to meet at Baltimore, June
18. 1860. As it was then apparent that Douglas would be nominated,
another split occurred, and the few Southern men attending, together
with some Northern delegates, withdrew. Those who remained nominated
Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson.
The second group of seceders met in Baltimore, adopted the platform of
the first group of seceders from the Charleston convention, and
nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon.
[Illustration: A Lincoln]
%401. The Constitutional Union Party.%--Meanwhile (May 9) another
party, calling itself the National Constitutional Union party, met at
Baltimore. These men were the remnants of the old Whig and American or
Know-nothing parties. They nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward
Everett, of Massachusetts, and declared for "the Constitution of the
country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws."
%402. Election of Lincoln.%--The Republican party met in convention
at Chicago on May 16, and nominated Abraham Lincoln, and Hannibal Hamlin
of Maine. It
1. Repudiated the principles of the Dred Scott decision.
2. Demanded the admission of Kansas as a free state.
3. Denied all sympathy with any kind of interference with slavery in the
states.
4. Insisted that the territories must be kept free.
5. Called for a railroad to the Pacific, and a homestead law.
The election took place in November, 1860. Of 303 electoral votes cast,
Lincoln received 180; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; and Douglas, 12.
SUMMARY
1. The Compromise of 1850 did not settle the question of slavery in the
territories, and an attempt to organize Kansas and Nebraska brought
it up again.
2. In the organization of these territories a new political doctrine,
"popular sovereignty," was announced.
3. This was applied in Kansas, and the struggle for Kansas began. The
first territorial government was proslavery. The antislavery men then
made a constitution (Topeka) and formed a free state government.
Thereupon the proslavery men formed a constitution (Lecompton) for a
slave state. This was submitted to Congress and rejected, and Kansas
remained a territory till 1861.
4. In the course of the struggle for free soil in Kansas the Whig party
went to pieces, the Democratic was split into two wings, and the
Know-nothing or Native American party and the Republican party arose.
5. The Republican party was defeated in 1856, but the Dred Scott
decision in 1857 and the continued struggle in Kansas forced the
question of slavery to the front, and in 1860 Lincoln was elected.
[Illustration: ]
CHAPTER XXVI
PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860
[Illustration: Chicago in 1832]
%403. The Movement of Population.%--The twenty years which elapsed
between the election of Harrison, in 1840, and the election of Lincoln,
in 1860, had seen a most astonishing change in our country. In 1840
neither Texas, nor the immense region afterwards acquired from Mexico,
belonged to us. There were then but twenty-six states and five
territories, inhabited by 17,000,000 people, of whom but 876,000 lived
west of the Mississippi River, mostly close to the river bank in
Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The great Northwest was still a
wilderness, and many a city now familiar to us had no existence. Toledo
and Milwaukee and Indianapolis had each less than 3000 inhabitants;
Chicago had less than 5000; and Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit, each
less than 10,000. Yet the rapid growth of cities had been one of the
characteristics of the period 1830 to 1840.
The effect of new mechanical appliances on the movement of population
was amazing. The day when emigrants settled along the banks of streams,
pushed their boats up the rivers by means of poles, carried their goods
on the backs of pack horses, and floated their produce in Kentucky
broadhorns down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, was fast
disappearing. The steamboat, the canal, the railroad, had opened new
possibilities. Land once valueless as too far from market suddenly
became valuable. Men grew loath to live in a wilderness; the rush of
emigrants across the Mississippi was checked. The region between the
Alleghanies and the great river began to fill up rapidly. During the
twenty years, 1821 to 1841, but two states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan
(1837), were admitted to the Union, and but three new territories,
Florida (1822-23), Wisconsin (1836), and Iowa (1838), were established.
So few people went west from the Atlantic seaboard states that in each
one of them except Maine and Georgia population increased more rapidly
than it had ever done for forty years. From the Mississippi valley
states, however, numbers of people went to Wisconsin and Iowa.
In consequence of this, Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1846, and
Wisconsin in 1848. Minnesota and Oregon were made territories. Florida
and Texas had been admitted in 1845, and the number of states was thus
raised to thirty before 1850. The population of the country in 1850 was
23,000,000. Two states in the Mississippi valley now had each of them
more than a million of inhabitants.
%404. The First States on the Pacific.%--Until 1840 the people had
moved westward steadily. Each state as it was settled had touched some
other east, or north, or south of it. After 1840 people, attracted by
the rich farming land and pleasant climate of Oregon, and after 1848 by
the gold mines of California, rushed across the plains to the Pacific,
and between 1850 and 1860 built up the states of California and Oregon
(1859), and the territory of Washington (1853). Minnesota was admitted
in 1858. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,000,000.
[Illustration: %DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES
SEVENTH CENSUS, 1850%]
%405. Immigration to the United States since 1820.%--The people whose
movements across our continent we have been following were chiefly
natives of the United States. But we have reached the time when
foreigners began to arrive by hundreds of thousands every year. From the
close of the Revolution to 1820, it is thought not more than 250,000 of
the Old World people came to us. But the hard times in Europe, which
followed the disbanding of the great armies which had been fighting
France and Napoleon from 1789 to 1815, started a general movement.
Beginning at 10,000, in 1820, more and more came every year till, in
1842, 100,000 people--men, women, and children--landed on our shore.
This was the greatest number that had ever come in one year. But it was
surpassed in 1846, when the potato famine in Ireland, and again in 1853,
when hard times in Germany, and another famine in Ireland, sent over two
immense streams of emigrants. In 1854 no less than 428,000 persons came
from the Old World; more than ever came again in one year till 1872.
%406. Modern Conveniences.%--When we compare the daily life of the
people in 1850 with that of the men of 1825, the contrast is most
striking. The cities had increased in number, grown in size, and greatly
changed in appearance. The older ones seemed less like villages. Their
streets were better paved and lighted. Omnibuses and street cars were
becoming common. The constable and the night watch had given way to the
police department. Gas and plumbing were in general use. The free school
had become an American institution, and many of the numberless
inventions and discoveries which have done so much to increase our
happiness, prosperity, and comfort, existed at least in a rude form.
Between 1840 and 1850 nearly 7000 miles of railroad were built, making a
total mileage of 9000. This rapid spread of the railroad, when joined
with the steamboats, then to be found on every river and lake within the
settled area, made possible an institution which to-day renders
invaluable service.
%407. Express Companies.%--In 1839 a young man named W.F. Harnden
began to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New
York and Boston, and thus started the express business. At first he
carried in a couple of carpet bags all the packages intrusted to him,
and went by boat from New York to Stonington, Conn., and thence by rail
to Boston. But his business grew so rapidly that in 1840 a rival express
was started by P. B. Burke and Alvin Adams. Their route was from Boston
to Springfield, Mass., and thence to New York. This was the foundation
of the present Adams Express Company. Both companies were so well
patronized that in 1841 service was extended to Philadelphia and Albany,
and in 1844 to Baltimore and Washington. Their example was quickly
followed by a host of imitators, and soon a dozen express companies were
doing business between the great cities.
%408. Postage Stamps introduced.%--At that time (1840) three cents
was the postage for a local letter which was not delivered by a carrier.
Indeed, there were no letter carriers, and this in large cities was such
an inconvenience that private dispatch companies undertook to deliver
letters about the city for two cents each; and to accommodate their
customers they issued adhesive stamps, which, placed on the letters,
insured their delivery. The loss of business to the government caused by
these companies, and the general demand for quicker and cheaper mail
service, forced Congress to revise the postal laws in 1845, when an
attempt was made to introduce the use of postage stamps by the
government. As the mails (in consequence of the growth of the country
and the easy means of transportation) were becoming very heavy, the
postmasters in the cities and important towns had already begun to have
stamps printed at their own cost. Their purpose was to save time, for
letter postage was frequently (but not always) prepaid. But instead of
fixing a stamp on the envelope (there was no such thing in 1840), the
writer sent the letter to the post office and paid the postage in money,
whereupon the postmaster stamped the letter "Paid." This consumed the
time of the postmaster and the letter writer. But when he could go once
to the post office and prepay a hundred letters by buying a hundred
stamps, any one of which affixed to a letter was evidence that its
postage had been paid, any man who wanted to could save his time. These
stamps the postmasters sold at a little more than the expense of
printing. Thus the postmasters of New York and St. Louis charged one
dollar for nine ten-cent or eighteen five-cent stamps. This increased
the price of postage a trifle: but as the use of the stamps was
optional, the burden fell on those willing to bear it, while the
convenience was so great that the effort made to have the Post-office
Department furnish the stamps and require the people to use them
succeeded in 1847.
[Illustration: St. Louis postage stamp]
%409. Mechanical Improvements.%--No American need be told that his
fellow-countrymen are the most ingenious people the world has ever
known. But we do not always remember that it was during this period
(1840-1860) that the marvelous inventive genius of the people of the
United States began to show itself. Between the day when the patent
office was established, in 1790, and 1840, the number of patents issued
was 11,908; but after 1840 the stream poured forth increased in volume
nearly every year. In 1855 there were 2012 issued and reissued; in 1856,
2506; in 1857, 2896; in 1858, 3695; and in 1860, 4778, raising the total
number to 43,431. An examination of these inventions shows that they
related to cotton gins and cotton presses; to reapers and mowers; to
steam engines; to railroads; to looms; to cooking stoves; to sewing
machines, printing presses, boot and shoe machines, rubber goods, floor
cloths, and a hundred other things. Very many of them helped to increase
the comfort of man and raise the standard of living. Three of them,
however, have revolutionized the industrial and business world and been
of inestimable good to mankind. They are the sewing machine, the reaper
and the electric telegraph.
[Illustration: The first Howe sewing machine]
%410. The Sewing Machine.%--As far back as the year 1834, Walter Hunt
made and sold a few sewing machines in New York. But the man to whose
genius, perseverance, and unflinching zeal the world owes the sewing
machine, is Elias Howe. His patent was obtained in 1846, and he then
spent four years in poverty and distress trying to convince the world of
the utility of his machine. By 1850 he succeeded not only in interesting
the public, but in so arousing the mechanical world that seven rivals
(Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, Wilcox and Gibbs, and Singer)
entered the field. To the combined efforts of them all, we owe one of
the most useful inventions of the century. It has lessened the cost of
every kind of clothing; of shoes and boots; of harness; of everything,
in short, that can be sewed. It has given employment to millions of
people, and has greatly added to the comfort of every household in the
civilized world.
[Illustration: The Wilson sewing machine of 1850]
%411. The Harvester.%--Much the same can be said of the McCormick
reaper. It was invented and patented as early as 1831; but it was hard
work to persuade the farmer to use it. Not a machine was sold till
1841. During 1841, 1842, 1843, such as were made in the little
blacksmith shop near Steel's Tavern, Virginia, were disposed of with
difficulty. Every effort to induce manufacturers to make the machine was
a failure. Not till McCormick had gone on horseback among the farmers of
Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and secured written orders for
his reapers, did he persuade a firm in Cincinnati to make them. In 1845,
five hundred were manufactured; in 1850, three thousand. In 1851
McCormick placed one on exhibition at the World's Fair in London, and
astonished the world with its performance. To-day two hundred thousand
are turned out annually, and without them the great grain fields of the
middle West and the far West would be impossible. The harvester has
cheapened the cost of bread, and benefited the whole human race.
%412. The Telegraph.%--Think, again, what would be our condition if
every telegraph line in the world were suddenly pulled down. Yet the
telegraph, like the reaper and the sewing machine, was introduced
slowly. Samuel F. B. Morse got his patent in 1837; and for seven years,
helped by Alfred Vail, he struggled on against poverty. In 1842 he had
but thirty-seven cents in the world. But perseverance conquers all
things; and with thirty thousand dollars, granted by Congress, the first
telegraph line in the world was built in 1844 from Baltimore to
Washington. In 1845 New York and Philadelphia were connected; but as
wires could not be made to work under water, the messages were received
on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and carried to New York by boat. By
1856 the telegraph was in use in the most populous states. Some forty
companies, but one of which paid dividends, competed for the business.
This was ruinous; and in 1856 a union of Western companies was formed
and called the Western Union Telegraph Company. To-day it has 21,000
offices, sends each year some 58,000,000 messages, receives about
$23,000,000, and does seven eighths of all the telegraph business in the
United States.
%413. India Rubber.%--The same year (1844) which witnessed the
introduction of the telegraph saw the perfection of Goodyear's secret
for the vulcanization of India rubber. In 1820 the first pair of rubber
shoes ever seen in the United States were exhibited in Boston. Two years
later a ship from South America brought 500 pairs of rubber shoes. They
were thick, heavy, and ill-shaped; but they sold so rapidly that more
were imported, and in 1830 a cargo of raw gum was brought from South
America for the purpose of making rubber goods. With this C. M. Chaffee
went to work and succeeded in producing some pieces of cloth spread with
rubber. Supposing the invention to be of great value, a number of
factories[1] began to make rubber coats, caps, wagon curtains, of pure
rubber without cloth. But to the horror of the companies the goods
melted when hot weather came, and were sent back, emitting so dreadful
an odor that they had to be buried. It was to overcome this and find
some means of hardening the gum that Goodyear began his experiments and
labored year after year against every sort of discouragement. Even when
the secret of vulcanizing, as it is called, was discovered, five years
passed before he was able to conduct the process with absolute
certainty. In 1844, after ten years of labor, he succeeded and gave to
the world one of the most useful inventions of the nineteenth century.
[Footnote 1: At Roxbury, Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy,
and Staten Island.]
%414. The Photograph; the Discovery of Anaesthesia.%--But there were
other inventions and discoveries of almost as great or even greater
value to mankind. In 1840 Dr. John W. Draper so perfected the
daguerreotype that it could be used to take pictures of persons and
landscapes. Till then it could be used only to make pictures of
buildings and statuary.
The year 1846 is made yet more memorable by the discovery that whoever
inhaled sulphuric ether would become insensible to pain. The glory of
this discovery has been claimed for two men: Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson.
Which one is entitled to it cannot be positively decided, though Dr.
Morton seems to have the better right to be considered the discoverer.
Before this, however, anaesthesia by nitrous oxide (laughing gas) had
been discovered by Dr. Wells of Hartford, Conn., and by Dr. Long
of Georgia.
%415. Communication with Europe; Steamships%.--Progress was not
confined to affairs within our boundary. Communications with Europe were
greatly advanced. The passage of the steamship _Savannah_ across the
Atlantic, partly by steam and partly by sail, in 1819, resulted in
nothing practical. The wood used for fuel left little space for freight.
But when better machinery reduced the time, and coal afforded a less
bulky fuel, the passage across the Atlantic by steam became possible,
and in 1838 two vessels, the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_, made the
trip from Liverpool to New York by steam alone. No sails were used. This
showed what could be done, and in 1839 Samuel Cunard began the great
fleet of Atlantic greyhounds by founding the Cunard Line. Aided by the
British government, he drove all competitors from the field, till
Congress came to the aid of the Collins Line, whose steamers made the
first trip from New York to Liverpool in 1850. The rivalry between these
lines was intense, and each did its best to make short voyages. In 1851
the average time from Liverpool to New York was eleven days, eight
hours, for the Collins Line, and eleven days, twenty-three hours, for
the Cunard. This was considered astonishing; for Liverpool and New York
were thus brought as near each other in point of time in 1851 as Boston
and Philadelphia were in 1790.
%416. The Atlantic Cable%.--But something more astonishing yet was at
hand. In 1854 Mr. Cyrus W. Field of New York was asked to aid in the
construction of a submarine cable to join St. Johns with Cape Ray,
Newfoundland. While considering the matter, he became convinced that if
a cable could be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, another could be
laid across the Atlantic Ocean, and he formed the "New York,
Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company" for the purpose of doing
so. The first attempt, made in 1857, and a second in 1858, ended in
failure; but a third, in 1858, was successful, and a cable was laid from
Valentia Bay in Ireland to Trinity Bay in Newfoundland, a distance of
1700 geographical miles. For three weeks all went well, and during this
time 400 messages were sent; but on September 1, 1858, the cable ceased
to work, and eight years passed before another attempt was made to join
the Old World and the New.
%417. Condition of the Workingman%.--Every class of society was
benefited by these improvements, but no man more so than those who
depended on their daily wages for their daily bread. Though wages
increased but little, they were more easily earned and brought richer
returns. Improved means of transportation, cheaper methods of
manufacture, enabled every laborer in 1860 to wear better clothes and
eat better food than had been worn or consumed by his father in 1830.
New industries, new trades and occupations, new needs in the business
world, afforded to his son and daughter opportunities for a livelihood
unknown in his youth, while the free school system enabled them to fit
themselves to use such opportunities without cost to him. When our
country became independent, and for fifty years afterwards, a working
day was from sunrise to sunset, with an hour for breakfast and another
for dinner. After manufactures arose, and mills and factories gave
employment to thousands of wage earners, fourteen, fifteen, and even
sixteen hours of labor were counted a day. Protests were early made
against this, and demands raised that a working day should be ten hours.
At last, late in the thirties, the ten hours system was adopted in
Baltimore, and in 1840, by order of President Van Buren, was put in
force at the navy yard in Washington and in "all public establishments"
under the Federal government. Thus established, the system spread
slowly, till to-day it exists almost everywhere. Indeed, in many states,
and in all departments of the Federal government, eight hours of work
constitute a day. Thus, by the aid of machinery, not only are articles,
formerly expensive, made so cheaply that poor men can afford to use
them, but the wage earners who operate the machinery can make these
articles so quickly that they to-day earn higher wages for fewer hours
of work than ever before in the history of the world. Not only did wages
increase and the hours of labor grow shorter between 1840 and 1860, but
the field of labor was enormously expanded. In 1810, when the first
census of manufactures in the United States was taken, the value of
goods manufactured was $173,000,000. In 1860 it was ten times as great,
and gave employment to more than 1,000,000 men and women.
%418. Few Manufactures in the Slave States%.--From much of the
benefit produced by this splendid series of inventions and discoveries,
the people of the slave-owning states were shut out. They raised corn,
tobacco, and cotton, and made some sugar; but in them there were very
few mills or manufacturing establishments of any sort. While a great
social and industrial revolution was going on in the free states, the
people in the slave states remained in 1860 what they were in 1800. The
stream of immigrants from Europe passed the slave states by, carrying
their skill, their thrift, their energy, into the Northwest. The
resources of the slave states were boundless, but no free man would go
in to develop them. The soil was fertile, but no free laborer could live
on it and compete with slave labor, on which all agriculture, all
industry, all prosperity, in the South depended. The two sections of the
country at the end of the period 1840-1860 were thus more unlike
than ever.
SUMMARY
1. Between 1830 and 1850 the rush of population into the West continued,
but, instead of moving across the continent, most of the people settled
in the states already in existence.
2. This was due to the effect of such improved means of communication as
steamboats, railroads, canals, etc.
3. As a consequence, but six new states were admitted to the Union in
twenty-nine years, and one of them was annexed (Texas).
4. The period is also noticeable for the number of foreigners who came
to our shores.
5. After 1849 the existence of gold in California brought so many people
to the Pacific coast that California became a state in 1850.
6. As population grew denser, and transportation was facilitated by the
expansion of railroads and steamboats and canals, business opportunities
were increased, and new markets were created.
7. Labor-saving and time-saving machines and appliances became more in
demand than ever, and a long list of remarkable inventions and business
aids appeared.
8. The South, owing to its own peculiar industrial and labor condition,
was little benefited by all these improvements, and remained much the
same as in 1800.
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY, 1840-1860.
_The People_.
Immigration Causes.
Number of immigrants.
No. of people in 1840. 17,000,000
U. S. 1850. 23,000,000
1860. 31,000,000
Movement New States Arkansas, 1836. Slave.
Westward .. Michigan, 1837. Free.
Florida, 1845. Slave.
Texas, 1845. Slave.
Iowa, 1846. Free.
Wisconsin, 1848. Free.
California, 1850. Free.
Minnesota, 1858. Free.
Oregon, 1859. Free.
Territories New Mexico, 1850.
Utah, 1850.
Washington, 1853.
Kansas, 1854.
Nebraska, 1854.
_New Social and Business Conveniences._
Gas.
Plumbing.
Paved streets.
General use of anthracite.
Free schools.
Railroad expansion.
Express.
Postage stamps.
Ocean steamships.
_New Inventions._
Number of patents.
The sewing machine.
The harvester.
The telegraph.
India rubber.
Daguerreotype.
Anaesthesia.
Atlantic cable.
_The South._
Little affected by new industrial conditions.
Few manufactures.
Increase of the cotton area.
No immigration.
CHAPTER XXVII
WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-1865
%419. South Carolina secedes%.--The only state where in 1860
presidential electors were chosen by the legislature was South Carolina.
When the legislature met for this purpose, November 6, 1860, the
governor asked it not to adjourn, but to remain in session till the
result of the election was known. If Lincoln is elected, said he, the
"secession of South Carolina from the Union" will be necessary. Lincoln
was elected, and on December 20, 1860, a convention of delegates, called
by the legislature to consider the question of secession, formally
declared that South Carolina was no longer one of the United States.[1]
[Footnote 1: "We the people of the state of South Carolina, in
convention assembled, do declare and ordain ... that the union now
subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of
the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."]
%420. The "Confederate States of America."%--The meaning of this act
of secession was that South Carolina now claimed to be a "sovereign,
free, and independent" nation. But she was not the only state to take
this step. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,
Louisiana, and Texas had also left the Union. Three days later, February
4, 1861, delegates from six of these seven states met at Montgomery,
Ala., formed a constitution, established a provisional government, which
they called the "Confederate States of America," and elected Jefferson
Davis and Alexander H. Stephens provisional President and Vice
President.
Toward preventing or stopping this, Buchanan did nothing. No state, he
said, had a right to secede. But a state having seceded, he had no power
to make her come back, because he could not make war on a state; that
is, he could not preserve the Union. On one matter, however, he was
forced to act. When South Carolina seceded, the three forts in
Charleston harbor--Castle Pinckney, Fort Sumter, and Fort Moultrie--were
in charge of a major of artillery named Robert Anderson. He had under
him some eighty officers and men, and knowing that he could not hold all
three forts, and fearing that the South would seize Fort Sumter, he
dismantled Fort Moultrie, spiked the cannon, cut down the flagstaff, and
removed to Fort Sumter, on the evening of December 26, 1860.
[Illustration: CHARLESTON HARBOR]
This act was heartily approved by the people of the North and by
Congress, and Buchanan with great reluctance yielded to their demand,
and sent the _Star of the West,_ with food and men, to relieve Anderson.
But as the vessel, with our flag at its fore, was steaming up the
channel toward Charleston harbor, the Southern batteries fired upon her,
and she went back to New York. Anderson was thus left to his fate, and
as Buchanan's term was nearly out, both sides waited to see what
Lincoln would do.
%421. Why did the States secede?%--Why did the Southern slave states
secede? To be fair to them we must seek the answer in the speeches of
their leaders. "Your votes," said Jefferson Davis, "refuse to recognize
our domestic institutions [slavery], which preexisted the formation of
the Union, our property [slaves], which was guaranteed by the
Constitution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be
degraded if we remained in the Union. You elect a candidate upon the
basis of sectional hostility; one who in his speeches, now thrown
broadcast over the country, made a distinct declaration of war upon our
institutions."
"There is," said Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury of
the United States, "no other remedy for the existing state of things
except immediate secession."
"Our position," said the Mississippi secession convention, "is
thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery. A blow at slavery
is a blow at commerce and civilization. There was no choice left us but
submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union."
Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, asserted
that the Personal Liberty laws of some of the free states "constitute
the only cause, in my opinion, which can justify secession."
The South seceded, then, according to its own statements, because the
people believed that the election of Lincoln meant the abolition
of slavery.
%422. Compromise attempted%.--The Republican party in 1861 had no
intention of abolishing slavery. Its purpose was to stop the spread of
slavery into the territories, to stop the admission of more slave
states, but not to abolish slavery in states where it already existed. A
strong wish therefore existed in the North to compromise the sectional
differences. Many plans for a compromise were offered, but only one,
that of Crittenden, of Kentucky, need be mentioned. He proposed that the
Constitution should be so amended as to provide
1. That all territory of the United States north of 36° 30' should be
free, and all south of it slave soil.
2. That slaves should be protected as property by all the departments of
the territorial government.
3. That states should be admitted with or without slavery as their
constitutions provided, whether the states were north or south of
36° 30'.
4. That Congress should have no power to shut slavery out of the
territories.
5. That the United States should pay owners for rescued fugitive slaves.
As these propositions recognized the right of property in slaves, that
is, put the black man on a level with horses and cattle, the Republicans
rejected them, and the attempt to compromise ended in failure.
%423. A Proposed Thirteenth Amendment%.--One act of great
significance was done. A proposition to add a thirteenth amendment to
the Constitution was submitted to the states. It read,
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or
give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with
the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to
labor or service by the laws of said states."
Even Lincoln approved of this, and two states, Maryland and Ohio,
accepted it. But the issue was at hand. It was too late to compromise.
%424. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President%.--Lincoln and Hamlin were
inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and in his speech from the Capitol steps
Lincoln was very careful to state just what he wanted to do.
1. "I have no purpose," said he, "directly or indirectly, to interfere
with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists."
2. "I consider the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I
shall take care ... that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in
all the states."
3. "In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there
shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority."
4. "The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess
the property and places belonging to the government and to collect the
duties and imposts."
[Illustration: Fort Sumter]
%425. Civil War begins.%--One of the places Lincoln thus pledged
himself to "hold" was Fort Sumter, to which he decided to send men and
supplies. As soon as notice of this intention was sent to Governor
Pickens of South Carolina, the Confederate commander at Charleston,
General Beauregard (bo-ruh-gar'), demanded the surrender of the fort.
Major Anderson stoutly refused to comply with the demand, and at dawn on
the morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired the first gun at
Sumter. During the next thirty-four hours, nineteen batteries poured
shot and shell into the fort, which steadily returned the fire. Then
both food and powder were nearly exhausted, and part of the fort being
on fire, Anderson surrendered; and on Sunday, April 14, 1861, he marched
out, taking with him the tattered flag under which he made so gallant a
fight.[1] The fleet sent to his aid arrived in time to see the battle,
but did not give him any help. After the surrender, one of the ships
carried Anderson and the garrison to New York.[2]
[Footnote 1: "Having defended Fort Sumter for thirty-four hours, until
the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the
gorge walls seriously injured, the magazine surrounded by flames, and
its door closed from the effect of heat, four barrels and three
cartridges of powder being available, and no provisions remaining but
pork, I accepted terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard . . .
and marched out of the fort on Sunday afternoon, the 14th instant, with
colors flying and drums beating . . . and saluting my flag with fifty
guns."--_Major Anderson to the Secretary of War._]
[Footnote 2: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,_ Vol. I., pp.
60-73.]
%426. The Life of the Republic at Stake%.--Thus was begun the
greatest war in modern history. It was no vulgar struggle for territory,
or for maritime or military supremacy. The life of the Union was at
stake. The questions to be decided were: Shall there be one or two
republics on the soil of the United States? Shall the great principle of
all democratic-republican government, the principle that the will of the
majority shall rule, be maintained or abandoned? Shall state sovereignty
be recognized? Shall states be suffered to leave the Union at will, or
shall the United States continue to exist as "an indestructible Union of
indestructible States"? As Mr. Lincoln said, "Both parties deprecated
war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive;
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."
%427. The South better prepared%.--For the struggle which was to
decide these questions neither side was ready, but the South was better
prepared than the North. The South was united as one man. The North was
divided and full of Southern sympathizers. She knew not whom to trust.
Officers of the army, officers of the navy, were resigning every day.
The great departments of government at Washington contained many men who
furnished information to Southern officials. Seventeen steam war vessels
(two thirds of all that were not laid up or unfit for service) were in
foreign parts. Large quantities of military supplies had been stored in
Southern forts. All the great powers of Europe save Russia were hostile
to our republic, and would gladly have seen it rent in twain. The South,
again, had the advantage in that she was to act on the defensive.
[Illustration: The United States July 1861 Showing the greatest
extension of the Southern Confederacy]
%428. Results of firing on the Flag.%--Not a man was killed on either
side during the bombardment of Sumter. Yet the battle was a famous one,
and led to greater consequences:
1. Lincoln at once called for 75,000 militia to serve for three months.
2. Four "border states," as they were called, thus forced to choose
their side, seceded. They were Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and
Tennessee.
3. The Congress of the United States was called to meet at Washington,
July 4, 1861.
4. After Virginia seceded, the capital of the Confederacy, at the
invitation of the Virginia secession convention, was moved from
Montgomery to Richmond, and the Confederate Congress adjourned to meet
there July 20, 1861.
%429. West Virginia.%--The act of secession by Virginia was promptly
repudiated by the people of the counties west of the mountains, who
refused to secede, and voted to form a new state under the name of
Kanawha. They adopted a constitution and were finally admitted in 1863
as the state of West Virginia[1].
[Footnote 1: A state made out of part of another state cannot be
admitted into the Union without the consent of that state first
obtained. But as Congress and the people of West Virginia considered
that Virginia consisted of that part of the Old Dominion which remained
loyal to the Union, the people practically asked their own consent.]
%430. The Call to Arms.%--Lincoln held that no state could ever leave
the Union, and that therefore no state had left the Union. Those which
had passed ordinances of secession were to his mind states whose
machinery of government had been seized on by persons in insurrection
against the government of the United States. When, therefore, he made
his call for 75,000 militia to defend the Union, he apportioned the
number among all the states, slave and free, north and south, east and
west, according to their population. Those forming the Confederacy paid
no attention to the call. The governors of the border slave states
(Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri) returned
evasive or insulting answers.
But the people of the loyal states responded instantly, and tens of
thousands of troops were soon on their way to Washington. To get there
was a hard matter. Baltimore lay on the most direct railroad route
between the Eastern and Middle States and Washington. But Baltimore was
full of disloyal men, who tore up the railroads, burned bridges, cut the
telegraph wires, and as the Massachusetts 6th regiment was passing
through the city from one railroad station to another, attacked it,
killing some and wounding others of its soldiers. This forced the troops
from the other states to go by various routes to Annapolis and then to
Washington, so that it was late in April before enough arrived to insure
the safety of the city.
Though none of the border and seceded states sent troops, the response
of the loyal states to Lincoln's call was so hearty that more than
75,000 men were furnished. The President decided to turn this outburst
of patriotism to good purpose, and May 3, 1861, asked for 42,034
volunteers for three years unless sooner discharged, and ordered 18,000
seamen to be enlisted, and 22,714 men added to the regular army.
Baltimore was now occupied by Union troops, and communication with
Washington through that city was restored and protected.
On July 1, 1861, there were 183,588 "boys in blue" under arms and
present for duty. These were distributed at various places north of the
line, 2000 miles long, which divided the North and South. This line
began near Fort Monroe, in Virginia, ran up Chesapeake Bay and the
Potomac to the mountains, then across Western Virginia and through
Kentucky, Missouri, and Indian Territory to New Mexico.
This line was naturally divided into three parts:
1. That in Virginia and along the Potomac.
2. That occupied by Kentucky, a state which had declared itself neutral.
3. That west of the Mississippi.
%431. The Battle of "Bull Run" or Manassas%.--General Winfield Scott
was in command of the Union army. Under him, in command of the troops
about Washington, was General Irwin McDowell. Further to the west, near
Harpers Ferry, was a Union force under General Patterson. In western
Virginia, with an army raised largely in Ohio, was General George B.
McClellan. In Missouri was General Lyon, aided by all the Union people
in the state, who were engaged in a desperate struggle to keep her in
the Union.
In northern Virginia and opposed to the Union forces under General
McDowell, was a Confederate army under General Beauregard, and these
troops the people of the North demanded should be attacked. "The
Confederate Congress must not meet at Richmond!" "On to Richmond! On to
Richmond!" became the cries of the hour. General McDowell, with 30,000
men, was therefore ordered to attack Beauregard. McDowell found him near
Manassas, some thirty miles southwest of Washington, and there, on the
field of "Bull Run," on Sunday, July 21, 1861, was fought a famous
battle which ended with the defeat and flight of the Union army[1].
[Footnote 1: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. I., pp.
229-239.]
General George B. McClellan, who had defeated the Confederate forces in
western Virginia in several battles, was now placed in command of the
troops near Washington, and spent the rest of 1861 and part of 1862 in
drilling and organizing his army. Bull Run had taught the people two
things: 1. That the war was not to end in three months; 2. That an army
without discipline is not much better than a mob.
%432. Fort Donelson and Fort Henry%.--While McClellan was drilling
his men along the Potomac, the Union forces drove back the Confederates
in the West. The Confederate line at first extended as shown by the
heavy line on the map on p. 390. In order to break it, General Buell
sent a small force under General Thomas, in January, 1862, to drive back
the Confederates near Mill Springs. Next, in February, General Halleck
authorized General U. S. Grant and Flag Officer Foote to make a joint
expedition against Fort Henry on the Tennessee. But Foote arrived first
and captured the fort, whereupon Grant marched to Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland, eleven miles away, and after three days of sharp fighting
was asked by General Buckner what terms he would offer. Grant
promptly answered,
[Illustration: Handwritten note of Grant]
No terms excepting unconditional and
immediate surrender can be accepted.
I propose to receive immediately upon
your word.
I am Sir: very respectfully
your ** **
U. S. Grant
Brig. Gen.
Buckner at once surrendered (February 16, 1862), and Grant won the first
great Union victory of the war.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,_ Vol. I., pp.
398-429; Grant's _Memoirs_, Vol. I., pp. 285-315.]
%433. The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing.%--After the fall of
Fort Donelson, the Confederates, abandoning Columbus and Nashville,
hurried south toward Corinth in Mississippi, whither Halleck's army
followed in three parts. One under General S. E. Curtis moved to
southwestern Missouri, and beat the Confederates at Pea Ridge, Ark.
(March 6-8). The second, under General John Pope, coöperated with Flag
Officer Foote, from the west bank of the Mississippi, in the capture of
Island No. 10 (April 7). Pope then joined Halleck in the movement
against Corinth, while the fleet went on down the river, attacked Fort
Pillow three times, captured it (June 4), and two days later
took Memphis.
Meanwhile the third part of Halleck's army, under Grant, following the
Confederates, had reached Pittsburg Landing, where (April 6) he was
suddenly attacked by General A. S. Johnston and driven back. But General
Buell coming up with fresh troops, the battle was resumed the next day
(April 7), when Grant regained his lost ground, and the Confederates
fell back to Corinth.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,_ Vol., pp. 465-486.]
[Illustration: Driving back the Confederate line in the West]
At this point General Henry Halleck arrived and took command, and at the
end of May occupied Corinth. Memphis then fell, and the Mississippi
River was opened as far south as Vicksburg. After the capture of
Memphis, Halleck went to Washington to take command of the armies of the
United States.
%434. Bragg's Raid into Kentucky.%--The Confederate line which in
January, 1862, had passed across Kentucky had thus by June been driven
southward to Chattanooga, Iuka, and Holly Springs. The Union line ran
from near Chattanooga to Corinth and Memphis. Against this the
Confederates now moved, with the hope of breaking through and driving it
back. Gathering his forces at Chattanooga, General Bragg rushed across
Tennessee and Kentucky toward Louisville. But General Buell, perceiving
his purpose, outmarched him, reached the Ohio, and forced Bragg to fall
back. At Perryville (October 8, 1862), Bragg turned furiously on Buell
and was beaten.
%435. Iuka and Corinth.%--While Bragg was raiding Kentucky, Generals
Price at Iuka and Van Dorn at Holly Springs, knowing that Grant's army
had been greatly weakened by sending troops to Buell, prepared to attack
Corinth. But Grant, thinking he could fight them separately, sent
Rosecrans to Iuka (September 19). Price was not captured, but retreated
to Van Dorn, and the two then fell upon Rosecrans at Corinth (October
4), only to be beaten and chased forty miles.
%436. Murfreesboro.%--For these successes Rosecrans (October 30) was
given command of Buell's army, then centering at Nashville. Bragg went
into winter quarters at Murfreesboro, and thither Rosecrans advanced to
attack him. The contest at Murfreesboro (December 31, 1862, and January
2, 1863) was one of the most bloody battles of the whole war. Bragg was
again defeated, and retreated to a position farther south.
%437. Arkansas%.--In January, 1862, the Confederate line west of the
Mississippi extended from Belmont across southern Missouri to the Indian
Territory. Against the west end of this line General Curtis moved in
February, 1862, and after driving the Confederates under Van Dorn and
Price out of Missouri, beat them in the desperate battle at Pea Ridge,
Arkansas (March 6-8, 1862), and moved to the interior of the state.
Price and Van Dorn went east into Mississippi (see § 435), and when the
year closed the Union forces were in control north of the Arkansas
River, and along the west bank of the Mississippi. On the east bank the
only fortified positions in Confederate hands were Vicksburg, Grand
Gulf, and Port Hudson.
%438. Farragut captures New Orleans.%--While Foote was opening the
upper part of the Mississippi, a naval expedition under Farragut,
supported by an army under Butler, had cleared the lower part of the
river. These forces had been sent by sea to capture New Orleans. The
defenses of the city consisted of two strong forts almost directly
opposite each other on the banks of the river, about seventy-five miles
south of the city; of two great chain cables stretched across the river
below the forts to prevent ships coming up; and of fifteen armed vessels
above the forts. New Orleans was thought to be safe. But Farragut was
not dismayed. Sailing up the river till he came to the chains, he
bombarded the forts for six days and nights, while the forts did their
best to destroy him. Then, finding he could do nothing in this way, he
cut the chains, ran his ships past the forts in spite of a dreadful fire
(April 24, 1862), destroyed the Confederate fleet (April 25), and took
the city. General Butler, who had been waiting at Ship Island with
15,000 men, then entered and held New Orleans.[1]
[Footnote 1: Farragut, after taking New Orleans, went up the river and
captured Baton Rouge and Natchez.]
%439. The Peninsular Campaign against Richmond.%--The signal success
of Grant and Farragut in the West was more than offset by the signal
failure of McClellan in the East. The wish of the administration, and
indeed of the whole North, was that Richmond should be captured. Against
it, therefore, the Army of the Potomac was to move. But by what route?
The government wanted McClellan to march south across Virginia, so that
his army should always be between the Confederate forces and Washington.
McClellan insisted on moving west from Chesapeake Bay. The result was a
compromise:
1. Forces under Frémont and Banks were to operate in the Shenandoah
valley and prevent a Confederate force attacking Washington from
the west.
2. An army under McDowell was to march from Fredericksburg to Richmond.
3. McClellan was to take the main army from Washington by water to Fort
Monroe, and then march up the peninsula to Richmond, where McDowell was
to join him.
[Illustration: The Peninsula Campaign]
This peninsula, from which the campaign gets its name, lies between the
York and James rivers. Landing at the lower end of it, McClellan was met
by General Joseph E. Johnston, who caused a long delay by forcing him to
besiege Yorktown. McClellan then advanced up the peninsula, fighting the
battle of Williamsburg on the way. At White House Landing he turned
toward Richmond, extending his right flank to Hanover Courthouse, where
McDowell was expected to join him. But this was not to be, for General
T. J. Jackson ("Stonewall" Jackson) rushed down the Shenandoah valley,
driving Banks over the Potomac into Maryland, and retreated south before
Frémont or McDowell could cut him off; during this campaign he won four
desperate battles in thirty-five days. Jackson's success alarmed
Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia. McClellan's
army, meanwhile, advanced on both sides of the Chickahominy River to
within eight miles of Richmond. At Fair Oaks and Seven Pines (May 31)
his left flank was almost overwhelmed by Johnston; but the latter was
wounded and his troops defeated. Johnston was then succeeded by R. E.
Lee, who, joined by Jackson, attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and
Games Mill, and forced him to fall back, fighting for six days (June 26
to July 1, 1862)[1] as he retreated to Harrisons Landing, on the James
River. There the army remained till August, when it was recalled to
the Potomac.
[Footnote 1: The "Seven Days' Battles" are these and one fought June
25.]
%440. Lee's Raid into Maryland; Battle of Antietam, or
Sharpsburg.%--While the Army of the Potomac was at Harrisons Landing,
a new force called the Army of Virginia was organized, and General John
Pope placed in command. At the same time General Halleck was recalled
from the West and made general in chief of the Union armies. Pope
intended to move straight against Richmond. But when McClellan in
obedience to orders left Harrisons Landing and took his army by water to
the Potomac, near Washington, the Confederate army was left free to act
as it pleased. Seeing his opportunity, Lee moved at once against Pope's
army, whose line stretched along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers to
the Shenandoah valley in western Virginia. Near the Rapidan at Cedar
Mountain was General Banks. He was first attacked and beaten; after
which Lee fell upon Pope on the old field of Bull Run, and put the army
to flight. Pope fell back to Washington, where his forces were united
with those of McClellan. Pushing northward, Lee next crossed the Potomac
and entered Maryland. But he was overtaken by McClellan at Antietam
Creek, near Sharpsburg, where, September 17, 1862, a great battle was
fought, after which Lee went back to Virginia.
McClellan was now removed and the command of the army given to General
Burnside. He was as reckless as McClellan was cautious, and on December
13 threw his army against the Confederates posted at Fredericksburg
Heights and was beaten with dreadful slaughter. Thus at the end of 1862
Richmond was not captured, and the two armies went into winter quarters
with the Rappahannock River between them.
%441. Emancipation of the Slaves%.--More than two years had now
passed since South Carolina had seceded, and during this time a great
change had taken place in the feeling of the North towards slavery. When
Lincoln was inaugurated, very few people wanted the slaves emancipated.
But two years of bloody fighting had convinced the North that the Union
could not exist part slave, part free. As Lincoln said in his speech at
Springfield in 1858, "It must be all one thing, or all the other."
Seeing that the people now felt as he did, Lincoln, in 1862 (March 6),
asked Congress to agree to buy the slaves of the loyal slave states, and
urged the members of Congress from those states to advise their
constituents to set free their slaves and receive $300 apiece for them.
This they would not do; whereupon he decided to act upon his own
authority, and declared all slaves within the lines of the Confederacy
to be freemen.
For this he had two good reasons: 1. So far the war had been one for the
preservation of the Union. By making it a war for union and freedom the
North would become more earnest than ever. 2. The rulers of England, who
wanted Southern cotton, were only waiting for a pretext to acknowledge
the independence of the South. If, however, the North engaged in a war
for the abolition of slavery, the people of England would not allow the
independence of the Confederacy to be acknowledged by their rulers.
The time to make such a declaration was after some victory gained by the
Union army. When McClellan and Lee stood face to face at Antietam,
Lincoln therefore "vowed to God" that if Lee were defeated he would
issue the proclamation. Lee was defeated, and, on September 22, 1862,
the proclamation came forth declaring that if the Confederate States did
not return to their allegiance before January 1, 1863, "all persons held
as slaves" within the Confederate lines "shall be then, thenceforth, and
forever free." The states of course did not return to their allegiance,
and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued setting the
slaves free.[1]
[Footnote 1: Nicolay and Hay's _Life of Lincoln, _Vol. VI., Chaps. 6,
8.]
Now, there are three things in connection with the Emancipation
Proclamation which must be understood and remembered:
1. Lincoln did not _abolish slavery_ anywhere. He _emancipated_ or _set
free the slaves_ of certain persons engaged in waging war against the
United States government.
2. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to any of the loyal slave
states,[1] nor to such territory as the Union army had reconquered.[2]
In none of these places did it free slaves.
[Footnote 1: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.]
[Footnote 2: Tennessee, thirteen parishes in Louisiana, and seven
counties in Virginia.]
3. Lincoln freed the slaves by virtue of his power as commander in chief
of the army of the United States, "and as a fit and necessary
war measure."
%442. The Battle of Gettysburg.%--After Burnside was defeated at
Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, he was removed, and General Hooker
put in command of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker--"Fighting Joe," as he
was called--led it against Lee, and (May 1-4, 1863) was beaten at
Chancellorsville and fell back. In June Lee again took the offensive,
rushed down the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac, crossed Maryland, and
entered Pennsylvania, with the Army of the Potomac in pursuit. On
reaching Maryland, Hooker was removed and General Meade put in command.
The opposing forces met on the hills at Gettysburg, Penn., and there,
July 1-3, Lee attacked Meade. The contest was a dreadful one; no field
was ever more stubbornly fought over. About one fourth of the men
engaged were killed or wounded. But the splendid courage of the Union
army prevailed: Lee was beaten and retired to Virginia, where he
remained unmolested till the spring of 1864. Gettysburg is regarded as
the greatest battle of the war, and the Union regiments engaged have
taken a just pride in marking the positions they held during the three
awful days of slaughter, till the field is dotted all over with
beautiful monuments. On the hill back of the village is a great
national cemetery, at the dedication of which Lincoln delivered his
famous Gettysburg address.
[Illustration: Part of the battlefield of Gettysburg]
%443. Vicksburg%.--The day after the victory at Gettysburg, the joy
of the North was yet more increased by the news that Vicksburg had
surrendered (July 4) to Grant. After the defeat, of the Confederate
forces at Iuka and Corinth in 1862, the Confederate line passed across
northern Mississippi, touched the river from Vicksburg to Port Hudson,
and then swept off to the Gulf. As the capture of these river towns
would complete the opening of the Mississippi, Grant set out to take
Vicksburg. Failing in a direct advance through Mississippi, Grant sent a
strong force down the river from Memphis, and later took command in
person. Vicksburg stands on the top of a bluff which rises steep and
straight 200 feet above the river, and had been so fortified that to
capture it seemed impossible. But Grant was determined to open the
river. On the west bank, he cut a canal through a bend, hoping to divert
the river and get water passage by the town. This failed, and he decided
to cross below the town and attack from the land. To aid him in this
attempt, Porter ran his gunboats past the town one night in April and
carried the army over the river. Landing on the east bank, Grant won a
victory at Port Gibson, and occupied Grand Gulf. Hearing that Johnston
was coming to help Pemberton, Grant pushed in between them, beat
Johnston at Jackson, and turning westward, drove Pemberton into
Vicksburg, and began a regular siege. For seven weeks he poured in shot
and shell day and night. To live in houses became impossible, and the
women and children took refuge in caves. Food gave out, and after every
kind of misery had been endured till it could be borne no longer,
Vicksburg was surrendered on July 4.
[Illustration: The Vicksburg Campaign]
Five days later (July 9, 1863), Port Hudson surrendered, and the
Mississippi, as Lincoln said, "flowed unvexed to the sea." It was open
from its source to its mouth, and the Confederacy was cut in two.
%444. Driving the Confederates eastward; Chickamauga and
Chattanooga%.--While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans by
skillful work forced Bragg to retreat from his position south of
Murfreesboro; then in a second campaign he forced Bragg to leave
Chattanooga and retire into northwestern Georgia. Bragg here received
more troops, and attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September
19 and 20, 1863), where was fought one of the most desperate battles of
the war. So fierce was the onset of the Confederates that the Union
right wing was driven from the field. But the left wing, under General
George H. Thomas, a grand character and a splendid officer, by some of
the best fighting ever seen held the enemy in check and saved the army
from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of "the Rock of
Chickamauga."
Rosecrans now went back to Chattanooga. Bragg followed, and taking
position on the hills and mountains which surround the town on the east
and south, shut in the Union army and besieged it. For a time it seemed
in danger of starvation. But Hooker was sent from Virginia with more
troops; the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman was summoned from
Vicksburg; Rosecrans was superseded by Thomas, and Grant was put in
command of all. Then matters changed. The forces under Thomas, moving
from their lines, seized some low hills at the foot of Missionary Ridge,
east of Chattanooga (November 23). On the 24th, Hooker carried the
Confederate works on Lookout Mountain, southwest of the city, in a
conflict often called the "Battle above the Clouds"; and Sherman was
sent against the northern end of Missionary Ridge, but succeeded only in
taking an outlying hill. On the 25th Sherman renewed his attack, but
failed to gain the main crest, whereupon Thomas attacked the Ridge in
front of Chattanooga, carried the heights, and drove off the enemy.
Bragg retreated to Dalton, in northwestern Georgia, where the command of
his army was given to Joseph E. Johnston.
%445. "Marching through Georgia"; "From Atlanta to the Sea."%--As the
Confederates had thus been driven from the Mississippi River, and forced
back to the mountains, they had but two centers of power left. The one
was the army under Lee, which, since the defeat at Gettysburg, had been
lying quietly behind the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers, protecting
Richmond. The other was the army at Dalton, Ga., now under J.
E. Johnston.
[Illustration: WAR FOR THE UNION Breaking the Confederate Line]
Early in the spring of 1864 General U.S. Grant--"Unconditional Surrender
Grant," as the people called him--was made lieutenant general (a rank
never before given to any United States soldier except Washington and
Scott), and put in command of all the Federal armies. General Sherman
was left in command of the military division of the Mississippi.
Before beginning the campaign, Grant and Sherman agreed on a plan.
Grant, with the Army of the Potomac, was to drive back Lee and take
Richmond. Sherman, with the armies of Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield,
was to attack Johnston and push his way into Georgia. Each was to begin
his movement on the same day (May 4, 1864).
On that day, accordingly, Sherman with 98,000 men marched against
Johnston, flanked him out of Dalton, and step by step through the
mountains to Atlanta, fighting all the way. Johnston's retreat was
masterly. He intended to retreat until Sherman's army was so weakened by
leaving guards in the rear to protect the railroads, over which food and
supplies must come, that he could fight on equal terms. But Jefferson
Davis removed Johnston at Atlanta, and put J. B. Hood in command.
Hood, in July, made three furious attacks, was beaten each time;
abandoned Atlanta in September, and soon after started northwestward, in
hope of drawing Sherman out of Georgia. But Sherman sent Thomas and a
part of the army to Tennessee, and after following Hood for a time, he
returned to Atlanta, tearing up the railroads as he went. Then, having
partly burned the town, in November he started for the sea with 60,000
of his best veterans.
[Illustration: SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA]
The troops went in four columns, covering a belt of sixty miles wide,
burning bridges, tearing up railroads, living on the country as they
marched. Early in December the army drew near to Savannah; about the
middle of the month (December 13) Fort McAllister was taken; and a few
days later the city of Savannah was occupied. During all this long march
to the sea, nothing was known in the North as to where Sherman was or
what he was doing. Fancy the delight of Lincoln, then, when on the
Christmas eve of 1864, he received this telegram:
SAVANNAH, Georgia, December 22, 1864.
To His EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT LINCOLN, WASHINGTON, D.C.
I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one
hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; also about
twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.
W. T. SHERMAN, MAJOR GENERAL.
Sherman had sent the message by vessel to Fort Monroe, whence it was
telegraphed to Lincoln.
%446. Sherman marches northward.%--At Savannah the army rested for a
month. Sherman tells us in his _Memoirs_ that the troops grew impatient
at this delay, and used to call out to him as he rode by: "Uncle Billy,
I guess Grant is waiting for us at Richmond." So he was; but he did not
wait very long, for on February 1, 1865, the march was resumed. The way
was across South Carolina to Columbia, and then into North Carolina,
with their old enemy, J. E. Johnston, in their front. Hood, in a rash
moment, had besieged Thomas at Nashville; but Thomas, coming out from
behind his intrenchments, utterly destroyed Hood's army. This forced
Davis to put Johnston in command of a new army made up of troops taken
from the seaport garrisons and remnants of Hood's army. In March,
Sherman reached Goldsboro in North Carolina.
%447. Grant in Virginia.%--Meantime Grant had set out from Culpeper
Courthouse on May 4, 1864, crossed the Rapidan, and entered the
"Wilderness," a name given to a tract of country covered with dense
woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. The fighting was almost
incessant. The loss of life was frightful; but he pushed on to
Spottsylvania Courthouse, and thence to Cold Harbor, part of the line of
fortifications before Richmond. He would, as he said, "fight it out on
this line if it takes all summer," and went south of Richmond and
besieged Petersburg.
%448. Early's Raid, 1864.%--Lee now sent Jubal Early with 20,000
soldiers to move down the Shenandoah valley, enter Maryland, and
threaten Washington. This he did, and after coming up to the
fortifications of the city, he retreated to Virginia. A little later,
Early sent his cavalry into Pennsylvania and burned Chambersburg.
Grant thought it was time to stop this, and sent Sheridan with an army
to drive Early out of the Shenandoah valley. "It is desirable," said
Grant, "that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return."
Sheridan set out accordingly, and on September 19 he met Early in battle
at Winchester, and a few days later at Fishers Hill, beat him at both
places, and sent him whirling up the valley. Sheridan followed for a
time, and then brought his army back to Cedar Creek, after burning
barns, destroying crops, and devastating the entire upper valley.
%449. Sheridan's Ride.%--And now occurred a famous incident. About
the middle of October Sheridan went to Washington, and while on his way
back slept on the night of October 18 at Winchester. At 7 A.M. on the
19th he heard guns, but paid no attention to the sounds till 9 o'clock,
when, as he rode quietly out of Winchester, he met a mile from town
wagon trains and fugitives, and heard that Early had surprised his camp
at daylight. Dashing up the pike with an escort of twenty men, calling
to the fugitives as he passed them to turn and face the enemy, he met
the army drawn up in line eleven miles from Winchester. "Far away in the
rear," says an old soldier, "we heard cheer after cheer. Were
reinforcements coming? Yes, Phil Sheridan was coming, and he was a
host." Dashing down the line, Sheridan shouted, "What troops are these?"
"The Sixth Corps," came back the response from a hundred voices. "We are
all right," said Sheridan, as he swung his old hat and dashed along the
line to the right. "Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall
sleep in our old quarters to-night." And they did.[1] Early
was defeated.
[Footnote:1] Read Sheridan's account in his _Personal Memoirs, _Vol.
II., pp. 66-92.
%450. Surrender of Lee.%--At the beginning of 1865 the situation of
Lee was desperate, and in February, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice
President of the Confederacy, met Lincoln and Secretary Seward on a war
vessel in Hampton Roads to discuss terms of peace. Lincoln demanded
three things: 1. That the Confederate armies be disbanded and the men
sent home. 2. That the Confederate States submit to the rule of
Congress. 3. That slavery be abolished. These terms were not accepted,
and the war went on. Sherman marched northward through the Carolinas and
was reënforced from the coast; every seaport in the Confederacy was soon
in Union hands; Sheridan finally dispersed Early's troops, and joined
Grant before Petersburg; and the lines of Grant's army were drawn closer
and closer around Petersburg and Richmond.
Plainly the end was near. On April 2 Lee announced to Davis that both
Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned at once. The rams in the James
River were immediately blown up, and on the morning of April 3 General
Weitzel, hearing from a negro what was going on, entered Richmond and
found that Lee was in full retreat. Grant followed, and on April 9
forced Lee to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, seventy-five miles
west of Richmond. Grant's treatment of Lee was most generous. He was not
required to give up his sword, nor his officers their side arms, nor his
men their horses, which they would need, Grant said, "to work their
little farms." Each officer was to give his parole not to take up arms
against the United States "until properly exchanged"; each regimental
commander was to do the same for his men; and, "this done, each officer
and man will be allowed to return to his home." Immediately after this
surrender 25,000 rations were issued to Lee's men.
[Illustration: The house in which Lee and Grant arranged the surrender]
%451. End of the Confederacy.%--What little was left of the
Confederacy now went rapidly to pieces. On April 26 Johnston surrendered
to Sherman near Raleigh, North Carolina. A few days later the victorious
army started for Richmond, and then went on over battle-scarred
Virginia to Washington. May 10, Jefferson Davis was captured. When Lee
fled from Richmond, Davis hurried to Charlotte, N.C., with his cabinet,
his clerks, and such gold and silver coin as was in the Confederate
Treasury. But the surrender of Johnston forced Davis to retreat still
farther south, till he reached Irwinsville, Ga., where the Union cavalry
overtook him.
%452. The Grand Army disbands.%--As this was practically the end of
the Confederacy, the great Union army of citizen soldiers, numbering
more than 1,000,000 men, was called home from the field and disbanded.
Before these veterans separated, never to meet again with arms in their
hands, they were reviewed by the President, Congress, and an immense
throng of people who came to Washington from every part of the loyal
states to welcome them. During two days (May 23 and 24, 1865) the
soldiers of Grant and Sherman, forming a column thirty miles long,
marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and then, with a rapidity and
quietness that seems almost incredible, scattered and went back to their
farms, to their shops, to the practice of their professions, and to the
innumerable occupations of civil life.
Of the Confederates not one was molested, not a soldier was imprisoned,
not a political leader suffered death. Davis was ordered to be
imprisoned at Fort Monroe for two years, but he was soon released on
bail, was never brought to trial, and died at New Orleans in 1889.
SUMMARY
1. After the election of Lincoln seven states seceded from the Union,
and formed the "Confederate States of America."
2. Four other states joined the Confederacy later.
3. The refusal of the United States to recognize the right to secede led
to the refusal to give up Federal forts in Charleston harbor. The
attempt to take Sumter by force led to the appeal to arms.
4. The line which separated the troops of the two governments ran from
Chesapeake Bay, across Virginia, and through Kentucky and Missouri, to
New Mexico.
5. While the Union troops held the Confederates in check on the eastern
end of the line, they broke through the line in the West, and, aided by
the Union fleet, opened the Mississippi River.
6. The Confederates were thus driven from the Mississippi and forced
back to the mountains of Georgia. Sherman was sent against them, and in
1864 marched eastward through the heart of the Confederacy to
the Atlantic.
7. Marching north from Savannah, across Georgia and South Carolina, to
Goldsboro in North Carolina, he was now in the rear of the Confederate
army in Virginia.
8. Grant, meantime, with the Army of the Potomac, had fought a series of
battles with Lee, and had besieged Richmond and Petersburg; and
Sheridan had cleared out the Shenandoah valley.
9. Lee was thus forced, early in 1865, to leave Richmond, and while
retreating westward he was forced to surrender.
SECESSION AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION
|
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_The South_ _The North_
The cotton states secede. Attempts to compromise.
The Confederacy formed. Buchanan's attitude.
A constitution adopted. The Crittenden Compromise.
Unites States property seized. A Thirteenth Amendment proposed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
------------------------------------------
|
------------------------------------------
Buchanan attempts to provision Fort Sumter
_Star of the West_ fired on.
------------------------------------------
|
-------------------
Lincoln inaugurated.
-------------------
|
------------------------------------------
Lincoln attempts to provision Fort Sumter
The fort bombarded. The surrender.
------------------------------------------
|
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arkansas, North Carolina, The call to arms.
Virginia, and Tennessee secede. The march to Washington
Richmond made the capital Fight in the streets of
of the Confederacy. Baltimore. ------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
-----------------------------------------
|
------------------
_The war opens_
-------------------
|
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_Fighting in the West._ _Fighting along the Potomac and in
Virginia_
_1861-1862._ Breaking the _1861._ The attempt to take Richmond.
Confederate line. Battle of Bull Run.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Line broken at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and driven out of
Kentucky and West Tennessee.
2. Driven out of Missouri and North Arkansas.
3. New Orleans taken.
4. Mississippi River nearly open.
_1863_. 1. Vicksburg and Port Hudson taken, and Mississippi River open
to the Gulf.
2. The Confederacy cut in two.
3. Arkansas and East Tennessee recovered.
_1864_. Driving the Confederate line eastward.
1. Sherman's march to Atlanta; to the sea.
2. The Confederacy again cut in two.
_1865_. Driving the Confederate line northward.
1. Sherman marches northward from Savannah to Goldsboro.
2. Surrender of Johnston to Sherman.
_1862_ The attempt on Richmond renewed.
------------------------ ------------------------ --------------------------
1. Frémont and Banks to 2. McDowell to move from 3. McClellan to move up
hold the Shenandoah Fredericksburg. Peninsula from Fort
valley. ------------+----------- Monroe.
------------+----------- | -------------+------------
| ------------+----------- |
------------+----------- Jackson's success in the -------------+------------
Defeated by Jackson. Shenandoah valley leads McClellan, left without
------------------------ to recall of McDowell. support of McDowell,
-------------------------- is defeated, changes base
to James River, and in
August is recalled north.
-------------+------------
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Removal of McClellan's army leaves Lee free to act.
He attacks Pope and defeats him on old field of Bull Run.
After defeat of Pope, he rushes into Maryland, where, at Antietam, he is
defeated, and goes back to Virginia.
--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
|
--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
1. Union victory at Antietam leads Lincoln to issue the Preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation.
2. McClellan relieved of command and Burnside put in his place.
3. Burnside attacks Lee's army and is beaten at Fredericksburg.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_1863_. 1. Burnside removed and _1864_. Grant in command.
Hooker in command. 1. The Wilderness and other battles.
2. Hooker defeated at Chancellorsville. 2. Early sent into the Shenandoah
3. Lee runs past and enters Pennsylvania. valley, where Sheridan defeats him.
4. Meade put in command. Battle of _1865_. Richmond taken.
Gettysburg. 1. Lee evacuates the city.
5. Lee beaten and goes back to Virginia. 2. Surrenders to Grant.
6. The turning-point of the war. ------------------+-----------------
|
----------------------------------------------------------------------
%END OF THE WAR.%
CHAPTER XXVIII
WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA
%453. State of our Navy in 1861.%--On the day our flag went down at
Sumter, the navy of the United States consisted of ninety vessels of
every sort. Fifty of these were sailing ships. Forty were propelled by
steam. Of the steam fleet one was on the Lakes, five were unserviceable,
seventeen were in foreign parts, and nine laid up in navy yards and out
of service. Eight steam vessels (one a mere tender) and five sailing
vessels (a fleet of thirteen) made up the naval force of the United
States that was available for actual service on April 15, 1861.
%454. The Work before the Navy.%--The duty of the navy was to
1. Blockade the coast from Norfolk in Virginia to the Bio Grande in
Texas.
2. Capture the seaports and forts scattered along this coast.
3. Acquire control of the sounds and bays, as Chesapeake, Albemarle,
Pamlico, Mobile, and Galveston.
4. Assist the army in opening the Mississippi, Arkansas, and other
rivers.
5. Destroy all Confederate cruisers and protect the commerce of the
United States.
To accomplish this great work, most of the vessels abroad were recalled
(a slow process in days when no ocean cable existed), more were hastily
built, and in time 400 merchantmen and river steamboats were bought and
roughly adapted at the navy yards for war service.
%455. %The Blockade of the Southern Coast.%--The war on sea was
opened (April 19-27,1861) by two proclamations of Lincoln declaring the
coast from Virginia to Texas blockaded. This meant that armed vessels
were to be stationed off the seaports of the South, and that no ships
from any country were to be allowed to go into or out of them. To stop
trade with the South was important for three reasons:
1. The South had no ships, no great gun factories, machine shops, or
rolling mills, and must look to foreign countries for military supplies.
2. The South raised (in 1860) 4,700,000 bales of cotton, almost all of
which was sold to England and the North, and if this cotton should be
sent abroad, the South could easily buy with it all the guns, ships, and
goods she needed.
3. England was dependent on the South for raw cotton, and would sell for
it everything the South wanted in exchange.
The blockade, therefore, was to cut off the trade and supplies of the
South, and so weaken her. But as England, a great commercial nation,
wanted her cotton, it was certain that unless the blockade were rigorous
and close, cotton would be smuggled out and supplies sent in.
%456. Blockade Runners%.--This is just what did happen. The blockade
in the course of a year was made close, by ships stationed off the
ports, sounds, and harbors. In some places the hulks of old whalers were
loaded with stone and sunk in the channels, and to get in or out became
more difficult. As a result the price of cotton fell to eight cents a
pound in the South (because there was nobody to buy it) and rose to
fifty cents a pound in England (because so little was to be had). Then
"running the blockade" became a regular business. Goods of all sorts
were brought from England to Nassau in the West Indies, where they would
be put on board of vessels built to run the blockade. These blockade
runners were long, low steam vessels which drew only a few feet of water
and had great speed. Their hulls were but a few feet out of water and
were painted a dull gray. Their smokestacks could be lowered to the
deck, and they burned anthracite coal, which made no smoke. They would
leave Nassau at such a time as would enable them to be off Wilmington,
N.C., or some other Southern port, on a moonless night with a high tide,
and then, making a dash, would run through the blockading vessels. Once
in port, they would take a cargo of cotton, and would run out on a dark
night or during a storm. During the war, 1504 vessels of all kinds were
captured or destroyed.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read T. E. Taylor's _Running the Blockade, _pp. 16-32,
44-54.]
%457. The Commerce Destroyers.%--While the North was thus busy
destroying the trade of the South, the South was busy destroying the
enormous trade of the North. When the war opened, our merchant ships
were to be seen in every port of the world, and against these were sent
a class of armed vessels known as "commerce destroyers," whose business
it was to cruise along the great highways of ocean commerce, keep a
sharp lookout for our merchantmen, and burn all they could find. The
first of these commerce destroyers to get to sea was the _Sumter_, which
ran the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi in June, 1861, and
within a week had taken seven merchantmen. So important was it to
capture her that seven cruisers were sent in pursuit. But she escaped
them all till January, 1862, when she was shut up in the port of
Gibraltar and was sold to prevent capture.
%458. The Trent Affair, 1861.%--One of the vessels sent in pursuit of
the _Sumter_ was the _San Jacinto, _commanded by Captain Wilkes. While
at Havana, he heard that two commissioners of the Confederate
government, James M. Mason and John Slidell, sent out as commissioners
to Great Britain and France, were to sail for England in the British
mail steamer _Trent_; and, deciding to capture them, he took his station
in the Bermuda Channel, and (November 8, 1861) as the _Trent_ came
steaming along, he stopped and boarded her, and carried off Mason and
Slidell and their secretaries. This he had no right to do. It was
exactly the sort of thing the United States had protested against ever
since 1790, and had been one of the causes of war with Great Britain in
1812. The commissioners were therefore released, placed on board another
English vessel, and taken to England. The conduct of Great Britain in
this matter was most insulting and warlike, and nothing but the justice
of her demand prevented war.[1]
[Footnote 1: Harris's _The Trent Affair._]
%459. The Famous Cruisers Florida, Alabama, Shenandoah.%--The loss
of the _Sumter_ was soon made good by the appearance on the sea of a
fleet of commerce destroyers all built and purchased in England with the
full knowledge of the English government. The first of these, the
_Florida_, was built at Liverpool, was armed at an uninhabited island in
the Bahamas, and after roving the sea for more than a year was captured
by the United States cruiser _Wachusett_ in the neutral harbor of Bahia
in Brazil. Her capture was a shameful violation of neutral waters, and
it was ordered that she be returned to Brazil; but she was sunk by "an
unforeseen accident" in Hampton Roads.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bullock's _Secret Service of the Confederate States in
Europe,_ Vol. I., pp. 152-224.]
The next to get afloat was the _Alabama_. She was built at Liverpool
with the knowledge of the English government, and became in time one of
the most famous and successful of all the commerce destroyers. During
two years she cruised unharmed in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of
Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, along the coast of South America, and even
in the Indian Ocean, destroying in her career sixty-six merchant
vessels. At last she was found in the harbor of Cherbourg (France) by
the _Kearsarge_, to which Captain Semmes of the _Alabama_ sent a
challenge to fight. Captain Winslow accepted it; and June 19, 1864,
after a short and gallant engagement, the _Alabama_ was sunk in the
English Channel.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., Vol. I., pp. 225-294. _Battles and Leaders of the
Civil War,_ Vol. IV., pp. 600-625.]
The _Shenandoah_, another cruiser, was purchased in England and armed
at a barren island near Madeira. Thence she went to Australia, and
cruising northward in the Pacific to Bering Strait, destroyed the
China-bound clippers and the whaling fleet. At last, hearing of the
downfall of the Confederacy, she went back to England.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bullock's _Secret Service of the Confederate States in
Europe_, Vol. II., pp. 131-163.]
%460. The Ironclads.%--To blockade the coast and cut off trade was
most important, but not all that was needed. Here and there were
seaports which must be captured and forts which must be destroyed, bays
and sounds, and great rivers coming down from the interior, which it was
very desirable to secure control of. The Confederates were fully aware
of this, and as soon as they could, placed on the waters of their rivers
and harbors vessels new to naval warfare, called ironclad rams. These
were steamboats cut down and made suitable for naval purposes, and then
covered over with iron rails or thick iron plates. The most famous of
them was the _Merrimac_.
[Illustration: %Remodeling the Merrimac%]
[Illustration: %The U.S. steamer Merrimac%]
%461. The Merrimac or Virginia.%--When Sumter was fired on and the
war began, the United States held the great navy yard and naval depot at
Portsmouth, Va., where were eleven war vessels of various sorts, and
immense quantities of guns and stores and ammunition. But the officer in
charge, knowing that Virginia was about to secede, and fearing that the
yard would be seized by the Confederates, sank most of the ships, set
fire to the buildings, and abandoned the place. The Confederates at once
took possession, raised the vessels, and out of one of them, a steamer
called the _Merrimac_. made an ironclad ram, which they renamed the
_Virginia_ and sent forth to destroy the wooden vessels of the United
States then assembled in Chesapeake Bay.
Well knowing that he could not be harmed by any of our war ships, the
commander of the _Merrimac_ went leisurely to work and began (March 8,
1862) by attacking the _Cumberland_. In her day the _Cumberland_ had
been as fine a frigate as ever went to sea; but the days of wooden ships
were gone, and she was powerless. Her shot glanced from the sides of the
_Merrimac _like so many peas, while the new monster, coming on under
steam, rammed her in the side and made a great hole through which the
water poured. Even then the commander of the _Cumberland_ would not
surrender, but fought his ship till she filled and sank with her guns
booming and her flag flying. After sinking the _Cumberland_, the
_Merrimac_ attacked the _Congress_, forced her to surrender, set her on
fire, and, as darkness was then coming on, went back to the shelter of
the Confederate batteries.
[Illustration: Monitor, side and deck plan]
%462. The Monitor.%--Early the next day the _Merrimac_ sailed forth
to finish the work of destruction, and picking out the _Minnesota_,
which was hard and fast in the mud, bore down to attack her. When lo!
from beside the _Minnesota_ started forth the most curious-looking craft
ever seen on water. It was the famous _Monitor_, designed by Captain
John Ericsson, to whose inventive genius we owe the screw propeller and
the hot-air engine. She consisted of a small iron hull, on top of which
rested a boat-shaped raft covered with sheets of iron which made the
deck. On top of the deck, which was about three feet above the water,
was an iron cylinder, or turret, which revolved by machinery and carried
two guns. She looked, it was said, like "a cheesebox mounted on a raft."
[Illustration: HAMPTON ROADS]
The _Monitor_ was built at New York, and was intended for harbor
defense; but the fact that the Confederates were building a great
ironclad at Norfolk made it necessary to send her to Hampton Roads. The
sea voyage was a dreadful one; again and again she was almost wrecked,
but she weathered the storm, and early on the evening of March 8, 1862,
entered Hampton Roads, to see the waters lighted up by the burning
_Congress_ and to hear of the sinking of the _Cumberland_. Taking her
place beside the _Minnesota_, she waited for the dawn, and about eight
o'clock saw the _Merrimac_ coming toward her, and, starting out, began
the greatest naval battle of modern times. When it ended, neither ship
was disabled; but they were the masters of the seas, for it was now
proved that no wooden ships anywhere afloat could harm them. The days of
wooden naval vessels were over, and all the nations of the world were
forced to build their navies anew. The _Merrimac_ withdrew from the
fight; when the Confederates evacuated Norfolk, they destroyed her (May,
1862). The _Monitor_ sank in a storm at sea while going to Beaufort,
N.C. (January, 1863).[1]
[Footnote 1: _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. I., pp.
719-750.]
[Illustration: %An encounter at close range%]
%463. Capture of the Coast Forts and Waterways.%--Operations along
the coast were begun in August, 1861, by the capture of the forts at the
mouth of Hatteras Inlet, N.C., the entrance to Pamlico Sound; and by the
capture of Port Royal in November. A few months later (early in 1862)
control of Pamlico and Albemarle sounds was secured by the capture of
Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, and Newbern, all in North Carolina, and
of Fort Macon, which guarded the entrance to Beaufort harbor.
McClellan's capture of Yorktown in May, 1862, was soon followed by the
hasty evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate forces, so that at the
end of the first year of the war most of the seacoast from Norfolk to
the Gulf was in Union hands.
Along the Gulf coast naval operations resulted in opening the lower
Mississippi and capturing New Orleans in April, and Pensacola in
May, 1862.
In April, 1863, a naval attack on Charleston was planned, but was
carried no farther than a severe battering of Fort Sumter. In August,
1864, Admiral Farragut led his fleet past Forts Morgan and Gaines, that
guarded the entrance of Mobile Bay, captured the Confederate fleet and
took the forts. Mobile, however, was not taken till April, 1865, just as
the Confederacy reached its end. Fort Fisher, which commanded the
entrance to Cape Fear River, on which stood Wilmington, the great port
of entry for blockade runners, fell before the attack of a combined land
and naval force in January, 1865.
SUMMARY
1. The naval operations of the war opened with the blockade of the coast
of the Confederate States.
2. This was necessary in order to prevent cotton, sugar, and tobacco
being sent abroad in return for materials of war.
3. As a result blockade running was carried on to a great extent.
4. In order to destroy our commerce a fleet of cruisers was built in
England, purchased and manned by the Confederate government. They
inflicted very serious damage.
5. But the great event of the war was the battle between the ironclads
_Monitor_ and _Merrimac_, which marked the advent of the
iron-armored war ship.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE COST OF THE WAR
%464. The Cost in Money.%--When Fort Sumter was fired on in 1861 and
Lincoln made his call for volunteers, the national debt was $90,000,000,
the annual revenue was $41,000,000, and the annual expenses of the
government $68,000,000. As the expenses were vastly increased by the
outbreak of war, it became necessary to get more money. To do this,
Congress, when it met in July, 1861, began a financial policy which must
be described if we are to understand the later history of our country.
%465. Power to raise Money.%--The Constitution gives Congress power
1. "To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises."
2. "To borrow money on the credit of the United States."
3. To apportion direct taxes among the several states according to their
population.
%466. Raising Money by Taxation; Internal Revenue.%--Exercising these
powers, Congress in 1861 increased the duties on articles imported, laid
a direct tax of $20,000,000. and imposed a tax of three per cent on
all incomes over $800. The returns were large, but they fell far short
of the needs of the government, and in 1862 an internal revenue system
was created. Taxes were now imposed on spirits and malt liquors; on
manufactured tobacco; on trades, professions, and occupations; till
almost everything a man ate, drank, wore, bought, sold, or owned was
taxed. The revenue collected from such sources between 1862 and 1865 was
$780,000,000.
%467. Raising Money "on the Credit of the United States."%--Money
raised by internal revenue and the tariff was largely used to pay
current expenses and the interest on the national debt. The great war
expenses were met by borrowing money in two ways:
1. By selling bonds.
2. By issuing "United States notes."
%468. The Bonded and Interest-paying Debt.%--The bonds were
obligations by which the government bound itself to pay the holder the
sum of money specified in the bond at the end of a certain period of
years, as twenty or thirty or forty. Meantime the holder was to be paid
interest at the rate of five, six, or seven per cent a year. Between
July 1, 1861, and August 31, 1865, when our national debt was greatest,
$1,109,000,000 worth of bonds had been sold to the people and the money
used for war purposes.
%469. United States Notes.%--The United States notes were of two
kinds: those which bore interest, and those which did not. Those bearing
interest passed under various names, and by 1866 amounted to
$577,000,000.
United States notes bearing no interest were the "old demand notes," the
"greenbacks," the "fractional currency," and the "national bank notes."
The greenbacks (a name given them from the green color of their backs)
were authorized early in 1862, were in denominations from $1 up, bore no
interest, were legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private,
except duties on imports and interest on the public debt. In time
$450,000,000 were authorized to be issued, and in 1864, $449,000,000
were in circulation.
%470. Fractional Currency.%--The issue of the demand notes in 1861,
and the fact, apparent to every one, that Congress must keep on issuing
paper money, led the state banks to suspend specie payment in December,
1861. As a consequence, the 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cent silver pieces (and
of course all the gold) disappeared from circulation. This left the
people without small change, and for a time they were forced to pay
their car fare and buy their newspapers and make change with postage
stamps and "token" pieces of brass and copper, which passed from hand to
hand as cents. Indeed, one act of Congress, in July, 1862, made it
lawful to receive postage stamps (in sums under $5) in payment of
government dues. But in March, 1863, another step was taken, and an
issue of $50,000,000 in paper fractional currency was authorized.
%471. The National Banking System.%--Yet another financial measure to
aid the government was the creation of national banks. In 1863 Congress
established the office of "Comptroller of the Currency," and authorized
him to permit the establishment of banking associations. Each must
consist of not less than five persons, must have a certain capital, and
must deposit with the Treasury Department at Washington government bonds
equal to at least one third of its capital. The Comptroller was then to
issue to each association bank notes not exceeding in value ninety per
cent of the face value of the bonds. It was supposed that the state
banks, which then issued $150,000,000 in 7000 kinds of bank notes, would
take advantage of the law, become national banks, and use this national
money, which would pass all over the country. This would enable the
government to sell the banks $150,000,000 and more of bonds. But the
state banks did not do so till 1865, when a tax of ten per cent was laid
on the amount of paper money each state bank issued. Then, to get rid of
the tax, hundreds of them bought bonds and became national banks.
%472. The National Debt and State Expenditures.%--On the 31st of
August, 1865, the national debt thus created reached its highest figure,
and was in round numbers $2,845,000,000.
Besides the debt incurred by the national government, there were heavy
expenditures by the states, and we might say by almost every city and
town, amounting to $468,000,000. But even when the war ended, the outlay
on account of the war did not cease. Each year there was interest to
pay on the bonded debt, and pensions to be given to disabled soldiers
and sailors, and to the widows and orphans of men killed, and claims for
damages of all sorts to be allowed. Between July 1, 1861, and June 30,
1879, the expenditure of the government growing out of the war amounted
to $6,190,000,000.
Many men who served in the army made great personal sacrifices. They
were taken away from some useful employment, from their farms, their
trades, their business, or their professions. What they might have
earned or accomplished during the time of service was so much loss.
%473. The Cost in Human Life.%--While the war was raging, Lincoln
made twelve calls for volunteers, to serve for periods varying from 100
days to three years. The first was the famous call of April 15, 1861,
for 75,000 three-months men; the last was in December, 1864. When the
numbers of soldiers thus summoned from their homes are added, we find
that 2,763,670 were wanted and 2,772,408 responded. This does not mean
that 2,770,000 different men were called into service or were ever at
any one time under arms. Some served for three months, others for six
months, a year, or three years. Very often a man would enlist and when
his term was out would reenlist. The largest number in service at any
time was in April, 1865. It was 1,000,516, of whom 650,000 were fit for
service. In 1865, 800,000 were mustered out between April and October.
Of those who gave their lives to preserve the Union, 67,000 were killed
in battle, 43,000 died of wounds, and 230,000 of disease and other
causes. In round numbers, 360,000 men gave up their lives in defense of
the Union. How many perished in the Confederate army cannot be stated,
but the loss was quite as large as on the Union side; so that it is safe
to say that more than 700,000 men were killed in the war.[1]
[Footnote 1: A table giving the size of the armies and the loss of life
will be found in _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV., pp.
767-768.]
%474. Suffering in the South.%--The South raised all the cotton,
nearly all the rice and tobacco, and one third of the Indian corn grown
in our country, and depended on Europe and the North for manufactured
goods. But when the North, in 1861 and 1862, blockaded her ports and cut
off these supplies, her distress began. Brass bells and brass kettles
were called for to be melted and cast into cannon, and every sort of
fowling piece and old musket was pressed into service and sent to the
troops in the field. As money could not be had, treasury notes were
issued by the million, to be redeemed "six months after the close of the
war." Planters were next pledged to loan the government a share of the
proceeds of their cotton, receiving bonds in return. But the blockade
was so rigorous that very little cotton could get to Europe. When this
failed, provisions for the army were bought with bonds and with paper
money issued by the states.
This steady issue of paper money, with nothing to redeem it, led to its
rapid decrease in value. In 1864 it took $40 in Confederate paper money
to buy a yard of calico. A spool of thread cost $20; a ham, $150; a
pound of sugar, $75; and a barrel of flour, $1200.
%475. Makeshifts.%--Thrown on their own resources, the Southern people
became home manufacturers. The inner shuck of Indian corn was made into
hats. Knitting became fashionable. Homespun clothing, dyed with the
extract of black-walnut bark or wild indigo or swamp maple or
elderberries, was worn by everybody. Barrels and boxes which had been
used for packing salt fish and pork were soaked in water, which was
evaporated for the sake of the salt thus extracted. Rye or wheat roasted
and ground became a substitute for coffee, and dried raspberry
leaves for tea.
Quite as desperate were the shifts to which the South was put for
soldiers. At first every young man was eager to rush to the front. But
as time passed, and the great armies of the North were formed, it became
necessary to force men into the ranks, to "conscript" them; and in 1862
an act of the Confederate Congress made all males from eighteen to
thirty-five subject to military duty. In September, 1862, all men from
eighteen to forty-five, and later from sixteen to sixty, were subject to
conscription. The slaves, of course, worked on the fortifications, drove
teams, and cooked for the troops.
%476. Cost to the South%.--Thus drained of her able-bodied
population, the South went rapidly to rack and ruin. Crops fell off,
property fell into decay, business stopped, railroads were ruined
because men could not be had to keep them in repair, and because no
rails could be obtained. The loss inflicted by this general and
widespread ruin can never be even estimated. Cotton, houses, property of
every sort, was destroyed to prevent capture by the Union forces. On
every battlefield incalculable damage was done to woods, villages,
farmhouses, and crops. Bridges were burned; cities, such as Richmond,
Atlanta, Columbia, Charleston, were well-nigh destroyed by fire;
thousands of miles of railroad were torn up and ruined. The loss
entailed by the emancipation of the slaves, supposing each negro worth
$500, amounts to $2,000,000,000.
SUMMARY
1. When the war opened, and the army and navy were called into the
field, Congress proceeded to raise money by three methods: A. Increasing
taxation. B. Issuing bonds. C. Issuing paper money.
2. Taxation was in three forms: A. Direct tax. B. Tariff duties. C.
Internal revenue, which included a vast number of taxes.
3. Paper money consisted of treasury notes, United States notes
(greenbacks), fractional currency.
4. Besides the cost to the nation, there was the cost to the states,
counties, cities, and towns for bounties, and in aid of the war in
general; and the cost to individuals.
6. There is again the cost produced by the war and still being paid as
pensions, care of national cemeteries, etc., and interest on the
public debt.
6. The cost in human life was great to both North and South; there was
also a destruction of property and business, the money value of which
cannot be estimated.
"_THE INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION OF INDESTRUCTIBLE STATES._"
CHAPTER XXX
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH
%477. The Reëlection of Lincoln%.--While the war was still raging,
the time came, in 1864, for the nomination of candidates for the
Presidency and Vice Presidency. The situation was serious. On the one
hand was the Democratic party, denouncing Mr. Lincoln, insisting that
the war was a failure, and demanding peace at any price. On the other
hand was a large faction of the Republican party, finding fault with Mr.
Lincoln because he was not severe enough, because he had done things
they thought the Constitution did not permit him to do, and because he
had fixed the conditions on which people in the so-called seceding
states might send representatives and senators to Congress. Between
these two was a party made up of Republicans and of war Democrats, who
insisted that the Union must be preserved at all costs. These men held a
convention, and dropping the name "Republicans" for the time being, took
that of "National Union party," and renominated Lincoln. For Vice
President they selected Andrew Johnson, a Union man and war Democrat
from Tennessee.
The dissatisfied or Radical Republicans held a convention and nominated
John C. Frémont and General John Cochrane. They demanded one term for a
President; the confiscation of the land of rebels; the reconstruction of
rebellious states by Congress, not by the President; vigorous war
measures; and the destruction of slavery forever.
The Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan and George H.
Pendleton. The platform demanded "a cessation of hostilities with a view
to a convention of the states," and described the sacrifice of lives and
treasure in behalf of Union as "four years of failure to restore the
Union by the experiment of war." McClellan, in his letter of acceptance,
repudiated both of these sentiments. The platform called for peace
first, and then union if possible. McClellan said union first, and then
peace. "No peace can be permanent without union." The platform said the
war was a failure. McClellan said, "I could not look in the faces of my
gallant comrades of the army and navy ... and tell them that their
labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren
had been in vain."
The result was never in doubt. By September Frémont and Cochrane both
withdrew, and in November Lincoln and Johnson were elected, and on March
4, 1865, were sworn into office.
%478. The Murder of Lincoln%.--By that time the Confederacy was
doomed. Sherman had made his march to the sea; Savannah and Charleston
were in Union hands, and Lee hard pressed at Richmond. April 9 he
surrendered, and on April 14, 1865, the fourth anniversary of the
evacuation of Fort Sumter, Anderson, now a major general, visited the
fort which he had so gallantly defended, and in the presence of the army
and navy raised the tattered flag he pulled down in 1861.
That night Lincoln went to Ford's Theater in Washington, and while he
was sitting quietly in his box, an actor named John Wilkes Booth came in
and shot him through the head, causing a wound from which the President
died early next morning. His deed done, the assassin leaped from the box
to the stage, and shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" (So be it always to
tyrants), the motto of Virginia, made his escape in the confusion of the
moment, and mounting a horse, rode away.
The act of Booth was one result of a conspiracy, the details of which
were soon discovered and the criminals punished. Booth was hunted by
soldiers and shot in a barn in Virginia. His accomplices were either
hanged or imprisoned for life.[1]
[Footnote 1: The best account of the murder of Lincoln is given in "Four
Lincoln Conspiracies" in the _Century Magazine_ for April, 1896.]
%479. Andrew Johnson, President.%--Lincoln had not been many hours
dead when Andrew Johnson, as the Constitution provides, took the oath of
office and became President of the United States. Before him lay the
most gigantic task ever given to any President.
%480. Reconstruction.%--To dispose of the Confederate soldiers and
politicians was an easy matter; but to decide what to do with the
Confederate states proved most difficult. Lincoln had always held that
they could not secede. If they could not secede, they had never been out
of the Union, and if they had never been out of the Union, they were
entitled, as of old, to send senators and representatives to Congress.
[Illustration: Andrew Johnson]
But whether the states had or had not seceded, the old state governments
of 1861, and the relations these governments once held with the Union,
were destroyed by the so-called secession, and it was necessary to
define some way by which they might be reëstablished, or, as it was
called, "reconstructed."
Toward the end of 1863, accordingly, when the Union army had acquired
possession of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, Lincoln issued his
"Amnesty Proclamation" and began the work of reconstruction. He
promised, in the first place, that, with certain exceptions, which he
mentioned, he would pardon[1] every man who should lay down his arms and
swear to support and obey the Constitution, and the Emancipation
Proclamation. He promised, in the second place, that whenever, in any
state that had attempted secession, voters equal in number to one tenth
of those who in 1860 voted for presidential electors, should take this
oath and organize a state government, he would recognize it; that is, he
would consider the state "reconstructed," loyal, and entitled to
representation in Congress.
[Footnote 1: The Constitution gives the President power to pardon all
offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.]
Following out this plan, the people of Arkansas, Tennessee, and
Louisiana made reconstructed state governments which Lincoln recognized.
But here Congress stepped in, refused to seat the senators from these
states, and made a plan of its own, which Lincoln vetoed.
%481. Johnson's "My Policy" Plan of Reconstruction.%--So the matter
stood when Lee and Johnston surrendered, when Davis was captured, and
the Confederacy fell to pieces. All the laws enacted by the Confederate
Congress at once became null and void. Taxes were no longer collected;
letters were no longer delivered; Confederate money had no longer any
value. Even the state governments ceased to have any authority. Bands of
Union cavalry scoured the country, capturing such governors, political
leaders, and prominent men as could be found, and striking terror into
others who fled to places of safety. In the midst of this confusion all
civil government ended. To reestablish it under the Constitution and
laws of the United States was, therefore, the first duty of the
President, and he began to do so at once. First he raised the blockade,
and opened the ports of the South to trade; then he ordered the
Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Interior, the
Postmaster-general, the Attorney-general, to see that the taxes were
collected, that letters were delivered, that the courts of the United
States were opened, and the laws enforced in all the Southern States;
finally, he placed over each of the unreconstructed states a temporary
or provisional governor. These governors called conventions of delegates
elected by such white men as were allowed to vote, and these conventions
did four things: 1. They declared the ordinances of secession null and
void. 2. They repudiated every debt incurred in supporting the
Confederacy, and promised never to pay one of them. 3. They abolished
slavery within their own bounds. 4. They ratified the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery forever in the
United States.
%482. The Thirteenth Amendment%.--This amendment was sent out to the
states by Congress in February, 1865, and was necessary to complete the
work begun by the Emancipation Proclamation. That proclamation merely
set free the slaves in certain parts of the country, and left the right
to buy more untouched. Again, certain slave states (Delaware, Maryland,
West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri) had not seceded, and in them slavery
still existed. In order, therefore, to abolish the institution of
slavery in every state in the Union, an amendment to the Constitution
was necessary, as many of the states could not be relied on to abolish
it within their bounds by their own act. The amendment was formally
proclaimed a part of the Constitution on December 18, 1865.[1]
[Footnote 1: Before an amendment proposed by Congress can become a part
of the Constitution, it must be accepted or ratified by the legislatures
of three fourths of all the states. In 1865 there were thirty-six states
in the Union, and of these, sixteen free, and eleven slave states
ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, and so made it part of the
Constitution. When an amendment has been ratified by the necessary
number of states, the President states the fact in a proclamation.]
%483. Treatment of the Freedmen in the South%.--Had the Southern
legislatures stopped here, all would have been well. But they went on,
and passed a series of laws concerning vagrants, apprentices, and
paupers, which kept the negroes in a state of involuntary servitude, if
not in actual slavery.
To the men of the South, who feared that the ignorant negroes would
refuse to work, these laws seemed to be necessary. But by the men of the
North they were regarded as signs of a determination on the part of
Southern men not to accept the abolition of slavery. When, therefore,
Congress met in December, 1865, the members were very angry because the
President had reconstructed the late Confederate states in his own way
without consulting Congress, and because these states had made such
severe laws against the negroes.
%484. Congressional Plan of Reconstruction%.--As soon as the two
houses were organized, the President and his work were ignored, the
senators and representatives from the eleven states that had seceded
were refused seats in Congress, and a series of acts were passed to
protect the freedmen.
One of these, enacted in March, 1866, was the "Civil Rights" Bill, which
gave negroes all the rights of citizenship and permitted them to sue for
any of these rights (when deprived of them) in the United States courts.
This was vetoed; but Congress passed the bill over the veto. Now, a law
enacted by one Congress can, of course, be repealed by another, and lest
this should be done, and the freedmen be deprived of their civil rights,
Congress (June, 1866) passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, and made the ratification of it by the Southern States a
condition of readmittance to Congress.
Finally, a Freedmen's Bureau Bill, ordering the sale of government land
to negroes on easy terms, and giving them military protection for their
rights, was passed over the President's veto, just before Congress
adjourned.
%485. The President abuses Congress%.--During the summer, Johnson
made speeches at Western cities, in which, in very coarse language, he
abused Congress, calling it a Congress of only part of the states; "a
factious, domineering, tyrannical Congress," "a Congress violent in
breaking up the Union." These attacks, coupled with the fact that some
of the Southern States, encouraged by the President's conduct, rejected
the Fourteenth Amendment, made Congress, when it met in December, 1866,
more determined than ever. By one act it gave negroes the right to vote
in the territories and in the District of Columbia. By another it
compelled the President to issue his orders to the army through General
Grant, for Congress feared that he would recall the troops stationed in
the South to protect the freedmen. But the two important acts were the
"Tenure of Office Act" and "Reconstruction Act" (March 2, 1867).
%486. The Reconstruction Act%.--The Reconstruction Act marked out the
ten unreconstructed states (Tennessee had been admitted to Congress in
March, 1866) into five districts, with an army officer in command of
each, and required the people of each state to make a new constitution
giving negroes the right to vote, and send the constitution to Congress.
If Congress accepted it, and if the legislature assembled under it
ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, they might send senators and
representatives to Congress, and not before.
To these terms six states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida,
Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas) submitted, and in June, 1868, they
were readmitted to Congress. Their ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment made it a part of the Constitution, and in July, 1868, it was
declared in force.
%487. "Tenure of Office Act"; Johnson impeached%--By this time the
quarrel between the President and Congress had reached such a crisis
that the Republican, leaders feared he would obstruct the execution of
the reconstruction law by removing important officials chiefly
responsible for its administration, and putting in their places men who
would not enforce it. To prevent this, Congress, in 1867, passed the
"Tenure of Office Act." Hitherto a President could remove almost any
Federal office holder at pleasure. Henceforth he could only suspend
while the Senate examined into the cause of suspension. If it approved,
the man was removed; if it disapproved, the man was reinstated. Johnson
denied the right of Congress to make such a law, and very soon
disobeyed it.
In August, 1867, he asked Secretary of War Stanton to resign, and when
the Secretary refused, suspended him and made General Grant temporary
Secretary. All this was legal, but when Congress met, and the Senate
disapproved of the suspension, General Grant gave the office back again
to Stanton. Johnson then appointed General Lorenzo Thomas Secretary of
War, and ordered him to seize the office. For this, and for his abusive
speeches about Congress, the House of Representatives impeached him, and
the Senate tried him "for high crimes and misdemeanors," but failed by
one vote to find him guilty. Stanton then resigned his office.
SUMMARY
1. In 1864 the Republican party was split, and one part, taking the name
of National Union party, renominated Lincoln. The other or radical wing,
which wanted a more vigorous war policy, nominated Frémont and Cochrane.
The Democrats declared the war a failure, demanded peace, and nominated
McClellan and Pendleton.
2. The gradual conquest of the South brought up the question of the
relation to the Federal government of a state which had seceded.
3. Lincoln marked out his own plan of reconstruction in an amnesty
proclamation. Congress thought he had no right to do this, and adopted a
plan which Lincoln vetoed. His death left the question for Johnson
to settle.
4. Johnson adopted a plan of his own and soon came into conflict with
Congress.
5. Congress began by refusing seats to congressmen from states
reconstructed on Johnson's plan. It then passed, over Johnson's veto, a
series of bills to protect the freedmen and give them civil rights.
6. Six states accepted the terms of reconstruction offered, and their
senators and representatives were admitted to Congress (1868).
7. Johnson, in 1866, traveled about the West abusing Congress. For this,
and chiefly for his disregard of the Tenure of Office Act, he was
impeached by the House and tried and acquitted by the Senate.
* * * * *
RECONSTRUCTON.
Lincoln's plan ...
States cannot secede; only some of their people were in insurrection.
Amnesty proclamation.
Recognizes Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana.
Thirteenth Amendment.
Johnson's plan ...
Provisional governors.
Ratify Thirteenth Amendment.
New state constitutions made.
Congressmen chosen.
Congressional plan ...
Congress refuses them seats.
Civil Rights Bill.
Freedmen's Bureau Bill.
Tenure of Office Act.
Reconstruction Act.
Fourteenth Amendment.
Johnson _vs._ Congress ...
Vetoes Civil Rights Bill.
Freedmen's Bureau Bill.
Denounces Congress.
Violates Tenure of Office Act.
Impeached.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE NEW WEST (1860-1870)
%488. Discovery of Gold near Pikes Peak.%--In the summer of 1858 news
reached the Missouri that gold had been found on the eastern slope of
the Rockies, and at once a wild rush set in for the foot of Pikes Peak,
in what was then Kansas.
[Illustration: Crossing the plains]
During 1858 a party from the gold mines of Georgia pitched a camp on
Cherry Creek and called the place Aurania. Later, in the winter, they
were joined by General Larimer with a party from Leavenworth, Kan., and
by them the rude camp at Aurania was renamed Denver, in honor of the
governor of Kansas. In another six months emigrants came pouring in from
every point along the frontier. Some, providing themselves with great
white-covered wagons, drawn by horses, oxen, or mules, joined forces for
better protection against the Indians, and set out together, making
long wagon trains or caravans. All were accompanied by men fully armed.
Such as could not afford a "prairie schooner," as the canvas-covered
wagon was called, put their worldly goods into handcarts.
By 1859 Denver was a settlement of 1000 people. They needed supplies,
and, to meet this demand, the firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell put a
daily line of coaches on the road from Leavenworth to Denver. This means
of communication brought so many settlers that by 1860 Denver was a city
of frame and brick houses, with two theaters, two newspapers, and a mint
for coining gold.
%489. The Pony Express; the Overland Stage.%--By that time, too, the
first locomotive had reached the frontier of Kansas. But between the
Missouri and the Pacific there was still a gap of 2000 miles which the
settlers demanded should be spanned at once, and it was. In 1860 the
same firm that sent the first stagecoach over the prairie from
Leavenworth to Denver, ran a pony express from the Missouri to the
Pacific. Their plan was to start at St. Joseph, Mo., and send the mail
on horseback across the continent to San Francisco. As the speed must be
rapid, there must be frequent relays. Stations were therefore
established every twenty-five miles, and at them fresh horses and riders
were kept. Mounted on a spirited Indian pony, the mail carrier would set
out from St. Joseph and gallop at breakneck speed to the first relay
station, swing himself from his pony, vault into the saddle of another
standing ready, and dash on toward the next station. At every third
relay a fresh rider took the mail. Day and night, in sunshine and storm,
over prairie and mountain, the mail carrier pursued his journey alone.
The cost in human life was immense. The first riders made the journey of
1996 miles in ten days. Next came the Wells and Fargo Express, and then
the Butterfield Overland Stage Company.
%490. The Union Pacific Railroad; the Land Grant Roads.%--Meantime
the war opened, and an idea often talked of took definite shape.
California had scarcely been admitted, in 1850, when the plan to bind
her firmly to the Union by a great railroad, built at national cost, was
urged vigorously. By 1856 the people began to demand it, and in that
year the Republican party, and in 1860 both the Republican and
Democratic parties, pledged themselves to build one. The secession of
the South, and the presence at Denver of a growing population, made the
need imperative, and in 1862 Congress began the work.
Two companies were chartered. One, the Union Pacific, was to begin at
Omaha and build westward. The other, the Central Pacific, was to begin
at Sacramento and build eastward till the two met. The Union Pacific was
to receive from the government a subsidy in bonds of $16,000 for each
mile built across the plains, $48,000 for each of 150 miles across the
Rocky Mountains, and $32,000 a mile for the rest of the way. It received
all told on its 1033 miles $27,226,000. The Central Pacific, under like
conditions, received for its 883 miles from San Francisco to Ogden
$27,850,000. But the liberality of Congress did not end here. Each road
was also given every odd-numbered section in a strip of public land
twenty miles wide along its entire length.
%491. Land Grants for Railroads and Canals.%--Grants of land in aid
of such improvements were not new. Between 1827 and 1860 Congress gave
away to canals, roads, and railroads 215,000,000 acres. This magnificent
expanse would make seven states as large as Pennsylvania, or three and a
half as large as Oregon, and is only 6000 acres less than the total area
of the thirteen original states with their present boundaries.
Although the roads were chartered in 1862, the work of construction was
slow at first, and the last rail was not laid till May 10, 1869.
%492. The Silver Mines; New States and Territories.%--What the
discovery of gold did for California and Denver, silver and the railroad
did for the country east of the Sierras. In 1859 some gold seekers in
what was then Utah discovered the rich silver mines on Mt. Davidson.
Population rushed in, Virginia City sprang into existence, the territory
of Nevada was formed in 1861, and in 1864 entered the Union as a state.
In 1861 Colorado was made a territory, and what is now North and South
Dakota and the land west of them to the Rocky Mountain divide became the
territory of Dakota. Hardly was this done when gold was found in a gulch
on the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri River. Bannock City, Virginia
City, and Helena were laid out almost immediately, and in 1864 Montana
was made a territory. In 1860 and 1862 precious metals were found in
what was then eastern Washington; Lewiston, Idaho City, and the old
Hudson Bay Company's post of Fort Boise became thriving towns, and in
1863 the territory of Idaho was formed, with limits including what is
now Montana and part of Wyoming. In 1863 Arizona was cut off from New
Mexico, and in 1868 Wyoming was made a territory.
%493. Population in 1870.%--Thus in the decade from 1860 to 1870
gold, silver, and the Pacific Railroad gave value to the American
Desert, brought two states (Nevada and Nebraska) into the Union, and
caused the organization of six new territories. More than 1,000,000
people then lived along the line of the Union Pacific. Our total
population in 1870 was 38,000,000.
SUMMARY
1. What the discovery of gold did for California in 1849, it did for the
"Great American Desert" in 1858.
2. The consequences were the founding of Denver, the establishment of a
stagecoach line from the Missouri to Denver, the pony express to the
Pacific; the overland coach; and the Pacific Railroad.
3. Gold, the railroad, and the silver mines led to the organization of
Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, and the admission of
Nebraska and Nevada into the Union.
4. Other causes led to the organization of Arizona and Dakota.
New States (1860-1870).
Kansas, 1861.
West Virginia, 1863.
Nevada, 1864.
Nebraska, 1867.
Total number of states in 1870, 37.
New Territories (1860-1870).
Colorado, 1861.
Dakota, 1861.
Idaho, 1863.
Arizona, 1863.
Montana, 1864.
Wyoming, 1868.
_THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE_
CHAPTER XXXII
POLITICS FROM 1868 TO 1880
%494. New Issues before the People.%--Five years had now passed since
the surrender of Lee, and nine since the firing on Sumter. During these
years the North, aroused and united by the efforts put forth to crush
the Confederacy, had entered on a career of prosperity and development
greater than ever enjoyed in the past. With this changed condition came
new issues, some growing out of the results of the war, and some out of
the development of the country.
%495. Amnesty.%--In the first place, now that the war was over, the
people were heartily tired of war issues. Taking advantage of this,
certain political leaders began, about 1870, to demand a "general
amnesty" [1] or forgiveness for the rebels, and a stoppage of
reconstructive measures by Congress.
[Footnote 1: In 1863, Lincoln offered "full pardon" to "all persons"
except the leaders of the "existing rebellion." Johnson, in 1865, again
offered amnesty, but increased the classes of excepted persons; and,
though in the autumn of 1867 he cut down the list, he nevertheless left
a great many men unpardoned.]
%496. The National Finances.%--A second issue resulting from the war
was the management of the national finances. January 1, 1866, the
national debt amounted to $2,740,000,000, including (1) the bonded debt
of $1,120,000,000, and (2) the unbonded or floating debt of
$1,620,000,000, that part made up of "greenbacks," fractional currency,
treasury notes, and the like. Two problems were thus brought before
the people:
1. What shall be done with the national bonded debt?
2. How shall the paper money be disposed of and "specie payment"
resumed?
As to the first question, it was decided to pay the bonds as fast as
possible; and by 1873 the debt was reduced by more than $500,000,000.
As to the second question, it was decided to "contract the currency" by
gathering into the Treasury and there canceling the "greenbacks." This
was begun, and their amount was reduced from $449,000,000 in 1864 to
$356,000,000 in 1868.
By that time a large part of the people in the West were finding fault
with "contraction." Calling in the greenbacks, they held, was making
money scarce and lowering prices. Congress, therefore, in 1868 yielded
to the pressure, and ordered that further contraction should stop and
that there should not be less than $356,000,000 of greenbacks.
%497. "The Ohio Idea"; the Greenback Party.%--But there was still
another idea current. To understand this, six facts must be remembered.
1. In 1862 Congress ordered the issue of certain 5-20 bonds; that is,
bonds that might be paid after five years, but must be paid in twenty
years. 2. The interest on these bonds was made payable "in coin." 3. But
nothing was said in the bond as to the kind of money in which the
principal should be paid. 4. When the greenbacks were issued, the law
said they should be "lawful money and a legal tender for all debts,
public and private, within the United States, except duties on imports
and interest as aforesaid." 5. This made it possible to pay the
principal of the 5-20 bonds in greenbacks instead of coin. 6. Fearing
that payment of the principal in greenbacks might have a bad effect on
future loans, Congress, when it passed the next act (March 3, 1863) for
borrowing money, provided that _both_ principal and interest should be
paid in coin.
At that time and long after the war "coin" commanded a premium; that is,
it took more than 100 cents in paper money to buy 100 cents in gold.
Anybody who owned a bond could therefore sell the coin he received as
interest for paper and so increase the rate of interest measured in
paper money. The bonds, again, could not be taxed by any state or
municipality.
Because of these facts, there arose a demand after the war for two
things--taxation of the bonds and payment of the 5-20's in greenbacks.
This idea was so prevalent in Ohio in 1868 that it was called the "Ohio
idea," and its supporters were called "Greenbackers."
%498. Opposition to Land Grants to Railroads.%--Much fault was now
found with Congress for giving away such great tracts of the public
domain. In 1862 a law known as the Homestead Act was passed. By it a
farm of 80 or 160 acres was to be given to any head of a family, or any
person twenty-one years old, who was a citizen of the United States or,
being foreign born, had declared an intention to become a citizen,
provided he or she lived on the farm and cultivated it for five years.
Under this great and generous law 103,000 entries for 12,000,000 acres
were made between 1863 and 1870. This showed that the people wanted land
and was one reason why it should not be given to corporations.
%499. The Election of 1868.%--The questions discussed above (pp.
437-439) became the political issues of 1868.
The Republicans nominated Grant and Schuyler Colfax and declared for the
payment of all bonds in coin; for a reduction of the national debt and
the rate of interest; and for the encouragement of immigration.
The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair, and
demanded amnesty; rapid payment of the debt; "one currency for the
government, and the people, the laborer, and the office holder"; the
taxation of government bonds; and no land grants for public
improvements.
The popular vote was 5,700,000. In the electoral college Grant had 214
votes, and Seymour 80.
%500. Troubles in the South; the Ku Klux Klan.%--Grant and Colfax
began their term of office on March 4, 1869, and soon found that the
reconstruction policy of Congress had not been so successful as they
could wish, and that the work of protecting the freedman in the exercise
of his new rights was not yet completed. Three states (Virginia,
Mississippi, and Texas) had not yet complied with the conditions
imposed by Congress, and were still refused seats in the House and
Senate. No sooner had the others complied with the Reconstruction Act of
1867, and given the negro the right to vote, than a swarm of Northern
politicians, generally of the worst sort, went down and, as they said,
"ran things." They began by persuading the negroes that their old
masters were about to put them back into slavery, that it was only by
electing Union men to office that they could remain free; and having by
this means obtained control of the negro vote, they were made governors
and members of Congress, and were sent to the state legislature, where,
seated beside negroes who could neither read nor write, but who voted as
ordered, these "carpetbaggers," [1] as they were called, ruled the states
in the interest of themselves rather than in that of the people.
[Footnote 1: As the men were not natives of the South, had no property
there, and were mostly political adventurers, they were called
"carpetbaggers," or men who owned nothing save what they brought in
their carpetbags.]
Now, you must remember that in many of the Southern states the negro
voters greatly outnumbered the white voters, because there were more
black men than white men, and because many of the whites were still
disfranchised; that is, could not vote. When these men, who were
property owners and taxpayers, found that the carpetbaggers, by means of
the negro vote, were plundering and robbing the states, they determined
to prevent the negro from voting, and so drive the carpetbaggers from
the legislatures. To do this, in many parts of the South they formed
secret societies, called "The Invisible Empire" and "The Ku Klux Klan."
Completely disguised by masks and outlandish dresses, the members rode
at night, and whipped, maimed, and even murdered the objects of their
wrath, who were either negroes who had become local political leaders,
or carpetbaggers, or "scalawags," as the Southern whites who supported
the negro cause were called.
%501. The Fifteenth Amendment.%--To secure the negro the right to
vote, and make it no longer dependent on state action, a Fifteenth
Amendment was passed by Congress in February, 1869, and, after
ratification by the necessary number of states, was put in force in
March, 1870. As the Ku Klux were violating this amendment, by preventing
the negroes from voting, Congress, in 1871, passed the "Ku Klux" or
"Force" Act. It prescribed fine and imprisonment for any man convicted
of hindering, or even attempting to hinder, any negro from voting, or
the votes, when cast, from being counted.
[Illustration: U. S. Grant]
%502. Rise of the Liberal Republicans.%--This legislation and the
conflicts that grew out of it in Louisiana kept alive the old issue of
amnesty, and in Missouri split the Republican party and led to the rise
of a new party, which received the name of "Liberal Republicans,"
because it was in favor of a more liberal treatment of the South. From
Missouri, the movement spread into Iowa, into Kansas, into Illinois, and
into New Jersey, and by 1872 was serious enough to encourage the leaders
to call for a national convention which gathered at Cincinnati (May,
1872), and, after declaring for amnesty, universal suffrage, civil
service reform, and no more land grants to railroads, nominated Horace
Greeley, of New York, for President, and B. Gratz Brown, the Liberal
leader of Missouri, for Vice President. The nomination of Greeley
displeased a part of the convention, which went elsewhere, and nominated
W. S. Groesbeck and F. L. Olmsted. The Republicans met at Philadelphia
in June, and nominated Grant and Henry Wilson. The Democrats pledged
their support to Greeley and Brown; but this act displeased so many of
the Democratic party, that another convention was held, and Charles
O'Conor and John Quincy Adams were placed in the field.
%503. The National Labor-Reform Party.%--From about 1829, when the
establishment of manufactures, the building of turnpikes and canals, the
growth of population, the rise of great cities, and the arrival of
emigrants from Europe led to the appearance of a great laboring class,
the workingman had been in politics. But it was not till the close of
the war that labor questions assumed national importance. In 1865 the
first National Labor Congress was held at Louisville in Kentucky. In
1866 a second met at Baltimore; a third at Chicago in 1867; and a fourth
at New York in 1868, to which came woman suffragists and labor-reform
agitators. The next met at Philadelphia in 1869 and called for a great
National Labor Congress which met at Cincinnati in 1870 and demanded
1. Lower interest on government bonds.
2. Repeal of the law establishing the national banks.
3. Withdrawal of national bank notes.
4. Issue of paper money "based on the faith and resources of the
nation," to be legal tender for all debts.
5. An eight-hour law.
6. Exclusion of the Chinese.
7. No land grants to corporations.
8. Formation of a "National Labor-Reform Party."
The idea of a new party with such principles was so heartily approved,
that a national convention met at Columbus, O., in 1872, denounced
Chinese labor, demanded taxation of government bonds, and nominated
David Davis and Joel Parker. When they declined, O'Conor was nominated.
%504. Anti-Chinese Movement.%--The demand in the Labor platform for
the exclusion of Chinese makes it necessary to say a word concerning
"Mongolian labor."
Chinamen were attracted to our shore by the discovery of gold in
California, but received little attention till 1852, when the governor
in a message reminded the legislature that the Chinese came not as
freemen, but were sent by foreign capitalists under contract; that they
were the absolute slaves of these masters; that the gold they dug out of
our soil was sent to China; that they could not become citizens; and
that they worked for wages so low that no American could compete
with them.
The legislature promptly acted, and repeatedly attempted to stop their
immigration by taxing them. But the Supreme Court declared such taxation
illegal, whereupon, the state having gone as far as it could, an appeal
was made to Congress. That body was deaf to all entreaties; but the
President through Anson Burlingame in 1868 secured some new articles to
the old Chinese treaty of 1858. Henceforth it was to be a penal offense
to take Chinamen to the United States without their free consent. This
was not enough, and in order to force Congress to act, the question was
made a political issue.
%505. The Prohibition Party.%--The temperance cause in the United
States dates back to 1810. But it was not till Maine passed a law
forbidding the sale of liquor, in 1851, and her example was followed by
Vermont and Rhode Island in 1852, by Connecticut in 1854, and by New
York, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Iowa, in 1855, that prohibition
became an issue. The war turned the thoughts of people to other things.
But after the war, prohibition parties began to appear in several
states, and in 1869 steps were taken to unite and found a national
party. In that year, the Grand Lodges of Good Templars held a convention
at Oswego, N.Y., and by these men a call was issued for a national
convention of prohibitionists to form a political party. The delegates
thus summoned met at Chicago in September, 1869, and there founded the
"National Prohibition Reform party." The first national nominating
convention was held at Columbus, O., in 1872, when James Black of
Pennsylvania was nominated for President, and John Russell of Michigan
for Vice President.
%506. Campaign of 1872.%--At the beginning of the campaign there were
thus seven presidential candidates before the people. But some refused
to run, and others had no chance, so that the contest was really between
General Grant and Horace Greeley, who was caricatured unmercifully. The
benevolent face of the great editor, spectacled, and fringed with a
snow-white beard, appeared on fans, on posters, on showcards, where, as
a setting sun, it might be seen going down behind the western hills. "Go
west," his famous advice to young men, became the slang phrase of the
hour. He was defeated, for Grant carried thirty-one states, and
Greeley six.
In many respects this was a most interesting election. For the first
time in our history the freedmen voted for presidential electors. For
the first time since 1860 the people of all the states took part in the
election of a President of the United States, while the number of
candidates, Labor, Prohibition, Liberal Republican, Democratic, and
Republican, showed that the old issues which caused the war or were
caused by the war were dead or dying, and that new ones were
coming forward.
%507. Panic of 1873.%--Now, all these things, the immense expansion
of the railroads, and the great outlay necessary for rebuilding Chicago,
much of which had been burned in 1871, and Boston, which suffered from a
great fire in 1872, absorbed money and made it difficult to get. Just in
the midst of the stringency a quarrel arose between the farmers and the
railroads in the West, and made matters worse. It stopped the sale of
railroad bonds, and crippled the enterprises that depended on such sale
for funds. It impaired the credit of bankers concerned in railroad
building, and in September, 1873, a run on them for deposits began till
one of them, Jay Cooke & Co., failed, and at once a panic swept over the
business world. Country depositors demanded their money; the country
banks therefore withdrew their deposits with the city banks, which in
turn called in their loans, and industry of every kind stopped. In 1873
there were 5000 failures, and in 1874 there were 5800. Hours of labor
were reduced, wages were cut down, workingmen were discharged by
thousands.
%508. The Inflation Bill.%--In hope of relieving this distress by
making money easier to get, a demand was now made that Congress should
issue more greenbacks. To this Congress, in 1874, responded by passing
the "Inflation Bill," declaring that there should be $400,000,000 in
greenbacks, no more, no less. As the limit fixed in 1868 was
$356,000,000, the bill tended to "inflate" or add to the paper currency
$44,000,000. Grant vetoed the bill.
%509. Resumption of Specie Payments.%--What shall be done with the
currency? now became the question of the hour, and at the next session
of Congress (1874-75) another effort was made to answer it, and "an act
to provide for the resumption of specie payments" was passed.
1. Under this law, silver 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces were to be
exchanged through the post offices and subtreasuries for fractional
currency till it was all redeemed.
2. Surplus revenue might be used and bonds issued for the purchase of
coin.
3. That part of an act of 1870 which limited the amount of national bank
notes to $354,000,000 was repealed.
4. The banks could now put out more bills; but for each $100 they put
out the Secretary of the Treasury must call in $80 of greenbacks, till
but $300,000,000 of them remained.
5. After January 1,1879, he must redeem them all on demand.
%510. The Political Issues of 1876.%--The currency question, the hard
times which had continued since 1873, the rise of the Labor and
Prohibition parties, the reports of shameful corruption and dishonesty
in every branch of the public service, the dissatisfaction of a large
part of the Republican party with the way affairs were managed by the
administration, combined to make the election of 1876 very doubtful. The
general displeasure was so great that the Democratic party not only
carried state elections in the North in 1874 and 1875, but secured a
majority of the House of Representatives.
%511. Nomination of Presidential Candidates.%--When the time came to
make nominations for the presidency, the Prohibition party was first to
act. It selected Green Clay Smith of Kentucky and G.T. Stewart of Ohio
as its candidates, and demanded that in all the territories and the
District of Columbia, the importation, exportation, manufacture, and
sale of alcoholic beverages should be stopped. Two other demands--the
abolition of polygamy (which was practiced by the Mormons in Utah), and
the closing of the mails to the advertisements of gambling and lottery
schemes--have since been secured.
Next came the Greenback or Independent National party, which nominated
Peter Cooper of New York and Samuel F. Cary of Ohio, and called for the
repeal of the Resumption of Specie Payment Act, and the issue of paper
notes bearing a low rate of interest.
In June, the Republicans met in Cincinnati, and nominated Rutherford B.
Hayes of Ohio, and William A. Wheeler of New York. They endorsed the
financial policy of the party, demanded civil service reform, protection
to American industries, no more land grants to corporations, an
investigation of the effect of Chinese immigration, and "respectful
consideration" of the woman's rights question.
The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks, and
called for reforms of every kind--in the civil service, in the
administration, in expenditures, in the internal revenue system, in the
currency, in the tariff, in the use of public lands, in the treatment of
the South.
%512. Result of the Election.%--While the campaign was going on,
Colorado was admitted (in August, 1876) as a state. There were then
thirty-eight states in the Union, casting 369 electoral votes. This made
185 necessary for a choice; and when the returns were all in, it
appeared that, if the Republicans could secure the electoral votes of
South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, they would have exactly
185. In these states, however, a dispute was raging as to which set of
electors, Republican or Democratic, was elected. Each claimed to be;
and, as the result depended on them, each set met and voted. It was then
for Congress to decide which should be counted.
Now, the framers of the Constitution had never thought of such a
condition of affairs, and had made no provisions to meet it. Congress
therefore provided for an
%513. "Electoral Commission,"% to decide which of the conflicting
returns should be accepted. This commission was to be composed of five
senators, five representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court.
The Senate chose three Republicans and two Democrats; the House, three
Democrats and two Republicans. Congress appointed two Democratic and
two Republican justices, who chose the fifth justice, who was a
Republican. The Commission thus consisted of eight Republicans and seven
Democrats. The decision as to each of the disputed states was in favor
of the Republican electors, and as it could not be reversed unless both
houses of Congress consented, and as both would not consent, Hayes was
declared elected, over Tilden, by one electoral vote; namely, Hayes,
185; Tilden, 184.
[Illustration: Rutherford B. Hayes]
%514. Financial Policy of Grant's Administration.%--The inauguration
of Hayes was followed by a special session of Congress. In the House was
a great Democratic majority, pledged to a new financial measure--a
pledge which it soon made good.
The financial policy of Grant's eight years may be summed up briefly:
1. (1869) The "Credit Strengthening Act," declaring that 5-20 bonds of
the United States should be paid "in coin."
2. (1870) The Refunding Act, by which $1,500,000,000 in bonds bearing
five and six per cent interest were ordered to be replaced by other
bonds at four, four and a half, and five per cent. In this refunding,
the 5-20's, whose principal was payable in greenbacks, were replaced by
others whose principal was payable "in coin."
3. (1873) The act of 1873, by stopping the coinage of silver dollars,
and taking away the legal tender quality of those in circulation, made
the words "in coin" mean gold.
4. (1875) All greenbacks were to become redeemable in specie on January
1, 1879.
5. To get specie, bonds might be issued.
%515. Bland Silver Bill; Silver remonetized.%--Against the
continuance of this policy the majority of the House stood pledged.
Before the session closed, therefore, two bills passed the House. One
repealed so much of the act of 1875 as provided for the retirement of
greenbacks and the issue of bonds. The second was brought in by Mr.
Bland of Missouri, and is still known by his name. It provided
1. That the silver dollar should again be coined, and at the ratio of 16
to 1; that is, that the same number of dollars should be made out of
sixteen pounds of silver as out of one pound of gold.
2. That silver should be a legal tender, at face value, for all debts,
public and private.
3. That all silver bullion brought to the mints should be coined into
dollars without cost to the bringer. This was "free coinage of silver."
The House passed the bill, but the Senate rejected the "free coinage"
provision and substituted the "Allison" amendment. Under this, the
Secretary of the Treasury was to _buy_ not less than $2,000,000, nor
more than $4,000,000, worth of silver bullion each month, and coin it
into dollars.
The House accepted the Senate amendment, and when Hayes vetoed the bill
Congress passed it over his veto and the "Bland-Allison Bill" became a
law in 1878.
%516. Silver Certificates.%--Now this return to the coinage of the
silver dollar was open to the objection that large sums in silver would
be troublesome because of the weight. It was therefore provided that the
coins might be deposited in the Treasury, and paper "silver
certificates" issued against them.
A few months later, January 1, 1879, the government returned to specie
payment, and ever since has redeemed greenbacks in gold, on demand.
%517. Foreign Relations; the French in Mexico.%--The statement was
made that with the exception of Russia the great powers of Europe
sympathized with the South during the Civil War. Two of them, France and
Great Britain, were openly hostile. The French Emperor allowed
Confederate agents to contract for the construction of war vessels in
French ports,[1] and sent an army into Mexico to overturn that republic
and establish an empire. Mexico owed the subjects of Great Britain,
France, and Spain large sums of money, and as she would not pay, these
three powers in 1861 sent a combined army to hold her seaports till the
debts were paid. But it soon became clear that Napoleon had designs
against the republic, whereupon Great Britain and Spain withdrew.
Napoleon, however, seeing that the United States was unable to interfere
because of the Civil War, went on alone, destroyed the Mexican republic
and made Maximilian (a brother of the Emperor of Austria) Emperor of
Mexico. This was in open defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, and though the
United States protested, Napoleon paid no attention till 1865. Then, the
Civil War having ended, and Sheridan with 50,000 veteran troops having
been sent to the Rio Grande, the French soldiers were withdrawn (1867),
and the Mexican republican party captured Maximilian, shot him, and
reëstablished the republic.
[Footnote 1: See Bullock's _Secret Service of the Confederate States in
Europe_.]
%518. The Alabama Claims; Geneva Award.%--The hostility of Great
Britain was more serious than that of France. As we have seen, the
cruisers (_Alabama, Shenandoah, Florida_) built in her shipyards went to
sea and inflicted great injury on our commerce. Although she was well
aware of this, she for a long time refused to make good the damage done.
But wiser counsel in the end prevailed, and in 1871, by the treaty of
Washington, all disputed questions were submitted to arbitration.
The Alabama claims, as they were called, were sent to a board of five
arbitrators who met at Geneva (1872) and awarded the United States
$15,500,000 to be distributed among our citizens whose ships and
property had been destroyed by the cruisers.
%519. Other International Disputes; the Alaska Purchase.%--To the
Emperor of Germany was submitted the question of the true water boundary
between Washington Territory and British Columbia. He decided in favor
of the United States (1872).
To a board of Fish Commissioners was referred the claim of Canada that
the citizens of the United States derived more benefit from the fishing
in Canadian waters than did the Canadians from using the coast waters of
the United States. The award made to Great Britain was $5,500,000
$5,500,000 (1877).
In 1867, we purchased Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000.
SUMMARY
_Financial History, 1868-1880_
1. When the war ended, the national debt consisted of two parts: the
bonded, and the unbonded or floating.
2. As public sentiment demanded the reduction of the debt, it was
decided to pay the bonds as fast as possible, and contract the currency
by canceling the greenbacks.
3. Contraction went on till 1868, when Congress ordered it stopped.
4. The payment of the bonds brought up the question, Shall the 5-20's be
paid in coin or greenbacks?
5. The Democrats in 1868 insisted that the bonds should be redeemed in
greenbacks; the Republicans that they should be paid in coin,--and when
they won, they passed the "Credit Strengthening Act" of 1869, and in
1870 refunded the bonds at lower rates.
6. In the process of refunding, the 5-20's, whose principal was payable
in greenbacks, were replaced by others payable "in coin." In 1873, the
coinage of the silver dollar was stopped, and the legal-tender quality
of silver was taken away. The words "in coin" therefore meant "in gold."
7. In 1875 it was ordered that all greenbacks should be redeemed in
specie after January 1, 1879 (resumption of specie payment).
8. In 1878 silver was made legal tender, and given limited coinage.
_The South and the Negro_
9. In 1869, three states still refused to comply with the Reconstruction
Act of 1867 and had no representatives in Congress.
10. Such states as had complied and given the negro the right to vote
were under "carpetbag" rule.
11. This rule became so unbearable that the Ku Klux Klan was organized
to terrify the negroes and keep them from the polls.
12. Congress in consequence sent out the Fifteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, and in 1871 enacted the Force Act.
13. These and other issues, as that of amnesty, split the Republican
party and led to the appearance of the Liberal Republicans in 1872.
14. In general, however, party differences turned almost entirely on
financial and industrial issues.
[Illustration: INDUSTRIAL AND RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES]
CHAPTER XXXIII
GROWTH OF THE NORTHWEST
%520. Results of the War.%--The Civil War was fought by the North for
the preservation of the Union and by the South for the destruction of
the Union. But we who, after more than thirty years, look back on the
results of that struggle, can see that they did not stop with the
preservation of the Union. Both in the North and in the South the war
produced a great industrial revolution.
%521. Effect on the South.%--In the South, in the first place, it
changed the system of labor from slave to free. While the South was a
slave-owning country free labor would not come in. Without free labor
there could be no mills, no factories, no mechanical industries. The
South raised cotton, tobacco, sugar, and left her great resources
undeveloped. After slavery was abolished, the South was on the same
footing as the North, and her splendid resources began at once to be
developed.
It was found that her rich deposits of iron ore were second to none in
the world. It was found that beneath her soil lay an unbroken coal
field, 39,000 square miles in extent. It was found that cotton, instead
of being raised in less quantity under a system of free labor, was more
widely cultivated than ever. In 1860, 4,670,000 bales were grown; but in
1894 the number produced was 9,500,000. The result has been the rise of
a New South, and the growth of such manufacturing centers as Birmingham
in Alabama and Chattanooga in Tennessee, and of that center of commerce,
Atlanta, in Georgia.
%522. Rise of New Industries in the North.%--Much the same industrial
revolution has taken place in the North. The list of industries well
known to us, but unknown in 1860, is a long one. The production of
petroleum for commercial purposes began in 1859, when Mr. Drake drilled
his well near Titusville, in Pennsylvania. In 1860 the daily yield of
all the wells in existence was not 200 barrels. But by 1891 this
industry had so developed that 54,300,000 barrels were produced in that
year, or 14,900 a day.
[Illustration: Scene in the oil regions of Pennsylvania]
The last thirty years have seen the rise of cheese making as a
distinctive factory industry; of the manufacture of oleo-margarine, wire
nails, Bessemer steel, cotton-seed oil, coke, canned goods; of the
immense mills of Minneapolis, where 10,000,000 barrels of flour are made
annually, and of the meat dressing and packing business for which
Chicago and Kansas City are famous.
%523. The New Northwest.%--When the census was taken in 1860, so few
people were living in what are now Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho that
they were not counted. In Dakota there were less than 5000 inhabitants.
The discovery of gold and silver did for these territories what it had
done for Colorado. It brought into them so many miners that in 1870 the
population of these four territories amounted to 59,000. Between Lake
Superior (where in the midst of a vast wilderness Duluth had just been
laid out on the lake shore) and the mining camps in the mountains of
Montana, there was not a town nor a hamlet. (There were indeed a few
forts and Indian agencies and a few trading posts.) Northern Minnesota
was a forest, into which even the lumbermen had not gone. The region
from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains was the hunting ground of the
Sioux, and was roamed over by enormous herds of buffalo.
%524. The Northern Pacific Railroad.%--But this great wilderness was
soon to be crossed by one of the civilizers of the age. After years of
vain effort, the promoters of the Northern Pacific began the building of
their road in 1870, and pushed it across the plains till Duluth and St.
Paul were joined with Puget Sound. As it went further and further
westward, emigrants followed it, towns sprang up, and cities grew with
astonishing rapidity.
%525. The New States.%--Idaho, which had no white inhabitants in
1860, had 32,000 in 1880; Montana had 39,000 in 1880, as against none in
1860. Kansas in twenty years increased her population four fold, and
Nebraska eight fold. This was extraordinary; but it was surpassed by
Dakota, whose population increased nearly ten fold in ten years
(1870-1880), and in 1889 was half a million. The time had now come to
form a state government. But as most of the people lived in the south
end of the territory, it was cut in two, and North and South Dakota were
admitted into the Union as states on the same day (November 2, 1889);
Montana followed within a fortnight, and Idaho and Wyoming within a year
(July, 1890). The four territories, in which in 1860 there were but 5000
white settlers, had thus by 1890 become the five states of North and
South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, with a population of
790,000.[1]
[Footnote 1: Colorado was admitted to the Union in 1876, Washington in
1889 (November 11); and Utah, the forty-fifth state, in 1896, under a
constitution forever prohibiting polygamy.]
%526. Wheat Farms and Cattle Ranches.%--Such a rush of people
completely transformed the country. The "Great American Desert" was made
productive. The buffaloes were almost exterminated, and one now is as
great a curiosity in the West as in the East. More than 7,000,000 were
slaughtered in 1871-1872. In lieu of them countless herds of cattle and
sheep, and fields of wheat and corn, cover the plains and hills of the
Northwest. In 1896 Montana contained 3,000,000 sheep, and Wyoming and
Idaho each over 1,000,000. In the two Dakotas 60,000,000 bushels of
wheat and 30,000,000 of corn were harvested. Many of the farms are of
enormous size. Ten, twenty, thirty thousand acre farms are not unknown.
One contains 75,000 acres.
[Illustration: A typical prairie sod house]
Over this region, the Dakotas, Montana, Kansas, and Nebraska, wander
herds of cattle, the slaughtering and packing of which have founded new
branches of industry. The stockyards at Chicago make a city.[1]
[Footnote 1: Read "Dakota Wheat-Fields," _Harper's Magazine,_ March,
1880. Also a series of papers in _Harper's Magazine _for 1888.]
%527. Oklahoma.%--The eagerness of the "cattle kings" to get more
land for these herds to graze over had much to do with the opening of
Oklahoma for settlement. Originally it was part of Indian Territory, and
was sold by the Seminole Indians with the express condition that none
but Indians and freedmen should settle there. But the cattle kings, in
defiance of the government, went in and inclosed immense tracts. Many
were driven out, only to come in again. Their expulsion, with that of
small proprietors called "boomers," caused much agitation. Congress
bought a release from the condition, and in 1889 opened Oklahoma to
settlement.
%528. The Boom Towns.%--A proclamation that a part of Oklahoma would
be opened April 22, caused a wild rush from every part of the West, till
five times as many settlers as could possibly obtain land were lined up
on the borders waiting for the signal to cross. Precisely at noon on
April 22, a bugle sounded, a wild yell answered, a cloud of dust filled
the air, and an army of men on foot, on horseback, in wagons, rushed
into the promised land. That morning Guthrie was a piece of prairie
land. That night it was a city of 10,000 souls. Before the end of the
year 60,000 people were in Oklahoma, building towns and cities of no
mean character.
Within fifteen years Oklahoma had a population of over half a million;
and Congress provided (1906) for the admission, in 1907, of a new
forty-sixth state, including both Oklahoma and what was left of the old
Indian Territory.
SUMMARY
1. One important result of the Civil War was a great industrial
revolution.
2. Mining for precious metals, the Northern Pacific Railroad, and other
causes led to the admission into the Union of Colorado (1876), North and
South Dakota, Montana, Washington (1889), Idaho, Wyoming (1890), Utah
(1896), and Oklahoma (1907).
CHAPTER XXXIV
MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS
%529. Mechanical Progress.%--The mechanical progress made by our
countrymen since the war surpasses that of any previous period. In 1866
another cable was laid across the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, and worked
successfully. Before 1876 the Gatling gun, dynamite, and the barbed-wire
fence were introduced; the compressed-air rock drill, the typewriter,
the Westinghouse air brake, the Janney car coupler, the cable-car
system, the self-binding reaper and harvester, the cash carrier for
stores, water gas, and the tin-can-making machine were invented, and
Brush gave the world the first successful electric light.
%530. Uses of Electricity.%--Till Brush invented his arc light and
dynamo, the sole practical use made of electricity was in the field of
telegraphy. But now in rapid succession came the many forms of electric
lights and electric motors; the electric railway, the search light;
photography by electric light; the welding of metals by electricity; the
phonograph and the telephone. In the decade between 1876 and 1886 came
also the hydraulic dredger, the gas engine, the enameling of sheet-iron
ware for kitchen use, the bicycle, and the passenger elevator, which has
transformed city life and dotted our great cities with buildings fifteen
and twenty stories high.
The decade 1886-1896 gave us the graphophone, the kinetoscope, the
horseless carriage, the vestibuled train, the cash register, the
perfected typewriter; the modern bicycle, which has deeply affected the
life of the people; and a great development in photography.
%531. Rise of Great Corporations.%--That mechanical progress so
astonishing should powerfully affect the business and industrial world
was inevitable. Trades, occupations, industries of all sorts, began to
concentrate and combine, and corporations took the place of individuals
and small companies. In place of the forty little telegraph companies of
1856, there was the great Western Union Company. In place of many petty
railroads, there were a few trunk lines. In place of a hundred producers
and refiners of petroleum, there was the one Standard Oil Company. These
are but a few of many; for the rapid growth of corporations was a
characteristic of the period.
%532. Millionaires and "Captains of Industry."%--As old lines of
industry were expanded and new ones were created, the opportunities for
money-getting were vastly increased. Men now began to amass immense
fortunes in gold and silver mining; by dealing in coal, in grain, in
cattle, in oil; by speculation in stocks; in iron and steel making; in
railroading,--millionaires and multi-millionaires became numerous, and
were often called "captains of industry," as an indication of the power
they held in the industrial world.
%533. Condition of Labor.%--Meanwhile, the conditions of the
workingman were also changing rapidly: 1. The chief employers of labor
were corporations and great capitalists. 2. The short voyage and low
fare from Europe, the efforts made by steamship companies to secure
passengers, the immense business activity in the country from 1867 to
1872, and the opportunities afforded by the rapidly growing West,
brought over each year hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Europe
to swell the ranks of labor. Between 1867 and 1873 the number was
2,500,000. 3. Bad management on the part of some corporations;
"watering" or unnecessarily increasing their stock on the part of
others, combined with sharp competition, began, especially after the
panic of 1873, to cut down dividends. This was followed by reduction of
wages, or by an increase in the duties of employees, and sometimes
by both.
%534. Labor Organizations; the Knights of Labor.%--Trades unions
existed in our country before the Constitution; but it was at the time
of the great industrial development during and after the war, that the
era of unions opened. At first that of each trade had no connection
with that of any other. But in 1869 an effort was made to unite all
workingmen on the broad basis of labor, and "The Noble Order of Knights
of Labor" was founded. For a while it was a secret order; but in 1878 a
declaration of principles was made, which began with the statement that
the alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and
corporations, unless checked, "would degrade the toiling masses," and
announced that the only way to check this evil was to unite "all
laborers into one great body." The knights were in favor of
1. The creation of bureaus of labor for the collection and spread of
information.
2. Arbitration between employers and employed.
3. Government ownership of telegraphs, telephones, railroads.
4. The reduction of the working day to eight hours.
They were opposed
1. To the hiring out of convict labor.
2. To the importation of foreign labor under contract.
3. To interest-bearing government bonds, and in favor of a national
currency issued directly to the people without the intervention
of banks.
%535. The Workingman in Politics%.--As these ends could be secured
only by legislation, they very quickly became political issues and
brought up a new set of economic questions for settlement. From 1865 to
1870 the matters of public concern were the reconstruction measures and
the public debt. From 1870 to 1878 they were currency questions, civil
service reform, and land grants to railroads. From 1878 to 1888 almost
every one of them was in some way directly connected with labor.
SUMMARY
1. Great inventions founded and developed new industries.
2. These in turn expanded the ranks of labor, and led to the rise of
corporations and labor organizations, and a demand for a long series
of reforms.
CHAPTER XXXV
POLITICS SINCE 1880
%536. Candidates in 1880.%--The campaign of 1880 was opened by the
meeting of the Republican national convention at Chicago, where a long
and desperate effort was made to nominate General Grant for a third
term. But James Abram Garfield and Chester A. Arthur were finally
chosen. The platform called for national aid to state education, for
protection to American labor, for the suppression of polygamy in Utah,
for "a thorough, radical, and complete" reform of the civil service, and
for no more land grants to railroads or corporations.
The Greenback-Labor party nominated James B. Weaver and B.J. Chambers,
and declared
1. That all money should be issued by the government and not by banking
corporations.
2. That the public domain must be kept for actual settlers and not given
to railroads.
3. That Congress must regulate commerce between the states, and secure
fair, moderate, and uniform rates for passengers and freight.
Next came the Prohibition party convention, and the nomination of Neal
Dow and Henry Adams Thompson.
Last of all was the Democratic convention, which nominated General
Winfield S. Hancock and William H. English. The platform called for
1. Honest money, consisting of gold and silver and paper convertible
into coin on demand.
2. A tariff for revenue only.
3. Public lands for actual settlers.
%537. Election and Death of Garfield.%--The campaign was remarkable
for several reasons:
1. Every presidential elector was chosen by popular vote; and every
electoral vote was counted as it was cast. This was the first
presidential election in our country of which both these statements
could be made.
2. For the first time since 1844 there was no agitation of a Southern
question.
3. All parties agreed in calling for anti-Chinese legislation.
Garfield and Arthur were elected, and inaugurated on March 4, 1881. But
on July 2, 1881, as Garfield stood in a railway station at Washington, a
disappointed office seeker came up behind and shot him in the back. A
long and painful illness followed, till he died on September 19, 1881.
[Illustration: James A. Garfield]
[Illustration: Chester A. Arthur]
%538. Presidential Succession%--The death of Garfield and the
succession of Arthur to the presidential office left the country in a
peculiar situation. An act of Congress passed in 1792 provided that if
both the presidency and vice presidency were vacant at the same time,
the President _pro tempore_ of the Senate, or if there were none, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, should act as President, till a
new one was elected. But in September, 1881, there was neither a
President _pro tempore_ of the Senate nor a Speaker of the House of
Representatives, as the Forty-sixth Congress ceased to exist on March 4,
and the Forty-seventh was not to meet till December. Had Arthur died or
been killed, there would therefore have been no President. It was not
likely that such a condition would happen again; but attention was
called to the necessity of providing for succession to the presidency,
and in 1886 a new law was enacted. Now, should the presidency and vice
presidency both become vacant, the presidency passes to members of the
Cabinet in the order of the establishment of their departments,
beginning with the Secretary of State. Should he die, be impeached and
removed, or become disabled, it would go to the Secretary of the
Treasury, and then, if necessary, to the Secretary of War, the
Attorney-general, the Postmaster-general, the Secretary of the Navy, the
Secretary of the Interior.
%539. Party Pledges redeemed.%--Since the Republican party was in
power, a redemption of the pledges in their platform was necessary, and
three laws of great importance were enacted. One, the Edmunds law
(1882), was intended to suppress polygamy in Utah and the neighboring
territories. Another (1882) stopped the immigration of Chinese laborers
for ten years. The third, the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883), was
designed to secure appointment to public office on the ground of
fitness, and not for political service.
%540. Corporations.%--These measures were all good enough in their
way; but they left untouched grievances which the workingmen and a great
part of the people felt were unbearable. That the development of the
wealth and resources of our country is chiefly due to great corporations
and great capitalists is strictly true. But that many of them abused the
power their wealth gave them cannot be denied. They were accused of
buying legislatures, securing special privileges, fixing prices to suit
themselves, importing foreign laborers under contract in order to
depress wages, and favoring some customers more than others.
%541. The Anti-monopoly and Labor Parties.%--Out of this condition of
affairs grew the Anti-monopoly party, which held a convention in 1884
and demanded that the Federal government should regulate commerce
between the states; that it should therefore control the railroads and
the telegraphs; that Congress should enact an interstate commerce law;
and that the importation of foreign laborers under contract should be
made illegal.
This platform was so fully in accordance with the views of the Greenback
or National party, that Benjamin F. Butler, the candidate of the
Anti-monopolists, was endorsed and so practically united the
two parties.
[Illustration: Grover Cleveland]
%542. The Republican and Democratic Parties%.--The Republicans
nominated James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, and the Democrats Stephen
Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks. The Prohibitionists put up
John P. St. John and William Daniel. The nomination of Blaine was the
signal for the revolt of a wing of the Republicans, which took the name
of Independents, and received the nickname of "Mugwumps." The revolt was
serious in its consequences, and after the most exciting contest since
1876, Cleveland was elected.
%543. Public Measures adopted during 1885-1889.%--Widely as the
parties differed on many questions, Democrats, Republicans, and
Nationalists agreed in demanding certain reform measures which were now
carried out. In 1885 an Anti-Contract-Labor law was enacted, forbidding
any person, company, or corporation to bring any aliens into the United
States under contract to perform labor or service. In 1887 came the
Interstate Commerce Act, placing the railroads under the supervision of
commissioners whose duty it is to see that all charges for the
transportation of passengers and freight are "reasonable and just," and
that no special rates, rebates, drawbacks, or unjust discriminations are
made for one shipper over another. In 1888 a second Chinese Exclusion
Act prohibited the return of any Chinese laborer who had once left the
country. That same year a Department of Labor was established and put in
charge of a commissioner. His duty is to "diffuse among the people of
the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor."
%544. Political Issues since 1888%.--Thus by the end of Mr.
Cleveland's first term many of the demands of the workingmen had been
granted, and laws enacted for their relief. These issues disposed of, a
new set arose, and after 1888 financial questions took the place of
labor issues.
%545. The Surplus and the Tariff.%--These financial problems were
brought up by the condition of the public debt. For twenty years past
the debt had been rapidly growing less and less, till on December 1,
1887, it was $1,665,000,000, a reduction of more than $1,100,000,000 in
twenty-one years. By that time every bond of the United States that
could be called in and paid at its face value had been canceled. As all
the other bonds fell due, some in 1891 and others in 1907, the
government must either buy them at high rates, or suffer them to run. If
it suffered them to run, a great surplus would pile up in the Treasury.
Thus on December 1, 1887, after every possible debt of the government
was met, there was a surplus of $50,000,000. Six months later (June 1,
1888) the sum had increased to $103,000,000.
Unless this was to go on, and the money of the country be locked up in
the Treasury, one of three things must be done:
1. More bonds must be bought at high rates.
2. Or the revenue must be reduced by reducing taxation.
3. Or the surplus must be distributed among the states as in 1837, or
spent.
%546. The Mills Tariff Bill.%--Each plan had its advocates. But the
Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives, attempted to
solve the problem by cutting down the revenue, and passed a tariff bill,
called the Mills Bill, after its chief author, Mr. R. Q. Mills of Texas.
The Republicans declared it was a free-trade measure and defeated it in
the Senate.
%547. The Campaign of 1888; Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third
President.%--In the party platforms of 1888 we find, therefore, that
three issues are prominent: (1) taxation, (2) tariff reform, (3) the
surplus. The Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman,
and demanded frugality in public expenses, no more revenue than was
needed to pay the necessary cost of government, and a tariff for revenue
only. The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton,
and demanded a tariff for protection, a reduction of the revenue by the
repeal of taxes on tobacco and on spirits used in the arts, and by the
admission free of duty of foreign-made articles the like of which are
not produced at home.
[Illustration: Benjamin Harrison]
The Prohibitionists, the Union Labor party, and the United Labor party
also placed candidates in the field. Harrison and Morton were elected,
and inaugurated March 4, 1889.
%548. The Republicans in Control.%--The Republican party not only
regained the presidency, but was once more in control of the House and
Senate. Thus free to carry out its pledges, it passed the McKinley
Tariff Act (1890); a new pension bill, which raised the number of
pensioners to 970,000, and the sum annually spent on pensions from
$106,000,000 to $150,000,000; and a new financial measure, known as
%549. The Sherman Act.%--You remember that the attempt to enact a law
for the free coinage of silver in 1878 led to the Bland-Allison Act, for
the purchase of bullion and the coinage of at least $2,000,000 worth of
silver each month. As this was not free coinage, the friends of silver
made a second attempt, in 1886, to secure the desired legislation. This
also failed. But in the summer of 1890, the silver men, having a
majority of the Senate, passed a free-coinage bill (June 17), which the
House rejected (June 25). A conference followed, and from this
conference came a bill which was quickly enacted into a law and called
the Sherman Act. It provided
1. That the Secretary of the Treasury should buy 4,500,000 ounces of
silver each month.
2. That he should pay for the bullion with paper money called treasury
notes.
3. That on demand of the holder the Secretary must redeem these notes in
gold or silver.
4. After July 1, 1891, the silver need not be coined, but might be
stored in the Treasury, and silver certificates issued.
%550. The Farmers' Alliance%.--This legislation, combined with an
agricultural depression and widespread discontent in the agricultural
states, caused the defeat of the Republicans in the elections of 1890.
The Democratic minority of 21 in the House of Representatives of the
Fifty-first Congress was turned into a Democratic majority of 135 in the
Fifty-second. Eight other members were elected by the Farmers' Alliance.
For twenty years past the farmers in every great agricultural state had
been organizing, under such names as Patrons of Husbandry, Farmers'
League, the Grange, Patrons of Industry, Agricultural Wheel, Farmers'
Alliance. Their object was to promote sociability, spread information
concerning agriculture and the price of grain and cattle, and guard the
interests and welfare of the farmer generally. By 1886 many of these
began to unite, and the National Agricultural Wheel of the United
States, the Farmers' Alliance and Cooperative Union of America, and
several more came into existence. In 1889 the amalgamation was carried
further still, and at a convention in St. Louis they were all
practically united in the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union.
The purpose of this alliance was political, and as its stronghold was
Kansas, the contest began in that state in 1890. At a convention of
Alliance men and Knights of Labor, a "People's Party" was formed, which
elected a majority of the state legislature. Five out of seven
Congressmen were secured, and one United States senator. Before Congress
met (in December, 1891), another member of the House was elected
elsewhere, and three more senators. The support of fifty other
representatives was claimed. Greatly elated over this important footing,
the Alliance men marked out a plan for congressional legislation.
They demanded
1. A bill for the free and unlimited coinage of silver.
2. The subtreasury scheme.
3. A Land Mortgage Bill.
%551. The Subtreasury Plan of the Alliance Party.%--The idea at the
base of these demands was that the amount of money in circulation must
be increased, and loaned to the people without the aid of banks or
capitalists. It was proposed, therefore, that the government should
establish a number of subtreasury or money-loaning stations in each
state, at which the farmers could borrow money from the government (at
two per cent interest), giving as security non-perishable farm produce.
%552. The Land Mortgage Scheme% provided that any owner of from 10 to
320 acres of land, at least half of which was under cultivation, might
borrow from the government treasury notes equal to half the assessed
value of the land and buildings.
%553. The People's Party organized.%--That either of the old parties
would further such schemes was far from likely. A cry was therefore
raised by the most ardent Alliance men for a third party, and at a
conference of Alliance and Labor leaders in May, 1891, a new national
party was founded, and named "The People's Party of the United States
of America."
%554. Party Candidates in 1892.%--When the campaign opened in 1892
there were thus four parties in the field. The People's party nominated
James B. Weaver and James G. Field. The platform called for
1. The free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16
to 1.
2. A graduated income tax.
3. Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones.
4. The restriction of immigration.
5. A national currency to be loaned to the people at two per cent
interest per annum, secured by land or produce.
6. All land held by aliens, or by railroads in excess of their actual
needs, to be reclaimed and held for actual settlers.
The Prohibitionists nominated John Bidwell and J. B. Cranfill, and
declared "anew for the entire suppression of the manufacture, sale,
importation, exportation, and transportation of alcoholic liquors as a
beverage."
The Democratic party selected Grover Cleveland for the third time and
chose Adlai E. Stevenson for Vice President. The platform condemned
trusts and combines, advocated the reclamation of the public lands from
corporations and syndicates, the exclusion of the Chinese and of the
criminals and paupers of Europe, denounced "the Sherman Act of 1890,"
and called for "the coinage of both gold and silver without
discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage," with "the
dollar unit of coinage of both metals" "of equal intrinsic and
exchangeable value."
The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison and Whitelaw Reid, expressed
their sympathy with the cause of temperance, their opposition to trusts,
and called for the coinage of both gold and silver in such way that "the
debt-paying power of the dollar, whether silver, gold, or paper, shall
be at all times equal."
%555. Grover Cleveland reëlected.%--The election was a complete
triumph for the Democratic party. Mr. Cleveland was again elected, and
for the first time since 1861 the House, Senate, and President were all
three Democratic.
Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated March 4,1893. Never in its history had the
country been seemingly more prosperous; the crops were bountiful;
business was flourishing, manufactures were thriving. But the prosperity
was not real. Business was inflated, and during the following summer an
industrial and financial panic which had long been brewing swept over
the business world, wrecking banks and destroying industrial and
commercial establishments.
To understand what now happened, two facts must be remembered:
1. Under the Resumption of Specie Payment Act of 1875, the Secretary of
the Treasury was authorized to buy specie by the issue of bonds and keep
it to redeem United States notes.
2. In May, 1878, it was ordered that when a greenback was redeemed in
specie, it should "not be retired, canceled, or destroyed, but shall be
reissued and paid out again and kept in circulation." There were then
$346,681,000 in greenbacks unredeemed.
%556. The Gold Reserve.%--Meantime, under the law of 1875, and before
January 1, 1879, the secretary issued $95,500,000 in bonds, the proceeds
of which, with other gold then in the Treasury, made a fund deemed
sufficient to redeem such notes as were likely to be presented. This has
since been called our gold reserve, and has been fixed by the
secretaries at $100,000,000. January 1, 1879, the reserve was
$114,000,000, and though it often rose and fell, it never went below
that amount till July, 1892. By that time there were other gold
obligations. The silver purchased under the law of 1890 was paid for
with notes exchangeable for "coin"; but as the secretaries always
construed "coin" to mean gold, and as by 1893 these notes amounted to
$150,000,000, our gold obligations--that is, notes exchangeable for
gold--were nearly $500,000,000 (greenbacks, $346,000,000; silver
purchase notes, $150,000,000). This immense and steadily increasing sum
caused a doubt of our ability to pay in gold, and a fear that we might
be forced to pay in silver. Now silver, since 1873, had fallen steadily
in value from $1.30 an ounce to $0.81 an ounce in 1893, so that the
bullion value of a silver dollar was about 67 cents. The fear, then,
that our debts might be paid in silver (1) led foreigners to cease
investing money in this country, and to send our stocks and bonds home
to be sold, and (2) led people in this country to draw gold out of the
banks and the Treasury and hoard it, so that in April, 1893, the gold
reserve, for the first time since it was created, fell below
$100,000,000 (to $97,000,000).
%557. The Panic of 1893.%--Business depression and "tight money"
followed. Over three hundred banks suspended or failed, manufactories
all over the country shut down, and a period of great distress set in.
People, alarmed at the condition of the banks, began to draw their
deposits and hoard them, thereby causing such a scarcity of bills of
small denominations that a "currency famine" was threatened.
%558. The Purchase of Silver stopped.%--Believing that the fear that
we should soon be "on a silver basis" had much to do with this state of
affairs, and that the compulsory purchase of silver each month had much
to do with the fear, the President assembled Congress in special
session, August 7, and asked for the repeal of that clause of the
Sherman Act of 1890 which required a monthly purchase of silver. After a
struggle in which both of the old parties were split, the compulsory
purchase clause was repealed, November 1, 1893.
%559. The Silver Movement.%--The steady fall in the bullion value of
silver was a serious blow to the prosperity of the great
silver-producing states,--Colorado, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota,
Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and the territories of Arizona and New
Mexico,--where silver mining was "the very heart from which every other
industry receives support." In Colorado alone 15,000 miners were made
idle. To the people of this section, some 2,000,000 in number, the
silver question was of vital importance; and, alarmed at the call for
the special session of Congress and the possible repeal of the
silver-purchase clause, they held a convention at Denver, with a view to
affecting public sentiment. A few weeks after, the National Bimetallic
League met at Chicago. Both opposed the repeal, and demanded that if the
government ceased to buy silver, the mints should be opened to free
coinage. This the friends of silver in the Senate attempted in vain to
bring about.
%560. The Industrial Depression; the Wilson Bill.%--The industrial
revival which it was hoped would follow the repeal of the
silver-purchase law did not take place. Prices did not rise; failures
continued; the long-silent mills did not reopen; gold continued to leave
the country, imports fell off, and, when the year ended, the receipts of
the government were $34,000,000 behind the expenditures. With this
condition of the Treasury facing it, Congress met in December, 1893. The
Democrats were in control, and pledged to revise the tariff; and true to
the pledge, William L. Wilson of West Virginia, Chairman of the House
Committee on Ways and Means, presented a new tariff bill (the Wilson
Bill) which after prolonged debate passed both Houses and became a law
at midnight, August 27, 1894, without the President's signature. As it
was expected that the revenue yielded would not be sufficient to meet
the expenses of government, one section of the law provided for a tax of
two per cent on all incomes above $4000. This the Supreme Court
afterwards declared unconstitutional.
%561. The Bond Issues.%--We have seen that in April, 1893, the gold
reserve fell to $97,000,000. But it did not stop there; for, the
business depression and the demand for the free and unlimited coinage of
silver continuing, the withdrawal of gold went on, till the reserve was
so low that bonds were repeatedly sold for gold wherewith to maintain
it. In this wise, during 1894-95, $262,000,000 were added to our
bonded debt.
%562. Foreign Relations; the Hawaiian Revolution.%--when Cleveland
took office, a treaty providing for the annexation of the Hawaiian
Islands was pending in the Senate. In January, 1983, these islands were
the scene of a revolution, which deposed the Queen and set up a
"provisional government." Commissioners were then dispatched to
Washington, where a treaty of annexation was negotiated and (February
15) sent to the Senate for approval. In the course of the revolution, a
force of men from the United States steamer _Boston_ was landed at the
request of the revolutionary leaders, and our flag was raised over some
of the buildings. When these facts became known, the President, fearing
that the presence of United States marines might have contributed much
to the success of the revolution, recalled the treaty from the Senate,
and sent an agent to the islands to investigate. His report set forth in
substance that the revolution would never have taken place had it not
been for the presence and aid of United States marines, and that the
Queen had practically been deposed by United States officials. A new
minister was thereupon sent, with instructions to announce that the
treaty of annexation would not be confirmed, and to seek for the
restoration of the Queen on certain conditions. But President Dole of
the Hawaiian republic denied the right of Cleveland to impose
conditions, or in any way interfere in the domestic concerns of Hawaii,
and refused to surrender to the Queen.
%563. The Venezuelan Boundary Dispute.%--During 1895, the boundary
dispute which had been dragging on for more than half a century between
Great Britain and Venezuela, reached what the President called "an acute
stage," and made necessary a statement of the position of the United
States under the Monroe Doctrine. Great Britain was therefore informed
"that the established policy of the United States is against a forcible
increase of any territory of a European power" in the New World, and
"that the United States is bound to protest against the enlargement of
the area of British Guiana against the will of Venezuela"; and she was
invited to submit her claims to arbitration. Her answer was that the
Monroe Doctrine was "inapplicable to the state of things in which we
live at the present day" and a refusal to submit her claims to
arbitration. The President then asked and received authority to appoint
a commission to examine the boundary and report. "When such report is
made and accepted," said Cleveland, "it will in my opinion be the duty
of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful
aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great
Britain of any lands, or the exercise of any governmental jurisdiction,
over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right
belongs to Venezuela." For a time the excitement this message aroused in
Great Britain and our own country was extreme. But it soon subsided, and
on February 2, 1897, a treaty of arbitration was signed at Washington
between Great Britain and Venezuela.
%564. The Election of 1896%.--By that time the presidential election
was over. When in the spring the time came to choose delegates to the
party nominating conventions, the drift of public sentiment was so
strong against the administration, that it seemed certain that the
Republicans would "sweep the country." Little interest, therefore, was
taken by the Democrats, while the Republicans were most concerned in the
question whether Mr. McKinley or Mr. Reed should be their presidential
candidate. But as delegates were chosen by the Democrats in the Western
and Southern States, it became certain that the issue was to be the free
and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1.
The Republican convention met in June, nominated William McKinley and
Garret A Hobart, and declared the party "opposed to the free coinage of
silver except by international agreement," whereupon thirty-four
delegates representing the silver states (Colorado, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, South Dakota, and Utah) seceded from the party. The Democratic
convention assembled early in July, and after a most exciting convention
chose William J. Bryan and Arthur Sewall, and declared for "the free and
unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ration of
16 to 1, without waiting for the aid and consent of any other nation." A
great defection followed this declaration, scores of newspapers refused
to support the candidates, and in September a convention of "gold
Democrats," taking the name of the National Democratic party, nominated
John M. Palmer and Simon B. Buckner, on a "gold standard" platform.
Meanwhile, the Prohibitionists, the National party (declaring for woman
suffrage, prohibition, government ownership of railroads and telegraphs,
an income tax, and the election of the President, Vice President, and
senators by direct vote of the people), the Socialist Labor party, the
Silver party, and the Populists, had all put candidates in the field.
The Silver party indorsed Bryan and Sewall; the Populists nominated
Bryan and Thomas E. Watson.
[Illustration: William McKinley]
%565. McKinley, President.%--An "educational campaign" was carried on
with a seriousness never before approached in our history, and resulted
in the election of Mr. McKinley. He was inaugurated on March 4, and
immediately called a special session of Congress to revise the tariff, a
work which ended in the enactment of the "Dingley Tariff," on July
24, 1897.
%566. The Cuban Question.%--Absorbing as were the election and the
tariff, there was another matter, which for two years past had steadily
grown more and more serious. In February, 1895, the natives of Cuba for
the sixth time in fifty years rebelled against the misrule of Spain and
founded a republic. A cruel, bloody, and ruinous war followed, and as it
progressed, deeply interested the people of our country. The island lay
at our very doors. Upwards of $50,000,000 of American money were
invested in mines, railroads, and plantations there. Our yearly trade
with Cuba was valued at $96,000,000. Our ports were used by Cubans in
fitting out military expeditions, which the government was forced to
stop at great expense.
%567. Shall Cuba be given Belligerent Rights?%--These matters were
serious, and when to them was added the sympathy we always feel for any
people struggling for the liberty we enjoy, there seemed to be ample
reason for our insisting that Spain should govern Cuba better or set her
free. Some thought we should buy Cuba; some that we should recognize the
Republic of Cuba; others that we should intervene even at the risk of
war. Thus urged on, Congress in 1896 declared that the Cubans were
entitled to belligerent rights in our ports, and asked the President to
endeavor to persuade Spain to recognize the independence of Cuba; and
the House in 1897 recommended that the independence of Cuba be
recognized. But nothing came of either recommendation, and so the matter
stood when McKinley was inaugurated.
During the summer of 1897 matters grew worse. A large part of the island
became a wilderness. The people who had been driven into the towns by
order of Captain General Weyler, the "reconcentrados," were dying of
starvation, and our countrymen, deeply moved at their suffering, began
to send them food and medical aid.
%568. The Maine destroyed.%--While engaged in this humane work they were
horrified to hear that on the night of February 15, 1898, our battleship
_Maine_ was blown up in the harbor of Havana, and 260 of her sailors
killed. Although our Court of Inquiry was unable to fix the
responsibility for the explosion, many people believed that it had been
perpetrated by Spaniards, and the hope of a peaceable settlement of the
Cuban question rapidly waned. The sum of $50,000,000 was voted to the
President for strengthening our defenses and buying ships and munitions
of war. After declining to recognize the Cuban Republic, Congress
adopted a resolution, on April 19, declaring for the freedom of Cuba,
demanding that Spain should withdraw from the island, and authorizing
the President to compel her withdrawal, if necessary, by means of our
army and navy. Spain severed diplomatic relations with us on April 21,
and the war began on that date, as declared by an Act of Congress a few
days later. Two hundred thousand volunteers were quickly enlisted, out
of the much larger number that wished to serve.
%569. War with Spain.%--The Battle of Manila.--While one fleet which
had long been gathering at Key West went off and blockaded Havana and
other parts of the coast of Cuba, another, under Commodore George
Dewey, sailed from Hong-kong to attack the Spanish fleet at the
Philippine Islands. Dewey found it in the Bay of Manila, where, on May
1, 1898, he fought and won the most brilliant naval battle in the
world's history. Passing the forts at the entrance, he entered the bay,
and, without the loss of a man or a ship, he destroyed the entire
Spanish fleet of ten vessels, killed and wounded over 600 men, and
captured the arsenal at Cavité (cah-ve-ta') and the forts at the
entrance to the bay. The city of Manila was then blockaded by Dewey's
fleet, and General Merritt with 20,000 troops was sent across the
Pacific to take possession of the Philippines, which had long been
Spain's most important possession in the East. For his great victory
Dewey received the thanks of Congress and was promoted to be
Rear-Admiral, and later was given for life the full rank of Admiral.
[Illustration: Admiral Dewey]
[Illustration Rear-Admiral Sampson]
%570. The Destruction of Cervera's Fleet--Capture of
Santiago.%--Meantime a second Spanish fleet, under Admiral Cervera,
sailed from the Cape Verde Islands. Acting Rear-Admiral Sampson, with
ships which had been blockading Havana, and Commodore Schley, with a
Flying Squadron, went in search of Cervera, and after a long hunt he was
found in the harbor of Santiago de Cuba (sahn-te-ah'go da coo'bah),
which was promptly blockaded by the ships of both squadrons, with
Sampson in command. The narrow entrance to the harbor was so well
defended by forts and submarine mines that a direct attack on Cervera
was impossible. In an attempt to complete the blockade, Naval
Constructor R. P. Hobson and a volunteer crew of seven men took the
collier _Merrimac_ to the harbor entrance, and, amid a rain of shot and
shell, sank her in the channel (June 3). The gallant little band escaped
with life, but were made prisoners of war, and in time were exchanged.
[Illustration: General Shafter]
[Illustration: Rear-Admiral Schley]
The capture of Santiago was decided upon when Cervera sought refuge in
its harbor, and about 18,000 men (mostly of the regular army), under
General Shafter, were hurried to Cuba and landed a few miles from the
city. On July 1 the enemy's outer line of defenses were taken, after
severe fighting at El Caney (ca-na') and San Juan (sahn hoo-ahn'); and
on the next day the Spaniards failed in an attempt to retake them. So
certain was it that the city must soon surrender, that Cervera was
ordered to dash from the harbor, break through the American fleet, and
put to sea. On Sunday morning, July 3, the attempt was made; a desperate
sea fight followed, and, in a few hours, all six of the Spanish vessels
were sunk or stranded, shattered wrecks, on the coast of Cuba. The
Spanish loss in killed and wounded was heavy, while Admiral Cervera and
about 1800 of his men were taken prisoners. Not one of our vessels was
seriously damaged, and but one of our men was killed. When the battle
began, the American war ships were in their usual positions before the
harbor, as assigned them by Admiral Sampson; but Sampson himself, in his
flagship, was several miles to the east on his way to a conference with
General Shafter. Commodore Schley's flagship, the _Brooklyn_, was at the
west end of the line, and as the enemy tried to escape in that
direction, she was in the thickest of the fight. Another war ship which
especially distinguished herself was the _Oregon_, a Western-built
ship, which had sailed from San Francisco all the way around Cape Horn
in order to reach the seat of war.
[Illustration: General Miles]
After the naval battle of July 3, all hope of successful resistance by
the Spaniards vanished, and on July 17, General Toral surrendered
Santiago, the eastern end of Cuba, and an army of nearly 25,000 men. A
week later General Miles set off to seize the island of Porto Rico. He
landed on the southern coast, and had occupied much of the island when
hostilities came to an end.
571. Peace.--On August 12, 1898, a protocol was signed by
representatives of the two nations, providing for the immediate
cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Spain from the West Indies,
and the occupation of Manila by the United States till the conclusion of
a treaty of peace, which was to be negotiated by a commission meeting in
Paris, and which was to provide for the disposition of the Philippines.
News of the cessation of hostilities was instantly sent to all our
fleets and armies. But, on August 13, before word could reach the
Philippines, Manila was attacked by General Merritt's army and Dewey's
fleet, whereupon the Spanish general surrendered the city and about
7000 soldiers.
A formal treaty of peace was signed at Paris December 10, 1898,
providing that Spain should relinquish her title to Cuba, and cede Porto
Rico, Guam (one of the Ladrones), and the Philippines to the United
States; and that the United States should pay $20,000,000 to Spain. The
treaty was then submitted to the governments of the United States and
Spain for ratification; but in both countries it met some opposition. In
our country objections were made especially to the taking of the
Philippines without the consent of their inhabitants, many of whom,
under the leadership of Aguinaldo, had previously rebelled against Spain
and were now demanding complete independence; but the prevailing view
was that our immediate control was necessary to prevent civil war,
anarchy, and foreign complications there. Accordingly, on February 6,
1899, the treaty was ratified by the Senate by a vote of 57 to 27. Spain
also accepted the treaty, which was formally proclaimed April 11. The
$20,000,000 was promptly paid to Spain, and ordinary diplomatic
relations were resumed.
%572. The War Bonds and War Taxes.%--For the expenses of the war with
Spain Congress made ample provision. The Secretary of the Treasury was
authorized to issue $400,000,000 in 3 per cent bonds,[1] and borrow
$100,000,000 upon temporary certificates of indebtedness. Stamp taxes,
an inheritance tax, and a duty on tea were laid, and the silver in the
Treasury was ordered to be coined at the rate of $1,500,000 a month.
[Footnote 1: $200,000,000 of the war bonds were offered for popular
subscription, and $109,000,000 were subscribed in sums under $500. All
was taken in sums under $5000.]
%573. Hawaii annexed.%--But in few respects was the effect of the war
so marked as in the changed sentiment of the people toward Hawaii.
During five years the little republic had been steadily seeking
annexation to the United States, and seeking in vain. But with the
partial occupation of the Philippines, and the impending acquisition of
Porto Rico, and perhaps Cuba, the policy of territorial expansion lost
many of its terrors, and the Hawaiian Islands were annexed by joint
resolution of Congress, signed by the President July 7, 1898. The formal
transfer of sovereignty took place August 12. The islands continued
temporarily under their existing form of government, with slight
modifications, till June 14, 1900, when they were organized as a
territory.
[Illustration: (World Map)]
[Illustration: General Otis]
%574. The War in the Philippines.%--While the treaty with Spain was
under consideration, the city of Manila was held by General Otis,
Merritt's successor; but native troops, under Aguinaldo, were in control
of most of Luzon and several other islands. On the night of February 4,
1899, the long-threatened conflict between them was begun by Aguinaldo's
unsuccessful attack on the Americans at Manila. War now followed; but in
battle after battle the natives were beaten and scattered, till by the
beginning of the year 1900 the main army of the Filipinos had been
completely broken up, and the only forces still opposing American
authority were small bodies of bandits and guerrillas. These held out
persistently, and continued the warfare for more than a year. In 1900
the President sent a commission to the Philippines to organize civil
government in such localities and in such degree as it should deem
advisable; and in 1902 Congress enacted a plan of government under which
the Philippines are constituted a partly self-governing dependency.
%575. Porto Rico and Cuba.%--After the close of the Spanish war, both
Porto Rico and Cuba remained under the military control of the United
States for many months. For Porto Rico, which had been ceded to our
country, Congress provided a system of civil government which went into
effect May 1, 1900. This organized Porto Rico as a dependency.
Cuba, however, had not been ceded to the United States. It had passed
under our control only for the restoration of peace and the
establishment of a stable government there; for Congress, in its
resolution of April 19, 1898, asserted its determination, after the
pacification of Cuba, "to leave the government and control of the island
to its people." In June, 1900, the local city governments were turned
over to municipal officers that had been elected by the people. In the
following winter a constitution was framed by a convention of delegates
elected by the Cubans. Then, after certain provisions had been added to
this, to govern the future relations between Cuba and the United States,
and after the first officers of the Cuban Republic had been elected, the
United States troops were withdrawn and the new government took charge
of the island, May 20, 1902.
%576. Disorders in China.%--Early in 1900 a patriotic society of
Chinese, called the Boxers, began to massacre native Christians in the
north of China, and to drive out or kill all missionaries and other
foreigners. The disorder soon spread to Pekin, where the foreign
ministers and their countrymen (including some Americans) were besieged
in their quarter of the city by Boxers and regular Chinese troops; for
the Chinese government, instead of suppressing the Boxers, acted in
sympathy with them.
President McKinley sent warships and soldiers to China, where they
coöperated with the forces of Japan and the European powers in rescuing
the imperiled foreigners in Pekin. War was not declared against China,
though she resisted the invading troops, making it necessary for them to
capture several towns and to fight several battles before Pekin was
taken. A treaty was then negotiated with the United States, Japan, and
the European powers, providing for the restoration of order and a
settlement of the various claims against China.
%577%. At home during 1900 our population was counted; a President
was elected; and a currency law of much importance was enacted. In the
United States and the territories there were found to be about
76,000,000 people, and in the one state of New York more inhabitants
than there were in all the United States in 1810.
By the currency law, known as the Gold Standard Act, it is provided:--
1. That the gold dollar shall be the standard unit of value.
2. That all forms of money issued or coined shall be kept "at a parity
of value" with this gold standard.
3. That United States notes and Treasury notes shall be redeemed in gold
coin. For this purpose $150,000,000 of gold coin or bullion is set apart
in the Treasury.
%578%. When the time came to prepare for the election of a President
and Vice President, eleven conventions were held, as many platforms were
framed, and eight pairs of candidates were nominated. There were the
Democratic and Republican parties; the People's Party (Fusionists) and
the People's Party (Middle of the Road Anti-Fusionists); the
Prohibition, United Christian, Silver Republican, Socialist Labor,
Social Democratic, and National parties; and the Anti-Imperialist
League. The things opposed, approved of, or demanded by these parties
were many and various; but a few should be stated as showing what the
people were thinking about: Trusts, the gold standard, the free coinage
of silver, a canal across Nicaragua or the isthmus of Panama, election
of United States senators by the people, repeal of the war taxes,
statehood for the territories, independence for the Filipinos, aid to
American shipping, irrigation of the arid lands in the West, public
ownership of railways and telegraphs, desecration of the Sabbath,
equality of men and women, exclusion of the Asiatics, the
Monroe Doctrine.
%579. McKinley Reëlected.%--The Populist (Fusionist) convention
nominated William J. Bryan and Charles A. Towne. But the Democrats named
Bryan and Adlai E. Stevenson. Thereupon Towne withdrew, and Bryan and
Stevenson were made the candidates of the Populists and the Silver party
as well as of the Democrats. The Democratic platform denounced
imperialism and trusts, and reiterated the demand for the free coinage
of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. The Republicans renominated
President McKinley, and nominated Theodore Roosevelt for Vice President,
on a platform indorsing McKinley's administration and favoring the gold
standard of money. McKinley and Roosevelt were elected.
%580. McKinley Assassinated.% On March 4, 1901, the President began
his second term, which six months later came to a dreadful end. In May a
great fair--the Pan-American Exposition--was opened at Buffalo, and to
this exposition the President came as a guest early in September, and
was holding a public reception on the afternoon of the 6th, when an
anarchist who approached as if to shake hands, suddenly shot him twice.
For several days it was thought that the wounds would not prove fatal;
but early on the morning of the 14th, the President died, and that
afternoon Mr. Roosevelt took the oath of office required by the
Constitution and became President.
[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt]
%581. Public Measures adopted in 1901-1904.%--The events connected
with our large island possessions had directed much attention to our
military and naval forces. As a result, Congress passed several measures
to increase the efficiency of the army, and appropriated large sums for
additions to the navy. For the reclamation of the arid parts of the Far
West an important law was enacted (1902), setting aside the money
received from the sales of public land in that part of the country and
appropriating it for the planning and construction of irrigation works.
In 1903 a ninth member was added to the President's cabinet in the
person of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The new department was
made to include the Department of Labor established fifteen years
before, and a number of other bureaus already existing; at the same time
the Bureau of Corporations was newly established, and was given the
power to investigate the organization and workings of any trust or
corporation (except railroads) engaged in interstate or foreign
commerce, and, with the President's approval, to publish the
information so obtained.
A long-standing dispute as to the eastern boundary of southern Alaska
was referred to a British-American tribunal, which decided chiefly in
favor of the United States (1903). By a reciprocity treaty with Cuba
which went into effect in 1904, the duties on Cuban trade were
somewhat lowered.
%582. The Isthmian Canal.%--A French company many years ago began to dig
a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama, but it failed through bad
management before the work was half done. A United States commission
made a survey of this route and also of the Nicaragua route across
Central America, estimated the cost of building each canal, and gave
careful consideration to the advantages of each route. The owners of the
French canal having offered to sell for $40,000,000, Congress in 1902
authorized the President to buy and complete it, provided satisfactory
title and permanent control of the route could be secured. In all, about
$200,000,000 was provided for this work. In 1903 a treaty was negotiated
with Colombia, giving the United States a permanent lease of a six-mile
strip across the isthmus, for an annual rental of $250,000 and the
payment of $10,000,000, but Colombia rejected the treaty. The Colombian
province of Panama thereupon seceded (November 3), and its independence
was recognized by the United States and other nations. A treaty was soon
made whereby the United States guaranteed the independence of Panama,
and Panama ceded to the United States a ten-mile strip across the
isthmus for the sums rejected by Colombia. The rights of the French
company were then bought, and a United States commission began the work
of completing the canal (1904).
%583. Election of Roosevelt.%--There were almost as many parties as ever
in the campaign of 1904. The Republicans indorsed the existing
administration, demanded the continuance of the protective tariff and
the gold standard, and nominated Roosevelt for President and Charles W.
Fairbanks for Vice President. The Democrats nominated Alton B. Parker
and Henry G. Davis, and declared for a reduction of the tariff and
against militarism and trusts, but were silent on the money question.
Roosevelt and Fairbanks were elected by a large majority.
%584. Interstate Commerce.%--In spite of the act of 1887 and some
later laws, favored shippers were still given various unfair advantages
in the service and charges of railroads. In 1906 Congress greatly
enlarged the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to supervise
railroads, express companies, and other common carriers operating in
more than one state, and even authorized it to fix new freight and
passenger rates in place of any it deemed to be unjust or unreasonable.
Besides this law to regulate interstate transportation, Congress passed
several acts to regulate the quality of goods entering into interstate
commerce. Efficient inspection of meat-packing establishments was
provided, at a cost of $3,000,000 a year. Adulteration or misbranding of
any foods, drugs, medicines, or liquors manufactured anywhere for sale
in another state, was forbidden under heavy penalties.
%585. Intervention in Cuba.%--One of the provisions added to the
Cuban constitution gave the United States the right to intervene "for
the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life,
property, and individual liberty." This right was first exercised in the
autumn of 1906, when the Cuban government failed to suppress an
insurrection in the island. Efforts were first made, in vain, to bring
about peace in Cuba without armed intervention; then the Cuban president
resigned, our envoy Secretary Taft proclaimed himself provisional
governor of Cuba, United States troops were stationed at various points,
and the insurgents peacefully disbanded. The work of completing the
restoration of order and confidence, preparatory to the holding of a new
election under the Cuban constitution, was intrusted by the President to
Charles E. Magoon, who became provisional governor in October.
%586. The Panic of 1907.%--For several years our country had enjoyed
unusual prosperity. Never had the business of the country been better. A
distrust of banks and banking institutions, however, was suddenly
developed. Belief that the money of depositors was being used in a
reckless way became widespread, and when a run on some banks in New York
city forced them to suspend, a panic swept over the country. People
everywhere made haste to withdraw their deposits, and the banks for a
time were forced to refuse to cash checks for large sums. Business
depression and hard times followed.
%587. The Currency Law.%--In the midst of the panic the Sixtieth
Congress met and in the course of its session enacted (for six years) a
currency law. This is an emergency measure by which the national banks,
when currency is scarce, may issue more under certain conditions. The
total amount put out by all the national banks must not be greater than
$500,000,000. Those using this currency must pay a heavy tax, which it
is believed will lead to its prompt recall as soon as the emergency
has passed.
%588. Election of Taft.%--For the thirty-first time in our history
electors of President and Vice President were chosen in 1908. Seven
parties placed candidates in the field. The Republicans nominated
William H. Taft and James S. Sherman; the Democrats named William J.
Bryan and John W. Kern. Candidates were also presented by the
Prohibition, Populist, Socialist Labor, Socialist, and Independence
parties. In many respects the Republican and Democratic platforms were
alike. Both declared for revision of the tariff, postal savings banks, a
bureau of mines and mining, protection of our citizens abroad, a better
civil service, improvement of our inland waterways, preservation of our
forests, and the admission of Arizona and New Mexico as separate states.
The Democratic platform called for an income tax, the publication of the
names of contributors to national campaign funds, legislation against
private monopolies, and full control of interstate railways. Taft and
Sherman were elected.
One of Taft's first acts as President was to call a special session of
Congress, which met March 15 to frame a new tariff act.
[Illustration: William H. Taft]
SUMMARY
1. The political issues before the country since 1880 have been of two
general classes--industrial and financial.
2. The industrial issues led to the formation of certain great
organizations, as the Farmers' Alliance, Knights of Labor, Patrons of
Industry, etc.; and to the enactment of certain important laws, as the
Interstate Commerce Acts, the Anti-Chinese laws, the Anti-Contract Labor
law, and the establishment of the Labor Bureau.
3. The financial issues were in general connected in some way with the
agitation for free coinage of silver.
4. These issues seriously affected both the old parties and produced
others, as the Anti-monopoly party, the People's party, the Silver
party, the National, the Socialist.
5. In 1893 financial questions became so serious that a panic occurred,
which forced the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman Act. In
1907 there was another panic.
6. Among our foreign complications during this period were the question
of the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, the Venezuela boundary
dispute, the Cuban question, which finally involved us in a war with
Spain, and the trouble with China arising from the Boxer outbreak.
7. The chief events of the war with Spain were Dewey's naval victory in
Manila Bay, May 1; the battles of El Caney and San Juan, near Santiago,
July 1; the naval battle of July 3 off Santiago; the surrender of
Santiago, July 14; the invasion of Porto Rico, near the end of July; and
the capture of Manila, August 13.
8. The war resulted in the cession of Porto Rico and the Philippines to
our country, and in Spain's withdrawal from Cuba.
9. The withdrawal of Spain from the Philippines was followed by an
uprising of natives led by Aguinaldo; but the insurrection was soon
suppressed and a system of civil government established.
10. By peaceful negotiation a treaty was perfected giving the United
States control of the route for the Panama Canal.
APPENDIX
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE--1776
* * * * *
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.
THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That,
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and,
accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide
new guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient
sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history
of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries
and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an
absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be
submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should
be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to
attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with
his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with
manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of
annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise;
the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent
to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the
consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to,
the civil power.
He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to
their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
[Transcriber's note: This is an excerpt. Please see Project Gutenberg's
complete text.]
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES--1787[1]
[Footnote 1: This reprint of the Constitution exactly follows the text
of that in the Department of State in Washington, save in the spelling
of a few words.]
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
ARTICLE I
SECTION 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House
of Representatives.
SECTION 2. 1 The House of Representatives shall be composed of members
chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the
electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for
electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.
2 No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to the
age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State
in which he shall be chosen.
3 Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be included within this Union, according to
their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the
whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a
term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all
other persons[2]. The actual enumeration shall be made within three
years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and
within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall
by law direct. The number of representatives shall not exceed one for
every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one
representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of
New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight,
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York
six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six,
Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and
Georgia three.
[Footnote 2: The last half of this sentence was superseded by the 13th
and 14th Amendments. (See p.16 following.)]
4 When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the
executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such
vacancies.
5 The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other
officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
SECTION 3. 1 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof for six
years; and each senator shall have one vote.
2 Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first
election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes.
The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the
expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of
the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth
year, so that one third may be chosen every second year; and if
vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the
legislature of any State, the executive thereof may make temporary
appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then
fill such vacancies.
3 No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the age of
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and
who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he
shall be chosen.
4 The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the
Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
5 The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a president
_pro tempore_, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall
exercise the office of President of the United States.
6 The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When
sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the
President of the United States is tried, the chief justice shall
preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two
thirds of the members present.
7 Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to
removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office
of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial,
judgment and punishment, according to law.
SECTION 4. 1 The times, places, and manner of holding elections for
senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the
legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or
alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.
2 The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such
meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by
law appoint a different day.
SECTION 5. 1 Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall
constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn
from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of
absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House
may provide.
2 Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its
members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two
thirds, expel a member.
3 Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to
time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment
require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on
any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be
entered on the journal.
4 Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the
consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other
place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
[Transcriber's note: This is an excerpt. Please see Project Gutenberg's
complete text.]
STATE CONSTITUTIONS
We have seen (page 155), that in 1776 the Continental Congress advised
the people of the colonies to form governments for themselves, and that
the people of the colonies accordingly adopted constitutions and became
sovereign and independent states. Of the thirteen original state
constitutions, none save that of Massachusetts is now in force, and even
that has been amended. Changes in political ideas, changes in the
conditions of life due to the wonderful progress of our country, have
forced the people to alter, amend, and often remake their state
constitutions.
All our state constitutions now in force divide the powers of government
among three departments,--legislative, executive, and judicial.
_The Legislative Department_--called in some states the Legislature, in
others the General Assembly, and in still others the General Court--
consists in every state of two branches or houses, usually known as the
Senate and House of Representatives. In six states the legislature meets
annually, and in all the rest biennially; the members of both branches
are everywhere elected by the people, and serve from one to four years.
In most states a session of the legislature is limited to a period of
from forty to ninety days. The legislature enacts the laws (which must
not conflict with the Constitution of the United States, the treaties,
the acts of Congress, or the constitution of the state); but the powers
of the two houses are not equal in all the states. In some the House of
Representatives has the sole right to originate bills for the raising
and the expenditure of money, and in some the Senate confirms or rejects
appointments to office made by the Governor.
_The Governor_ is the executive; is elected for a term of years varying
from one to four; and is in duty bound to see that the laws are
enforced. To him, in nearly all the states, are sent the acts of the
legislature to be signed if he approves, or vetoed if he disapproves. In
some states the Governor may veto parts or items of an act and approve
the rest. He is commander in chief of the militia; commissions all
officers whom he appoints; and in most of the states may pardon
criminals.
_The Judicial Branch_ of government is composed of the state courts,
whose judges are appointed, or elected for a long term of years.
These three branches of government--the executive, the legislative, and
the judicial--are distinct and separate, and none can exercise the
powers of the others. No judge can enact a law; no legislature can try a
suit; no executive can perform the duties of a judge or a legislature.
When the thirteen colonies threw off their allegiance to the British
Crown, the government set up by each was supreme within the limits of
the state. Each could coin money, impose duties on goods imported from
abroad or from other states, fix the legal rate of interest, make laws
regulating marriage and divorce and the descent of property, and do
anything else that any supreme government could do.
But when the states united in forming a strong general government by
adopting the Constitution, they did not give up all their powers of
government. They intrusted part of them to the Federal government, and
retained the rest as before. In other words, the people of each state,
instead of continuing to have one government, adopted a double
government, state and Federal, according to the plan laid down in the
Constitution. It is the Federal Constitution that makes the division of
powers between the nation and the separate states. The Constitution, for
instance, gives the Federal government the powers of coining money and
laying import duties, and forbids these powers to the states; but the
rate of interest, marriage and divorce, and the descent of property are
matters not mentioned in the Constitution, and concerning which the
states retain the power to make laws.
In many cases it is hard to decide whether a state has power to do a
certain thing. Whenever the question turns on the interpretation of the
Federal Constitution, it is decided by the United States courts. The
Federal Constitution and the laws and treaties made in accordance with
it are supreme in case of any conflict with a state constitution or law.
The powers of government exercised by the states are more numerous, and
affect the individual citizen in more ways, than those of the nation.
The force of contracts; the relations of employer and employed, husband
and wife, parent and child; the administration of schools; and the
punishment of most crimes, are matters controlled by the state. A much
larger amount of taxes is imposed by the states than by the nation.
_Local Governments._--Moreover, the local government of counties, towns,
and cities is entirely under the control of the state. State
constitutions contain many provisions in regard to this local
government, but the legislature can make laws affecting it more or less
greatly in the various states. In the local government of a city, town,
or county there is to some extent a distribution of powers among
legislative, executive, and judicial officers. The legislative function
is exercised by the city council or board of aldermen, the town trustees
(or by the whole body of voters), and the county board of supervisors or
commissioners; the executive, by the city mayor, the county sheriff, and
other officers; and the judicial, by various city courts, justices of
the peace, and county courts.
_Political Rights and Duties._--The political rights and duties of
citizens depend chiefly on the state constitutions and laws. Elections,
both state and national, are conducted by state officers. The state
prescribes who shall have the right to vote, and the various states
differ greatly in this respect. Congress grants citizenship by a uniform
rule of naturalization; but some states allow aliens to vote (on certain
conditions), and some provide that a naturalized citizen can not vote
until a certain period has elapsed after his naturalization. In some
states women may vote; in some only those men who have certain property
or educational qualifications.
The right to vote is the qualification for holding most offices;
additional qualifications are prescribed for very important offices, in
the Federal and state constitutions. Thus, none but a native may be a
President or Vice President of the United States, nor may a citizen
under thirty years of age be a member of the United States Senate.
Besides voting and office holding, the most important political rights
and duties of citizens are to sit on juries and to serve in the army.
The qualifications of jurors in state courts are prescribed by state
authority, and in national courts by national authority. Congress has
the exclusive power to raise armies, and in the Civil War hundreds of
thousands of citizens came under national authority in connection with
the duty to bear arms. The militia, however, is commanded by state
officers, and in time of peace is under the control of the
separate states.
INDEX
%A%
Abolition, laws;
societies;
opposition to;
Compromise Bill;
issue of Civil War.
Acadia, extent of;
struggle for.
Act, of 1870;
of 1873;
of 1875.
_Adams_.
Adams, Alvin.
Adams, Charles F.
Adams, John, defends soldiers;
Declaration of Independence;
negotiates treaty;
vice president;
president.
Adams, John Quincy, opposes European colonization;
presidential nominee;
president;
opposed to slavery.
Adams, John Q., vice-pres. nominee.
Adams, Samuel.
Adams Express Company.
"Adams men".
"Administration men".
_Alabama_.
Alabama, admitted;
secedes;
readmitted.
Alabama claims.
Alaska, boundaries;
purchased.
Albany, Dutch at;
colonial congress at.
Alexandria.
Algonquins.
Alien and Sedition laws.
Allegheny River, French on.
Allen, Ethan.
Allison amendment.
Amendments to Constitution, ten;
twelfth;
proposed thirteenth;
thirteenth;
fourteenth;
fifteenth.
America, discovery of;
naming of.
American Antislavery Society.
American Fur Trading Company.
American party.
American Republican party;
disappears.
Amherst.
Amnesty, proclamation issued;
political issue.
Anaesthesia discovered.
Anderson, Robert.
André, Major John.
Annapolis, Md., founded; riot at;
trade convention at.
Annapolis, Port Royal called.
Annual message.
Anti-Chinese movement.
Anti-Federalists.
Anti-Nebraska men.
Antietam, battle of.
Antimasonic party.
Antislavery movement.
Appomattox Courthouse.
Arbitration, policy;
between England and Venezuela.
Argall, Governor.
_Argus_.
Arizona, territory;
silver interests.
Arkansas, becomes territory;
admitted;
secedes;
Confederates in;
reconstruction;
readmitted.
Army of the Cumberland;
disbanded.
Army of the Potomac, peninsular campaign;
at Gettysburg;
in Wilderness campaign;
disbanded.
Army of Tennessee.
Army of Virginia.
Arnold, Benedict, attacks Quebec;
at Saratoga;
treason of;
in British service.
Articles of Confederation.
Ashburton, Lord.
Assumption of state debts.
Astor, John Jacob.
Astoria founded.
Atchison settled.
Atlanta burned.
Atlantic cable.
Auburn settled.
Aurania settled.
Austin, Moses.
Austin, Stephen.
%B%
Bahama Islands.
Balboa.
Baltimore, founded;
in colonial times;
Congress at;
attacked;
route to the West;
convention at;
insurgents in;
labor congress in.
Baltimore, Lord,
Banks, United States, see National Bank;
state, see State Banks.
Banks, N. P., presidential nominee, in
Civil War,
Bannock City founded,
Barry, John,
Barron, Commander,
Baton Rouge, captured,
Spaniards claim,
"Battle above the Clouds,"
Bean, William,
Bear State republic,
Beauregard, General,
Bell, John,
Belmont,
Belpre settled,
Bemis Heights, battle of,
Bennington, battle of,
Benton, Thomas II., senator,
Bents Fort,
_Berceau_,
Berkeley, Lord,
Berlin Decree,
Bidwell, John,
Bienville, Céloron de,
Big Bottom massacre,
Bills of credit,
Biloxi settled,
Bimetallism,
Birney, James Gillespie, presidential nominee,
abolitionist,
Black, James,
Black Rock burned,
Bladensburg, battle of,
Blaine, James G.,
Blair, Francis P.,
Bland-Allison Silver Bill,
Blockade, of 1814,
Southern,
Blockade runners,
Blue Lodges,
Bonded debt, of 1866,
of 1894,
Bonds, United States,
_Bonhomme Richard_,
Bonneville, Captain,
Boom towns,
Boone, Daniel,
Boonesboro settled,
Booth, John Wilkes, assassinates Lincoln,
Bordentown,
Border states secede,
Boscawen,
_Boston_,
Boston, founded,
in colonial times,
riot,
massacre,
tea party,
Port Bill,
occupied by British,
evacuated,
in 1790,
fire,
Boston Neck,
_Boston Sentinel_,
Boundary, of United States in 1783,
in 1815,
Canadian,
Spanish,
of Alaska,
of Texas,
map showing territorial growth of United States,
_Boxer_,
Braddock, Edward,
Bradford, William,
Bradstreet,
Bragg,
Brandywine, battle of,
Brazil discovered,
Breckinridge, John C., vice president,
presidential candidate,
Breeds Hill, battle of,
Brewster, William,
British, see English.
British Columbia, boundary of,
British Guiana,
Brown, B. Gratz,
Brown, Jacob,
Brown, John,
Brown, Robert,
Brownists,
Brush,
Bryan, William J.,
Buchanan, James, president,
attitude toward seceded states,
Buckner, General Simon B.,
Buell, General,
Buena Vista, battle of,
Buffalo burned,
Bull Run, battles of,
Bunker Hill, battle of,
Bunker Hill Monument,
Burgoyne, John,
Burke P. B.,
Burlingame, Anson,
Burnside, General,
Burr, Aaron,
Business depression of '93,
Butler,
Butler, A. P.,
Butler, Benjamin F.,
Butler, William O.,
Butterfield overland stage.
%C%
Cabinet, first,
Cable, Atlantic,
Cabots,
Cabral,
Calhoun, John C., in War Congress,
vice president,
favors nullification,
on slavery,
on Compromise Bill,
death of,
California, Frémont in,
independent,
slavery in,
gold discoveries,
applies for admission,
settled and admitted,
Pacific Railroad to,
Calverts,
Cambridge settled,
Camden, battle of,
Canada, ceded to British,
boundary of,
fisheries,
Canals,
Canonchet,
Canso attacked,
Cape Ann colony,
Cape Breton,
Cape Cod named,
Cape Fear River settlements,
Captains of industry.
Caribbean Islands.
Carleton, Sir Guy.
Carolinas, settled;
see North and South Carolina.
Carpetbaggers.
Carson, Kit.
Carteret, Sir George.
Cartier, Jacques.
Cass, Lewis.
Castine massacre.
Castle Pinckney.
Catholics in Maryland.
Cayuga Indians.
Cedar Creek, battle of.
Cedar Mountain, battle of.
Céloron de Bienville.
Census, first;
of 1810;
of 1870;
of 1900.
Central Pacific Railroad.
Cerro Gordo, battle of.
Certificates, national.
Chadds Ford, battle of.
Chambers, B. J.
Chambersburg burned.
Champlain.
Chancellorsville, battle of.
Chapultepec, battle of.
Charles I., grants Maryland;
persecutes Puritans;
beheaded.
Charles II., grants Connecticut;
grants Carolina;
grants Pennsylvania.
Charleston, founded;
attacked;
in colonial times;
opposes tea tax;
captured;
nominating convention.
Charleston harbor.
Charlestown, settled.
Charlestown Neck.
Charter colonies.
Charters, of 1606;
of 1609;
of 1629.
Chase, Salmon P.
Chattanooga, battle of.
Cherokee Indians.
Cherry Creek.
Cherry Valley massacre.
_Chesapeake_.
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Chester.
Chicago, Republican conventions;
in 1832;
in 1840;
labor congress;
convention of '69;
fire;
meat packing;
Bimetallic League.
Chickahominy River.
Chickamauga, battle of.
Chickasaw Indians.
China, disorder in.
Chinese Exclusion acts.
Chinese immigration.
Chippewa, battle of.
Choctaw Indians.
Church of New England.
Churubusco, battle of.
Cincinnati, in 1802;
in 1810;
convention of 1872;
labor congress;
convention of 1876.
Circuit courts.
Civil Rights Bill.
Civil service reform.
Civil War;
cost of;
results of.
Clark, General George Rogers.
Clark, William.
Clay, Henry, speaker;
presidential nominee;
secretary of state;
Compromise Tariff;
Infant School;
Compromise Bill;
death of.
_Clermont_.
Cleveland, population in 1840.
Cleveland, Stephen Grover, president.
Clinton, George.
Clinton, Governor De Witt.
Clinton, Sir Henry, campaigns.
Cobb, Howell.
Cochrane, General John.
Cockburn, Admiral.
Cohoes founded.
Coin at a premium.
Coinage of gold and silver.
Cold Harbor, battle of.
Colfax, Schuyler.
Collins steamship line.
Colonial, life;
forms of government.
Colonies, Spanish;
English;
Dutch;
Swedish.
Colorado, acquired;
a territory;
admitted;
silver interests.
Colt.
_Columbia Centinel_.
Columbia River discovered.
Columbus, Christopher.
Columbus, Ky., evacuated.
Columbus, O., population in 1840;
conventions.
Commerce, in colonial times;
about 1810;
destroyers;
See also Trade.
Committee of Safety.
Compromise, Missouri;
tariff;
of 1850;
of Crittenden.
Compromises in Constitution.
Comptroller of the Currency.
Concord, battle of.
Confederate cruisers.
Confederate States, formed;
during civil war;
capital of;
end of;
military supplies of;
debts and losses of;
congress dissolved.
_Congress_.
Congress, under Articles of Confederation, and see Continental Congress;
reconstruction plan of;
gives land grants;
acts of 1862 and 1863.
Congress, National Labor.
Connecticut, settled;
in colonial times;
Reserve.
Conscription, Confederate.
_Constellation_.
_Constitution_.
Constitution of U.S.,
amendments to, see Amendments.
Printed in Appendix,
Constitutional Union party,
Continental army,
Continental Congress,
Continental debt,
Continental money,
Contract labor,
Contraction policy,
Contreras, battle of,
Conway cabal,
Cooper, Peter,
Corinth,
battle of,
Cornwallis, Lord,
Coronado,
Corporations, rise of,
opposition to,
Cortereal,
Cortes,
Cotton gin,
Cotton industry,
Cotton-seed oil,
Council Bluffs, Mormons at,
Council for New England,
_Coureurs de bois,_
Court of Admiralty,
Courts of U.S. established,
Cowpens, battle of,
Cranfill, J.B.,
Crawford, William H.,
Credit Strengthening Act,
Creek Indians,
Crittenden's Compromise,
Croghan, Major,
Crown Point, founded,
English at,
Cuba,
Culpeper Courthouse,
_Cumberland_,
Cumberland Road,
Cunard steamship line,
Currency, U.S.,
Curtis, Gen. S.R.,
Customs Commissioners.
%D%
Dakota Territory, formed,
population of,
Dallas, George Mifflin,
Dalton, battle of,
Daniel, William,
Davenport, John,
Davie, William K.,
Davis, David,
Davis, Jefferson, president of Confederacy,
capture of,
Dayton, William L.,
De Soto,
Deane, Silas,
Dearborn's expedition,
Debt, national, after the Revolutionary War,
in 1790,
in 1801,
in 1835,
new national,
during Civil War,
in 1866,
in 1887,
in 1894,
Declaration of Independence,
in Vermont,
See Appendix,
Declaration of Rights,
DeKalb,
Delaware, claims in,
sold to Penn,
in colonial times,
slavery in,
Delaware, Lord, 32.
Delaware Indians, 68, 72.
Delegates, territorial, 162, 351 n. 2.
Democratic party,
Democratic Republicans,
Denver, settled,
convention at,
Department of Labor established,
Detroit, settled
surrender of,
Dewey, Commodore,
Dingley Tariff,
Dinwiddie, Governor Robert,
Direct tax,
District courts,
District of Columbia,
slavery in,
Dixon, Jeremiah,
Dole, president of Hawaiian Republic,
Donelson, Andrew Jackson,
Donelson, John,
Dorchester settled,
Dorchester Heights captured,
Douglas, Stephen A., Nebraska Bill,
debates with Lincoln,
elected senator,
presidential nominee,
Dover riot,
Dow, Neal,
_Drake_,
Drake, Sir Francis,
Draper, Dr. John W.,
Dred Scott decision,
Duane, William J.,
Duluth founded,
Duquesne, Marquis,
Durham massacre,
Dutch, possessions,
settlements,
Dutch West India Company.
%E%
Earle, Thomas,
Early, Jubal,
East India Company,
East Indies, trade with,
Eastern Colonies, occupations, etc.,
Eastport captured,
Edmunds Law,
Electoral college,
Electoral commission,
Electricity,
Elizabeth, Queen,
Elizabeth City captured,
Ellmaker, Amos,
Ellsworth, Oliver,
Emancipation, agitation;
Proclamation;
cost of.
Embargo laws.
Emigration, western.
Endicott, John.
English, possessions;
settlements;
relations with France;
relations with Indians;
government of colonies;
attitude to colonies;
war with colonies;
at war with French;
disputed right of trade;
favor South American republics;
favor South;
Venezuelan boundary question.
English, William H.
English fur companies.
_Enterprise_.
Era of Good Feeling.
Ericsson, Captain John.
Ericsson, Leif.
Erie Canal.
Erie Indians.
_Essex_.
Europe, claims in America;
attitude during Civil War.
Evans, Oliver.
Everett, Edward.
Exeter massacre.
Explorations, European;
French;
Western;
Northwestern.
Express, pony.
Express companies formed.
%F%
Fair Oaks, battle of.
Fairbanks.
Farewell Address of President Washington.
Farmers' Alliance.
Farragut, Admiral.
Federal Hall.
Federal money.
Federalist party,
Ferdinand, King, aids Columbus.
Field, Cyrus W.
Field, James G.
Fifteenth Amendment.
"Fifty-four forty or fight".
Fillmore, Millard, vice president;
president;
presidential nominee.
Financial, distress of '37;
condition after Civil War;
policy, Grant's;
questions after '88.
First Continental Congress.
Fiscal Bank of United States.
Fiscal Corporation.
Fishery question.
Fitch, John.
Five Nations, or Iroquois Indians.
Flag, national;
American naval.
Flamborough Head, 148.
_Florida_.
Florida, discovered;
a British possession;
East and West;
a Spanish possession;
purchased;
a territory;
admitted;
secedes;
readmitted.
Foote, Flag Officer.
Force Act, of;
Jackson's;
of 1871.
Foreign labor.
Foreigners, see Immigration.
Fort Assumption built.
Fort Boise.
Fort Chartres built.
Fort Crèvecoeur built.
Fort Cumberland.
Fort Donelson captured.
Fort Duquesne built;
captured.
Fort Edward.
Fort Erie captured.
Fort Fisher captured.
Fort Frontenac captured.
Fort Hall founded.
Fort Henry captured.
Fort Le Boeuf built
Fort Leavenworth.
Fort Lee attacked.
Fort Loyal massacre.
Fort McAllister captured.
Fort McHenry bombarded.
Fort Macon captured.
Fort Meigs, battle of.
Fort Monroe.
Fort Morgan.
Fort Moultrie.
Fort Nassau built.
Fort Natchitoches.
Fort Necessity built.
Fort Orange built.
Fort Pillow captured.
Fort Pitt.
Fort Rosalie founded.
Fort St. Louis built.
Fort Stanwix besieged.
Fort Stephenson, battle of.
Fort Sumter;
battles of.
Fort Ticonderoga.
Fort Tombeckbee built.
Fort Toulouse founded.
Fort Venango built.
Fort Washington captured.
"Forty-niners".
Fourteenth Amendment.
Fractional currency.
Franchise right;
interference with.
Franklin, Benjamin, during the French War;
experiments;
Declaration of Independence;
ambassador to France.
Franklin, state of.
Fray Marcos.
Fredericksburg, in colonial times;
battle of.
Free coinage, of gold and silver;
of silver.
Free-soil party;
joins Republicans.
Freedmen, treatment after war;
vote.
Freedmen's Bureau Bill.
Frelinghuysen, Theodore.
Frémont, John C., in California;
presidential nominee;
in Shenandoah valley.
French, possessions;
explorations;
relations with Indians;
relations with English;
and Indian War;
abandon America;
acknowledge our independence;
republic established;
war with English;
trouble with United States;
during Civil War;
in Mexico.
French Directory.
Frenchtown, battle of.
Fries's Rebellion.
Frobisher, Sir Martin.
_Frolic_.
Frontenac, Count.
Frontier life.
Frye, Joshua.
Fugitive-slave laws.
Fulton, Robert.
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
Funding of national debt.
Fusion tickets.
%G%
Gadsden, James.
Gadsden Purchase.
"Gag Rule".
Gage, General Thomas.
Gaines Mill, battle of.
Gallatin, Albert.
Gallipolis settled.
Gallissonière, Marquis de la.
Gama, Vasco da.
Garfield, James, president;
death of.
Garrison, William Lloyd.
Gates, General Horatio.
Gates, Sir Thomas.
Genet.
Geneva awards.
George II, grants charter.
Georgia, settled;
in colonial times;
annexed territory;
conquered;
cedes land to Congress;
secedes;
Sherman's march through;
again in the Union;
Germantown, battle of.
Gerry, Elbridge.
Gerrymander.
Gettysburg, battle of.
Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's.
Gila River.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey.
Goffe, William.
Gold, discovered in California;
at Pikes Peak;
in Northwestern States;
payments suspended;
sole legal tender;
standard.
Gold Democrats.
Gold reserve.
Goldsboro.
Goodyear.
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando.
Gosnold.
Gourgues.
Government, colonial;
under Articles of Confederation;
of territories;
control of railroads, etc.
Grant, General U. S., in Civil War;
relations with Johnson;
president;
third term proposed.
Gray, Captain.
Great American Desert.
Great Britain, see English.
Great Lakes explored.
Great Salt Lake.
_Great Western_.
Greeley, Horace.
Green Mountain Boys.
Greenback party.
Greenbacks.
Greene, Nathanael.
Grenville, Prime Minister.
Groesbeck, W. S.
Groton massacre.
Guadalupe Hidalgo, treaty of.
_Guerrière_.
Guilford founded.
Guilford Courthouse, battle of.
Guinther.
Guthrie.
%H%
_Hail, Columbia!_ written.
Hale, John P.
Hale, Nathan.
_Half-Moon_.
Halleck, General Henry.
Hamet.
Hamilton, Alexander.
Hamlin, Hannibal.
Hampton Roads, peace conference at;
Confederate cruiser sunk in;
_Monitor_ and _Merrimac_.
Hancock, General Winfield.
Hand loom.
Hand mill.
Hand press.
Hard cider campaign.
Hard times of '73;
of '93.
Harnden, W. F.
Harpers Ferry.
Harrisburg convention.
Harrison, Benjamin, president.
Harrison, William Henry, in War of 1812;
delegate in Congress;
at Tippecanoe;
presidential candidate;
elected;
death of.
Harrisons Landing.
Harrodsburg settled.
Hartford settled.
Hatteras Inlet.
Haverhill massacre.
Hawaiian annexation.
Hayes, Rutherford B., president.
Hayne, Governor.
Helena founded.
Hendricks, Thomas A.
Hennepin.
Henry, Patrick.
Hessians.
Highways of trade.
Hispaniola colonized.
Hobart, Garret A.
Hoe octuple press,.
Holly Springs.
Holy Alliance.
Home manufactures defended.
Homestead Law.
Hood, General J.B.
Hooker, General.
Hooker, Thomas.
Hopkinson, Joseph.
_Hornet_.
House of Burgesses.
House of Commons.
House of Lords.
House of Representatives, formed,
elects president
Houston. Samuel.
Howe, Elias.
Howe, General William.
Hudson, Henry.
Hudson Bay Company.
Hull's surrender.
Hunt, Walter.
Huron Indians.
Hutchinson, Anne.
%I%
Iberville.
Idaho, a territory
admitted
silver interests.
Idaho City founded.
Illinois, a territory
admitted.
Immigration, Chinese, see Chinese; European Western,
see Emigration.
Impeachment of Johnson.
Impressment of sailors.
Income tax.
Indented servants.
Independence Chamber.
Independence, Declaration of.
Independence Hall.
Independent National party.
Independent Treasury law.
Independents or Mugwumps.
India rubber.
Indian country.
Indiana, a territory;
admitted.
_Indiana Register_.
Indianapolis, population in 1840.
Indians, alliance with French,
traits of
wars
in French and Indian War
during Revolution
in 1790
in 1812,
troubles with
in Oregon
territory sold.
Industrial revolution
Inflation Bill.
_Insurgente_.
Interest indents.
Internal improvements, political issue.
Internal revenue system.
Interstate Commerce.
Intolerable Acts.
Inventions.
"Invisible Empire,".
Iowa, a territory
admitted, 366.
Ironclads.
Iroquois Indians.
Irwinsville.
Isabella. Queen, aids Columbus.
Island No. 10 captured.
Isthmian Canal.
Iuka, battle of.
%J%
Jackson, convention at
battle of.
Jackson, Dr.
Jackson, General Andrew, at New Orleans,
defeats Indians
presidential nominee
president, 301-811.
Jackson, General T.J.
"Jackson men,"
Jalapa, battle of.
Jamaica discovered,.
James I., creates Virginia Company;
annuls charter.
Jamestown settled.
_Java_ captured.
Jay, John, treaty of Paris,
ambassador to London.
Jay Cooke and Co.'s failure.
Jefferson, Thomas, writes Declaration of Independence
secretary of state,
Republican leader
vice president,
opposes Alien and Sedition laws
president
favors political proscription.
Jerry.
Jerseys, see New Jersey;
retreat across.
Johnson, Andrew, vice president
president
amnesty policy.
Johnson, Herschel V.
Johnson, R.M.
Johnston, Gen. A.S.
Johnston, Gen. Joseph E.
Joliet. Louis.
Jones, John Paul.
Julian, George W.
Jumonville.
%K%
Kanawha state.
Kansas, struggle for
slavery question in,
admitted
rapid growth
Farmers' Alliance.
Kansas City.
Kansas-Nebraska Law.
Kaskaskia settled.
Kearny, Colonel Stephen.
_Kearsarge_.
Kendall, Amos.
Kentucky,
settled;
resolutions;
admitted;
Confederates in;
slavery in.
Key, Francis S., writes _Star-Spangled Banner_.
Kickapoo Indians.
King George's War.
King Philip's War.
King William's War.
King, Rufus.
King, William R.
Kings Mountain.
Kirtland.
Knights of Labor.
Know-nothing party.
Knox, General Henry.
Ku Klux Klan.
%L%
La Salle, Robert de.
Labor, in 1763;
in 1790;
questions in 1860;
after Civil War;
slave and free;
foreign and convict;
parties.
Labor department established.
Laconia.
Lafayette, Marquis de.
Lake Champlain, battle of.
Lake Erie, battle of.
Lancaster, Congress at.
Land grants, free;
to railroads;
opposed.
Land Mortgage scheme.
Lane, Joseph.
Lane, Ralph.
Larimer, General.
Laud, Archbishop.
Laudonnière.
_Lawrence_.
Lawrence settled.
Lawrence, Amos A.
Lawrence, James.
Leaven worth.
Lecompton constitution.
Lee, Charles.
Lee, Richard Henry.
Lee, Robert E., campaigns in Civil War;
surrenders.
Lenni Lenape Indians.
_Leopard_.
Letters of marque.
Lewis, Meriwether.
Lewiston founded.
_Lexington_, 148.
Lexington, battle of.
Lexington, Ky.
Liberal Republican party.
_Liberator_.
Liberty party.
Limestone settled.
Lincoln, Abraham, debates with Douglas,
in Illinois senatorial contest;
elected president;
during Civil War;
inauguration speech;
Emancipation Proclamation;
Gettysburg Address;
peace conference with Stephens;
reflected;
assassinated.
Lincoln, General.
Line of Demarcation.
_Little Belt_.
Livingston, Robert R.
Loan-office certificates.
Log cabin campaign.
Log cabins.
Log of the Mayflower.
Logan, John A.
Logstown.
London Company.
Long, Dr.
Long, Major;
discovers Longs Peak.
Long houses, Indian.
Long Parliament.
Lookout Mountain, battle of.
Lords of Trade.
Lottery, Congress.
Louis XV. claims Ohio region.
Louisburg, built;
captured by English;
restored to French.
Louisiana, La Salle in;
extent of;
French in;
struggle for;
Spanish;
purchased;
admitted;
boundary;
secedes;
reconstructs government;
readmitted.
Louisville, settled;
labor congress at.
Lovejoy, Elijah.
Lowell founded.
Lundy, Benjamin.
Lundys Lane, battle of.
Lyon, General.
%M%
McClellan, General George B., campaigns;
presidential nominee.
McCormick reaper.
McDonough, Thomas.
McDowell, General Irwin, campaigns.
McKinley, William, president.
McKinley Tariff Act.
_Macedonian_.
Macomb, General.
Macon Bill.
Madison, James, on the Constitution;
Republican leader;
favors Virginia Resolutions;
president.
Magellan.
Mails, see Postal System.
Maine, settled;
part of Massachusetts Bay colony;
admitted.
Maine Law.
Manassas Junction, battle of.
Manhattan Island.
Manila, battle of.
Manufactures, in colonial times;
about 1800;
infant;
in slave states;
during Civil War;
since Civil War.
March to the Sea, Sherman's.
Marcos, Fray.
Marietta settled.
Marion.
Marquette.
Marshall.
Marshall, John.
Martin, Luther.
Mary, Queen, grants Massachusetts charter.
Maryland, colonized;
in colonial times.
slavery in.
Mason, Charles.
Mason, James M.
Mason, John.
Mason and Dixon's Line.
Massachusetts, Bay Company;
religious intolerance in;
Bay charter granted;
in colonial times;
opposes Stamp and Townshend Acts;
Bill;
cedes land to Congress.
Matagorda Bay
Matamoras, battle of
Maximilian
_Mayflower_
Mayflower Compact
Mayflower Log
Maysville settled
Meade, General
Mechanical improvements
Mechanicsville
Memphis captured
Mendoza
Menendez
Mercer
_Merrimac_
Mexico, becomes republic
wars
French in
Miami Indians
Michigan, a territory
admitted
Michilimackinac, trading post
Middle Colonies, occupations, etc.
Milan Decree
Milford founded
Military lands
Mill Springs, battle of
Mills, R. Q.
Mills Tariff Bill
Milwaukee, population in 1840
Minneapolis mills
_Minnesota_
Minnesota, slavery in
a territory
admitted
Mint established
Minute men
Missionary Ridge, battle of
Mississippi River, explored
French forts built on
right of navigation
slavery west of
campaign in Civil War
Mississippi, a territory
admitted
secedes
convention in
opposed to Reconstruction Act
again in the Union
Missouri, admitted
opposes Wilmot Proviso
elects Kansas delegate
slavery in
Missouri Compromise
Missouri River, gold discovered on
Mobile, in colonial times
captured
Mobile Bay explored
British in
Mohawk Indians
Mohegan Indians
Molino del Rey, battle of
Money, see Currency, Gold, and Silver.
_Monitor_
Monmouth, battle of
Monroe, James, Republican leader
treaty with England
president
Monroe Doctrine
Montana, a territory
admitted
silver interests
Montcalm, General
Monterey, Cal., Frémont at
Monterey, Mexico, battle of
Montezuma
Montgomery, Confederate capital
Montgomery, Richard
Montreal, attacked
captured
attacked in 1813
Moose Island captured
Morgan, Daniel
Morgan, William
Mormons
Morris, Robert
Morris, Thomas
Morristown, Washington at
Morse, Samuel F.B.
Morton, Dr.
Morton, Levi P.
Moultrie
Mount Desert Island settled
Mount Pleasant settled
Mount Vernon. Washington's home
Mugwumps
Murfreesboro, battle of
Murray, William Vans
Muskhogee Indians
Mutiny Act.
%N%
Nantucket Island captured
Napoleon, consul of France
issues decrees
seizes American vessels
loses power
Napoleon, Louis, in Mexico
Narragansett Indians
Narvaez
Nashville, settled
evacuated
battle of
Nassau, blockade running
Natchez, in colonial times
captured
claimed by Spaniards
National Agricultural Wheel
National Bank, First
loses charter
Second
proposed Third
National banks
National Bimetallic League
National debt, see Debt.
National Democratic party
National Labor Congress
National Labor Reform party
National notes, see Bonds
National party
National Pike
National Prohibition Reform party
National Republican party, see Republican.
National Union party
Native American party
Naturalization law
Naumkeag settled
Nauvoo built
Naval warfare,
in Revolution
in French War
in War of 1812
in Civil War
Navigation Acts
Navy department
Nebraska Bill
Nebraska,
struggle for
admitted
rapid growth
Neutrality,
Proclamation of
policy
Nevada,
acquired
territory and state
silver interests
New Albion
New Amsterdam,
founded
becomes New York
New England,
early settlements
occupations in colonies
English victories in
New England Emigrant Aid Society
New France,
extent of
struggle for
New Hampshire,
settled
in colonial times
grants
New Haven,
colony
in colonial times
riot at
New Jersey,
settled
in colonial times
plan for Constitution
New London,
riot at
burned
New Mexico,
Spanish explore
conquered
slavery in
bought from Texas
silver interests
New Netherland,
becomes New York
New Orleans,
founded
in colonial times
battle of
captured
"New Roof"
New Sweden
"New tenor"
New York (state),
New Netherland becomes
in colonial times
English in
cedes land to Congress
New York (city),
convention
in colonial times
colonial congress at
evacuated
national capital
the metropolis
in 1830
labor congress at
New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company
Newark,
founded
riot at
Newbern captured
Newfoundland,
granted to English
fisheries
Newport, Ky. settled
Newport, R.I.,
settled
riot at
Newspapers,
in colonial times
in 1790
about 1810
Newtown settled
_Niagara_
Niagara,
founded
expedition against
_Niña_
Nipmuck Indians
Nominating conventions
Non-importation,
agreements
Act
Non-intercourse Law
Norfolk evacuated
North, Lord
North American party
North Carolina,
settled
in colonial times
cedes land to Congress
secedes
Sherman in
readmitted
North Castle
North Dakota admitted
Northern attitude toward slavery
Northern Pacific Railroad
Northwest,
exploration of
the new
Northwest passage to India
Northwest Territory,
surrendered
Indian troubles in
slavery question in
Notes, United States, see Bonds.
Nova Scotia,
part of Massachusetts Bay colony
struggle for
Nueces River
Nullification doctrine.
%O%
_Observer_
O'Conor, Charles
Oglethorpe, James
Ohio,
Settled
Admitted
currency plan
Ohio Land Company
Ohio River,
struggle for
settlements on
Oklahoma
Old Demand notes
_Old Ironsides_
Olmsted, F. L.
Omnibus Bill
Omnibuses
Oneida Indians
Onondaga Indians
Orders in Council of 1806 and 1807
Ordinance,
how passed
of 1785
of 1787
Oregon,
settled
joint occupation of
boundaries of
trail
a territory
slavery in
Orleans Territory
Ossawatomie settled
Oswego burned
Otis, James
Overland stage
Owen, Robert.
%P%
Pacific Fur Company
Pacific Ocean,
discovered
named
Pacific railroads,
Pacific States settled,
Pakenham, General,
Palmer, John M.,
Palmyra, Mormons at,
Palo Alto, battle of,
Panic, of 1837,
of 1873,
of 1893,
Paper currency,
Parker, Joel,
Party platforms, see Platforms.
Patent office,
Patroons,
Patterson, General,
Paulding,
Pea Ridge, battle of,
_Peacock_,
_Pelican_,
Pemberton, General,
Pendleton, George H.,
Pendleton Civil Service Act,
Peninsular campaign,
Penn, William, settles New Jersey and Pennsylvania,
relations with Indians,
Pennsylvania, granted to Penn,
in colonial times,
opposes Townshend Acts,
Declaration of Independence in,
Confederates in,
_Pennsylvania Freeman_,
_Pennsylvania Gazette_,
_Pennsylvania Journal_,
_Pennsylvania Packet_,
Pennsylvania route to West,
Pensacola captured,
Pensions,
People's party,
Pequot Indians,
Perote,
Perry, Oliver Hazard,
Perryville, battle of,
Personal Liberty laws,
"Pet banks,"
Petersburg, in colonial times,
Cornwallis at,
besieged,
evacuated,
Petroleum,
Philadelphia, founded,
in colonial times,
First Continental Congress,
captured,
Congress at,
evacuated,
constitutional convention at,
in 1800,
national capital,
_Philanthropist_,
Philippines,
Phips, Sir William,
_Phoenix_,
Photographic discoveries,
Pickens,
Pickens, Governor,
Pierce, Franklin, president,
Pike, Zebulon,
Pikes Peak,
Pilgrims,
Pinckney, C. C., minister to France,
Federalist candidate,
treaty with England,
Pineda,
_Pinta_,
Pinzon,
Pitt, William,
Pittsburg, founded,
in 1790,
rebellion at,
Pittsburg Landing, battle of,
Plains of Abraham,
Platforms, party,
Platte country,
Plattsburg, battle of,
Plymouth, charter,
Company,
settled,
part of Massachusetts Bay colony,
Pocahontas,
_Poictiers_,
Political issues, see Platforms.
Political parties, beginning of,
see Federalists, Democrats, Republicans, etc.
Polk, James K., presidential nominee,
president,
Polygamy,
Ponce de Leon,
Pony express,
Pope, General John, campaigns,
Popham, Sir John,
Popular sovereignty,
Population, in 1790,
in 1815,
in 1810,
in 1820,
increase in,
of Oregon,
western immigrant,
between 1840 and 1860,
in 1870,
of northwestern states,
of Oklahoma,
Populists, see People's Party.
Port Gibson, battle of,
Port Hudson, battle of,
Port Royal, settled,
French stronghold,
captured,
called Annapolis,
Port Royal, S. C., captured,
Portage Railroad,
Porter, at Vicksburg,
Porto Rico,
Portsmouth, settled,
in colonial times,
navy yard,
Portuguese in Brazil,
Postage stamps,
Postal system, in colonial times,
in 1790,
in 1840,
in 1860,
Powhatan Indians,
Prairie schooners,
Prescott, Colonel,
_President_,
Presidential election, method of,
proposed method of,
Presidential succession,
Presque Isle built,
Price, General,
Princeton, battle of,
Printing press,
Proclamation, line,
of neutrality,
Emancipation,
Progress, from 1790 to 1815,
from 1840 to 1860,
since Civil War,
Prohibition party,
Proprietary colonies
Proscription, political
Proslavery movement
Protection
South opposes
Clay favors
political issue
Providence
founded
in colonial times
riot at
Provincial colonies
Public domain
granted
additions to
grants, see Land grants
Puebla
Puerto Rico
see Porto Rico.
Pulaski
Punishment
forms of
Puritans
persecution of
in New England
become Separatists
Putnam.
%Q%
Quaker settlements
Quartering Act
Quebec
boundaries of
Quebec
settled
French stronghold
attacked
surrendered
Quebec Act
Queen Anne's War
Queenstown, battle of
Quincy, Josiah.
%R%
Radical Republicans
Railroads
early
Western
Northern Pacific
in 1887
land grants to
Ralegh, Sir Walter
Randolph, John
"Receivers general" created
Reconstruction Act
Reconstruction policy
Redemptioners
Refunding Act
Reid, Whitelaw
_Reprisal_
Republicans
old party
new party
Resaca de la Palma
battle of
Restoration
English
Resumption of Specie Payment Act
_Revenge_
Revolutionary War
Rhode Island
settled
charter
in colonial times
Ribault, John
Richmond
Confederate capital
campaign against
captured
Rio Grande
Ripon
convention at
Rittenhouse, David
Roads
improvements
Western
Roanoke
colonized
captured
Robertson, James
Robinson, John
Rochester settled
Rogers, Captain
Rolfe, John
Roosevelt, Theodore
Rosecrans, General
campaigns
Ross, General
Roxbury settled
Royal colonies
Rule of 1756
Rumsey, James
Russell, John
Russia
possessions
claims on the Pacific
complies with Monroe Doctrine
attitude in Civil War
Alaska purchased from
Ryal, Captain.
%S%
Sacketts Harbor
battle of
Sacramento
St. Augustine founded
St. Clair's defeat
St. Croix River settlements
St. John, John P.
St. Joseph captured
St. Lawrence River explored
St. Leger, Colonel
St. Louis
St. Marks captured
St. Marys founded
St. Paul
Salem settled
Salmon Falls massacre
Saltillo
Sampson, W.T.
_San Jacinto_
San Jacinto,
battle of
San Salvador
Santa Anna
Santa Fe
captured
trail
_Santa Maria_
Santiago, battles of
Saratoga, battle of
_Savannah_
Savannah
founded
in colonial times
captured
Schenectady massacre
Schley, W.S.
Schools, free
Schuyler, General
Scientific discoveries
Scioto Company
Scott, General Winfield
in 1814
in Mexican War
presidential nominee
in Civil War
Sea to sea grants
Secession, of Southern States
states refuse troops
reconstruction plans
Sedition Law
Seminole Indians
Senate formed
Seneca Indians
Separatists
_Serapis_
Seven Cities of Cibola
Seven days' battles
Seven Pines, battle of
Sevier, John
Sewall, Arthur
Seward, William H.
Sewing machine invented
Seymour, Horatio
Shadrach
_Shannon_
Sharpsburg, battle of
Indians
Shays, Daniel
_Shenandoah_
Shenandoah valley, war in
Sheridan, General Phil., campaigns
Sherman, Roger
Sherman, General W.T., campaigns
Sherman Act
silver-purchase clause repealed
Shiloh, battle of
Ship Island
Shirley, Governor
Silver, specie suspended
mines discovered
demonetized
remonetized
certificates
free coinage of
movement
party
"Silver Grays"
Sioux Indians
_Sirius_
Six Nations
Slave trade forbidden
Slavery, established
in colonial times,
in territories
at time of Constitution
in 1790
affected by cotton industry
in Kentucky
in early states
beyond Mississippi River
issue between North and South
area expanded
in Texas
in New Mexico and California
in Kansas
in 1857
in 1860
Civil War
Emancipation Proclamation
during Civil War
abolished in Confederate States
position of negroes after war
Slidell, John
Smith, Green Clay
Smith, John, at Jamestown
explores New England coast
among the Indians
Smith, Joseph
Social conditions, in 1790
about 1890
Socialist Labor party
Society for Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures
Solis
Somers, Sir George
Sons of Liberty
South American republics
South Carolina, settled
in colonial times
cedes land to Congress
Railroad
Exposition
favors nullification
secedes
Sherman in
readmitted
South Dakota, admitted
silver interests
South Pass
Southern Colonies, occupations, etc.
Southern States, English in
attitude toward slavery
form Confederacy
at end of 1860
at beginning of war
coast blockade
cost of war in
reconstruction of
troubles in
the New South
Spanish, possessions
settlements, etc.
claims
boundary line
Florida bought from
war with United States
Spanish America
Specie Circular
Specie payments
Speculation in 1836
_Speedwell_
Spottsylvania Courthouse, battle of
Springfield, settled
Republican state convention at
Lincoln's speech at
Squatter sovereignty, see Popular Sovereignty
Squatters
Stagecoaches
Stamford founded
Stamp Act
Stamp tax
Standish, Miles
Stanton
_Star of the West_
_Star-Spangled Banner_
Stark, Colonel John
State banks
State debts
State department
Staten Island evacuated
States, formed
thirteen original
trade laws
powers of
new constitutions in
sovereignty of
government in seceded,
Steamboats
Stephens, Alexander II.
Steuben, Baron
Stevens, John
Stevenson, Adlai E.
Stewart, G.T.
Stillwater, battle of
Stockton, Commodore
"Stonewall" Jackson
Stonington bombarded
Stony Point captured
Stowe, H.B.
Stuart
Stuyvesant, Peter
Sub treasury plan
Sugar Act
Sullivan, General
Sumner, Charles
_Sumter_
Sumter
Sumter, Fort
Supreme Court
established
gives Dred Scott decision
on Wilson Bill
Surplus revenue
in 1837
in 1887
_Surprise_
Sutter
Sutter's Fort
Swedish
possessions
settlements
Symmes, John C.
%T%
Taft, William II.
Taney, Roger B.
Tariff
of 1789
bills of 1824, etc.
of 1861
for revenue only
Mills Bill
McKinley Act
revision of 1896
Tarleton, Commander
Taxation
in colonies
of 1861
of bonds demanded
of Chinese
a political issue
Taylor, General Zachary
in Mexican War
president
death of
Tea tax
Tecumseh
Telegraph
Temperance party
Tender Acts
Tennessee
settled
part of public domain
admitted
opposes Wilmot Proviso
secedes
reconstructs government
readmitted
Tenure of Office Act
Territory formed
Terry, Eli
Texas
becomes independent
annexed to United States
boundaries of
New Mexico purchased from
admitted
secedes
opposed to Reconstruction Act
again in the Union
Thames River
battle of
Thayer, Hon. Eli
Third-term tradition
Thirteenth Amendment
proposed
adopted
Thomas, General George II.
campaigns
Thomas, General Lorenzo
Thompson, Henry Adams
Thurman, Allen G.
Ticket money
Ticonderoga
Tilden, Samuel J.
Tippecanoe, battle of
Toledo
population in 1840
Tompkins, Daniel D.
Tonty, Henri de
Topeka
Topeka free-state constitution
Tories
Townshend Acts
Trade
in colonial times
in original states
convention at Annapolis
regulated by Congress
with West Indies
regulations of English and French
facilities for
trades unions
Transportation Bill
Travel
in 1790
in 1810
Treasury department established
Treasury notes
Treaty
of Penn with Indians
of Utrecht
of Ryswick
of Aix-la-Chapelle
of Paris
with France
Jay's
with Spain
of Ghent
of Greenville
of 1818
of 1819
Webster-Ashburton
with Mexico
with Texas
of 1846
with China
of Washington
with Hawaii
between Great Britain and Venezuela
_Trent_
Trent, William
Trent Affair
Trenton
battle of
Tripoli
war with
Trusts
see Corporations.
Truxton, Captain Thomas
Tuscarora Indians
Twelfth Amendment
Tyler, John
vice-presidential nominee
president
%U%
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_
Underground Railroad
Union Labor party
Union Pacific Railroad
United Colonies of New England
United Labor party
_United States_
United States Bank
see National Bank.
United States bonds
see Bonds.
Usselinx, William
Utah
Mormons in
acquired
slavery question in
admitted
silver interests
%V%
Vaca, Cabeza de
Vail, Alfred
Valley Forge
Van Buren, Martin
birth
vice-presidential nominee
president
presidential nominee
favors 10 hours system
Van Born, General
Van Rensselaer's expedition
Van Wart
Venezuela boundary question
_Vengeance_
Vera Cruz
battle of
Vermont
admitted
passes Personal Liberty Law
Vespucci, or Vespucius, Amerigo.
Vevay settled.
Vice-admiralty courts.
Vice president, manner of electing.
Vicksburg captured.
Vincennes settled.
_Virginia_.
Virginia, named;
settled;
charters;
a royal colony;
defends Ohio valley;
in colonial times;
opposes Stamp Act;
cedes land to Congress;
Reserve;
Plan of Constitution;
resolutions of 1798;
resolutions of 1849;
Brown's raid in;
secedes;
coast blockade;
opposes reconstruction policy;
again in the Union.
Virginia City, Mont., founded.
Virginia City, Nov., founded.
Virginia companies.
Volunteers during Civil War.
%W%
Wabash River, Indians on.
_Wachusett_.
Wages, in 1790;
in 1860;
in 1873;
in 1880.
Walla Walla.
Wampanoag Indians.
War department.
Ward, Ensign.
Warren.
Wars, Indian;
colonial;
French and Indian;
Revolution;
with France;
with Tripoli;
war for commercial independence (War of 1812);
Mexican;
Civil;
Spanish.
Washington, George, in French and Indian War;
commander in chief;
in Revolution;
president constitutional convention;
president;
social conditions at time of.
Washington, national capital;
burned;
Confederates near.
Washington, slavery question in;
a territory;
settled;
boundary of;
admitted.
_Wasp_.
Watauga Creek settlements.
Waterloo settled.
Watertown settled.
Watlings Island.
Watson, Thomas E.
Wayne, Anthony, at Stony Point;
in Indian warfare.
Weaver, James B.
Webster, Daniel, birth;
opposes nullification doctrine;
secretary of state;
speech on Compromise Bill;
death of.
Webster-Ashburton treaty.
Weitzel, General.
Wells, Dr.
West Indies discovered.
West Point, Arnold at.
West Virginia, admitted;
slavery in.
Western movement.
Western Reserve of Connecticut.
Western Union Telegraph Company.
Wethersfield settled.
Whalley, Edward.
Wheeler, William A.
Wheeling settled.
Whig party.
Whisky Rebellion.
White House Landing, battle of.
White Plains, battle of, 135.
White, John.
White, John.
Whitman, Marcus.
Whitney, Eli.
Wildcat state banks.
Wilderness campaign.
Wilkes, Captain.
William, King, grants Massachusetts charter.
Williams.
Williams, Roger.
Williamsburg, in colonial times;
captured.
Wilmington, Del., Washington at.
Wilmington, N. C., British at;
captured.
Wilmot, David.
Wilmot Proviso.
Wilson, Henry.
Wilson, William L.
Wilson Bill.
Winchester, General.
Winchester, battle of.
Winthrop, John.
Wirt, William.
Wisconsin territory and state.
Wolfe, General James.
Woman suffrage.
Workingman, see Labor.
Wyeth, Nathaniel J.
Wyoming massacre.
Wyoming, acquired;
a territory;
admitted;
silver interests.
%X%
"X, Y, Z mission."
%Y%
Yates.
York, Canada, burned.
York, Me., massacre.
York, Pa., Congress at.
York, Duke of.
Yorktown, surrendered;
captured.
Young, Brigham.
%Z%
Zuñi pueblos.
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