The Critical Period of American History Part 7

The Spanish envoy, Gardoqui, arrived in the summer of 1784, and had many interviews with Jay, who was then secretary for foreign affairs.

Gardoqui set forth that his royal master was graciously pleased to deal leniently with the Americans, and would confer one favour upon them, but could not confer two. He was ready to enter into a treaty of commerce with us, but not until we should have renounced all claim to the navigation of the Mississippi River below the Yazoo. Here the Spaniard was inexorable. A year of weary argument pa.s.sed by, and he had not budged an inch. At last, in despair, Jay advised Congress, for the sake of the commercial treaty, to consent to the closing of the Mississippi, but only for twenty-five years. As the rumour of this went abroad among the settlements south of the Ohio, there was an outburst of wrath, to which an incident that now occurred gave added virulence. A North Carolinian trader, named Amis, sailed down the Mississippi with a cargo of pots and kettles and barrels of flour. At Natchez his boat and his goods were seized by the Spanish officers, and he was left to make his way home afoot through several hundred miles of wilderness. The story of his wrongs flew from one log-cabin to another, until it reached the distant northwestern territory. In the neighbourhood of Vincennes there were Spanish traders, and one of them kept a shop in the town. The shop was sacked by a band of American soldiers, and an attempt was made to incite the Indians to attack the Spaniards. Indignation meetings were held in Kentucky. The people threatened to send a force of militia down the river and capture Natchez and New Orleans; and a more dangerous threat was made. Should the northeastern states desert them and adopt Jay's suggestion, they vowed they would secede, and throw themselves upon Great Britain for protection. On the other hand, there was great agitation in the seaboard towns of Ma.s.sachusetts. They were disgusted with the backwoodsmen for making such a fuss about nothing, and with the people of the southern states for aiding and abetting them; and during this turbulent summer of 1786, many persons were heard to declare that, in case Jay's suggestion should not be adopted, it would be high time for the New England states to secede from the Union, and form a confederation by themselves. The situation was dangerous in the extreme.

Had the question been forced to an issue, the southern states would never have seen their western territories go and offer themselves to Great Britain. Sooner than that, they would have broken away from the northern states. But New Jersey and Pennsylvania now came over to the southern side, and Rhode Island, moving in her eccentric orbit, presently joined them; and thus the treaty was postponed for the present, and the danger averted.

[Sidenote: Was.h.i.+ngton's views on the importance of ca.n.a.ls between east and west.]

[Sidenote: His far-sighted genius and self-devotion.]

This lamentable dispute was watched by Was.h.i.+ngton with feelings of gravest concern. From an early age he had indulged in prophetic dreams of the grandeur of the coming civilization in America, and had looked to the country beyond the mountains as the field in which the next generation was to find room for expansion. Few had been more efficient than he in aiding the great scheme of Pitt for overthrowing the French power in America, and he understood better than most men of his time how much that scheme implied. In his early journeys in the wilderness he had given especial attention to the possibilities of water connection between the east and west, and he had bought for himself and surveyed many extensive tracts of land beyond the mountains. The subject was a favourite one with him, and he looked at it from both a commercial and a political point of view. What we most needed, he said in 1770, were easy transit lines between east and west, as "the channel of conveyance of the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire." Just before resigning his commission in 1783 Was.h.i.+ngton had explored the route through the Mohawk Valley, afterward taken first by the Erie Ca.n.a.l, and then by the New York Central Railroad, and had prophesied its commercial importance in the present century. Soon after reaching his home at Mount Vernon, he turned his attention to the improvement of intercourse with the west through the valley of the Potomac. The east and west, he said, must be cemented together by interests in common; otherwise they will break asunder. Without commercial intercourse they will cease to understand each other, and will thus be ripe for disagreement. It is easy for mental habits, as well as merchandise, to glide down stream, and the connections of the settlers beyond the mountains all centre in New Orleans, which is in the hands of a foreign and hostile power. No one can tell what complications may arise from this, argued Was.h.i.+ngton; "let us bind these people to us by a chain that can never be broken;"

and with characteristic energy he set to work at once to establish that line of communication that has since grown into the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l, and into the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. During the three years preceding the meeting of the Federal Convention he was largely occupied with this work. In 1785 he became president of a company for extending the navigation of the Potomac and James rivers, and the legislature of Virginia pa.s.sed an act vesting him with one hundred and fifty shares in the stock of the company, in order to testify their "sense of his unexampled merits." But Was.h.i.+ngton refused the testimonial, and declined to take any pay for his services, because he wished to arouse the people to the political importance of the undertaking, and felt that his words would have more weight if he were known to have no selfish interest in it. His sole purpose, as he repeatedly said, was to strengthen the spirit of union by cementing the eastern and western regions together.

At this time he could ill afford to give his services without pay, for his long absence in war-time had sadly impaired his estate. But such was Was.h.i.+ngton.

[Sidenote: Maryland confers with Virginia regarding the navigation of the Potomac, 1785.]

In order to carry out the enterprise of extending the navigation of the Potomac, it became necessary for the two states Virginia and Maryland to act in concert; and early in 1785 a joint commission of the two states met for consultation at Was.h.i.+ngton's house at Mount Vernon. A compact insuring harmonious cooperation was prepared by the commissioners; and then, as Was.h.i.+ngton's scheme involved the connection of the head waters of the Potomac with those of the Ohio, it was found necessary to invite Pennsylvania to become a party to the compact. Then Was.h.i.+ngton took the occasion to suggest that Maryland and Virginia, while they were about it, should agree upon a uniform system of duties and other commercial regulations, and upon a uniform currency; and these suggestions were sent, together with the compact, to the legislatures of the two states.

Great things were destined to come from these modest beginnings. Just as in the Yorktown campaign, there had come into existence a multifarious a.s.semblage of events, apparently unconnected with one another, and all that was needed was the impulse given by Was.h.i.+ngton's far-sighted genius to set them all at work, surging, swelling, and hurrying straight forward to a decisive result.

[Sidenote: Madison's motion; a step in advance, 1785.]

Late in 1785, when the Virginia legislature had wrangled itself into imbecility over the question of clothing Congress with power over trade, Madison hit upon an expedient. He prepared a motion to the effect that commissioners from all the states should hold a meeting, and discuss the best method of securing a uniform treatment of commercial questions; but as he was most conspicuous among the advocates of a more perfect union, he was careful not to present the motion himself. Keeping in the background, he persuaded another member--John Tyler, father of the president of that name, a fierce zealot for state rights--to make the motion. The plan, however, was "so little acceptable that it was not then persisted in," and the motion was laid on the table. But Madison knew what was coming from Maryland, and bided his time. After some weeks it was announced that Maryland had adopted the compact made at Mount Vernon concerning jurisdiction over the Potomac. Virginia instantly replied by adopting it also. Then it was suggested, in the report from Maryland, that Delaware, as well as Pennsylvania, ought to be consulted, since the scheme should rightly include a ca.n.a.l between the Delaware River and the Chesapeake Bay. And why not also consult with these states about a uniform system of duties? If two states can agree upon these matters, why not four? And still further, said the Maryland message,--dropping the weightiest part of the proposal into a subordinate clause, just as women are said to put the quintessence of their letters into the postscript,--might it not be well enough, if we are going to have such a conference, to invite commissioners from all the thirteen states to attend it? An informal discussion can hurt n.o.body. The conference of itself can settle nothing; and if four states can take part in it, why not thirteen? Here was the golden opportunity.

The Madison-Tyler motion was taken up from the table and carried.

Commissioners from all the states were invited to meet on the first Monday of September, 1786, at Annapolis,--a safe place, far removed from the influence of that dread tyrant, the Congress, and from wicked centres of trade, such as New York and Boston. It was the governor of Virginia who sent the invitations. It may not amount to much, wrote Madison to Monroe, but "the expedient is better than nothing; and, as the recommendation of additional powers to Congress is within the purview of the commission, it may possibly lead to better consequences than at first occur."

[Sidenote: Convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.]

[Sidenote: Hamilton's address; a further step in advance.]

The seed dropped by Was.h.i.+ngton had fallen on fruitful soil. At first it was to be just a little meeting of two or three states to talk about the Potomac River and some projected ca.n.a.ls, and already it had come to be a meeting of all the states to discuss some uniform system of legislation on the subject of trade. This looked like progress, yet when the convention was gathered at Annapolis, on the 11th of September, the outlook was most discouraging. Commissioners were there from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Ma.s.sachusetts and New Hamps.h.i.+re, Rhode Island and North Carolina, had duly appointed commissioners, but they were not there. It is curious to observe that Maryland, which had been so earnest in the matter, had nevertheless now neglected to appoint commissioners; and no action had been taken by Georgia, South Carolina, or Connecticut. With only five states represented, the commissioners did not think it worth while to go on with their work. But before adjourning they adopted an address, written by Alexander Hamilton, and sent it to all the states. All the commissioners present had been empowered to consider how far a uniform commercial system might be essential to the permanent harmony of the states. But New Jersey had taken a step in advance, and instructed her delegates "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations _and other important matters_ might be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several states." _And other important matters_,--thus again was the weightiest part of the business relegated to a subordinate clause. So gingerly was the great question--so dreaded, yet so inevitable--approached! This reference to "other matters" was p.r.o.nounced by the commissioners to be a vast improvement on the original plan; and Hamilton's address now urged that commissioners be appointed by all the states, to meet in convention at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the const.i.tution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and to report to Congress such an act as, when agreed to by them, and confirmed by the legislatures of every state, would effectually provide for the same." The report of the commissioners was brought before Congress in October, in the hope that Congress would earnestly recommend to the several states the course of action therein suggested.

But Nathan Dane and Rufus King of Ma.s.sachusetts, intent upon technicalities, succeeded in preventing this. According to King, a convention was an irregular body, which had no right to propose changes in the organic law of the land, and the state legislatures could not properly confirm the acts of such a body, or take notice of them.

Congress was the only source from which such proposals could properly emanate. These arguments were pleasing to the self-love of Congress, and it refused to sanction the plan of the Annapolis commissioners.

[Sidenote: New York defeats the impost amendment.]

In an ordinary season this would perhaps have ended the matter, but the winter of 1786-87 was not an ordinary season. All the troubles above described seemed to culminate just at this moment. The paper-money craze in so many of the states, the shameful deeds of Rhode Island, the riots in Vermont and New Hamps.h.i.+re, the Shays rebellion in Ma.s.sachusetts, the dispute with Spain, and the consequent imminent danger of separation between north and south had all come together; and the feeling of thoughtful men and women throughout the country was one of real consternation. The last ounce was now to be put upon the camel's back in the failure of the impost amendment. In 1783, when the cessions of western lands were creating a national domain, a promising plan had been devised for relieving the country of its load of debt, and furnis.h.i.+ng Congress with money for its current expenses. All the money coming from sales of the western folkland was to be applied to reducing and wiping out the princ.i.p.al of the public debt. Then the interest of this debt must be provided for; and to that end Congress had recommended an impost, or system of custom-house duties, upon liquors, sugars, teas, coffees, cocoa, mola.s.ses, and pepper. This impost was to be kept up for twenty-five years only, and the collectors were to be appointed by the several states, each for its own ports. Then for the current expenses of the government, supplementary funds were needed; and these were to be a.s.sessed upon the several states, each of which might raise its quota as it saw fit. Such was the original plan; but it soon turned out that the only available source of revenue was the national domain, which had thus been nothing less than the princ.i.p.al thread which had held the Union together. As for the impost, it had never been possible to get a sufficient number of states to agree upon it, and of the quotas for current expenses, as we have seen, very little had found its way to the federal treasury. Under these difficulties, it had been proposed that an amendment to the articles of confederation should endow Congress with the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors; and by the summer of 1786, after endless wrangling, twelve states had consented to the amendment. But, in order that an amendment should be adopted, unanimous consent was necessary. The one delinquent state, which thus blocked the wheels of the confederacy, was New York. She had her little system of duties all nicely arranged for what seemed to be her own interests, and she would not surrender this system to Congress.

Upon the neighbouring states her tariff system bore hard, and especially upon New Jersey. In 1786 this little state flatly refused to pay her quota until New York should stop discriminating against her trade.

Nothing which occurred in that troubled year caused more alarm than this, for it could not be denied that such a declaration seemed little less than an act of secession on the part of New Jersey. The arguments of a congressional committee at last prevailed upon the state to rescind her declaration. At the same time there came the final struggle in New York over the impost amendment, against which Governor Clinton had firmly set his face. There was a fierce fight, in which Hamilton's most strenuous efforts succeeded in carrying the amendment in part, but not until it had been clogged with a condition that made it useless.

Congress, it was declared, might have the revenue, but New York must appoint the collectors; she was not going to have federal officials rummaging about her docks. The legislature well knew that to grant the amendment in such wise was not to grant it at all, but simply to reopen the whole question. Such was the result. Congress expostulated in vain.

On the 15th of February, 1787, the matter was reconsidered in the New York legislature, and the impost amendment was defeated.

[Sidenote: Sudden changes in popular sentiment.]

Thus, only three months before the Federal Convention was to meet, if indeed it was ever to meet, Congress was decisively informed that it would not be allowed to take any effectual measures for raising a revenue. There now seemed nothing left for Congress to do but adopt the recommendation of the Annapolis commissioners, and give its sanction to the proposed convention. Madison, however, had not waited for this, but had prevailed upon the Virginia legislature to go on and appoint its delegates to the convention. The events of the year had worked a change in the popular sentiment in Virginia; people were more afraid of anarchy, and not quite so much afraid of centralization; and now, under Madison's lead, Virginia played her trump card and chose George Was.h.i.+ngton as one of her delegates. As soon as this was known, there was an outburst of joy throughout the land. All at once the people began everywhere to feel an interest in the proposed convention, and presently Ma.s.sachusetts changed her att.i.tude. Up to this time Ma.s.sachusetts had been as obstinate in her a.s.sertion of local independence, and as unwilling to strengthen the hands of Congress, as any of the thirteen states, except New York and Rhode Island. But the Shays rebellion had served as a useful object-lesson. Part of the distress in Ma.s.sachusetts could be traced to the inability of Congress to pay debts which it owed to her citizens. It was felt that the time had come when the question of a national revenue must be seriously considered. Every week saw fresh converts to the party which called for a stronger government. Then came the news that Virginia had chosen delegates, and that Was.h.i.+ngton was one of them; then that New Jersey had followed the example; then that Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Delaware, had chosen delegates. It was time for Ma.s.sachusetts to act, and Rufus King now brought the matter up in Congress. His scruples as to the legality of the proceeding had not changed, and accordingly he moved that Congress should of itself propose a convention at Philadelphia, identical with the one which the Annapolis commissioners had already recommended. The motion was carried, and in this way Congress formally approved and adopted what was going on.

Ma.s.sachusetts immediately chose delegates, and was followed by New York.

In April, Georgia and South Carolina followed suit. Connecticut and Maryland came on in May, and New Hamps.h.i.+re, somewhat tardily, in June.

Of the thirteen states, Rhode Island alone refused to take any part in the proceedings.

[Sidenote: The Federal Convention meets at Philadelphia, May 14-25, 1787.]

The convention held its meetings in that plain brick building in Philadelphia already immortalized as the place from which the Declaration of Independence was published to the world. The work which these men were undertaking was to determine whether that Declaration had been for the blessing or the injury of America and of mankind. That they had succeeded in a.s.sembling here at all was somewhat remarkable, when we think of the curious medley of incidents that led to it. At no time in this distressed period would a frank and abrupt proposal for a convention to remodel the government have found favour. Such proposals, indeed, had been made, beginning with that of Pelatiah Webster in 1781, and they had all failed to break through the crust of a truly English conservatism and dread of centralized power. Now, through what some might have called a strange chapter of accidents, before the element of causal sequence in it all had become so manifest as it is to us to-day, this remarkable group of men had been brought together in a single room, while even yet but few of them realized how thoroughly and exhaustively reconstructive their work was to be. To most of them it was not clear whether they were going merely to patch up the articles of confederation, or to strike out into a new and very different path.

There were a few who entertained far-reaching purposes; the rest were intelligent critics rather than constructive thinkers; the result was surprising to all. It is worth our while to pause for a moment, and observe the character and composition of one of the most memorable a.s.semblies the world has ever seen. Mr. Gladstone says that just "as the British Const.i.tution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Const.i.tution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."[6] Let us now see who the men were who did this wonderful work,--this Iliad, or Parthenon, or Fifth Symphony, of statesmans.h.i.+p. We shall not find that they were all great geniuses. Such is never the case in such an a.s.sembly. There are not enough great geniuses to go around; and if there were, it is questionable if the result would be satisfactory. In such discussions the points which impress the more ordinary and less far-sighted members are sure to have great value; especially when we bear in mind that the object of such an a.s.sembly is not merely to elaborate a plan, but to get the great ma.s.s of people, including the brick-layers and hod-carriers, to understand it well enough to vote for it. An ideally perfect a.s.sembly of law-makers will therefore contain two or three men of original constructive genius, two or three leading spirits eminent for shrewdness and tact, a dozen or more excellent critics representing various conflicting interests, and a rank and file of thoroughly respectable, commonplace men, unfitted for s.h.i.+ning in the work of the meeting, but admirably competent to proclaim its results and get their friends and neighbours to adopt them. And in such an a.s.sembly, even if it be such as we call ideally perfect, we must allow something for the presence of a few hot-headed and irreconcilable members,--men of inflexible mind, who cannot adapt themselves to circ.u.mstances, and will refuse to play when they see the game going against them.

[Sidenote: The men who were a.s.sembled.]

All these points are well ill.u.s.trated in the a.s.semblage of men that framed our Federal Const.i.tution. In its composition, this group of men left nothing to be desired. In its strength and in its weakness, it was an ideally perfect a.s.sembly. There were fifty-five men, all of them respectable for family and for personal qualities,--men who had been well educated, and had done something whereby to earn recognition in these troubled times. Twenty-nine were university men, graduates of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, William and Mary, Oxford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Twenty-six were not university men, and among these were Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin. Of the ill.u.s.trious citizens who, for their public services, would naturally have been here, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in Europe; Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee disapproved of the convention, and remained at home; and the greatest man of Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene, who--one likes to think--might have succeeded in bringing his state into the convention, had lately died of a sun-stroke, at the early age of forty-four.

[Sidenote: James Madison.]

Of the two most famous men present little need be said. The names of Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin stood for supreme intelligence and consummate tact. Franklin had returned to this country two years before, and was now president of Pennsylvania. He was eighty-one years of age, the oldest man in the convention, as Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, aged twenty-six, was the youngest. The two most profound and original thinkers in the company were but little older than Dayton. Alexander Hamilton was thirty, James Madison thirty-six. Among political writers, these two men must be ranked in the same order with Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Locke; and the "Federalist," their joint production, is the greatest treatise on government that has ever been written. John Jay, who contributed a few pages to this immortal volume, had not been sent to the convention, because New York did not wish to have it succeed. Along with Hamilton, New York sent two commonplace men, Robert Yates and John Lansing, who were extreme and obstinate Antifederalists; and the action of Hamilton, who was thus prevented from carrying the vote of his own state for any measure which he might propose, was in this way sadly embarra.s.sed. For another reason, Hamilton failed to exert as much influence in the convention as one would have expected from his profound thought and his brilliant eloquence. Scarcely any of these men entertained what we should now call extreme democratic views.

Scarcely any, perhaps, had that intense faith in the ultimate good sense of the people which was the most powerful characteristic of Jefferson.

But Hamilton went to the other extreme, and expressed his distrust of popular government too plainly. His views were too aristocratic and his preference for centralization was too p.r.o.nounced to carry conviction to his hearers. The leading part in the convention fell, therefore, to James Madison, a young man somewhat less brilliant than Hamilton, but superior to him in sobriety and balance of powers. Madison used to be called the "Father of the Const.i.tution," and it is true that the government under which we live is more his work than that of any other one man. From early youth his life had been devoted to the study of history and the practice of statesmans.h.i.+p. He was a graduate of Princeton College, an earnest student, familiar with all the best literature of political science from Aristotle down to his own time, and he had given especial attention to the history of federal government in ancient Greece, and in Switzerland and Holland. At the age of twenty-five he had taken part in the Virginia convention which instructed the delegates from that state in Congress to bring forward the Declaration of Independence. During the last part of the war he was an active and influential member of Congress, where no one equalled or approached him for knowledge of English history and const.i.tutional law.

In 1784 he had returned to the Virginia legislature, and been foremost in securing the pa.s.sage of the great act which gave complete religious freedom to the people of that state. No man understood better than he the causes of the alarming weakness of the federal government, and of the commercial disturbances and popular discontent of the time; nor had any one worked more zealously or more adroitly in bringing about the meeting of this convention. As he stood here now, a leader in the debate, there was nothing grand or imposing in his appearance. He was small of stature and slight in frame, like Hamilton, but he had none of Hamilton's personal magnetism. His manner was shy and prim, and blushes came often to his cheeks. At the same time, he had that rare dignity of unconscious simplicity which characterizes the earnest and disinterested scholar. He was exceedingly sweet-tempered, generous, and kind, but very hard to move from a path which, after long reflection, he had decided to be the right one. He looked at politics judicially, and was so little of a party man that on several occasions he was accused (quite wrongfully, as I hope hereafter to prove) of gross inconsistency. The position of leaders.h.i.+p, which he won so early and kept so long, he held by sheer force of giant intelligence, sleepless industry, and an integrity which no man ever doubted. But he was above all things a man of peace. When in after years, as president of the United States, he was called upon to manage a great war, he was out of place, and his reputation for supreme ability was temporarily lowered. Here in the Federal Convention we are introduced to him at the n.o.blest and most useful moment of his life.

[Sidenote: Other leading members.]

Of the fifty-five men here a.s.sembled, Was.h.i.+ngton, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison were of the first order of ability. Many others in the room were gentlemen of more than ordinary talent and culture. There was John d.i.c.kinson, who had moved from Pennsylvania into Delaware, and now came to defend the equal rights of the smaller states. There was James Wilson of Pennsylvania, born and educated in Scotland, one of the most learned jurists this country has ever seen. Beside him sat the financier, Robert Morris, and his namesake Gouverneur Morris of Morrisania, near the city of New York, the originator of our decimal currency, and one of the far-sighted projectors of the Erie Ca.n.a.l. Then there was John Rutledge of South Carolina, who ever since the Stamp Act Congress had been the mainstay of his state; and with him were the two able and gallant Pinckneys. Caleb Strong, afterward ten times governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, was a typical Puritan, hard-headed and supremely sensible; his colleague, Rufus King, already distinguished for his opposition to negro slavery, was a man of brilliant attainments. And there were George Wythe, the chancellor of Virginia, and Daniel Carroll of Maryland, who had played a prominent part in the events which led to the creation of a national domain. Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, afterward chief justice of the United States, was one of the ablest lawyers of his time; with him were Roger Sherman and William Johnson, the latter a Fellow of the Royal Society, and afterward president of Columbia College. The New Jersey delegation, consisting of William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, and Jonathan Dayton, was a very strong one; and as to New Hamps.h.i.+re, it is enough to mention the name of John Langdon. Besides all these there were some twenty of less mark, men who said little, but listened and voted. And then there were the irreconcilables, Yates and Lansing, the two Antifederalists from New York; and four men of much greater ability, who took an important part in the proceedings, but could not be induced to accept the result. These four were Luther Martin of Maryland; George Mason and Edmund Randolph of Virginia; and Elbridge Gerry of Ma.s.sachusetts.

When these men had a.s.sembled in Independence Hall, they chose George Was.h.i.+ngton president of the convention. The doors were locked, and an injunction of strict secrecy was put upon every one. The results of their work were known in the following September, when the draft of the Federal Const.i.tution was published. But just what was said and done in this secret conclave was not revealed until fifty years had pa.s.sed, and the aged James Madison, the last survivor of those who sat there, had been gathered to his fathers. He kept a journal of the proceedings, which was published after his death, and upon the interesting story told in that journal we have now to enter.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FEDERAL CONVENTION.

[Sidenote: Difficult problem before the convention.]

[Sidenote: Was.h.i.+ngton's solemn appeal.]

The Federal Convention did wisely in withholding its debates from the knowledge of the people. It was felt that discussion would be more untrammelled, and that its result ought to go before the country as the collective and unanimous voice of the convention. There was likely to be wrangling enough among themselves; but should their scheme be unfolded, bit by bit, before its parts could be viewed in their mutual relations, popular excitement would become intense, there might be riots, and an end would be put to that att.i.tude of mental repose so necessary for the constructive work that was to be done. It was thought best that the scheme should be put forth as a completed whole, and that for several years, even, until the new system of government should have had a fair trial, the traces of the individual theories and preferences concerned in its formation should not be revealed. For it was generally a.s.sumed that a system of government new in some important respects would be proposed by the convention, and while the people awaited the result the wildest speculations and rumours were current. A few hoped, and many feared, that some scheme of monarchy would be established. Such surmises found their way across the ocean, and hopes were expressed in England that, should a king be chosen, it might be a younger son of George III. It was even hinted, with alarm, that, through grat.i.tude to our recent allies, we might be persuaded to offer the crown to some member of the royal family of France. No such thoughts were entertained, however, by any person present in the convention. Some of the delegates came with the design of simply amending the articles of confederation by taking away from the states the power of regulating commerce, and intrusting this power to Congress. Others felt that if the work were not done thoroughly now another chance might never be offered; and these men thought it necessary to abolish the confederation, and establish a federal republic, in which the general government should act directly upon the people. The difficult problem was how to frame a plan of this sort which people could be made to understand and adopt. At the very outset some of the delegates began to exhibit symptoms of that peculiar kind of moral cowardice which is wont to afflict free governments, and of which American history furnishes so many instructive examples. It was suggested that palliatives and half measures would be far more likely to find favour with the people than any thorough-going reform, when Was.h.i.+ngton suddenly interposed with a brief but immortal speech, which ought to be blazoned in letters of gold, and posted on the wall of every American a.s.sembly that shall meet to nominate a candidate, or declare a policy, or pa.s.s a law, so long as the weakness of human nature shall endure. Rising from his president's chair, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, he exclaimed in tones unwontedly solemn with suppressed emotion, "It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted.

Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of G.o.d."

This outburst of n.o.ble eloquence carried conviction to every one, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up. It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the convention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the delegates that they were in a situation where faltering or trifling was both wicked and dangerous. From that moment the mood in which they worked caught something from the glorious spirit of Was.h.i.+ngton. There was need of such high purpose, for two plans were presently laid before the meeting, which, for a moment, brought out one of the chief elements of antagonism existing between the states, and which at first seemed irreconcilable. It was the happy compromise which united and harmonised these two plans that smoothed the further work of the convention, and made it possible for a stable and powerful government to be constructed.

[Sidenote: The root of all the difficulties.]

The first of these plans was known as the Virginia plan. It was agreed upon in a committee of the delegates of that state, and was brought forward by Edmund Randolph, governor of Virginia, in the name of the state, but its chief author was Madison. It struck instantly at the root of the difficulties under which the country had been staggering ever since the Declaration of Independence. The federal government had possessed no means of enforcing obedience to its laws. Its edicts were without a sanction; and this was because they operated upon states, and not upon individuals. When an individual defies the law, you can lock him up in jail, or levy an execution upon his property. The immense force of the community is arrayed against him, and he is as helpless as a straw on the billows of the ocean. He cannot raise a militia to protect himself. But when the law is defied by a state, it is quite otherwise. You cannot put a state into jail, nor seize its goods; you can only make war on it, and if you try that expedient you find that the state is not helpless. Its local pride and prejudices are aroused against you, and its militia will turn out in full force to uphold the infraction of law. Against this obstinate and exasperated military force what superior force can you bring? Under some rare combination of circ.u.mstances you might get the military force of several of the other states; but ordinarily, when what you are trying to do is simply to enforce every-day laws, and when you simply represent a distrusted general government in conflict with a local government, you cannot do this. The other states will sympathize with the delinquent state; they will feel that the very same condition of things which leads you to attack that state to-day will lead you to attack some other state to-morrow. Hence you cannot get any military help, and you are powerless.

Such was the case with the Continental Congress. A novel and distrusted inst.i.tution, it was called upon to enforce its laws upon long-established communities, full of st.u.r.dy independence and obstinate local prejudices. It was able to act, though with clumsy slowness, as long as there was an enemy in the field who was even more dreaded. But as soon as this enemy had been beaten out of sight it could not act at all. This had been because it did not represent the American people, but only the American states. The vital force which moved it was not the resistless force of a whole people, but only a shadowy semblance of force, derived from a theoretical consent of thirteen corporate bodies, which in their corporate capacity could never be compelled to agree about anything under the sun; and unless compelled they would not agree.

Four years of disturbance in every part of the country, in the course of which troops had been called out in several states, and civil war had been narrowly averted at least half a dozen times, had proved this beyond all cavil. With almost any other people than the Americans civil war would have come already. With all the vast future interests that were involved in these quarrels looming up before their keen, sagacious minds, it was a wonder that they had been kept from coming to blows.

Such self-restraint had been greatly to their credit. It was the blessed fruit of more than a century of government by free discussion, while yet these states were colonies, peopled by the very cream of English freemen who had fought the decisive battle of civil and religious freedom for mankind in that long crisis when the Invincible Armada was overwhelmed and the Long Parliament won its triumphs. Such self-restraint had this people shown in days of trial, under a vicious government adopted in a time of hurry and sore distress. But late events had gone far to show that it could not endure.

The words of Randolph's opening speech are worth quoting in this connection. "The confederation," he said, "was made in the infancy of the science of const.i.tutions, when the inefficiency of requisitions was unknown; when no commercial discord had arisen among states; when no rebellion like that in Ma.s.sachusetts had broken out; when foreign debts were not urgent; when the havoc of paper money had not been foreseen; when treaties had not been violated; and when nothing better could have been conceded by states jealous of their sovereignty. But it offered no security against foreign invasion, for Congress could neither prevent nor conduct a war, nor punish infractions of treaties or of the law of nations, nor control particular states from provoking war. The federal government has no const.i.tutional power to check a quarrel between separate states; nor to suppress a rebellion in any one of them; nor to establish a productive impost; nor to counteract the commercial regulations of other nations; nor to defend itself against the encroachments of the states. From the manner in which it has been ratified in many of the states, it cannot be claimed to be paramount to the state const.i.tutions; so that there is a prospect of anarchy from the inherent laxity of the government. As the remedy, the government to be established must have for its basis the republican principle."

[Sidenote: The Virginia plan; a radical cure.]

Having thus tersely stated the whole problem, Randolph went on to present the Virginia plan. To make the federal government operate directly upon individuals, one provision was absolutely necessary. It did not solve the whole problem, but it was an indispensable beginning.

This was the proposal that there should be a national legislature, in which the American _people_ instead of the American states should be represented. For the purposes of federal legislation, there must be an a.s.sembly elected directly by the people, and with its members apportioned according to population. There must be such an a.s.sembly as our present House of Representatives, standing in the same immediate relation to the people of the whole country as was sustained by the a.s.sembly of each separate state to the people of that state. Without such direct representation of the whole people in the Federal Congress, it would be impossible to achieve one secure step toward the radical reform of the weaknesses and vices of the confederation. It was the only way in which the vexed question of one nation or thirteen could be made to yield a satisfactory answer. At the same time it could not be denied that such a proposal was revolutionary in character. It paved the way for a national consolidation which might go further than any one could foresee, and much further than was desirable. The moribund Congress of the Confederation, with its delegates chosen by the state a.s.semblies, and casting its vote simply by states, had utterly failed to serve as a national legislature. There was a good deal of truth in what John Adams once said of it, that it was more a diplomatic than a legislative body.