The United States of America Part 5

"Individuals entering society," so the circular argued, "must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved; and, on the present occasion, this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several states as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular rights. The Const.i.tution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable."

Here was the voice of compromise, and of that conciliatory spirit, which alone can make union possible. If the people at large would show the same indulgence toward each other, the experiment would be given a trial. a.s.suredly, the members of the convention set them a good example of toleration. "No man's ideas," said Hamilton, "are more remote from the plan than my own are known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy and convulsion on the one side and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other?" "I consent, sir, to this Const.i.tution," said the aged Franklin, in a paper read by his confrere, Wilson, "because I expect no better, and because I am not sure it is not the best." He advised that opinions on the errors of the doc.u.ment should never be carried beyond the walls of the convention.

"If every one of us here," said he, "in returning to our const.i.tuents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavour to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity."

Gouverneur Morris confessed that the present plan had many objections, but, considering it the best that could be obtained, he would take it with all its faults. The moment it went forth, the great question, in his opinion, would be whether there should be a national government, or not, and a negative reply would mean a general anarchy.

Was.h.i.+ngton, after his return to Mt. Vernon, sent a copy of the doc.u.ment to Patrick Henry, saying, "I wish the Const.i.tution, which is offered, had been more perfect; but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time." The Revolutionary orator had refused to attend the convention as a delegate from Virginia. He preferred the Articles with their imperfections to an experiment. To Was.h.i.+ngton he replied that he could not bring his mind to accord with the proposed Const.i.tution. He would prefer to bear the ills they had than fly to others that they knew not of. Harrison, a Virginia neighbour with whom Was.h.i.+ngton had also been a.s.sociated since the Revolutionary times, replied to the General in acknowledging the receipt of a copy of the Const.i.tution that he feared the remedy would be worse than the disease.

Such sentiments were not confined to these Virginia statesmen. It was evident that the victory for the new government had been only half won in its formation and adoption by the convention. It had yet to be accepted by the Congress and to be adopted by nine of the States before going into effect. Great opportunity for a renewal of insurrection and faction would be offered by undue delay.

CHAPTER VI

ADOPTING A NATIONAL CONSt.i.tUTION

The statesmen who had won the fight for a new form of national government in the Philadelphia Convention lost no time in following it up through the various stages leading practically to a _plebiscite_ of the people. Madison returned immediately to New York to resume his seat in Congress, where the first stand must be made. That body had been engaged during the summer with the Ordinance of 1787, and the question of the navigation of the lower Mississippi. It was feared that Richard Henry Lee, who had refused to be a delegate to the convention, might make the Congress hostile to the new plan, or delay it until after the fall meetings of the State Legislatures. Fortunately there was a quorum when Madison arrived from Philadelphia. Through his personal efforts and private letters from influential men, the Congress in little more than a week had accepted the report of the convention and transmitted it to the several State Legislatures for their consideration. The members of the Legislatures in each State were requested to call a popular convention to pa.s.s upon the new doc.u.ment, rather than to consider it themselves. The Legislature is created to make laws and not to judge of const.i.tutions. The Articles had not observed this canon of political science, but had been adopted by the State Legislatures. Less haste and more regularity were to characterise the consideration of the Const.i.tution.

During the nine months following the submission of the Const.i.tution to the States, while the necessary nine ratifications were being obtained, hope and fear alternated in the minds of its friends. To Hamilton, success seemed so a.s.sured that he wished they had made the Const.i.tution "higher toned." Yet the struggle was likely to be arduous enough under existing conditions. Since the word "Federal" had by common usage been applied to the national in contradistinction to the State governments, the new frame was known as "A plan for a new Federal Government," and those who favoured it styled themselves "Federalists."

Men were known as "warm Federalists" before the discussion was a month old. On the other hand, Richard Henry Lee had attacked the new idea under the pseudonym, "The Federal Farmer." His use of the word was entirely consistent with the desire of the opposition to continue a federated instead of running the risk of a consolidated government.

As Gerry, an Anti-Federalist, complained later, an injustice was done them by fastening upon them the word "Anti," when they were in favour of retaining the Federal Government and the others wished to cast it aside and to establish a National Government. The Federalists, in the light of the present day, would be called "Unionists"; but, being largely city dwellers and having control of the presses, they were able to a.s.sume the less alarming name of "Federalist," and to put upon their opponents the name "Anti-Federalist."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSt.i.tUTION IN PARALLEL COLUMNS. The foot-notes show that it is an Anti-Federal print.]

The war between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was waged chiefly in the public press. Sixteen editions of the Const.i.tution in pamphlet form have survived to this day, in addition to those officially struck off. An edition appeared in London. Another was printed in Albany, New York, in the Dutch language. Pamphlets without number poured from the presses. Correspondents occupied columns in the newspapers. When Governor Clinton, of New York, opened his opposition batteries under the pen name of "Cato," Hamilton replied vigorously in defence of the new proposition under the name "Caesar." When George Mason addressed his fellow-citizens of Virginia in a pamphlet against the Const.i.tution, he was answered by James Iredell as "Marcus." In other publications, "Ca.s.sius," "Agrippa," "Sidney," and "Civis" filled columns, while "Plain Dealer," "A Columbian Patriot," and "An American Citizen"

withheld not their pens. Much of the rapid increase in the number of newspapers and the betterment of printing facilities in the United States near the close of the century may be attributed directly to these debates on the proposed Const.i.tution. The religious controversial literature of colonial days had now been replaced by political composition.

Not only in the public press and in private letters did the Federalists further their cause, but they did not hesitate at more cogent arguments.

When seventeen country members of the Pennsylvania Legislature ran from the a.s.sembly in order to break the quorum and so prevent the call for a State convention to consider the Const.i.tution, the remaining members brought back two of them by force. "When perceiving the other side to have an advantage, they play truant," said Noah Webster, a New England pedagogue, who had gone to Philadelphia at this time to lecture and to sell his new _Grammatical Inst.i.tute_. "An officer or a mob hunts the absconding members in all the streets and alleys in town." To be held in their seats and counted as voting affirmatively, the recalcitrant members declared an outrage. The Federalists thought they deserved more punishment. When the State convention, thus called, met in Philadelphia, two of its members, Wilson and McKean, made such eloquent appeals for a trial of the new form that the auditors broke into applause. The Anti-Federalist papers said the incident was pre-arranged to influence the convention and reported that "the gallery was filled with a rabble, who shouted their applause; and these heroes of aristocracy were not ashamed, though modesty is their national virtue, to vindicate such a violation of decency." The final vote of the Pennsylvania State Convention, forty-six to twenty-three in favour of the Const.i.tution, was looked upon by the Federalists as a vindication of their actions. In the Maryland Convention, a majority of sixty-three refused to hear any compulsory amendments proposed by a minority of eleven, on the grounds that they had been instructed by their const.i.tuents to ratify or reject a const.i.tution, not to make one.

The "Antis" soon found out, as "Antis" are wont to do, that opposing a popular movement was an ungrateful, as well as an unpleasant task.

Pamphlets issued by the other side called them a junto of debtors, knaves, and worthless-moneyists. The Anti-Federalist members of the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention complained that they were pointed out and abused upon the streets. They also charged that the moneyed interests of New York were trying to bribe the convention with large sums of money sent to Boston.

"These lawyers and men of learning and moneyed interests," cried a country delegate in the Boston Convention, "that talk so finely and gloss over matters so smoothly to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves; they expect to be the managers of this Const.i.tution and get all the power and the money into their own hands; and they will swallow up all of us little folk like the great Leviathan, Mr. President, yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah."

When four hundred mechanics, or tradesmen, of Boston, in a set of resolutions, demanded a favourable vote on the Const.i.tution, and when Paul Revere marshalled them at the Green Dragon tavern to shout for the new frame, the Anti-Federalists called out "Intimidation!" but the Federalists disclaimed such intention.

Concerted action usually wins over individualism. The Anti-Federalists showed no such capacity for united efforts as the Federalists displayed.

For instance, Hamilton, with the aid of Madison and Jay, wrote a series of articles for the New York press, calculated to explain the new government, to enlighten the people, and to quiet their fears. Collected into the _Federalist_, they form the best commentary yet written on the Const.i.tution. Copies of the numbers, as they appeared, were forwarded from city to city to be reprinted in Federal newspapers.

Nothing was omitted likely to impress the people favourably. Impressive ceremonies marked the ratification in each State as the news was received. In Baltimore, a vessel, fifteen feet long, representing the new frame, fully equipped and rigged, was drawn on wheels through the streets, then launched on Chesapeake Bay, and navigated to Mt. Vernon, where Was.h.i.+ngton received it "as a specimen of American ingenuity."

Even the muse of the Rev. Timothy Dwight was invoked to aid the Federal cause by begging that all petty views be lost in a national horizon.

Some of his couplets run:

"Each party-view, each private good, disclaim, Each petty maxim, each colonial aim; Let all Columbia's weal your views expand A mighty system rule a mighty land; Yourselves her genuine sons let Europe own Not the small agents of a paltry town."

It was a unique warfare. Where a people of different inheritance might have appealed to arms, the appeal here was to intelligence, argument, and the ballot. For nine months the struggle went on among the citizens of the different States to determine whether they should abide by the National Government they had legally adopted seven years before, or whether they would exercise the right of peaceful revolution and cast it aside for another. It was a true revolutionary movement, a turning upside down, in comparison with which the Revolution of 1776 becomes a revolt against the King. Recognising the revolutionary action of annulling one frame of national government by adopting another, a wag wrote this stanza:

"Here, too, I saw some mighty pretty shows, A revolution, without blood or blows; For as I understood the cunning elves, The people all revolted--from themselves!"

The opposition to a change in the national form of government, as shown in the debates in the various State conventions, was based upon expediency among the ma.s.ses and const.i.tutionality among the few. In the light of the dangers which have confronted the people during a century of experience, some of the objections to the Const.i.tution seem ridiculous. But the objectors were sincere in their apprehensions, being just emerged from a despotic government, and jealous of their hard-earned liberty. It was the old story of individualism fearing to trust its welfare to the general body. That liberty is gained by entrusting liberty to an efficient government is a truism which it has taken many years of self-rule to demonstrate.

There was a general cry among the opposition that the convention had exceeded its powers in casting aside the Articles which it had been called to correct. In examining the details of the new frame, some deprecated the large number of Federal officers thus created, who would form a body independent of the States and fattening on the general treasury. Others feared the concentration of power in the President, who would have control of the army, the navy, and the treasury; others thought the number of terms he could serve should be restricted. Still others criticised the six years allowed a senator. The saying was general among the opposition that the individual had no protection from the General Government; no a.s.surance that his property might not be seized by it, his wors.h.i.+p interfered with, and himself robbed of all those privileges for which his English forebears had contended.

The keener spirits among the opposition looked above these details and saw a threatened consolidation of the Central Government. "Give me leave to inquire," said Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention, "who authorised them to speak the language of 'We, the people,' instead of 'We, the States'? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation." "I stumble at the threshold," said Samuel Adams, on first reading the doc.u.ment. "I meet with a national government, instead of a federal union of sovereign States." Said a member of the first North Carolina Convention, "I am astonished that the servants of the Legislature of North Carolina should go to Philadelphia and, instead of speaking of the 'State' of North Carolina should speak of the 'people.'" In the Ma.s.sachusetts Convention it was declared that "We, the people," created an actual consolidation of the States, and the moment it was adopted would mean the dissolution of the State governments.

A few advocates of the new Government did not hesitate to admit that it was intended to form an efficient government for the entire people of the United States, regardless of the States. One of the two must be superior. In the convention, Gouverneur Morris had made this laconic speech, "Mr. President, if the rod of Aaron do not swallow the rods of the magicians, the rods of the magicians will swallow the rod of Aaron." However, the more politic endeavoured to quiet the fears of the people by explaining that "We, the people," was simply the style or t.i.tle of the new form; that the powers given to the Central Government were entirely national ones; that all the rest were reserved to the States; and that the people could easily change the Const.i.tution by amending it if they experienced any danger at any time from the central authority.

These words of the preamble to the Const.i.tution, so pregnant of future interpretation, were thus, from the beginning, a cause of alarm to a few minds. Patrick Henry seemed to feel presciently that the later theory of an indissoluble union would be based largely upon this phrase, and that the Civil War to preserve the Union would be justified by it.

Yet its incorporation in the doc.u.ment in that form was due purely to an accident. The Virginia plan contained no preamble. Pinckney's plan, as given by Madison, began, "We, the people of the States of New Hamps.h.i.+re, etc." When the first rough draft of the Const.i.tution had been put together by the Committee on Detail, during the eleventh week of the convention, and secretly printed for the use of the members, the preamble began, "We, the people of the States of New Hamps.h.i.+re,"

etc. Six weeks later, the revised draft was reported with the preamble changed to "We, the people of the United States," etc. What caused the change to be made? Chiefly because the blank designating the number of States required to put the new form into execution had been filled with the word "nine." No one could tell which nine would ratify first and, therefore, no list of States could be put into the preamble. A phrase covering all the people of the United States was subst.i.tuted.

What slight chances give rise to arguments justifying the making of a nation!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST DRAFT OF THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

The form of the preamble in this draft is described in the text of this volume. It was printed for the benefit of the members of the Convention in making further changes.]

Two factors were potent in securing the final success of the new plan.

One was the provision in the last clause by which the new frame could be amended easily. The unanimity which the Articles required in order to correct a mistake had taught a valuable lesson. Three-fourths was to be the maximum requirement hereafter. It is interesting to note that a unanimous vote has never been obtained on any amendment thus far made to the Const.i.tution. The other favourable circ.u.mstance was the tacit understanding that Was.h.i.+ngton would consent to serve as the first President, guaranteeing the perpetuity of the Republic by his past record. His fidelity had been tested at the close of the Revolutionary War, when a devoted army might have made him a Julius Caesar or an Oliver Cromwell in the chaotic condition of affairs. That he had returned to his Virginia farm to become an active citizen was an a.s.surance that he could now be trusted with the vast powers conferred on the chief executive under the new plan.

The State conventions were not slow to take advantage of the privilege of proposing amendments, and these the promoters were too wise to resist. Proposals to make amendments were non-committal and harmless where the motto was "Anything to get the new plan in operation."

Ma.s.sachusetts wished nine additions made, South Carolina four, Virginia twenty, New Hamps.h.i.+re twelve, New York thirty-two, and North Carolina twenty-six. Of the 103 propositions submitted to the consideration of Congress by the conventions, many were duplicates. Only ten were destined to survive. At the time, they served as a machine of the G.o.ds to avert the dangerous proposition that another convention be held to draw up a second const.i.tution embracing the desired changes.

No one can read the acts of ratification in which these proposed amendments were incorporated or added without being impressed by the fear of the States that they were hazarding their hard-earned liberties in this experiment. It is easy to make light of them in the successful experience of a hundred years. It is clear now that whatever precautions the States took would be swept aside by the hand of necessity, and that later generations would repudiate some of the principles laid down in their manifestos. It is useless to demand consistency in a growing body. How futile for Virginia and Rhode Island, for instance, to declare that all power granted under the Const.i.tution proceeds from the people of the United States and that, whenever the same is perverted, it may be resumed by them! Being adopted in State conventions and voicing the sentiment of the people in these established groups, is it unlikely that they meant the people of the United States as grouped into the several States precisely as they had formed and were now adopting their Const.i.tution? Yet a generation or two later, Virginia was to be told that she meant the people of the entire United States, regardless of State lines, and in this opinion the people of Rhode Island in that generation would join.

How useless for South Carolina to make as part of her ratification the precautionary statement that no part of the Const.i.tution should ever be construed so that the States might be deprived of any power not expressly relinquished by them! How fruitless for New Hamps.h.i.+re to stipulate that all powers not expressly delegated by the Const.i.tution should be reserved to the several States to be exercised by them! How profitless fate was to make the stipulations of New York that Congress should never lay any kind of excise except on ardent spirits, and that the clauses in the Const.i.tution forbidding Congress to do certain things should not be construed into a permission to do anything except that which was named in the doc.u.ment! Time was soon to demonstrate the folly of attempting to place these barriers in the path of progress.

Under such restrictions, the new Government would have been as helpless as the old, unless new powers had been added to it from time to time by the precarious method of amendment. Advancement must have been hindered constantly by waiting on the slow process of adding provisions to the Const.i.tution. Such crises as the purchase of Louisiana, the suppression of domestic insurrection, and the adjustment of the national finances after the War of 1812 could never have been met because of const.i.tutional limitations.

Several of the States incorporated in their acts of ratification a kind of political creed of the inalienable rights of the individual.

Although not intended as amendments or even as conditions of ratification, they were supposed to be a kind of perpetual compact between the State and the nation. They were modelled after the Bill or Declaration of Rights in some of the State const.i.tutions. Rhode Island, for instance, declared that "the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Const.i.tution." Time was to show in seasons of national aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, during the reconstruction period, for instance, how futile such State barriers would be in hedging about the national powers. These sticklers for individualism and fearing souls could not see that the central clearing-house, which the people of the respective States were creating, could not be confined to a few expressed powers; that unseen situations and sudden emergencies would call for action not specified; that to make a list of allowable acts in advance was simply an impossibility. In their alarm, they failed to see that the individuals of which the States were composed would come in contact more closely with local than with national affairs; that they would partic.i.p.ate more frequently in State than in Federal Government; and that this very partic.i.p.ation for the regulation of local affairs would perpetuate a fealty to the State which would guarantee its perpetuity within its proper sphere. But, at the time, many agreed with Lowndes, who predicted in the South Carolina Convention that despite all precautions the State powers under the Const.i.tution would soon be confined to the regulation of ferries and roads.

All anxiety about ratification ceased on the second day of July, the anniversary of the motion for independence, when the favourable act of New Hamps.h.i.+re, the ninth State necessary, reached Congress. The matter of arranging for putting the new Government into motion was referred to a committee. In taking this action, the old Congress was sealing its death-warrant. It would cease to exist, and be replaced by two houses of Congress under the Const.i.tution. It had served well its purpose. Called into life by the necessity of colonial co-operation in 1774, the Continental Congress had gradually a.s.sumed sufficient power to bring a great war to a successful conclusion. Deprived of much of this power under the Articles, circ.u.mscribed by the suspicious bounds of State sovereignty, the Congress had become a thing of contempt. Not a member was now present who had been among those a.s.sembled at the hall of the Carpenters' a.s.sociation in Philadelphia fourteen years before. Not a man now present was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Nevertheless the body a.s.sumed an unwonted activity in these, its last days. A quorum was had during several of the summer months of 1788.

The business of settling accounts between the Confederation and the several States was actively carried on, and further arrangement was made for selling the public lands in the North-West Territory. The form of levying quotas upon the States, amounting to a million and a half dollars, was again gone through with. Since it was unlikely that these a.s.sessments would be paid, John Adams borrowed one million guilders in Holland for ten years with which to inaugurate the new Government.

A pet.i.tion for statehood from the settlers in Kentucky, the second in the long list of additions to the Union, reached Congress, accompanied by the consent of Virginia to the severance of her western district.

Since the time for the beginning of the new Government was so near at hand, the pet.i.tion was returned with the suggestion that it be renewed after that event.

The princ.i.p.al item of domestic expenditure was found to be that for supporting the United States army of 595 officers and men scattered along the frontier. They were garrisoned in Fort Pitt, at the head of the Ohio River; Fort Franklin and Fort McIntosh, between Pitt and Lake Erie; Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum; Fort Steuben, at the falls of the Ohio, now Louisville; and Fort Vincennes, on the Wabash, now in Indiana. Also a force consisting of an officer, one sergeant, and fifteen privates was stationed at West Point. To meet the expenses for these troops, and also those for Indians and pensions, there was available in the domestic treasury the sum total of $22,000.

The committee of Congress to whom had been given the arrangement for putting the new Government into motion found that the election of senators and representatives was left by the Const.i.tution to the States; that the creation of the Federal judiciary belonged to the new Congress; and that only the measures necessary for the election of a President were left to them. They therefore set the first Wednesdays of the first three months in the following year for the three steps of appointing presidential electors, having them cast their ballots, and for commencing proceedings under the Const.i.tution. These dates were adjusted to the meetings of the State Legislatures, as Madison explained to a correspondent. No objection was found to this arrangement of time, but the selection of a place in which to begin the new Government aroused the old sectional fear and avarice, and precipitated a two-months'

contest, during which New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington, Lancaster, and Annapolis were considered. "The present seat of Congress"

was finally adopted largely through impossibility of agreeing on another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAST PAGE OF THE MINUTES OF THE OLD CONGRESS. Preserved in the archives of the Department of State. It shows that members appeared occasionally as late as March 2, two days before the new government was to be inaugurated; the printed journals differ, stating that members appeared until the first of November only.]