The United States of America Part 18

American publishers had been long accustomed to reprint English works, upon which, in the absence of an international copyright law, they paid no royalties. Byron, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Keats, Moore, Hallam, Maria Edgeworth, and Miss Austen were made available to American readers in this way. In any parlour a young woman would be found who could sing _Bonnie Doon_ or recite from _The Lady of the Lake_. A review of _Don Juan_ appeared in a magazine published in central Kentucky within six weeks after it was first printed in England.

Democracy and nature were the subjects mostly adopted by these English writers, and they appealed quite naturally to New World readers. As Lowell, at a later time, said of the Americans of this period:

"They stole Englishmen's books and thought Englishmen's thoughts; With English salt on her tail, our wild Eagle was caught."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING. From the etching by Jacques Reich.]

So dependent were the States, that a publisher who dared to bring out a native work did so at a financial peril. The first edition of Trumbull's _Poems_ lost one thousand dollars. Morse's Geography, text-books, and the cla.s.sics were the only remunerative publications.

But soon after the War of 1812, evidences of a change were manifest.

The attention of American writers heretofore had been occupied largely with the rights of man and other political theories borrowed from the Old World. Democracy had now adjusted itself to the conditions of the New World and had become practical. Wild-eyed theory had given way to plain fact. Economic questions, begotten of the new domestic conditions, were beginning to occupy public attention. Abstract political rights became secondary to the price and production of cotton, the encouragement of manufactures, the invention of machinery, means of transportation, the employment of emigrants, and the economic value of the slavery system. In 1819, Irving refused a remunerative offer to contribute to the _London Quarterly_, because it had been unremitting in its abuse of his countrymen. He preferred to patronise a home publication.

This declaration of literary independence was indicative of the times.

Between the close of the war and the end of Jackson's second administration, probably one hundred and fifty periodicals, entirely separate from the newspapers, were established in the United States.

About one-third of them was of a religious character, and as many more devoted to some kind of philanthropic purpose, like temperance, African colonisation, and missionary work. Their nature may be indicated by such t.i.tles as _The New York Mirror_, _The Casket_, _The Evangelical Guardian_, _The Portico_, _The Lady Book_, _The Boston Pearl_, _The Cincinnati Mirror_, and _The Family Lyceum_. Many of these lived only a year or two, yet they show a desire among the people for a native literature, however crude and sentimental it might be. During this period also came the evanescent "Annual," a species of vapid literature borrowed from Germany through England. Upon the centre-table, near the case of stuffed birds, you could find _The Token_ or _The Pearl_.

Perhaps the giver had preferred _The Casket_ or _The Western Souvenir_.

Symptoms of a more advanced regard were denoted by the choice of the _Remember Me_.

The largest number of these ephemeral periodicals appeared in New York, and the next largest in Philadelphia. Boston ranked third. Philadelphia, the home of Franklin, of Hopkinson, and of Rittenhouse, had been the literary head of America before the War of 1812. So long as the Ohio River remained the natural highway to the West, her literary products found a market which no compet.i.tor could take away. But with the development of other ways, and especially with the opening of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, New York and Boston gradually won these laurels from her.

Indeed, the West began to supply its own wants. Of these transitory publications, no less than seventeen were established west of the Alleghenies. As early as 1803, a literary magazine had been founded at Lexington, Kentucky, the seat of the Transylvania University and the centre of culture for the Ohio valley. Even villages aspired to be "the Athens of the West." Mt. Pleasant and Oxford in the State of Ohio vied with Rogersville, Tennessee, and Vandalia, Illinois, in establis.h.i.+ng literary magazines and fostering literary pursuits.

All this marks simply a stage in the development of American literature, as it shows a step in the growth of American nationality. Permanent literature awaited better printing facilities, larger patronage of letters, improved postal accommodations, the growth of cities, and more leisure and more refinement. Prophecies of a true national awakening are to be sought not alone in the Monroe doctrine, the tariff and bank issues, and the spread of internal improvements,--political events which commonly eclipse the intellectual aspects of nationality; but also in the Unitarian revolt of 1815, led by Channing, which loosed New England from the stiffening bonds of Calvinism, the Quaker schism in the Middle States, and the birth of the Campbellites in the West.

The goodness of man was beginning to attract more attention than the total depravity of man. The _North American Review_ was founded in 1815. Four years later, Irving published the _Sketch-Book_. Bryant's first volume of poems, treating generally of local themes, appeared in 1820. During the ensuing ten years Cooper gave out eleven novels, the scenes of which were laid almost exclusively in America. Only the world-reform movement of 1830 was needed to develop fully an American literature.

Although not so immediately connected with the people, this story must not lose sight of another function of the government of the States which was steadily making for their unification. The Federal Judiciary, the one branch of the national frame which the Republicans in their twenty years of national control had not been able to curb or get possession of, was following the bias which John Marshall's first decisions gave to it. Abuses in the Legislative and Executive branches could be corrected by an appeal to the ballot. Substantial proof of the efficacy of this corrective was to be found in the Alien and Sedition laws, according to the Republicans. They claimed to have appealed to the people in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and the people had cast the offending party from power. But the Judiciary was entrenched in life tenure and not susceptible to this remedy. It was a constant regret to Jefferson to the end of his life that the corrective measures taken by him and his party against the national courts had not included an amendment changing the life tenure of the judges to a definite period of years. The idea of a permanent Judiciary had been one of the results of the political struggle with Great Britain preceding the Revolution. Jefferson also regretted that no one in the Convention of 1787 had thought of changing the vote necessary for removing a judge by impeachment from two-thirds to a majority.

Year after year, during the Republican administrations, the national Judiciary had been quietly shoring up by its decisions the fabric of the Union, as fate compelled the Jeffersonians to erect it. The "formative decisions" of John Marshall, during his thirty-four years on the Supreme bench, maintained constantly the rights of the Federal courts and added to the prerogatives of the Central Government against the States. Scarcely a decision favoured the reserved rights theory.

By the opinion in Marbury _vs_. Madison, already quoted, the Executive branch, presumably entirely divorced from the Judiciary, was found to be under a certain control. The case of Cohens _vs_. Virginia sustained the power of the Federal court over an appeal from a State court. It often happened that in a decision, as in the case of Insurance Company _vs_. Canter, Marshall took occasion to bring out deductions remotely germane to the pending case, but tending to broaden the scope of the Federal power. In this instance, he declared that the const.i.tutional power to make a treaty carried the implied power to acquire territory.

This really gave authority to unauthorised acts of the Republicans in purchasing Louisiana; but their remedy was an amendment and not a decision which made the legislative and executive powers still more dependent upon the judiciary.

Jefferson complained of these "obiter dissertations," which suggested consolidating actions to other parts of the Federal Government. In the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, Justice Marshall held that, according to the Const.i.tution, some overt act was necessary to const.i.tute treason.

This practical release of his former political opponent was to Jefferson as sore a grievance as Marshall's action in sending to him for certain papers connected with the case. He declared the latter act a presumptuous infringement upon the dignity of the Chief Executive.

The case of McCulloch _vs_. Maryland, in 1819, denying the right of a State to tax a branch of the United States bank, afforded the court an opportunity of dwelling upon the implied powers in the Const.i.tution and of giving judicial sanction to the various legislative acts already done under them. To charter a bank was not among the powers given to the National Government, but was "implied," as Marshall held. The decision gave great offence to the particularists and called general attention to this silent Union-making factor. Various Southern writers took up pens against this new menace to individual rights. Some State Legislatures adopted protests. Madison alluded sarcastically to the "projectile capacity" of the court, whereby it extended the power of Congress from the exclusive jurisdiction reserve of ten miles square const.i.tuting the District, even to the uttermost parts of the country.

The "twistifications" of Marshall, said Jefferson, showed how dexterously he could reconcile law to his personal bia.s.ses. Indeed, Jefferson confessed that he did not look for unbia.s.sed opinions between the National Government, of which the court was so eminent a part, and individual States, from which they had nothing to fear. "They are then in fact the corps of sappers and miners," said he, "steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States, and to consolidate all powers in the hands of that Government in which they have so important a freehold estate." He could see no hope for the future.

Even more would he have despaired if he could have known that this silent factor in making the Union was to continue until the eighty years of John Marshall's life were ended, before a strict constructionist could be appointed to the head of the court and bring its decisions back to the confines of individualism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN MARSHALL Chief Justice of the United States, 1801- 1836.]

CHAPTER XX

FULL FRUITS OF AMERICANISM

It is simply a deduction from facts given in the preceding pages to say that by 1825 the trans-Alleghenian region had come into its own.

It was sufficient to itself in population, resources, and leaders.h.i.+p.

The premiers.h.i.+p of the Atlantic plain had pa.s.sed. Foreign relations were secondary to domestic concerns. The Monroe doctrine was called out by foreign menace. It was voiced by Eastern statesmen; but it was based upon the support of the inland people, who had nerved the Administration to the War of 1812.

The fidelity of the Western people was no longer questioned. The Union cherished their interests and they supported the Union. Their dealings were almost exclusively with the Federal Government and not with the States. The public land, from which their homes had been secured and their States largely formed, was administered by the central power and entirely for their accommodation. The land policy of the Government was unselfish to a marked degree.

The original two million acres of public lands sold to the Ohio Company was reduced to less than a million. Soon after, another million was sold to John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, on a speculation, of which about one-fourth was eventually taken. The State of Pennsylvania purchased the "Erie triangle," in order to get a north-west frontage on Lake Erie. These three sales were accomplished under the Confederation. The price averaged about seventy-five cents an acre.

The care of the public lands had been given to the Treasury Department.

Hamilton, in 1790, presented to Congress an elaborate plan for their disposal. Under this plan, individuals were to be dealt with as well as companies. Lots of one square mile, containing 640 acres, were to be placed upon sale at two dollars per acre. Public offerings were to be made at Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. But the hostility of the Indians reduced the number of purchasers. Prior to 1800, only a million acres had been disposed of in this manner. A law of that year provided a system of registers and receivers, to be stationed at land offices scattered through the North-west Territory. A credit system was also established, whereby so small a portion as a half-section could be purchased on instalment payments, with interest at six per cent. This law made the lands very attractive, as credit propositions always are. Prospective landholders rushed across the mountains and stood in line before the register's doors. The saying, "Doing a land-office business," brings the scene to the imagination.

As the embargo and the War of 1812 cut off men from employment on the sea and along the coast, their attention was directed to the possibilities of the public lands. Between 1800 and 1820, nearly twenty million acres were sold, bringing in cash receipts of over forty-five million dollars. After 1806, the old certificates and other forms of government paper were no longer received in payment for lands. The credit system had been adopted to allow poor men to purchase farms and pay for them from the products of the land. But it tempted many to purchase more land than they could pay for. In order to relieve these creditors, Congress pa.s.sed no less than fourteen acts. One of these reduced the price for future purchasers to $1.25 an acre and made it possible to purchase so small a quant.i.ty as eighty acres. This clemency brought further demands and paved the way for the later pre-emption acts.

The Ordinance of 1787 had declared that schools and the means of education should be for ever encouraged, while the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided funds by setting aside a section of land in every towns.h.i.+p of the public domain. Endowments had also been made for religious purposes from the Ohio Company lands and from the Symmes purchase; but the practice was discontinued thereafter, probably owing to the difficulty of administering the land without recognising some sect.

After much discussion, Congress decided not to retain the management of the school lands, but to hand them over to the inhabitants of the towns.h.i.+p, the State acting as trustee. This provision was incorporated in the formative act of every State and Territory until the organisation of the Oregon Territory. It was a tribute to home rule. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were the States benefited in this way before 1825. The States which contained no public lands were obviously deprived of this resource. The income from the school lands has been small in each State compared with the sum raised by local taxation for educational purposes; but the grat.i.tude inuring to the Central Government for its charity toward what has become almost a fetich, free education, must be noticed in describing the unification of the American people.

Mention has been made of the share of land sale receipts under which the c.u.mberland Road was begun. The original purpose was to cross the watershed from the Potomac to the Ohio. In 1820, the great work was completed to Wheeling, on the Ohio. Three waggons could be drawn abreast over the greater part of its length. Solid stone bridges arched the watercourses. The well-paved surface greatly reduced the length of time required for carrying the mails across the mountains. Rapid stage lines and freight waggons of large capacity pa.s.sed to and fro. Droves of cattle and hogs were frequently met, pa.s.sing over it to an Eastern market. More than $1,800,000 had already been spent by the National Government on its construction, being "advanced" in antic.i.p.ation of the land sales.

Here the hand of compulsion showed itself. The States of Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, with whom bargains had been made for spending part of the proceeds of the land sales in building roads to their borders, complained that a road to the Ohio did not fulfill the contract. Hence the road was extended through the capitals of these States, committing the Federal Government for many years to come to one form at least of internal improvement. The farce of "advancing"

the money was continued a while longer.

Of the four great highways over the Allegheny watershed, contemplated by Gallatin in his report in 1808, the c.u.mberland Road was the only one realised. No excuse similar to the one under which it was begun ever presented itself, and the party vision was not sufficiently national to undertake public improvements unless in disguise. The strict-construction theory that these works should be built by the individual States threw upon the newer States a burden which they could ill afford to bear. The West was almost ready to revolt against the hidebound policy of the Administrations.

Individualism was characteristic of the Southern States as a whole, but this improvement question broke the ranks of individualism by allying the newer Southern States with the newer Northern States for the benefits of national paternalism. To ill.u.s.trate: a proposition in 1824 to employ the army engineers in making surveys for roads and ca.n.a.ls pa.s.sed the House without a negative vote from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana, or Alabama. Of the older States, Maryland and Pennsylvania, interested in opening up the western parts of their respective domains in this manner, joined themselves to the Western States and made possible the pa.s.sage of the bill. Different speakers deplored this tendency to arouse sectional animosities; to array the older States, which had made such improvements from their own resources, against the new States, which would presumably be the sole gainers by government aid.

Clay was the leader of the Western section. He saw in the situation possibilities of building up a great following for this American idea.

He declared that the power of Congress to control commerce meant inland as well as ocean commerce; that the construction of harbours upon the Great Lakes was as much a duty as the building of harbours along the seacoast; that dredging a Western river was as const.i.tutional as clearing an ocean channel. He once said that to make a distinction between these two kinds of commerce would require an a.n.a.lysis of the water for each appropriation; if salt, the measure was const.i.tutional; if fresh water, unconst.i.tutional.

"Two years ago," said he, in pleading for a system of ca.n.a.ls for the western people, "a sea wall, in other words, a marine ca.n.a.l, was authorized by an act of Congress in New Hamps.h.i.+re, and I doubt not that many voted for it who have now const.i.tutional scruples on this bill.

Yes, everything may be done for foreign commerce; anything, everything, on the margin of the ocean. But nothing for domestic trade; nothing for the great interior of the country."

With his growing Western following, Clay was becoming a thorn in the side of strict construction. He refused to be bound by theories which had held at the beginning of the national history. "A new world," said he, "has come into being since the Const.i.tution was adopted. Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen States, indeed, of parts only of the old thirteen States as they existed at foundation of the Const.i.tution, for ever to remain a rule of its interpretation?"

He had little patience with the Republican theory of adding amendments to the Const.i.tution to bestow the implied powers. "Man and his language," said he, "are both defective. We cannot foresee and provide specifically for all contingencies. If you amend the const.i.tution a thousand times, the same imperfection of our nature and our language will attend our new words."

Jefferson complained that Clay had banded the Western and Northern States together under his banner of national benefits. "The Western States," said he, "have especially been bribed by local considerations to abandon their ancient brethren and enlist under banners alien to them in principle and interest." So rapidly did the demand for paternalistic measures take possession of the people, that Monroe felt called upon to re-state the early principles of the party, as Madison had done a few years before. The former dependencies of the National Government bade fair to overthrow parental policies. The c.u.mberland Road was a bright and s.h.i.+ning mark. Appropriations for it could not be stopped without a confession of inconsistency if not a revolt of the people. But in 1822 a bill pa.s.sed both Houses of Congress to collect tolls on the road for its repair. Monroe vetoed the bill and presented a long exposition of the Republican policy toward public improvements.

It was the most exhaustive doc.u.ment written on this persistent Union-making factor. Monroe found a beginning of the reserved power of the States in the Colonial governments which reserved all powers not expressly given to the king. The colonies kept those rights when transforming themselves into States. When creating the Articles of Confederation, the States gave to them certain of these rights, carefully specified, and reserved all the rest. The same plan was followed in framing the Const.i.tution.

"Had the people of the several States," said Monroe, "thought proper to incorporate themselves into one community, under one government, they might have done it. They wisely stopped, however, at a certain point, extending the incorporation to that point, making the national government thus far a consolidated government, and preserving the state governments without that limit perfectly sovereign and independent of the national government."

From an unprejudiced standpoint, this presentation of the historic facts in the case is difficult to answer. "There were two separate and independent governments," continued the President, "established over our union, one for local purposes over each state by the people of the state, the other for national purposes over all the states by the people of the United States."

He next proceeded to examine the six powers given to the National Government, which had been so distorted and incorrectly interpreted in justifying national expenditures for public improvements that, in his opinion, they threatened the very existence of the States. These six enumerated powers and their distortions may be summed up: 1. To establish post-roads; consequently to construct highways for commerce.

2. To declare war; consequently to provide means for moving troops and supplies. 3. To regulate commerce; consequently to improve rivers and build harbours for inland commerce. 4. To pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare; consequently, to make appropriations for anything which would benefit the people and contribute to their defence or welfare. 5. To make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into effective execution the foregoing powers; consequently to extend the expressed powers to an unlimited degree by adding corollaries to them. 6. To dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory of the United States; consequently, to appropriate money for public improvements in them.

At the same time that he was attempting to prove that no general system of improvements was justified by any of these expressed powers, Monroe was demonstrating the absurdity of the policy of hesitation. The justice of a toll system no one questioned. Those who use an improvement should pay for its repair. A toll was sanctioned by generations of practice and was in use on many State and corporate turnpikes and bridges.

Monroe had travelled the National Road and had seen numerous evidences of the manner in which the highway was abused by the users and could fully appreciate the necessity for its protection and repair. Yet his conscientious scruples could not allow the agency which built the road to care for it properly by collecting money simply because it must be done inside the sacred precincts of some State. Neither would he admit that the States individually could give permission to collect a toll, although they could and did allow money from the national treasury to be spent within their limits in constructing the highway originally.

Into what a const.i.tutional maze had strict construction, driven by the needs of the people, brought the Administration of the United States!

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTERN END OF THE GREAT ERIE Ca.n.a.l. Drawn with the Camera Lucida for Hall's "Etchings of the West." Niagara River appears in the distance and a lock in the ca.n.a.l nearer at hand. The lack of natural attractiveness in this scene is an ill.u.s.tration of the interest in internal improvements.]

A sufficient number of partisans were won by Monroe's exposition to change their votes and so prevent the pa.s.sage of the measure over his veto. But the "toll-gate question" remained for several years to perplex statesmen and cause long debates, while Congress made appropriations directly for the repair of the c.u.mberland Road. Monroe had made public improvements the fruit of Tantalus to the hungry people by suggesting in his veto message that he would have no objection to such enterprises being undertaken by the National Government provided an amendment were added to the Const.i.tution permitting such action. It was not a new suggestion. Jefferson, in various presidential messages, had suggested this way of meeting the demand for these paternalistic benefits. Madison twice at least followed his example. In the sessions of 1813 and the following year, two amendments were considered, one giving Congress power to make roads, and the other to make ca.n.a.ls in any State, with the consent of the State; but no action followed. President Monroe, in his first message, called attention to the desirability of such an amendment and a week later a bill to that effect was introduced. It was unique in providing that appropriations were to be distributed among the States according to population, a prophecy of the Confederate States const.i.tution decades later. No less than six attempts to secure such an amendment followed Monroe's "exposition" and suggestion. Not one succeeded in pa.s.sing either House.

The failure to secure this const.i.tutional remedy for the public improvement fever was a cause of anxiety to Jefferson in the closing days of his life. In 1824, an amendment of this kind was pending, together with others limiting the term of the Presidency and abolis.h.i.+ng the electoral system. "If I can see these three great amendments prevail," said the aged statesman, "I shall consider it as a renewed extension of the time of the lease, shall live in more confidence, and die in more hope." He complained of the "irresistible torrent of general opinion"; thought national appropriations for constructing roads and ca.n.a.ls such a breach of the national compact as would warrant withdrawal from it; and wrote out for the Virginia Legislature a protest, as he had done for Kentucky during the Alien and Sedition laws a quarter of a century before. He also drew a general law to be pa.s.sed by all State Legislatures rendering legitimate all national money previously spent within the State. Its adoption would have been a singular confession of unconst.i.tutional action. Several State Legislatures in the South resolved to protest. Their representatives in Congress were resisting national appropriations, while the Northern and Western States were getting the advantage of them. Thus did political theory supplement the work of nature in directing the larger portion of these appropriations to the northern part of the country. Years after, this unequal distribution was to const.i.tute a Southern grievance.