LIBRARY
vIS
A HISTORY
OF TUB
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES,
FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE CIVIL WAR.
BY JOHN BACH McMASTER,
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
IN EIGHT VOLUMES.
VOLUME II. 1790-1803.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1916
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS
COPYRIGHT, 1885, 1913, BY JOHN BACH McMASTER.
Printed in the United States of America
®o the ill c morn 0f mg Jttottjer.
86764
CONTENTS OF VOLUME IL
CHAPTER VH.
PAOB
Settlement of Georgia 1
James Oglethorpe ... . . . • 1
Nationality of settlers in Georgia 2
Savannah . . . * . « . . . . • . . 2
Sunbury • * . . 2, 3
Frederica, Augusta, Old and New Ebenezer . . . . . . .3
Salzburgers, their learning 3, 4
Agriculture in Georgia . 4
Cotton and tobacco • • Note, 4
Gambling 5, 6
Races „ Note, 5
Gouging Note, 6, 6
Charleston, S. C. . . . . 6
Amusement, races, etc. 6, 7
Plantation life . . . 7, 8
Inns 8, 10, 11
Eagle Tavern, Richmond 9
Balls and dances . . 9, 10
Vendue. Shooting at marks 10
Road from Charleston to Virginia . . . . . * . .10 Williamsburg, Va. . . . . .... . . .11
Virginia planter , . ...^.12
Lack of small coins. "Sharp-shins" . 12
Churches in Virginia . . . . « . * . « . 12, 13 Poor whites . . . . . . . . . , . . 13, 14
Election scenes . 14, 15
Slaves, how procured . 15, 16
Terrors of the middle passage ... 0 ... .16
Slaves and the slave-trade < 16-20
Beginning of abolition 20
Growth of the movement . , 21
iv CONTENTS.
PASS
Speculation in the North 22
Rage for lotteries 23
New Jersey Manufacturing Company 23, 24
Bad effect of lotteries 24
Revival of business 24
Flourishing state of the custom-houses 26
Hamilton proposes an excise and a bank 25
Debate on excise 26-28
The Excise Bill passed 28
Bank of the United States 28
Debate on the bank 29
Banks in the country . . . . , . . . . . 29, 30
Debate continued 30, 31
Bank Bill passed 32
John Sevier 32
Andrew Jackson 33
Condition of western Tennessee * . 33
Settlement of Nashville 34
Description of houses . .• 34
Kentucky and Vermont become States 35
Washington hesitates to sign the bank charter 35
He asks advice of Randolph and Jefferson 36
Reasons for not signing 36
Hamilton refutes all arguments . 37
Bank put into operation 37
Subscriptions more than filled ....... . . 38
Surprise of the commissioners 38
Dissatisfaction outside Philadelphia 38
But little scrip bought at the South . 39
Speculation in bank scrip 39
Excitement in New York . .40
Losers denounce the bank 40
"Scripophobia" 40,41
Excise opposed in Pennsylvania 41
Action of distillers 42
Two meetings held „ 42
Outrages committed by the rioters 42, 43
Washington's anger on hearing of St. Clair's defeat 44
Purpose of St. Clair's expedition 44
His march described . . . .' 45
Disgraceful retreat 46
Indian cruelties to the wounded . 46
Joseph Brant 46
Terror on the frontier 0....47
Seeking whom and what to blame 47
Second Congress meets . .47
New members in the House 47
Wayne unseated ........... 48
CONTENTS. ?
MOT New faces in the Senate 48
Character of Aaron Burr ......... 48, 49
First appearance of the National Gazette 49
Political creed of a Federalist in 1791 . 49
Of a Republican 50
Objections to titles, levees, etc 60
Ultra republicanism of the Secretary of State .51
Conclusions to which his suspicions led him 61, 52
Sketch of Philip Freneau 62
Style of article published in the Gazette 63
Debate on the ratio of representation 53-56
The bill amended by the Senate 56
House objects . 56
The bill lost 67
Second bill vetoed by the President 57
The third becomes law 57
Newspapers 68
Position of Postmaster-General 58
Growth of the postal service 69
Newspapers not mail matter 59
An attempt to hasten the mails 60
Franking privilege granted 60
Newspapers made mail matter 60
Rates of postage 61
The people object to postage on papers .61
Pickering answers a grumbler 61, 62
Franking privilege disapproved 62, 63
Increase of newspapers . .63
Scarcity of paper 64
People urged to save rags 64
Magazines 65, 66
Changes in the postal system 66
Indignation against the Indian war 67, 68
Debate on protection of the frontiers . * 69-71
The bill passed 71
Anthony Wayne given command of the army 71
His character 71, 72
Debate on coinage 72-74
Ease of money throughout the country 74
Rage for building canals 74-77
Steam navigation 77-79
Discovery of coal in Pennsylvania 79, 80
Speculation a regular trade 80, 81
New banks 81
Fear in regard to speculating . . 82
Sunday-schools established 82-84
Presidential election draws near 85
Congress revises the method of conducting elections 8f
CONTENTS.
Washington certain of renomination 86
Clinton's chance of second place 86
Reasons why he should not be elected . . . k . . . . 87
Federalists urged to uphold the present Government 87
Federalists triumph 38
CHAPTER VIII.
Republican sympathy for France 89
Origin of "9aira" 90
Rejoicing at New York 90, 91
At Boston 91
" Civic Feast " at Boston 92, 93
Feasts throughout New England 93
Republicanism spreads 93
Old titles discarded 94
Citizen and Citess adopted 94
Ridicule of the press 95
Anxiety for news from France 96
Fears aroused by the news 96, 97
France at war with England and Spain 97
Dangers to the United States 97
Washington calls his Cabinet 97
Arrival of the French Minister, Citizen Genet 98
Washington proclaims neutrality . . .98
Genet equips two privateers 98
The British Minister complains to Jefferson 99
Capture of the Grange by L' Ambuscade 99, 100
Washington orders the Grange restored 100
Prizes continue to be sent in 100
Genet's reception 100, 101
Recognized as Minister 101
A dinner given him 101, 102
He opens a correspondence and requests money 102
Hamilton refuses 102, 103
Genet answers the British Minister 103
The President calls a Cabinet meeting 103
Orders regarding privateers 104
Genet's rage 104
Republicans feast in his honor at Oeller's 104, 105
L* Ambuscade at New York 105
Disputes between French and English sympathizers 105
A liberty-cap raised at the Tontine 106
The privateer Republican seized ..... . . . .106
French Consul indignant 106
Genet writes the Secretary of State 107
Government firm in suppressing privateers 107
Pennsylvania strongly Republican 107
Trial of Gideon Hcnfield .... . .108
CONTENTS. Tii
MM
The situation as viewed by the people 108, 109
The Democratic Society 109
Alexander Dallas 109
Object of the Democratic Society 109, 110
Bache and Freneau attack Washington 110
Provoked to anger Ill, 112
Philadelphia merchants support neutrality 112
The Little Sarah as a privateer . 112, 113
Genet's conduct 113
He threatens to appeal to the people . 113
Washington reproves Jefferson 113
"Helvidius" attacks "Pacificus" 114
Hamilton accused by Madison 114-119
Hamilton victorious 119
Arguments against neutrality 119, 120
Effect on the people 120, 121
The Boston challenges L' Ambuscade 121, 122
L' Ambuscade victorious 123
Rejoicing at New York 123
Ballads written on the occasion . .... .Note, 124
Cape Franyois refugees 124, 125
Yellow fever at Philadelphia 125, 130
At New York 131, 132
M Signs and tokens " regarding the plague 132, 134
Cessation of the National Gazette 134
Merchants at Philadelphia, Boston, and New York declare for neutrality . 134
The French defy the Government 136, 137
Genet attacks Washington 137
His appeal to the people in print 137
His friends attempt excuses 138, 139
Genet's version in the Albany Argus Note, 139
He writes to Washington 139
Jefferson replies 140
The cause of France injured 140
Genet recalled 141
Trouble in the South and West 141-143
Settlements in the Northwest 144
Mode of travel on the Ohio 144
Wheeling, Marietta, etc 145
Gallipolis 146
Scioto Land Company 146-148
Sufferings of the emigrants 149-151
-loutsville 162
Navigation on the Ohio 152
On the Mississippi . . . 153
Ignorance regarding the Northwest 163, 154
Scattered state of settlements 154
" Certificate Itofc" , 199
viii CONTENTS.
* Donation lands ** 155
" The Triangle " 156
New York State in 1790 166, 167
Names of towns in the " Military Tract " e .158
New phrases adopted 159
The Patent Office 159-161
Eli Whitney 162
His cotton-gin 162, 163
The cotton industry 163-165
British outrages on American vessels 165-168
Depredations by the French 168
Washington lays the matter before Congress 169
Bill passed for fortification of harbors 170
Navy bill framed 170
Position of America toward Algiers 170, 171
Enthusiasm in the work of defence 172
Washington lays an embargo 173
Embargo lifted 174
Dissatisfaction of the people . . .174
Conduct of Democratic Societies 175-178
Debate on pay of soldiers . . .178
Debate on the flag 179
Debate on Madison's resolutions 179-182
Debate on the eleventh amendment 183-186
Jonathan Dayton's resolution . . . . . . . . .186
Washington proposes an envoy to London X87
Nomination of John Jay confirmed .188
Last hours of Congress 158
CHAPTER IX.
Whiskey in Pennsylvania 189
Tax on, resisted. Rate of tax 189 and Nol«
" Tom the Tinker " 190
Act providing for excise suits 190
Writs issued against distillers . . , 190 191
Revenue inspector attacked 191, 192
Meeting at Mingo Creek, etc • . .192
Robbery of the mail 193
Meeting called on Braddock's Field 193
Alarm at Pittsburg 194
Washington calls out the militia and sends commissioners . . . .196
" Liberty-pole " riots , 197,198
Militia march westward 198
Description of the march 199
Parkinson's Ferry meeting, conduct of Gallatin at 200
Red Stone Old Fort meeting, conduct of Gallatin at 201
Demands of the commissioners . . . .. . . .201
They accomplish nothing .... 202
CONTENTS. i*
MM
insurgents send commissioners . „ . • 202
Army reaches Parkinson's Ferry . 202
Insurrection put down 203
Prisoners ill-used . 203
Return of the army . . . . .203
Congress slow to assemble .......*.. 204
The President delivers his address ........ 204
Reproaches " self -created societies " 204
Debate in the House on self -created societies . . . . 204-206
The societies defend themselves 206
Character of Peter Porcupine 206
flis pamphlet on Joseph Priestley , 207
Dread of titled foreigners 208
Debate on amending the naturalization act ...... 208-212
Hamilton and Knox leave the Cabinet . . . . , . . 212
Congress adjourns . . 212
The English treaty arrives . . . . „ „ . . . .212
Special session of the Senate 213
Democrats determined to oppose the treaty ...... 213
Demonstrations against Jay 218, 214
Letters of "Franklin" . .214
Treaty ratified by the Senate 215
The twelfth article suspended 215
Senate adjourns 216
The Aurora publishes the treaty 216
Copies scattered over the land . . . . » . . . .216
Hatred of Great Britain at Boston 217
British privateer destroyed 217
Meeting at Faneuil Hall 218
The treaty disapproved 218
Meeting at New York .* 218
Hamilton attempts to speak . 219
Meeting adjourns in disorder 219
The adjourned meeting held . . 220
Reasons for opposing the treaty 220, 221
Republican insults to Jay and Great Britain 221, 224
Meeting at Philadelphia . . . . . . . . . .224
The treaty denounced 224
Washington overwhelmed with addresses 225
New York Chamber of Commerce declares for the treaty .... 226
Also Boston Chamber of Commerce 226
Washington's reply to addresses 226
" Americus," " Old Soldier," etc., attack the treaty in print . . . 227, 228
Speeches against the treaty 228-230
Fauchet intercepted letter No. 10 231
Washington recalled to Philadelphia 231
Substance of the letter 232, 233
Randolph meets the Cabinet 238, 234
CONTENTS
Washington ahowa kirn th* letter ........ 234
He resigns ............. 234
Seeks Fauchet ........... 234,235
The French Minister sails for France ........ 235
New York in 1795 .......... 336, 237
John Butler the first Unitarian ..... 0 238-241
Board in New York .......... 241, 242
Increase of wages . . . . . . . 0 . 242
Growing commerce ........... 242
Yellow fever at New York ......... 243,244
Philadelphia forbids communication with New York ..... 244
Opposition to the treaty continues ........ 245
Chief features of the treaty ......... 245, 246
Abuse of the treaty .......... 246-248
Abuse of Washington . . ........ 249, 260
"The Defence," by Camillus ........ 260, 251
Writings of Porcupine .......... 252
His treatment by " the Democrats " ........ 252
"A Receipt for a Modern Patriot" ........ 253
Political creed of a western American ........ 253
Federalist replies concerning the treaty ...... 254, 255
State Legislatures discuss the treaty ... ..... 256
South Carolina and Kentucky disapprove ...... •' 256
Virginia strongly opposes .......... 256
Gouverneur Morris recalled from France ....... 256
James Monroe appointed .......... 256
His efforts relating to commerce ........ 257, 258
The Committee of Safety ask to see the British treaty ..... 258
The papers arrive in the autumn, 1795 ........ 258
Committee of Safety dead ...... . . . .269
The Directory in power ...... . . . .259
Monroe informed that alliance with America ends if the treaty is approved . 259 Washington addresses the House ........ 259
The House not in sympathy with him ........ 259
Wrangle over the answer to the address ....... 260
The House refuses to congratulate the President on his birthday . . . 260 Origin of keeping Washington's birthday ....... 261
His enemies dislike the custom ........ 262, 263
The treaty reaches the House ......... 263
Declared supreme law of the land ........ 263
Reasons for supporting the treaty ....... 264-266
The treaty before the House ......... 266
Motion by Mr. Livingston ..... ..... 266
Debate on the demand for the papers ....... 267-273
"Has the House a share in treaty-making power?" .... 273-275
The House divides ........... 276
Livingston's resolution carried to the President ...... 276
He takes a week to consider ....... . . 171
OONTENTS
Seven facts for Democrats .......... 27S
Washington refuses the papers ......... 276
Two resolutions passed in the House ..... ° 54*73
Treaties ratified by the Senate ......... 27f
Ancestors of Fisher Ames .......... 277
The Almanac ........... 277, 278
Character of Fisher Ames ......... 278-280
The building in which Congress met ........ 280
Effect of Ames's speech .......... 281
Vote on the treaty ............ 281
Absence of William Findley ..... . 281
Feeling in the North ..... . 281, 282
Memorials from Salem, Providence, etc. . . . - » . . . 282
From Baltimore, from Boston ........ . 282
The cry of War! War! ......... 882,288
List of British insults ......... . 284
Memorials against the treaty ......... 284
Debate on the admission of Tennessee ......... 284
Condition of Tennessee ....... . 284, 285
Federalists oppose admission ......... 285
The bill passed ............ 285
British surrender the frontier potts ........ 285
Detroit ............. 286
Mississippi held by Spain ........ . 287
Spain objects to Jay's treaty ......... 287
France unfriendly ........... 287
A mission proposed ..... .,...». 287
Complaints against the United States ........ 288
Adet Minister ............ 288
Alliance at an end ........... 289
Presidential election at hand ......... 289
Washington refuses to run .......... 289
His farewell address criticised ........ 289-291
Candidates discussed ..... ...... 291
Contest between John Adams and Thomas Jafferson . . . . .291
Claims of Adams .......... 291, 292
Of Jefferson . . ......... 292-296
Adams a monarchist ........... 296
" Well-born," " canaille multitude "..,..... 296
Work of the Democratic clubs ......... 297
Libellous handbill scattered through Pennsylvania ..... 297
The effect on voters .... ....... 298
Republicans cry fraud ........ . 298, 299
Federalists accused of detaining mails ........ 299
M. Adet assists the Republicans ......... 300
He writes four campaign documents ....... 800, 301
Cobbett answers him ..... . 301, 302
Tke North Federal ..... i02
CONTENTS.
Fraud in Pennsylvania ...... • • . . . 302
Washington's career maligned ......... 302
He declares certain letters forgeries •••..... 803
Thomas Paine attacks him .......... 303
The President delivers his speech to Congress ...... 804
The reply insultingly objected to ......... 804
Cruel treatment by the press ........ 304-306
His term of office ended ••••...,.. 306
John Adams President .......... 307
Thomas Jefferson Vice-President . . ....... 307
Fisher Ames's prophecy .......... 307
CHAPTER X.
State of the country under Adams ........ 808
France the ideal republic ......... 309, 310
Adams's address admired by Republicans ....... 310
Not " chief of a faction " ......... 310, 311
Speech on France gives offence • ......... 811
Fauchet explains the conduct of France ...... 811-313
Pickering defends the Government ...... .313
Answered by a Frenchman ......... 818, 314
Pamphlet by a citizen of Pennsylvania ....... 314-816
Arguments for and against France ....... 316-318
Tricolor removed from the Tontine ........ 318
Rumors from abroad ..... ...... 318
Excitement of the people . . . . . . . . .318
Recall of Monroe ..... «... . 819
Charles Pinckney sent to France ...... . . .819
Affair of the Mount Vernon .......... 819
French Directory refuse to receive Pinckney ...... 320
Congress summoned ....... .... 321
Abuse of Adams by the Republicans . . . . . . .321-323
Bache assaulted ....... ..... 328
Launch of the frigate United States ........ 324
Jefferson's " Letter to Mazzei " ........ 325, 326
Character of Matthew Lyon ..... . . . 827 328
Dislikes Federal ceremony ......... 328, 329
Political nicknames .......... '330
New loan and new taxes .......... 331
Naturalization tax .......... 331^ 332
Benefits conferred by foreigners ......... 333
Monroe demands the reason of recall ........ 334
His " View " of the conduct of the executive ...... 335
Hamilton's affair with Mrs. Reynolds ....... 336, 337
Conduct of Monroe in the affair ........ .337
Blount's conspiracy .... ...... 839-341
Impeachment of Blount by the House ...... * 341, 342
Rage of the Republicans . . . . . 343
CONTENTS.
MOT
New envoys sent to France 344
Yellow fever at Philadelphia 344
Mifflin's proclamation 346
Alarm produced by it 345-347
The Rush-Currie dispute on the merits of bleeding 348
Suffering of the poor at Philadelphia 349, 350
Rush challenged 350
" Porcupine " sued by the Spanish Minister 360
Don Yrujo's letter to Secretary of State 351
Newspaper abuse of foreign rulers 362
McKean's charge in Yrujo's suit 363
Reception of Adams 364, 366
Message to Congress 355
Lyon declines to wait on the President . . . . . . . .356
Antislavery petitions 356
Kidnapping of negroes 357
Abuse of the Quakers 358
Petitions rejected 360
Debate of demonetization of foreign coin 860-363
Lyon-Griswold fracas in the House 363-366
Motion to expel them fails 366
Conduct of France . . . 367
Powers of the new envoys .......... 368
X. Y. Z 369, 370
Demands of the Directory 370
Bribes wanted 371, 372
Beaumarchais and his claim 373
Arrival of the X. Y. Z. dispatches 374
Adams urges measures of defence 374
Sprigg's resolutions 375
Excitement in the theatres ......... 376, 377
Origin of " Hail, Columbia " 378, 379
The "Addressers" 380
"Associated Youth" 381
The "black cockade" 381
Murder of James Jones by Brockholst Livingston 382, 383
Tricolor cockades 382
Fast-day sermons 3'*3
" Millions for defence ; but not one cent for tribute " b84
Popular songs Note, 384, 385
Beginning of the navy 886, 386
Fourth of July, 1798 386, 387
Decatur captures a French privateer 387
Officers of the navy 388
Washington made Lieutenant-General 388
Sedition Bill 389, 390
Bache accused of treasonable correspondence 390-392
His defiance to the Senate ......... 392, 393
VOL, u.— B
Xiv CONTENTS.
PAOB
The Alien Bill 393
Debate on the bill 394, 395
Naturalization Bill ... 395, 396
Second Alien Bill 396
The Sedition Bill 396
Anger of the Republicans 397, 398
Lyon the first victim of the Sedition Bill 399
His crime and punishment 400, 401
Liberty-poles pulled down 401, 402
Lyon and Gallatin insulted 402
Riot of New York 402, 403
Popular excitement 403
Negotiations with Talleyrand 404
Marshall and Pinckney leave Paris 404
Gerry negotiates alone 405, 406
Gerry returns home 408
Character of Gerry 409
George Logan sets out for France 409, 410
Yellow fever 410-412
The encampment of the poor 412, 413
Wickedness of the people the cause of the fever 413, 414
Return of Logan 414
Interview with Washington 416, 416
CHAPTER XI.
Petitions for repeal of Alien and Sedition Bills 418, 419
Origin of the Kentucky resolutions 419
Kentucky resolutions as drawn by Jefferson 420-422
As passed by Kentucky .422
Virginia resolutions 422
Sunday riot at Philadelphia ... 424
Report of a House committee on Alien and Sedition Acts . . . 424-426
House refuses to repeal the acts 427
French overtures to Vans Murray 428, 429
Third mission sent to France 430
The navy 431
Capture of French frigate L'Insurgente . 432
De\ 'ght of the Federalists 432, 433
Rejoicings at Boston 484
Direct tax in Pennsylvania 434
Fries's rebellion 434-439
Sketch of John Fries 435, 436
Troops sent against the rioters 437
Charges of brutality against the troops 438, 439
Duane assaulted 439
Sketch of Duane 439,440
« The Tub Conspiracy " 441
"The Tailor's Plot" .,,.., .443
CONTENTS. XY
«TheIlluminati" ........... 443
« New England Illuminati " ......... 444, 445
Extradition of Thomas Nash, alias Jonathan Robbing .... 446, 447
Punishment of Isaac Williams ......... 448
Election in Pennsylvania , ......... 448
New envoys ordered to sail for France ........ 450
Indignation of the Cabinet .......... 451
Death of Washington ........... 452
His character ........... 452,453
Mourning of the people ......... 453, 454
Debate on slavery .......... 454-456
Randolph denounces the army ......... 456
Character of John Randolph ........ 456-458
Calls the army " ragamuffins " ......... 458
Is insulted at the theatre .......... 460
Letter to Adams and action of the House on . . . . 460, 461
The Electoral Count Bill .......... 462
Purpose of the bill ........... 463
Duane abuses the Senate .......... 463
The Senate summons him to appear ........ 464
Refuses and is ordered to be arrested ........ 464
Thomas Cooper ............ 465
Punished for sedition .......... 466, 467
Sketch of Callender ........... 468
His "Prospect before Us" ......... .469
Convicted of sedition .......... 470, 471
His book used by John Wood ......... 471
Wood's book suppressed by Burr ......... 472
Federal juries ............ 473
Truxtun's fight with La Vengeance ........ 475
Origin of the public domain ..... ..... 476
Early land sessions .......... 476, 477
Ordinance of 1787 ........... 478
Land reservations by the States ........ 478, 479
Yazoo land frauds .......... 479, 480
Action of Georgia ........... 480
Mississippi Territory created ......... 481
Manner of selling public land ......... 481
Reform introduced by W. H. Harrison ....... 481, 482
Law passed for disbanding the standing army ...... 482
Rejoicing at Newark ........... 482
At Alexandria ...... ...... 483
Establishment of United States offices at Washington ..... 483
Major L'Enfant's plans for the city ........ 483
His removal from office .......... 484
Prizes offered for plans for the President's house ...... 484
Subscriptions of Maryland and Virginia ....... 484
Federal Lottery No. 1 .......... 484, 486
Xvi CONTENTS.
PAOB
Federal Lottery No. 2 486, 486
The city little better than a forest 486, 487
Congress consents to raising money on Government lots . . . .487
Oliver Wolcott's account of the city 488, 489
Mrs. Adams's impressions 489
Secretaries of State and War asked to resign 490
John Marshall and Samuel Dexter appointed 490
Divisions among the people 490
Pickeronians plot against Adams 491
M'Henry denounces them . . . 491
Republican charges of "British faction" 491,492
Bourbon county excited 493
Reports about the President 493
Independent Federalists begin work 493
Hamilton canvasses New England 494
Scheme for electing Pinckney . . . 494
Bayard's report of the South 494
Resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky published 494, 495
Hamilton writes to the President 496
Tench Coxe publishes a letter from Adams 496
The charge of British influence . . . .*. . . . . 497
Campaign articles 497
Abuse of Judge Chase 498
Of Adams 498, 499
Religious liberty threatened 499, 501
Liberality of the South ,601
Jefferson's infidelity 501, 602
Five "serious facts" 602
Proofs of a monarchical party 602, 604
Charles Pinckney a deist 504
Hamilton again writes to Adams 504
" Letter from Alexander Hamilton," etc. 605
Burr procures and publishes it 506
Contents of the letter 605, 506
Republican replies 507
Career of Coxe 608
His letter read by Pinckney 608
Adams explains 608
Choice of electors begun .......... 608
Contest in Pennsylvania .......... 609
Returns oome in 609, 510
Adams ahead 510
Federalists happy . . . . 510
South Carolina heard from . . . . 510
Jefferson and Burr 510
Jefferson's offers to Livingston . . . . . . . .611, 512
Burr and Jefferson a tie.*. 512
Delight of the Republicans . . 612, 513
CONTENTS.
FAM
Federal slurs and jests 513, 514
Pretend to consider the election doubtful 514, 615
Burr's chances good 515
Clear duty of the Federalists 615, 516
Malice of the defeated party . . . 516
Attempt to put Burr ahead 516
Madison and Jefferson desperate 516, 517
The people threaten force 517
" Federal bonfires " 517,618
Management of the navy . . 519-522
Le Berceau strikes to the Boston 522
Officers of Le Berceau maltreated 522
Interest in the election 622
Crowds at Washington 622
Election to be decided in the House . . . . . . . .523
Mode of voting 623
Balloting begun 624
Scene in the House 524
After thirty-three ballots the House adjourns till Monday . . . .525
Impatience of the people . .626
Federalists give way 625
Jefferson elected ... 526
The news spread abroad 526, 627
Close of the Sixth Congress 527
Instructions to the Commissioners to France 527
Negotiations with France 627, 528
Convention agreed upon 628
President advised to ratify 629
Report on amending the Constitution 529, 530
Debate on the Sedition Law 630-532
The law expires 532
New law concerning courts 532, 633
Republicans oppose it • 633
Adams leaves Washington 533
Jefferson takes the oath 533
True account of his inauguration 633, 534
His speech 534,635
Democracy delighted 535
Celebration at Philadelphia 636-637
CHAPTER XII.
Charges of pyrotechny in 1797 538
Proofs of incendiary designs ......... 638, 639
Every householder a fireman 639
The bucket system 640, 641
Insurance companies 541, 642
Style of houses 642
Tea-parties 642,648
CONTENTS.
French manners ......... ... 543
French dress ........... 643, 644
A beau in 1800 ........... 643, 544
The Assembly ............ 545
The theatre ............ 641-647
Travelling players .......... 547, 548
Manners in the playhouse ......... 648, 649
Wandering shows .......... 549-551
The balloon ............. 551
Successful ascent at Philadelphia ......... 552
Museums in the country . . • , . ..... 553
The Lancaster turnpike ......... 653, 654
Opposition to it ............ 554
Malcontents hold a meeting .......... 555
Answer of the builders ......... 655, 656
Success of the turnpike ..•» ...... 556
German farmers in Pennsylvania ........ 556, 557
"Redemptioners" .......... 668, 559
Method of transporting crops ......... 659
Mules introduced into the country ......... 660
The stage-coach .......... . . 560
Dangers and discomforts of coach travel ...... 661-663
Custom of placing lodgers in the same room ....... 563
Neatness of the New England inn . . . ..... 664
Popular uses of the inn ......... 664, 565
Keeping of the Sabbath .......... 565
Church-going ......... ... 565
The tithing man ............ 666
Irksomeness of Puritan Sabbaths ........ 666, 567
Church service ..... .. ..... 667
Waiting between services .......... 568
" Sabbath-day houses" ........... 668
Pay of the minister ........... 568
Federal coins little used .......... 569
The far West ............ 569
New England Primer ........... 570
11 Lottery-Book for Children " ......... 671
Life of a fishing lad ........... 572
Settlement of New York State ........ 672, 673
Restlessness of pioneers ......... 673, 674
Permanent settlers ........... 674
Prosperity of Troy .......... 674, 575
Emigration through the Ohio valley ........ 572
Increase of population in the West ....... 675, 676
Centre of population changed ......... 676
Primitive life of the West .......... 577
House-building ..... ....... 577
Food and clothing . . . , . • ,,.,,. 677
CONTENTS. xix
PAG*
"AKentuc" 678
The first camp-meeting 578
Spread of the movement 679
The falling exercise 579
The Cane Ridge meeting 580, 581
Nervous excitement of the people • . .581
" The Jerks " 681
" Treeing the devil " 682
"The Holy Laugh" 682
CHAPTER XIII.
Jefferson's position toward office-holders • • • 583
Gallatin Secretary of the Treasury . . «.. 683, 684
Objections to Gallatin .'•'„• 584
The President's reasons for making removals 585
Removal of Hodgdon and Kittera 585
Of Elizur Goodrich 685
Samuel Bishop made collector of New Haven . . 686
Remonstrance of the merchants 686
Jefferson's reply 686, 587
Federalists oppose Government 688
Dealings with the Barbary States ........ 688, 589
A treaty made 589
Difficulty of raising the money 589
Tribute sent 690
High-handed conduct of the Dey ... . . . . . 690, 591
Action of Captain Bainbridge . 591
Trouble with the Pasha of Tripoli . . . . . . .691,592
Tripoli declares war .. . . • »-. . . . . . 592
Commodore Dale starts for the Mediterranean 692
Democratic economy . . . ..-.• 693
Repairs on the Berceau ; . . ;. . • 593
Disapproval of the Mediterranean trip 593, 694
Beau Dawson bears state-papers to France ... . . . . 594
Letter from Jefferson to Thomas Paine 594
Opinions of Paine's conduct 594, 695
New Haven men object to the reply to their remonstrance . . . 696-598
Dislike of Abraham Bishop . 598
His oration before Phi Beta Kappa 698, 599
His speech upon Jefferson's election 699, 600
Pamphlet by Leonidas 600, 601
Congress alone able to declare war 601
Commodore Dale reaches Gibraltar 602
Scenes in the Mediterranean ......... 602
First written Presidential message 603
Sneers of opponents 603
Contents of the President's message 608, 604
Convention of aliens ,.,..,, . . . 604
xx CONTENTS.
PAG»
The mammoth cheese 604, 605
The treaty with France censured 606
A meeting at Philadelphia 606
The judiciary attacked in the Senate 607
Reporters allowed on the floor 607
Debate on the judiciary 608, 609
Speech of James Bayard 609, 610
Repeal of the Judiciary Bill 611
Republican denounced 612. 613
Taxes repealed 614, 615
Wages 616, 617
An early "strike" 618
Callender slanders Jefferson 618, 619
Return of Paine 619
His letters to the people 620
Ellicott arrives at Natchez 621
Gayoso antagonistic 622
Facts sent to Congress 623
Rumors of hostility 624
Hostilities impending • . 625
United States citizens resent Spain's proclamation 625, 626
Petition to Congress 626, 627
Congress organizes Territory of Mississippi 627
Negotiations between France and Spain . . . . . . 627, 628
United States concerned about France's action in New Orleans . . . 628
Spain closes the Mississippi River 629
Message of the President 629
Griswold's resolutions 629, 630
Monroe sent Minister to France and Spain 630, 631
Resolutions of Ross 631
Debate on 632
Livingston's negotiations with France 633, 634
Napoleon offers to sell Louisiana 634, 635
Louisiana bought 635, 636
Anger of the Federalists 636, 637
Their efforts to magnify the cost 638
Ratifications exchanged 639
Ignorance regarding Louisiana 639
The Salt Mountain 639
The mountain ridiculed 640, 641
Expedition of Lewis and Clark 641
Oregon no part of Louisiana 641
Origin of our claim to Oregon 642, 643
NOTE. — My thanks are due to Mr. Barton and Mr. Colton, of the American Antiquarian Society; to Mr. Hildeburn, of the Philadelphia Athenaeum; to Mr. Kelby, of the New York Historical Society; to Mr. Smith, of the Phila delphia Library Company, and especially to Mr. Stone, of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, for the pains taken to place the rich collections of so many libraries at my disposal.
HISTOET
OP THE
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY.
THE State that sent James Jackson to Congress was the youngest of the thirteen. Indeed, six years had not gone by since the founder died. Old men still lived at Savannah who could distinctly recall how on a January morning, in 1733, the galley Ann sailed into Rebellion Roads and dropped anchor off the bar ; how her deck was crowded by broken farmers and debtors fresh from the English jails ; how the people of Charles ton welcomed them, and fed them, and gave them lodgings in the barracks ; and how their leader hastened southward to choose the site of the first settlement in Georgia.
Of all the men who brought out colonists and founded set tlements on our shores, James Oglethorpe is the most interesting. He was no ordinary man, and his name has come down to us associated with no common personages and with no common events. In his youth he served under Marlborough in the Low Countries. He was with the eccentric Peterborough in Italy. He gained under Eugene, while fighting Turks in the Old World, that military skill which he displayed when he came to fight the Spaniards in the New. He was the friend of Atterbury and Johnson. Whitefield and the "Wesleys owed him much. Pope gave him a couplet. Walpole did him honor by calling him a bully. He is described in the letters of Han nah More. He is mentioned by Boswell in the greatest of all biographies, and by Samuel Rogers in one of the most readable of all diaries. A polished gentleman, a brave soldier, a kind-
VOL. II. — 1
8 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vn.
hearted and an upright man, Oglethorpe appears in our own history as the promoter of a noble charity. The plan failed. But, long before he died, the little colony for which he had done so much had grown to be a prosperous State, and had become a member of a prosperous confederation of States. Jews and Scotchmen, Salzburgers and Moravians, Quakers, and settlers from New England had comt n, and had raised the popula tion of Georgia, in days before the war, to fifty thousand souis. Many perished in the war. Yet the number went on increas ing, and, when the first census was taken, was nearly thirteen thousand greater than in Rhode Island. The State, however, could boast of no such collection of streets and houses as the traveller beheld when he stood on the long wharf at Newport, or walked along the streets of the busy city on Providence Bay. The towns were few and small, and lay along the sea- coast or on the banks of the Savannah and the Medway rivers. On a bluff overlooking the Savannah stood the city of the same name. It was at that day but little more than a pretty village, with houses of wood, surrounded by gardens and broad veran das and trees. Not one of the highways was paved. In wet weather the sandy soil kept them dry. But when the days were hot and sultry, the streets became, as strangers said, like the great Sahara desert.* The glare was intolerable. Half the inhabitants wore " goggles." f At every step the foot- passenger sank to the shoe-top in sand. J Every gust of wind drove clouds of dust through the open windows and doors.** Commercially, Savannah had now no rival in the State. Sun- bury had once seemed likely to surpass it. Twelve miles, in deed, separated that town from the sea. But the waters of the Medway river were deep; the inhabitants of Sunbury were from New England, and the place grew rapidly to a port of note. There were ship-yards, and stores, and fine docks faced with palmetto-logs and filled in with oyster-shells and sand. The fees of the port are known to have amounted to ninety
* Travels of Four Years and a half in the United States of America, during 1798-'99, 1800, 1801, and 1802, etc. John Davis, p. 100.
f Ibid., p. 100.
| A New and Complete American Encyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, on an Improved Plan. J. Low. New York, 1805, p. 210.
* Washington's Diary. Sunday, May 16, 1789.
1790. CONDITION OF TOWNS IN GEORGIA. 3
pounds sterling in one year. Fifty-six ships did, in a twelve month, go out from the docks. Indeed, it was recorded with pride that seven square-rigged vessels had been seen to sail up the Medway in the light of a single day. Much of the lumber, the indigo, the rice, put down in the returns as the export of Georgia in colonial times, was loaded at the Sunbury wharves. When the war began, this prosperity ended. When the Con stitution was adopted the town had fallen into decay. Part of it lay in ashes. The docks were rotting. The fort was in ruins. Few ships were seen in the river. Farms once under high cultivation were overgrown with myrtle and Bermuda- grass.*
JSTor was the condition of Frederica much better. Ogle- thorpe had founded the town, fifty years before, on the island of St. Simon, and had there put up the quadrangular rampart and the fort of " tappy," which so long kept the Spaniards in awe. The climate was delightful. The people were thrifty Scotch, and Frederica soon grew to be the chief settlement of southern Georgia. The salubrity of the air, the broad streets shaded by orange-trees, the houses overlooking the waters on which Oglethorpe won his famous victory, made the town the resort of the rich planters who each summer left their plantations and came down to the coast. But, when the place ceased to be a frontier post, the energy which danger had in spired grew languid. Frederica, in 1790, was a ruined town. Augusta was a thriving village where the Indians came to barter skins for powder and rum. The site of Old Ebenezer was a cow-pen. Of New Ebenezer little more than the name remained. The Salzburgers had laid it out, and brought thither a love of learning and a knowledge of the culture of silk. In the library were books written in thirteen tongues. Nowhere else in the country could be seen so fine a collection of works in Coptic, in Arabic, in Hebrew, in Chaldaic. In 1772 four hundred and eighty-five pounds of raw silk went out from Ebenezer to the English mills. A few years later the British took the town. When they left it the church had been dese-
* For an account of Sunbury and Frederica, see Jones's Dead Towns of Geor gia. Bartram's Travels through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, etc., p. 60.
4: THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY CHAP, rn
crated, the inhabitants abused, the books scattered, and the prosperity of the town too deeply injured ever to be repaired.* It was hard indeed for the most favored village to grow and thrive in Georgia. There the town life of New England was unknown. Spots which, had they been in Massachusetts, would have been the sites of prosperous hamlets, were in Georgia parts of great plantations, where small families lived in indolence and ease. On such estates the chief products were negroes, rice, and tobacco. The silk industry was neglected. Indigo was fast ceasing to be profitable. Cotton was just begin ning to be extensively grown.f The staple was tobacco, and this was cultivated in the simplest manner with the rudest of tools. Agriculture as we now know it can scarcely be said to have existed. The plough was little used. The hoe was the implement of husbandry. Made at the plantation smithy, the blade was ill-formed and clumsy ; the handle was a sapling with the bark left on. After a succession of crops had ex hausted the soil, the cow-pen was passed over it. Few roads were ever marked by the tires of a four-wheel wagon or a tumbrel. When the tobacco was ready for the inspector's mark, stout hogsheads were procured, the leaves packed, the heads fastened in, a shaft and a rude axle attached, and, one by one they were rolled along the roads for miles to the tobacco- house nearest by. f There the merchants bought them, some times with money, sometimes with such goods as the planters wanted from over the sea. The list was a long one, for not so much as a broom was made in the State. The books and the furniture, the harpsichord and the spinet, the wine, the linen,
* Jones's Dead Towns of Georgia ; also, History of the Salzburgers.
f " The planters of South Carolina are making experiments in the culture of cotton, and they have proved hitherto very satisfactory, promising great profit. We hope to see their cotton-bags, before long, the wool-packs of America. We learn that they have got the gin, or machine for cleaning it, by which the profit of raising it must be much increased. . . . The large towns in the middle and northern States will probably become the scenes of considerable cotton manufactures. . . ." American Museum, April, 1788, p. 391. Anburey describes the cotton-gin of Vir ginia in 1779. Travels, etc., vol. ii, p. 377.
\ See a good description in Richmond in By-gone Days, pp. 270-272. See, also, Jones's Dead Towns of Georgia, p. 325, Bolles's Industrial History of the United States, and a paper by Mr. Trenholm, in South Carolina, a book published by the State Board of Agriculture, 1883.
I790o GOUGING IN THE SOUTH. 5
the china, and the shoes, all came in from abroad. The cards with which they gambled, the coach in which the fine lady took her airing or went to church, the saddle on which the fine gentleman went to the hunt, were each of foreign make. Nor was there any stint of French and English goods. Separated by miles from each other, the prosperous planters spent their money in the adornment of their homes, and their time in the exercise of a noble hospitality and the enjoyment of the rough est of sports.* Bees and huskings, plays and assemblies, barn- raisings and tea-parties, were indeed not in vogue. No pastime could flourish among them that did not partake of danger or risk. They formed hunting clubs, and met once a fortnight. They gambled, they bet, they gathered in crowds to see cocks cut each other to pieces with spurs made of steel. They came from all parts to enter their horses for quarter races or contest for a purse in three-mile heats, f At such times the men of a lower caste played E. O. and faro, wrestled, and seldom went home without a quarrel, or perhaps a brutal fight. We are told by those who beheld these scenes that the fighting was rarely in hot blood ; that the preliminaries were coolly arranged, and that each combatant agreed before he began whether it would be fair to bite off an ear, to gouge an eye, or maim his opponent in a yet more terrible way. J Gouging was always permissi ble. Every bully grew a long thumb-nail or finger-nail for that very purpose, and when he had his opponent down would sure ly use it, unless the unfortunate man cried out " Kings' cruse," or enough. If the gouger took out the eye of but one man, his punishment might be a few hours in the pillory and a few lashes of the whip. When he repeated the offence, he might, the law declared, be put to death. Yet the practice was long a favorite one, and common as far north as the Maryland border.4*
* A Georgia Planter's Method of spending Time. American Museum, No vember, 1790.
f At the great towns the quarter-races took place on the course. But, in the country districts, the quarter racing was done on two broad, straight paths near some tavern in the woods. The paths were one quarter of a mile long, parallel, and eight or ten yards apart. Anburey's Travels, etc., vol. ii, p. 349.
\ Travels through the States of North America. Weld, vol. ii, p. 144. An- burey, Travels, etc., vol. ii, p. 333. Anburey calls it " Abelarding each other."
* Rochefoucauld, vol. i, p. 64. Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, pp. 47, 60.
6 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vii
South of that border the greatest of cities was Charles* ton. The place stood upon a low tongue of land which no where rose more than ten feet above the high spring tides in the Ashley and Cooper rivers.* Men who still felt young could recall the time when the site of the State- House was a pond where sportsmen shot ducks; when a creek ran up to where the French church stood ; when boys swam over a spot of ground which in 1791 was covered with shade-trees and shrubs, and they looked forward to the time when the marshes should be diked, when the bogs should be dried, when the streets should be paved and provided with covered drain s.f Already the city was a great commercial centre. At the wharves might have been seen, almost any day, scores of vessels laden with every article of luxury or use Great Britain could supply. In the hands of her sub jects was all the trade and all the commerce of the State. To own a ship, to keep a shop, to do any of those things done by merchants and traders, was, in the opinion of a Carolina planter, degradipg. The one serious occupation for such a man was the care of his negroes and his land. If his estate lay far from the coast, he saw it but seldom. The overseer ruled the slaves. The master spent his time in the enjoy ment of such festivities as Charleston could afford. There he lived in a fine house, gave fine dinners, went to the theatre to see Mrs. Kawson, or to the circus to see Mr. Kicketts, sub scribed to the assembly, joined the Hell-Fire Club or the Ugly
Travels through the States of North America. Isaac Weld, Jr., vol. ii, p. 143. Travels through the Interior Parts of America. Anburey, vol. ii, pp. 309-311. See, also, an allusion to the custom in The Echo, No. xviii. Connecticut Courant, August 24, 1795. At a later period Nolte mentions the practice of gouging as common in the western States, and declares that in the Legislature of Kentucky he heard a speaker exclaim : " We must have war with Great Britain. War will ruin her commerce. Commerce is the apple of Britain's eye. There we must gouge her." Fifty Years in both Hemispheres ; or Reminiscences of the Life of a former Merchant. Vincent Nolte. Gouging has also been made the subject of what is, undoubtedly, one of the very best told of anecdotes. It occurs in the opening pages of Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, etc., in the First Half Century of the Republic, by a native Georgian.
* A Sketch of the Soil, Climate, Weather, and Diseases of South Carolina, Charleston, 1796. David Ramsay, p. 11.
f A Sketch, etc. Ramsay, pp. 26, 26.
1790. RACING AND DUELLING. ?
Club, the Jockey Club, or the Mount Zion Society, and rode his favorite horse at the races.*
No other sports were so popular and so fine. They took place in February, continued four days, and made the event of the year. One who often attended them declares that for hours before the sport began the roads to the course were choked with horses and coaches and men ; that the shops were closed, that the streets were deserted, that a dead stillness fell upon the town. On the night of the third day the Jockey Club gave a ball ; gentlemen hastened to settle their bets, and large sums of money changed hands.f Betting and gambling were, with drunkenness and a passion for duelling and running in debt, the chief sins of the Carolina gentleman. ^ Before the revolution, duels had been few in number and the sword the only weapon used. Since the war they had become a crying evil,4* and the pistol had taken the place of the sword. || To punish offenders was impossible. The juries, indeed, would con vict them of manslaughter, and for this the penalty was burn ing in the hand ; but the penalty was never enforced.A
On such plantations as lay within an easy journey of the city, the owners passed many months of each year. Q There the houses of wood, surrounded by rice-fields and corn-fields, and negro huts, stood back several miles from the travelled road. J Men who had journeyed far and seen much were amazed to come suddenly before such buildings in the midst of what seemed a wilderness. The handsome gardens and the
* " Man zahlet bei 20 verschiedene Clubbs, und die meisten Einwohner sind Glieder von mehr, als einem. Diese gesellschaftlichen Verbindungen geben sich zum Theil wunderliche Namen, als, Mount Zion Society, Hell-Fire Clubb, Marine A.nti-Britannic Society, Smoking Society, u. dgl." Reise. J. D. Schoepf, vol. ii, p. 266.
f Ramsay, History of South Carolina, vol. ii, pp. 403, 404.
| " Drunkenness may be called an endemic vice of Carolina." Ramsay, History of South Carolina, vol. ii, p. 391. "A disposition to contract debts is one of the vices of Carolinians." Ibid., p. 395. " These (duels) take place oftener in Caro lina than in all the nine States north of Maryland." Ibid., pp. 387, 388.
* Ibid., p. 389. 1 Ibid., p. 389. A Ibid., p. 389. 0 Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, D.D., vol. i, p. 469.
$ Travels of Four Years and a half in the U. S. of America. John Davis, p. 68. See, also, Anburey, p. 114; Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, p. 64 ; Smyth's Tour, vol. i, pp. 16, 16 ; Travels through the States of North America. Weld.
8 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. vii.
broad paths, the fine paintings that hung on the walls, the books that made up the library, all bore evidence of the refine ment and good sense of the owner. Educated in England, he had come back to his native State with a lively appreciation of good blood and a fondness for ceremony and display. At his home strangers were heartily welcome and nobly entertained. Some bade their slaves ask in any traveller that might be seen passing by.* Some kept servants on the watch to give notice of every approaching horseman or of the distant rumble of a coming coach-and-four. Then in a moment a transformation began. Shirts and jackets were hastily thrown aside, and, ere the visitors arrived, a band of idle blacks had become a dozen liveried slaves, f
Were it not for such hospitality, the lot of the traveller would have been a hard one indeed. The roads that led north and south were good and well cared for ; but the inns through out the whole South were execrable. { Travellers of all sorts have agreed that the condition of the buildings, the coarseness of the fare, the badness of the beds, and the exorbitance of the reckoning,* could not be equalled elsewhere. Not one of them displayed a sign, and, save for the number of handbills posted up beside the door, the inn was like every other house along the way. [ The windows had often no sashes, the roofs let in the rain. Mattresses were unknown, and on the hottest night in summer the weary lodger was compelled to lie down upon a feather bed. Breakfast cost six shil lings; dinner cost a dollar. A night's lodging was half as much ; but if clean sheets were demanded, the price was six pence more. Supper was rarely eaten. Innkeepers attrib uted these evils to the customs of the land, and declared that, while wayfarers found entertainment at the houses of the great, the condition of the taverns could never be improved.A There were, of course, exceptions. Here and there in the large towns were to be seen ordinaries with which the most fastidious
* Travels of Four Years and a half in the U. S. of America. John Davis. f Travels of Four Years and a half in the U. S. of America. John Davis.
t Smyth's Tour, vol. i, p. 50. Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, p. 47. Travels through the States of North America. Weld, p. 137.
* New Travels in the U. S. of America. De Warville, p. 374.
|| Weld's Travels, p. 41. A Ramsay, History of South Carolina, vol. ii, p. 886.
/790. VIRGINIA TAVERNS. 9
could find little fault. No better specimen of a good southern inn existed than the Eagle Tavern at Richmond. The build ing was large, was of brick, and provided with a long veranda in front. For a shilling and sixpence, Virginia currency, the traveller was shown to a neat bed in a well-furnished room up one flight of stairs. On the wall was fastened a printed table of rates. From this he learned that breakfast cost two shillings, and dinner, with grog or toddy, was three ; that a quart of toddy was one and six, that a bottle of porter was two and six, and that the best Madeira wine sold for six shillings a quart. When he rose in the morning he washed his face, not in his room, but on the piazza, and ate his breakfast, in the coolest of dining-rooms, at a table adorned with pewter spoons and china plates. Off at one side was a tub full of water wherein melons and cucumbers, pitchers of milk and bottles of wine, were placed to cool. Near by was a water-case which held two decanters. If he called for water, a wench brought it fresh from the spring, and he drank from a glass which had long been cooling in a barrel which stood in one corner of the room. For his lodging and his board, if he ate a cold supper and was content with one quart of toddy, he paid to the landlord of the Eagle ten shillings, Virginia currency, or one dollar and sixty- six cents, Federal money, each day.* The tavern was indeed a famous one. In it, during race week, the ball was held, and of all balls this was the finest. Gentlemen would have found no admittance had they come in boots and pantaloons. Silk stockings and small clothes, pumps set off with huge buckles, and heavily powdered hair, was then the dress. The ball began soon after sundown, and the opening dance was always a minuet de la cour. The music was as solemn as that of a hymn. When the company had assembled, the managers, each with a huge cocked hat beneath his arm, would lead some favored lady, at arm's length, by the tips of her fingers, to the floor. The bowing and scraping, the courtesying, the tiptoeing, the solemn advancing and turning of the minuet once through, a contra-dance or a reel would begin. Then the fine gentle men showed their skill at cutting pigeon-wings. A hornpipe
* See an extract from the Journal of Rev. Henry Toulmin descriptive of Rich- mond in 1793. Richmond Standard, August 14, 1880.
10 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vn,
or a congo followed, and, when the old people had retired, a
jig*
Taverns of the poorer kind derived their support from
loungers and tipplers, and from the crowd which gathered in the tap-room during the sitting of the court, on election days, on holidays, and when a neighbor's goods were to be disposed of in a public way. Vendue was almost unknown. When a collec tion of household furniture was to be sold, the whole village assembled, gun in hand. A mark was set up, the distance measured, a table or a chair made the prize, and, when all who wished it had paid down a few pence, the shooting began. The best marksman won the article.f Sometimes a bullock was the prize. Then the best shot had the first choice of parts. When he made it, more shooting and more choosing followed till the whole carcass was sold.
Still more wretched were the inns of North Carolina. J The traveller who at that day quitted Charleston and journeyed northward went commonly along a good road, which led by plantations, and over swamps, and through pine-barrens to Beaufort and Georgetown and Wilmington, and on to the little village of Duckinfield on Albemarle Sound. There, if the wind were high and the Sound rough, he might be forced to wait two days before the ferryman won Id carry him over the eight miles of water that lay between him and the Edenton shore.** Once in Edenton, the road ran along the edge of the great Alligator Dismal Swamp to the Carolina border, and thence to Suffolk in Virginia. Beaufort was a straggling vil lage. I Georgetown numbered one hundred houses. A Wil mington had twice as many more. Q In these towns rude ac commodations were to be had. But if hunger or night compelled the traveller to stop at a roadside tavern or an ordinary in the woods, he found poor cheer awaiting him. The house was of clapboards or logs. Without was an oven of clay. Within was a single room. The roof and the walls were neither ceiled
* Richmond in By-gone Days, pp. 179, 180. f Ramsay, History of South Carolina, vol. ii, p. 408.
J Description of a North Carolina Ordinary. American Museum, December 1790, pp. 278, 279. * Smyth's Tour, vol. ii, p. 91.
| Smyth's Tour, vol. ii, p. 86. A Ibid. 0 IMA
1790. WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA. H
nor plastered. Some benches, a bed, a table, and a chest or two were all the furniture to be seen. In winter he might sleep by the fire. In summer he lay out of doors under a blanket made fast to four small stakes to keep off flies and the dew. Whether he asked for breakfast or dinner gave little concern to his host. One meal was like another, and they all consisted of bacon, eggs, hominy, coarse bread, and New England rum. When at last Suffolk was reached, two roads were before him. One skirted the Dismal Swamp and led to Norfolk. The other passed through Smithfield and Williamsburg in Virginia.
Williamsburg had, in colonial times, been the capital of the province. There had been the Governor's palace, long since reduced to ashes, and there every winter, when the House of Burgesses was sitting, had gathered all the wealth and all the fashion of Virginia. No such handsome women, no such assem blies, no such dinners, no such liveries, it was thought, could be seen anywhere else in America. The rich planters who sauntered into the House of Burgesses to hear Patrick Henry speak, or went, on reception-days, to pay their respects to the Governor, and rode up and down the great street at the proper time of day, bowing to the lice ladies in their coaches, followed by slaves in rich liveries, were, in the opinion of every Virgin- ian, the most polished and refined of gentlemen. With the departure of the Government had gone much of the ancient splendor of the town. Yet the place was still an attractive one to foreigners and travellers. Scarce one of them failed to note in his journal that, in the new part of the town, the by-ways were laid out as a W,* and that in the old the main street was a mile long, very broad, very sandy, and unpaved. Across one end of this street stood the capitol.f At the other the College of William and Mary closed the way, $ a college that boasted of being among the oldest in America, and dated its origin from the days when no such thing as a printing-press existed in Virginia. The faculty at one time
* Einige Nebenstrassen, welche nach Siiden und Oaten licgen, sind in der Gestalt des Buchstaben W angelegt. Reise. J. D. Schoepf, vol. ii, p. 121; also Smyth's Tour, vol. ii, p. 19.
f Smyth's Tour, vol. ii., p. 19. "Die gerade und breite Hauptstrasse ist beynahe einer Meile lang." Reise. J. D. Schoepf, vol. ii, p. 121.
$ Reise. J. D. Schoepf, TO!, ii, pp. 121, 122. Smyth's Tour, vol. ii, p. 19.
12 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. VA
numbered six professors and a president. On the library- shelves three thousand volumes were gathering dust. For a hundred years divinity and mathematics, Greek and Latin, philosophy and metaphysics, had been taught to lads whose fathers could not afford to send them to the great universi* ties of England. Nor was the number of such men small. The Virginia gentlemen were far from rich. Their estates indeed were noble. Their hospitality was profuse. They kept studs and raised fine horses. They owned coaches and chariots, and filled their houses with richly liveried slaves. But much of this splendor was deceptive. As a community they were bankrupt and steeped in debt. That financial integ rity which flourishes best among merchants and traders was unknown to the landed gentry of Virginia. While the trades man was clamoring for the price of his goods, while the doctor called again and again for his fees, the great planter was ready to bet a slave at a horse-race, or squander at a cock fight hundreds of pounds borrowed at high rates of interest. Tobacco notes made no inconsiderable part of the currency of the State.* Coppers did not exist. In place of small change were silver dollars cut into quarters and halves, f a kind of currency long known in Richmond as "sharp-shins." The merchants held what ready money there was. If any were wanted to improve a highway, to build a school-house, to make some repairs on a country church, a lottery was the only means by which the sum could be collected. Many of the parish churches had been put up by the great families on whose estate they stood. But the days of Episcopal supremacy were gone. The Church had been disestablished. Toleration had been secured. The clergy had fallen into disrepute, and, even in the large towns, the buildings were given over to ver min and decay. In such as were kept open, much of the an cient ceremony was maintained. There were seats without cushions, to which the poor hurried and sat down. There were
* New Travels in the U. S. of America. De Warville, pp. 437, 438.
f Richmond in By-gone Days, pp. 213, 214. "This scarcity of small money subjects the people to great inconveniences, and has given rise to a pernicious habit of cutting pieces of silver coin into halves and quarters." New Travels in the U. S. of America. De Warville, pp. 438, 439, London Edition, 1792.
If90, VIRGINIA CHURCHES. 13
high box-pews, to which the great ladies and their families gravely walked, followed by slaves, who bore the prayer-books and shut the pew-doors with a bang. The bans were still cried. The minister still climbed to the lofty pulpit by a spiral stair. On the walls were hanging pews ; and tablets of stone sacred to the memory of the dead who slept without. Distinguished parishioners were still put to rest in the vault under the communion-table or the broad aisle. The congre gation was still summoned by the bell that hung from the branches of some sturdy tree near the church-door.* Service ended, the old men discussed the last election, or the last hunt The young men, hat in hand, escorted the women to the coaches, and, mounting their horses, rode home after them to partake of a heavy dinner, and, perchance, go under the table in a drunken sleep.
The daily life of such men was a strange mixture of activ ity and sloth. When they were not scouring the country in search of a fox, when they were not riding twenty miles to a cock-fight or a barbecue, they seem to have indulged in all the idleness of an Eastern pasha. Travellers from a colder climate were amazed to see a man in the best of health rise at nine, breakfast at ten, and then lie down on the coolest pallet in the house to drink toddy, bombo, or sangaree, while a couple of slaves fanned him and kept off the flies. At two he ate his dinner ; supper he rarely touched. At ten he went to bed.f
Nor did men of a lower rank act any better. Their man ners, indeed, were coarser ; their education was poorer ; their plantations were smaller ; their pedigrees could not be traced back even to the third son of an English baron. Yet they were as idle and hospitable, indulged in the same excesses, and took part in the same sports as the great proprietors, who affected to look down upon them with contempt. Beneath them, and far beneath them, were the poor whites. Made up in great part of indentured servants whose time had run out, they were the most lazy, the most idle, the most shiftless, the
* Travels of Four Years and a half in the U. S. of America. John Davis, p. 306.
f For a description of the life of a Virginia planter of that day, see Smyth's Tour, etc., vol. i, pp. 41, 42, and Burnaby's Travels, p. 156. Anburey's Traveli through the Interior Parts of America, vol. ii, pp. 29?, $*4
14: THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vn
most worthless of men. Their huts were scarce better than negro cabins. The chimneys were of logs with the chinks stuffed with clay ; the walls had no plaster ; the windows had no glass ; the furniture was such as they had themselves made. Their grain was thrashed by driving horses over it in the open field. When they ground it they used a rude pestle and mor tar, or, placed in the hollow of one stone, they beat it with an other. Work of every kind they abhorred. Some among them might, with proper encouragement, have become artisans and mechanics. No class of laborers was more needed. Be yond the limits of the great towns or the seaboard villages, a carpenter or a smith, a mason or a wheelwright, was seldom to be seen. Now and then some half-starved mechanic would earn a precarious livelihood by wandering from plantation to plantation repairing harpsichords, mending clocks, or perform ing such services as were beyond the skill of the slaves. Brt for these men the poor whites felt contempt. Their days were passed in lounging about the taverns, quarrelling and gam bling, and creating disturbances at elections.
The fights and brawls which took place at such times in Virginia were worthy of an Irish fair. The manner of con ducting elections throughout the entire South was bad. A southern representative well described it on the floor of the House as " a nursery of mischief." * In place of bringing men together in small bodies, the electors of an entire county were gathered at one court-house, and in the presence of the sheriff were polled. The rival candidates would appear with bands of followers, and whichever was the stronger would drive the other away. Such a scene was described to the House of Rep resentatives by a committee on a contested election, and was declared by the southern members of the House to be quite common. The place was Montgomery Court-House, in Yir- ginia. The occasion was the choosing of a representative to Congress. One of the contestants was so fortunate as to have a brother who, in command of sixty or seventy Federal troops, was camped near by. On the morning of election-day the soldiers were paraded, marched to town, led thrice around the court-house, drawn up before the door, and polled for the
* Annals of Congress, April, 1794.
1790. ELECTION SCENES. 15
brother of their chief. They then threatened to beat any one who wished to vote against their man, knocked down a drunken magistrate, mounted guard at the court-house door, and stopped the voting till the countrymen stoned them back to camp. The committee, shocked at such proceedings, reported that the sitting member should lose his seat ; but the southern representatives supported him. One who came from Maryland declared that he never knew of an election in the southern States where so little mischief was done. He could name one at which a chancellor of a court of justice bred a riot in his own court to help his own party. Much had been said about a man coming to Montgomery Court-House with a club under his coat. That was nothing. At his own elec tion five hundred of his constituents had clubs under their coats. If such a matter were to unseat a member, the House had better begin by unseating him. How were elections con ducted in the South ? A man of influence came to the polls at the head of two or three hundred of his friends, and, natu rally, would not suffer any one of the other party to give a vote if he could help it. The custom might be a bad one ; yet it was the custom. A gentleman from South Carolina affected to be much surprised at this ; but was promptly reminded that at his own election a riot had occurred, that it had occurred in i church, and that a magistrate began it by knocking down a voter and dragging him into the road. The speaker who made this statement declared he was present and saw the affray.*
Beneath the poor whites were the negro slaves. If the infamy of holding slaves belongs to the South, the greater in* famy of supplying slaves must be shared by England and the North. While the States were yet colonies, to buy negroes and sell them into slavery had become a source of profit to the inhabitants of many New England towns. Scarce a year passed by but numbers of slavers went out from Boston, from Medford, from Salem, from Providence, from New port, from Bristol, in Rhode Island. The trade was of a threefold kind. Molasses brought from Jamaica was turned to rum ; the rum dispatched to Africa bought negroes ; the negroes, carried to Jamaica or the southern ports, were ex
* Annals of Congress, April 29, 1794.
16
THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY,
CHAP. VH
changed for molasses, which in turn, taken back to New Eng land, was quickly made into rum>* The ships were light of draught and built for speed. The captain and the crew were men little troubled with scruples touching the work they had to do. Once off the coast of Mozambique or Guinea, the cargo was rapidly made up. If a band of blacks, moved by curiosity, came round the vessel in a skiff, they were sure to be lured on board, ironed, and hurried into the hold. If a boat's crew went on shore, they came back dragging some wretched man between them. For rum the native princes gladly sold the prisoners that their subjects made in war. When every avail able inch of space in the hold had been filled, the slaver turned westward and made for some southern port. The coast-line had scarcely disappeared from view when the hatches were taken off and the terrors of the voyage began. Every fine day at sunrise the slaves were driven on deck. Such as were noisy had the thumb-screws put on. Such as were hard to manage were chained in pairs by the arms, or the ankles, or the necks. At the first signs of insurrection the leaders were shot down and cast into the sea. Their food was salt pork and beans. Their sole exercise was dancing and capering about the deck. This they were made to do. If any refused, the cat-o'-nine-tails or the rope's end was vigorously applied. When the sun set, the whole band went below. There the space
* The transactions of one slaver may be cited as illustrative of those of many others. The cargo of the Caesar, out-bound, was : 82 barrels, 6 hogsheads, and 6 tierces of New England rum; 33 barrels of best Jamaica spirits ; 33 barrels of Barbadoes rum ; 26 pairs of pistols ; 2 casks of musket-balls ; 1 chest of hand arms ; 25 cutlasses. The return cargo was : " In the hold on board of the scow Caesar, 163 adult slaves and 2 children." Brooks's History of Medford, pp. 436 437. The books of another give a more detailed account :
|
Dr. THE NATIVES OF ANNAMBOE. PER CONTRA. O. |
|||
|
1770. April 22. To 1 hogshead of rum. May 1 "rum |
Gals. . . 110 .. 130 |
1770. April 22. By Mayl. " " 2. " it to t( " 6. " " 6. " |
Gala woman slave, o . . . . 110 |
|
prime woman slave. 130 boy slave, 4 ft. 1 in. 106 " 4 ft 3 in. 108 prime man slave. 6 oz. 2 old man for a ) . T . . , f 3 OZ. U Lingister. . . . . ) |
|||
|
" 2. " 1 hogshead rum |
. . 105 |
||
|
t( h 1C (( it |
.. 108 |
||
|
" 5 "cash in gold |
6 oz. 2 3 oz. 0 |
||
|
" 6. " " " . .2 oz. ) M 6. "2doz.ofsnuff.l oz. f |
History of Medford, pp. 436, 437.
1790. SUFFERING ON THE SLAVE-SHIPS. 17
assigned each to lie down in was six feet by sixteen inches. The bare boards were their beds. To make them lie close, the lash was used. For one to turn from his right side to his left was impossible, unless the long line of cramped and stiffened sufferers turned with him.* But the misery of a night was as nothing to the misery of a stormy day. Then the hatches were fastened down, tarpaulins were drawn over the grat ings, and ventilation ceased ; the air grew thick and stifling ; the floor became wet with perspiration; the groaning and panting of the pent-up negroes could be heard on deck ; their mouths became parched, their tongues swollen. When the storm was over, the hatches opened and the tarpaulin drawn away, the air that would come from the hold was like that from an oven. The hardiest in the crew could not inhale it without growing faint. The stench was terrible. It was not uncommon for as many as five dead bodies to be brought up and flung over the ship's side. On a slaver making the middle passage a mortality of thirty per cent was not rare. As the voyage drew to a close the treatment of the slaves improved. The sick were cared for ; those in chains were set free ; whip
* The arrangement of the negroes in a slave-ship is illustrated by a folding cut in American Museum, May, 1789. The cut was prepared at the expense of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and is a cop? of a plate accompanying the report of a committee who investigated the slave-trade of Plymouth, England. The plate is rarely found in such copies of the Museum as can now be purchased, but is common in the antislavery documents of a later day. By the Plymouth Pamphlet we are assured that " In the men's apartment the space allowed to each is six feet in length by sixteen inches in breadth. The boys are each allowed five feet by fourteen inches, the women five feet ten inches by sixteen inches, and the girls four feet by one foot each." Many facts regarding the terrors of the slave-ships are given in " The Substance of the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave-Trade. Collected in the course of a Tour made in the Autumn of 1788." London.
The Plymouth Pamphlet describes the manner of packing away the slaves om a vessel which carried six hundred and nine of them. " Platforms, or wide shelves, were erected between the decks, extending so far from the side toward the mid dle of the vessel as to be capable of containing four additional rows of slaves, by which means the perpendicular height between each tier was, after allowing for the beams and platforms, reduced to two feet six inches, so that they could not even sit in an erect posture ; besides which, in the men's apartment, instead of four rows, five were stowed by putting the head of one between the thighs of another." For letters of instruction to captains of slavers, see Felt's History of Salem, vol. ii, pp. 289, 290. Brooks's History of Medford, pp. 436, 437.
VOL. II. — 2
18 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, va
ping was given more sparingly. Indeed, when the negroes stood forth on the auction-block for inspection and for sale, every trace of the irons and the lash had been carefully re moved from their bodies. From the auction-stand they were carried to the plantations, where, among negroes not much more civilized than themselves, they learned to speak a dialect that passed for English, and to perform the duties of a field-hand.
Under the kindest of masters the condition of the slaves was most pitiable. Those whose lot it was to give suck to the children, to fan the master, to wait at the table, to ride before the stick-back gig, or follow the cumbrous coach when the mistress went forth to ride, enjoyed, perhaps, the largest share of ease and comfort. Sometimes a negro of marked in telligence would be suffered to become a blacksmith or a mason, or be sent to a neighboring village to sweep chimneys or sell fruit ; but the great body of slaves were still as barbarous as the blacks who ran wild on the Gambia or along the banks of the river Congo. They were still as ignorant, as superstitious, as devoted worshippers of stocks and stones, as their most remote ancestors. Spirits and ghosts, witches and devils, were to them as much realities as the men they spoke with or the wind they felt blow. The moon inspired them with peculiar awe ; the darkness filled them with dread ; nor would the boldest among them willingly go through a wood after sundown without a hare's foot in his hand. Of charms and evil eyes they lived in never-ending fear. Bright colors, gay clothes, glittering ob jects, were their delight. Of music and the dance they were passionately fond. With fragments of a sheep's rib, with a cow's jaw and a piece of iron, with an old kettle and a bit of wood, with a hollow gourd and a few horse-hairs, they would fabricate instruments of music and play the most plaintive airs,
Against the plottings of such men as these their masters defended themselves by brutal laws. Lashes were prescribed for every black who kept a dog, who owned a gun, who had a " periagua," who hired a horse, who went to a merrymaking, who attended a funeral, who rode along the highway, who bought, or sold, or traded without his owner's consent.* Slaves
.* Virginia Laws, 1792, chap. 41, § 8. South Carolina Statutes at Large, vol f, p, 404, § 13. Georgia Laws, 1770, Act No. 204, § 12.
1790. SLAVE LAWS. 19
were forbidden to learn to write * or read writing, to give evi dence against a white man,f to travel in bands of more than seven unless a white man went with them, £ or to quit the plan tation without leave. Should they do so, the first freeman they fell in with might give them twenty lashes on the bare back.* If one returned a blow, it became lawful to kill him. || For wandering about at night or riding horses without permission, the punishment was whipping, cropping, or branding on the cheek.A When his crime was murder or house-burning, the justices might, if it seemed best, command his right hand to be cut off, his head to be severed from the trunk, the body quar tered, and the pieces hung up to public view. Q Next to mur der, the worst offence a slave could commit was to run away. Then the Legislature could outlaw him, and any free white that met him might kill him at sight. J To steal a negro was felony. To take his life while punishing him was not. Indeed, if a planter provided coarse food, coarse clothes, and a rude shelter for his slaves ; if he did not work them more than fifteen hours out of twenty-four in summer, nor more than fourteen in win ter, and gave them every Sabbath to themselves, he did quite as much for their comfort as the law required he should. Before the law a slave was a chattel; could be bought or sold, leased or loaned, mortgaged, bequeathed by will, or seized by the sheriff in satisfaction of a debt. Property he could neither hold nor acquire. If the State gave him land for his services in the war, the court bestowed it all upon the master. If he went
* Georgia Laws, 1770, Act No. 204, § 39. South Carolina Statutes at Large, vol. 7, p. 413, § 45.
f Maryland Laws, 1717, chap. 13, §§ 2 and 3. (1796) Cox v. Dove, 1 Martin (N. Car.) Repts., 43. (1821) White v. Helmes, 1 M'Cord (S. Car.) Repts., 430.
\ Georgia Laws, 1770, Act No. 204, § 38. South Carolina Statutes at Large, vol. 7, p, 413, § 43.
* South Carolina Statutes at Large, vol. 7, p. 398, § 3. Georgia Laws, 1770, Act No. 204, § 38. See also § 5.
| South Carolina Statutes at Large, vol. 7, p. 399, § 6. Georgia Laws, 1770, Act No. 204, § 5.
A Maryland Laws, 1751, chap. 14, § 8. The letter R was branded on the cheek. See also Laws 1754-'57-'62-'65-'73-'80-'87-'95-'98.
Q Maryland Laws, 1729, chap. 4.
% Hayward's Manual, pp. 521, 622. In 1792 the outlawry of slaves was e* punged from the Virginia code.
20 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. vn.
forth and labored for a price, even with his owner's leave, the money was not his. Nothing could be left a slave by will. He could not call his life his own. To strike out his eye in the heat of passion, to cut out his tongue, to maim him, to cru elly scald him, or deprive him of a member or a limb, was, indeed, an offence. But the sole punishment was a fine of one hundred pounds currency. To kill him outright cost the owner but a little more. Within these limits it was lawful to load him with irons, to confine him for any length of time in a cell, and to beat him and whip him till the blood ran in streams from the wounds and he grew too weak to stand. Old adver tisements are still extant in which runaway blacks are described by the scars left upon their bodies by the lash.* When such lashings were not prescribed by the court, they were com monly given under the eye of the overseer, or inflicted by the owner of the negro himself. In the great cities were often to be found men whose business it was to flog slaves. Such an one long lived in Charleston, and, when the beating was not done by contract, charged a shilling for each one whipped.f
While such scenes took place in the South, abolition began in the North. Of all the societies for promoting the abolition of slavery the world has seen, the oldest was that of Pennsj'l- vania. Fourteen years after the founding of the colony the yearly meeting sent a minute to the Society of Friends.:): Each member was advised not to buy any more negroes, and to be very heedful of the moral and religious training of those he had. But it was not till 1743 that the matter was seriously taken up. Then an annual query was started to find out how many members had really ceased to buy or bring in slaves. Many had done so. More had not. For fifteen years the Meeting waited patiently, and then began to punish all who disobeyed. Slave-buyers were forbidden to sit in the Meet ings of Discipline, to take part in the Society's affairs, or to give one penny toward the relief of the destitute and the poor. When the war opened, every one owning a slave over lawful age was about to be cast out. Meanwhile, so many had
* North Carolina Gazette, November 7, 1795, and also January 2, 1796. f Travels of Four Years, etc. John Davis, p. 90. Rochefoucauld. Travels, etc., vol. i, p. 66C. J A protest against slavery was made at Germantown in 1688.
1790. RISE OF THE ABOLITION SOCIETIES. 21
obeyed that, in 1775, there were, in the colony of Pennsyl vania, thousands of freed negro slaves. But, to seize upon these, run them off and sell them again into slavery, soon be came so common a crime that a few men of heart determined it should stop. A score of gentlemen, therefore, gathered, five days before the battle of Lexington, in the old Sun Tavern at Philadelphia. There they framed a constitution, and or ganized a body which they named " The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage." Four meet ings were held. Ere a fifth came, the war opened, and, dur ing nine years, the society did nothing. At last, in 1784, the members once more assembled, and began a long career of ac tivity and use. The cause of the negro for a time was popular. The Methodists took it up and bade every member of the so ciety, where the law would permit, emancipate his slaves within a twelvemonth. Before a decade had gone by, abolition so cieties sprang up in Rhode Island, in Connecticut, in New Jersey, at New York, at Baltimore, in Virginia, at Wash ington, Pennsylvania, and even on Maryland's eastern shore. One State became free ; * three others provided for a gradual abolition, f two more revised their emancipation statutes, J and Congress passed the ordinance of 1787, which forbade slavery ever existing in the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio. In Massachusetts no act of abolition was ever passed. When the revolution ended it became the fashion to consider slavery as at an end, and, for the time and the man ner of its extinction, to point to the State Constitution of 1780 and a phrase in the first article of the Declaration of Rights. " All men," says that instrument, " are born free and equal." This the courts afterwards declared meant abolition. The people chose to believe it, and the custom of buying and selling and owning slaves passed slowly away, like the custom of purchasing the time of redemptioners, or binding young lads to a trade.* The same year that the northwestern territory became free soil the Pennsylvania Society took a new name, sent a memo rial to the Constitutional Convention on the subject of the
* New Hampshire.
f Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut. f Virginia and Maryland.
* See Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. 6. H. Moore.
22 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vn,
slave-trade, begged the printers at Philadelphia not to adver« tise the sale of negro slaves, and chose Benjamin Franklin its president. From it, too, came one of the memorials which, in March, 1790, excited southern congressmen and led to the first resolutions of the House of Representatives on slavery and the slave-trade. The wish of the society was defeated. But, toward the close of 1791, the matter was once more urged on the attention of the House.
When the year 1791 opened, the country had become one of peace and plenty. Some murmurs of discontent, indeed, were heard. But the grumblers were, most happily, confined to the States that lay to the south of the Potomac river. In the North and in the East the measures of Government were highly popular. In that section most of the domestic debt was owned. There the war had broken out. There most of the battles had been fought. There the greater part of the army had been maintained, and there, as a consequence, tens of thousands of farmers, tradesmen, and merchants had come into possession of certificates and final settlements. These the energy and skill of Hamilton had turned into interest-bearing stock. In a moment, men who had come to look upon their losses in the good cause as the price of liberty found them selves in the possession of annual sums, which, though small, paid their taxes, and enabled them to buy some new imple ments for their workshops or their farms. In their good humor over the lucky turn their affairs had taken, politics were for gotten,* a rage for speculation sprang up, and the buying and selling of Government scrip went briskly on. The Funding bill was passed on the fourth of August, 1790. Yet, when the tenth of December was come, fifteen hundred thousand dollars of the debt had been put into the funds in the State of Massachusetts alone. Before the end of the first week in February, 1791, the sum had gone up to two millions and a half .f Indeed, it was noticed with surprise that in a single week no less than four expresses " had passed and repassed with Pega- eian swiftness " between Boston, Philadelphia, and New York.J
* Fisher Ames to Dwight, April 26, 1791.
f New York Journal, February 7, 1791.
J; New York Journal and Patriotic Register, January 24, 1791.
1791. DECLINE OF THE LOTTERY. 23
The effect of this activity was soon apparent. Men who had been wise enough to keep their certificates and settlements locked up in desks and presses, brought them out, exchanged them for shares of the stock, turned speculators, talked of nothing but the funds, and, in their eagerness to know what prices the shares sold for at distant cities, cursed the weather when the rains delayed the posts. Dollars and joes that had for years been lying idle under floors and behind old chimneys were thus thrown into circulation. Money grew easier and easier every day. In a little while even the poorest laborer in the ditches was enabled to gratify his taste for speculation by venturing a few shillings in a part ticket in one of the hun dred lotteries for the building of schools, for the erection of bridges and docks, for the repair of churches and roads, for the establishment of foundries and glass-works. Many of the lucky investors acquired fortunes in a few weeks which a life of industrious toil would never have given them.* This em boldened others, and such numbers of small farmers and trades men made haste to expend their savings in lotteries that Con necticut and 'New Hampshire forbade the sale, within their bounds, of tickets issued in other States. The people, it was feared, would be stripped of ready money. A bill to do a like thing in Pennsylvania provoked a long debate. Supporters of the measure declared the lottery system was fast ruining the prosperity of the State. Farmers and artisans, tradesmen and merchants, were neglecting their business to watch the draw ings of innumerable wheels. Great sums of money were leav ing the State for which nothing came back in return. This was but one phase of the speculative mania that had over spread the whole land. Every day quantities of stock were put up at auction, sold on credit, bought by men not worth a tenth part of the face value of the paper purchased, and, at the expiration of the time of credit, the difference between the price then and on the day of purchase was either paid or re ceived by the buyer. This was a blow to every kind of indus try. The New Jersey Manufacturing Company was another
* " Eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars have been deposited in the Massachusetts Bank to be paid to the bearer of the ticket No. 6052." American Daily Advertiser, May 11, 1791.
24: THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vn
illustration of what the mania for speculation could do. That company had been vested with almost legislative power. The workmen it employed were to pay no taxes and be exempt from duty in the militia. The company were to pay no taxes and raise by lottery ten thousand dollars each year. Could an honest manufacturer compete with such a monopoly ? Would it not break down wages, and, with its assured income of ten thousand dollars and no rates to pay, drive every rival from the field ? This spirit could not be destroyed. It might be checked, and to stop the sale of lottery-tickets of other States was a good place to begin.* In Massachusetts the Governor urged the General Court to abolish all such means of rais ing public money. They drew away men from industry, and acted, he said, as an unjust tax, for the poor went into them most largely, f The Governor was right. Men who had once been content to shoe horses and to mend chairs quit the anvil and the bench, and, in open violation of the law, con ducted private wheels of their own. J Every kind of public improvement was supported by a lottery ; and such a rage for building court-houses, laying out roads, digging canals, mend ing river-banks, as seized upon the country in 1791 and 1792, was not seen again for forty years.
Business likewise began to revive. The packets were too few to carry the bales and hogsheads of freight that were piled at the wharves. The roads were cut to pieces by the long trains of ox-carts and farm-wagons that passed over them laden with produce. The postmasters were overwhelmed by the hundreds of letters that poured in upon them every week. Never had the riders between the great cities made their trips in shorter time.
* American Daily Advertiser, January 4, 6, and 7, 1792.
f New York Journal, June 8, 1791. Seven months later the same paper con- tained, in the column of domestic news, the following : " The rage for lottery ad venture is expiring, and it is expected the class of the Charlestown Lottery, which will commence drawing as soon as the semi-annual prizes are published, will be the * last words and dying testament ' of lotteries in this commonwealth (Massa chusetts)." New York Journal, January 4, 1792.
£ At New York, on one occasion, a blacksmith named William Thornton was fined £84 14s. for " having opened and set on foot a private lottery." On another, Gabriel Legget, a chair-maker, was fined £500 for the some offence. American Daily Advertiser, May 12, 1791.
1791. AN EXCISE PROPOSED. 25
}fet their portmanteaus were too small to hold the huge bun dles of letters that awaited them at their journey's end. It is impossible to turn over the pages of one of the dingy news papers of that year without meeting with numberless vigorous complaints from subscribers that copies of the Journal, or the Packet, or the Gazette, had been crowded out of the post-bags by the weight and bulk of the mails.*
But there was still another branch of the public service which bore testimony to the ease of the money market and the flourishing state of business affairs. The custom officers had gathered, in the short space of a year, nineteen hundred thou sand dollars. Much larger sums have, in our time, been col lected in the port of New York during the business hours of two days. Yet this amount was, in 1791, a very great one, and sufficed to pay two thirds of the annual expenses of the Government. It left, however, a deficit of eight hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, and, to meet such contingencies in future, the secretary urged the passage of an excise bill and the establishment of a bank.
The proposal of such a bill was, on his part, a bold measure ; for, of all the words that make up the English vocabulary, the word excise is, to the ears of the multitude, the most odious. What the tune of Boyne Water is to a Corkonian, that, and more than that, has the sound of excise been to Englishmen and men of English descent from the time of Sir Dudley Carle- ton down. This Hamilton well knew, and he labored hard to make the plan objectionable to no one. His friends in the Senate were the first to act, and a bill framed in strict accord ance with his wishes was soon sent down to the House. But scarcely had the first line been read when Jackson, of Geor gia, was on his feet demanding to be heard. He was stopped, called to order, and bidden to sit down till the bill had been read through, f He obeyed, and, when the clerk finished, ad dressed the House in a fiery, rambling speech. :£ He reviewed
* See, for a few of these complaints, New York Journal and Patriotic Regis- ter, February 10 and March 21, 1791. Gazette of the United States, January 6, February 16, March 12, July 16, and November 16, 1791. The Gazette hag also some remarks copied from the Maryland Herald.
f Benton's Abridgment of the Debates in Congress.
t Fisher Ames to Dwight, January 6, 1791.
26 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. TH
the whole financial policy of the Government. He exclaimed against assumption ; he denounced the Funding System, and when at last the subject under debate was reached, declared such a mode of taxation to be odious, unequal, and unjust. It was clearly another blow at the South. Nobody in the East cared what the price of liquor was, for there cider and beer were still left to fall back on. But in the South there were no orchards and no brew-houses. Men drank liquor because it was to them as much a necessity as bread and meat. For this he had the authority of a distinguished writer. Mr. Morse had pronounced grog to be a necessary drink in the South, and would any northern gentleman dispute the sayings of an east ern author and a clergyman ? As to the petition of the Col lege of Physicians, lately read in the House, it was all fudge. What business had the doctors to interfere ? Why did they not strive to tax out of use a dozen other articles just as poison ous ? There were mushrooms : why not pray Congress to stop the sale of catsup because some fools had been poisoned by eating mushrooms ? The truth was that the excise was an Eng lish custom, and Americans had so fallen into the habit of imitating the English that they too must have an excise. He plainly foresaw the time was at hand when a man could not have even his shirt washed without a tax.
The speech ended, he moved to strike out the first paragraph of the bill. But his language and his manner had so disgusted the House that fourteen members were all who rose with him in the affirmative. So poor a following, had he been a cautious and a cool man, would have kept him thenceforth quiet in his seat. But the next day the excitable Georgian was again upon the floor, as noisy and voluble as ever. He would not, he said, be deterred by the defeat of yesterday. While a monitor spoke within, nothing should hinder him from discharging a plain duty. He was not the first gentleman in the House that had been outvoted by silent majorities, and he consoled himself with the reflection that this silence came from an utter ina bility to answer his remarks.
The speakers following set forth, undoubtedly, what were the arguments of the politicians and tavern oracles who nightly exposed the horrors of an excise law to knots of attentive
1791. AN EXCISE RESISTED. 27
listeners. Gentlemen at the last session of Congress, it was said, had thrust assumption on the country with the assurance that the income of the Government would be amply suffi cient to meet all demands. Now they were not ashamed to come forward, declare a great deficiency in the revenue, and ask for more taxes. But did this deficiency really exist? Gentlemen went upon the supposition that every dollar of the State debts had been assumed by the Government. Was this the case ? Far from it. Many of the claims against the States had not been, and perhaps never would be, presented. Then why this unseemly haste to gather money for which there was no immediate need ? But admitting that there was a pressing demand for every penny of it, did that justify the levying of a most ruinous and mischievous tax ? An excise ! It ought to be the very last resort of a people driven to the wall and en gaged in a final struggle for existence ; and were Americans come to this pass? Was there no other means at hand for raising money ? It was the fashion to ape Great Britain. Why not, then, do as the British had done, and put a round duty on salaries, pensions, lawyers, suits pending in the courts ? Some men seemed to think that, because the people had submitted and without a murmur paid down near two millions of dollars in duties, therefore they were ready to bear any tax. Never was there a greater mistake. The country was in no humor to stand an excise. Half of it was in a ferment already. Had not North Carolina rejected with jeers and loud cries of scorn the proposal to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States? Had she not refused to suffer continental prisoners to be lodged in her jails ? Were not her judges deep in a quarrel with the Federal judges? Was not Georgia excited over the treaty with the Creeks? Had Virginia re covered from her indignation at the Assumption bill? Yet these were the very States in which an excise would be most galling. So great was the consumption of ardent spirits in the South that, were the bill to pass, North Carolina alone would pay ten times as much duty as Connecticut. The man must indeed be dull of comprehension who supposed for a moment that a high-spirited people would support such a burden, and be quiet while an army of harpies scoured the land, prying
28 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vii
into cellars, breaking open barns, rummaging in garrets, and bearing down all before them like a Macedonian phalanx. To talk about such proceedings being popular, to say the people would think they were drinking down the national debt, to assert that an excise would promote morality, showed gross ignorance of the character of free Columbians. It might keep some weak men from getting too deep in their cups, but it would turn thousands of others into cheats, frauds, and smugglers.
With arguments like these the southern members prolonged the debate till the patience of the House was far spent. But at last, on the twenty-seventh of January, 1791, the engrossed bill lay upon the table, and when the Speaker asked, " Shall this bill pass ? " thirty-five members stood up in the affirmative and twenty-one in the negative.
Meanwhile a bill for chartering the Bank of the United States had come down from the Senate. The charter had passed in that body with scarce a dissenting voice, had been ordered to a third reading in the House, and the question of its passage put, when Smith, of South Carolina, sounded the alarm. Jackson supported him, the bill was quickly recom mitted, and a warm debate opened. Smith made his motion on the first of February. But not till the eighth of the month were the ayes and nays taken for the last time.
The plan which excited so much opposition provided that a number of subscribers should be incorporated into a bank, to be known as the Bank of the United States. The capital was to be ten million dollars ; the number oi shares twenty-five thousand ; the par value of each share four hundred dollars. The Government was to become a subscriber to the amount of two millions, and to require in return a loan of an equal sum, payable in ten yearly instalments of two hundred thou sand dollars each. The rest of the capital stock was to be open to the public, and to be paid for, one quarter in gold and silver and three quarters in the six or three per cent certificates of the national debt. The life of the Bank was to end in 1811, and, that capitalists might be induced to subscribe promptly, a pledge was given that for twenty years to come Congress would incorporate no other.
1791. THE FIRST BANKS. 29
Two kinds of arguments were urged by the men whom in terest or blind prejudice moved to stand out against the bill. Some declared it to be unconstitutional. Some asserted that a bank was of no use. That such an objection should have been made and urged with force seems at first thought strange, for it is hard to believe that the gigantic system of banking which is now the mainstay of business and the prop of every enter prise is not yet ninety years old, and that when the revolution opened nothing of the kind was known in the country. The number of such institutions is at present more than seven thou sand four hundred. Their capital exceeds seven hundred and seventy millions of dollars. Their deposits are far above twenty-nine hundred millions; their notes are freely taken in every city of the Union.* In 1791, in most of the States, a bank-bill had never been seen. Beyond the mountains, in the districts of Kentucky and of Tennessee, military warrants and guard certificates, horses and cows, oxen, cow-bells, and acres of land, constituted the money with which the people paid their debts and in which they expressed their wealth. f In western Pennsylvania whiskey was the circulating medium. In the South every merchant and planter so fortunate as to have coin kept it securely locked in strong-boxes in his own home, and, when a note was brought, told down the joes and Spanish dol lars with his own hand.
In truth, but four great cities in the country could boast of a bank. The oldest and most opulent of them all was the work of Robert Morris, was at Philadelphia, was known as the Bank of North America, and had not yet completed its tenth year. For three years no rival appeared ; but in 1Y84 two sprang up almost simultaneously. The first in point of time was the Massachusetts Bank at Boston, which began busi ness on a capital that would not now suffice to purchase one of the many magnificent buildings in which a host of clerks and book-keepers transact the business of its competitors. Four months later some New York merchants obtained a char ter from their Legislature amidst a pamphlet war as furious
* In 1883 the national banks numbered 2,308 ; savings banks, 667 ; private bankers, etc., 4,473. See the Report of the Comptroller of the Currency for 1883, f Putnam's History of Middle Tennessee.
30 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. vn.
as that between the imposters and the non-imposters, opened the doors of their institution, and the Bank of New York be gan to receive deposits and make loans. The Maryland Bank at Baltimore came next ; but the year was drawing to a close before a single depositor came to its counter, and its name does not, therefore, appear in that famous paper which Hamil ton drew up and submitted to the President on the subject of the proposed bank.*
The Antif ederalists, therefore, who declared such a corpora tion would be of no use, and that not one of its notes would ever find its way to Georgia or New Hampshire, said no more than many of their hearers believed. In the four opulent towns where banks existed, five men out of ten had nothing to put in them. Of those who had, some were deterred from making deposits by the recollection that their fathers had never done so before them, others by the strong antipathy which they felt for banks in general. The old way, they said, of doing busi ness was good enough. If a man were prosperous and had cash to spare, the best place to keep it was in his own house under his own lock and key. If he were in a pinch, there were always a dozen merchants who would, on proper security, endorse his bills or loan him money at a low rate of interest ; but let banks be set up, and all such transactions would, in a little while, be over their counters. Merchants would be de prived of the lawful gains of lending ; embarrassed tradesmen would be ground down by extortionate discounts. It was only necessary to look at New York or Philadelphia to see this fully exemplified. In those cities the banks were fast growing rich on the money wrung from debtors. They were moneyed .monopolies ; they were aristocratic institutions ; they encouraged usury ; they took coin out of circulation ; they set up false credits; they unsettled all the safeguards of trade. Men who under the colonial way of buying would have had
* The Bank of North America was chartered on December 31, 1781, and the Massachusetts Bank on February 7, 1784. The Bank of New York commenced business June 9, 1784. The Maryland Bank was chartered in November, 1790, and started with two thirds of its capital paid in 1791. The capital of the four sums up to $1,950,000. For the discussion over the New York Bank, see New York Packets for 1784. Traditions of other banks existing at a much earlier period have come down to us. But they were loan offices, and in no sense banka
1791. OBJECTIONS TO THE BANK. 3J
no standing in the mercantile community now figured as great merchants (thanks to the fictitious credit the banks enabled them to keep up), deceived honest people, and, when they went to pieces, caused great distress. The duty of a good govern ment was to destroy, not to charter monopolies.
It was useless to tell men who talked in this way that the proposed Bank could do none of these objectionable things ; that it could not hold an acre of ground above what was needed for its own use, except the land came as a judgment, or to sat isfy a mortgage ; that it could not own a bushel of grain or a bale of goods except as security for a loan, nor buy a single bond of the United States ; and that, as seven and a half mill ions of dollars in certificates were to be exchanged for bills, money would be thrown into circulation, not taken out. They invariably sought refuge in the assertion that a charter would be unconstitutional. The Constitution, said the very grumblers who three years before denounced it most bitterly, gives no direct authority to Congress to create banks, and where au thority is not directly expressed, it is implicitly withheld. They were told that Congress was every day doing a dozen things for which no authority was to be found in the Constitution. Where were the articles empowering that body to buy up the national debt in the market, to redeem captives in Algiers, or to give a salary to the Vice-President ? Yet were any of these acts thought to be unlawful ? The Antif ederalists answered that these were not parallel cases, that the Bank bill infringed the rights of States, that it authorized the subscribers to buy and hold lands in the cities, and that such power could be granted by the States alone. This, the supporters of the measure re sponded, was absurd, and made the debate lose all Solemnity. Near every great town was some spot over which the State had no control. Wherever there was an arsenal, wherever there was a light-house, wherever there was a Government wharf, or an acre of public land, there was the will of Con gress supreme. What, then, hindered national banks from being established at Reedy Island, at Conococheague, or among the shells and sea- weed of Sandy Hook ? Such places, it was indeed true, were not suitable, but they proved beyond a doubt that Congress could lawfully grant a charter, though the
82 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, m
Constitution did not declare the right in so many words. Then their opponents took refuge in the Federalist, and shrewdly defended their arguments with garbled sentences drawn from those numbers believed to be by the hand of Hamilton.
The plan, however, was much liked, and passed the House by a handsome majority, on a vote which, like many of the votes of that session and of sessions yet to come, was greatly affected by the line that Mason and Dixon ran out twenty- eight years before. Of the thirty-five members who came from the North, but one, on that day, voted against the Bank. Five of the twenty-four southerners supported the bill, and among them was John Sevier.
After three years of as strange vicissitudes as ever fall to the lot of heroes in novels and plays, the fortune of Sevier was once more prospering. On the summer day in 1788, when he came back from his campaign against the Indians, the plight of no man in all the Tennessee district seemed more desperate. His government was gone. He had by name been cut off from the benefit of the Act of Pardon and Oblivion. He had been declared a traitor, and a warrant for his arrest was out. To find a judge hard-hearted enough to issue the war- rant was difficult ; for, whatever opinion lawyers and magis trates over the mountains might hold of his conduct, it was in Tennessee thought to be manly and just. No frontiers man, unless a boon companion of Tipton, ever called Sevier by any other name than Nollichucky Jack, or spoke of him as other than a man who had rendered important services to the State ; who, in a great crisis, had brought order out of con fusion, had set up a vigorous government, had administered a strict justice, and, by promptness and decision, saved the dis trict from the horrors of an Indian war.
For a long time, therefore, Sevier continued to show him self in the settlements, and ventured to appear at Jonesboro during a muster of the militia. Even then all might have gone well had he not quarrelled with an old enemy, who, with the aid of Tipton and his band, seized him by night, dragged him to Morganton, and threw him into jail. At Morganton, in broad daylight, in the midst of a crowded court-room, he was rescued by a friend, was sent the next year to the Senate of
1791. ANDREW JACKSON. 33
North Carolina, presented himself at the capitol, took his seat, procured an act of pardon, and, in 1T90, was elected to Congress.
It is said that in the throng that stood in the log court house at Morganton on the day of the rescue was a young lad whose intrepidity, whose energy, whose fiery temper and in tense love of right, made him in after-years the most remarka ble man the Republic had yet produced. His parents were Protestant Irish, came over from Carrickfergus in 1765, and made a clearing and built a cabin at Twelve Mile Creek, a branch of the river Catawba, whose valley has since become renowned for its wine-producing grapes. Waxhaw, the near est settlement, lay partly in North and partly in South Caro lina, and some doubt therefore exists as to which was his native State. To the end of his life, Andrew Jackson seems to have believed it was South Carolina. But his biographers have cor rected his error, and decided that it was not. However this may be, Jackson grew up to manhood at Waxhaw, and carried through life a deep scar on his hand and another on his head as evidence of the brutality of Tarleton's men. For a time he was a saddler's boy. Then he became a law student ; and at twenty-one was on his way over the mountains to act as public prosecutor for the district of Tennessee. For three years he spent his time suing debtors and fighting Indians around Nash ville. Before he was twenty-five, two thirds of the law busi ness of western Tennessee was in his hands.
The settlements from which Jackson drew most of his prac tice lay scattered along the bluffs of the Cumberland river for a distance of eighty miles. Some few cabins, it is true, were to be found huddled together, as far back from the water of the river as twelve miles. But they stood in the midst of an almost unbroken wilderness, and the people dwelling in them lived in never-ending dread of the bullets and arrows of the savages. The dense forests of hardwood trees, the matted un derbrush, the tall cane that covered the face of the earth for miles and miles in every direction, turned the whole country into a lurking-place and ambush for the most crafty and im placable of foes. No man dared to fell a tree, to plant an acre of corn, to pick a berry from a bush, to go to the nearest spring
VOL. II. — 3.
34 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. YII
for water, or even to Bit in the shade of his own cabin, but his gun and his powder-horn were ready beside him. During four teen years the death-rate was as high as one human being in every ten days. In 1787 thirty-three men were killed by In dians within seven miles of Nashville.
The hamlet which in 1791 bore the name of Nashville was twelve years old. Seventy-seven years before, Charlville, the first white man known to have set foot upon the soil, came hunting and trapping through the country with a band of Frenchmen. They were much taken by the spot, settled on it, and put up a few rude huts hard by the ruins of a de serted Shawnee fort. But the Frenchmen in time departed as the Indians had before them, and when, in 1779, James Robertson came up the Cumberland with a party of pioneers, a few heaps of rotting logs were all they saw of Charlville's huts. Close to these they camped, and the following spring were joined by their families and friends, and the settlement of Nashville began.*
When Jackson first beheld the town in 1788 it consisted of a court-house, a jail, and upward of eighty cabins of the rudest kind. The floors of these habitations were made of puncheons ; the roofs were clapboarded ; the sides were of rough-hewn logs and chinked. The windows, closed with thick shutters, were without glass. Only the more pretentious houses, those whose dimensions exceeded twenty feet on a side, whose rooms num bered more than two, had doors hung on hinges which the blacksmith had beaten out of the tires of a broken-down wagon or the cast-off shoes of a horse. Bedsteads were rarely seen, for few settlers had more than one room, in which the whole family lived, ate, and at night lay down to sleep on piles of skins, to find in the morning that snakes and insects had shared with them the warmth of the bed.f Nashville was indeed an
* " Notice is hereby given that the new road from Campbell's Station to Nash- Tille was opened on the twenty-fifth of September, and the guard attended at that time to escort such persons as were ready to proceed to Nashville, . . . and that on the first day of October next the guard will attend at the same place for the same purpose." North Carolina State Gazette, November 28, 1788.
f Francis Baily, an astronomer of some note, and the founder of the Royal Astronomical Society, has left a pleasing account of a journey through Tennessee, etc. See Journal of a Tour in the Unsettled Parts of the United States of North
1791. KENTUCKY AND VERMONT. 35
outpost of civilization. Not a house was to be met with be tween it and Natchez. To reach Knoxville, the first town of any size to the eastward, was a fifteen days' journey over the mountains and across a country so infested with Indians that immigrants dared not traverse it without a guard. North of Nashville the country was trackless to the Kentucky border.
Kentucky was soon to become a State. After seven years of murmuring and petitioning, the prayers of the people to be separated from Virginia were heard. But not till four acts of session had been passed by Virginia, and nine conventions held by the people of Kentucky, did the bill pass both Houses of Congress and receive the assent of the President. Fourteen days later (February twenty-eighth, 1791) a like privilege was given to Vermont. The admission of Kentucky into the Union was put off till the first of June, 1792. But Vermont became a State immediately after Congress rose, and Congress rose on the third of March.
Meanwhile the progress of the Bank bill was watched with great anxiety. After passing the House it had been sent to the President with all possible speed. But Washington withheld his signature till the ten days allowed by law were all but spent. His determination had been much shaken by the ar guments advanced in the debate in the House, and by the rea sonings which from time to time had come out in the gazettes. Some assured him that the measure was wholly unconstitu tional from beginning to end, and that he would do well to have a care how he wantonly violated a constitution he had done so much to make a success. Others told him that, even if setting up a bank were constitutional, it was still impolitic. A moneyed class, a few of the holders of certificates, would be given benefits and privileges that could not be enjoyed by all. A small aristocracy of wealth would be created, and bring down upon the Government the heavy hatred of the great mass of the people for whose good the Constitution had been framed, and to whom in time of trouble it must look for sup port. The Bank, moreover, would defeat a very important purpose of Congress. That body had decreed that after the
America in 1796 and 1797. By the late Francis Daily, F. R. S., President of the R. A. S. London, 1851.
£6 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, m
year 1800 the seat of Government should be somewhere on the Potomac river. But let the Bank law go into effect, and Philadelphia would at once become the centre of all the stock jobbing and speculating operations of the land; numberless interests, then quite unknown, would spring up, and, after ten years had gone by, Congress would be found fast anchored and immovable on the very spot where it then was.
Each of these arguments had much weight with the Presi dent, and, in his doubt what to do, he turned to Randolph and Jefferson for advice. They begged him not to sign.
That Randolph should have done so was natural, for he was a man of no decision of character, and a most consummate master of the art of splitting hairs. So fertile was his mind in distinctions of useless nicety, objections and objections to ob jections, that, no matter which side of a question he set out to argue, he was almost always certain to bring up on the other. He had first come into public notice as a member of what was called Washington's military family, had risen to be Governor of Virginia, had sat in the Federal Convention, and had thence climbed to the high place from which a few years later he was driven overwhelmed with disgrace. His conduct in the Con vention well shows the character of his mind. He brought in the Virginia Plan, urged it strongly, and saw it adopted by the committee. But from that moment he began to see objections, opposed the Constitution bitterly, refused to sign it, went home, changed, became a warm Federalist, and gladly took office under the instrument he once thought too bad to sub scribe. But hard as it was for Randolph to come to a deci sion, and stand by it, the Bank bill gave him little trouble, His natural bias led him to find faults in it, and to these he was kept firm by his cousin, the Secretary of State.
Much of Jefferson's dislike to the bill may undoubtedly have been sincere. But by far the larger part sprang from in tense hatred of Hamilton. He could not bear to see the great est place in the Cabinet filled by any but himself. It fretted him to think that while Knox was busy with the petty affairs of a regiment of troops, that while he himself spent hours of every day in exchanging notes with the French minister, or writing chiding letters to Carmichael or Short, or listening
1791. SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE BANK. 37
to the claims of rival inventors, Hamilton was perfecting a financial policy that drew upon him the eyes of the whole continent. The Revenue bill, the Assumption Act, the Fund ing System, were fast bringing the country to a state of pros perity which seemed marvellous. The men who two years before beheld the national debt steadily growing larger and larger, saw with delight great sums of it bought and can celled every few months by the Government. All over the land mills and factories were going up, and such a demand was made for money that the price of it was already one per cent a month. Yet the sight of this business activity excited in the breast of Jefferson, the stern patriot, only malignant hatred for the man to whose fertile brain and untiring labor it was due. When, therefore, Washington sought advice of the Secretary of State, Jefferson drew up a paper in which he attacked the Bank bill with bitterness. This reply, and that of Randolph, were sent to Hamilton. But they soon came back to the President with such an able refutation that he signed the bill and it became a law.
Not a moment was lost in putting the Bank into operation. The announcement was made that, on the morning of July fourth, 1791, the books would be opened for subscriptions at Philadelphia. Every one who on that day entered his name for a share was to be required to pay twenty-five dollars down ; twenty-five dollars in specie and one hundred and fifty in public securities on the first of January, 1Y92 ; twenty-five dollars in specie and seventy-five in securities on the first of July, 1792, and the same sum of each on the first of January, 1Y93. Five thousand shares were taken by the Government ; twenty thousand were offered to the people. The most san guine Federalist had never doubted that several weeks would pass before so great a number of shares would find their way to private hands. But the sun was scarce up on the morning of Monday, the fourth of July, when the street in front of Carpenter's Hall was filled with a crowd of merchants and speculators, laughing and jesting, and exchanging snuff.* The doors had not been open fifteen minutes when those who could get within hearing had offered subscriptions for twenty-four
* Pennsylvania Gazette, July 6, 119\,
88 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, m
thousand shares.* This was four thousand more than could, by law, be taken. The commissioners were amazed and de lighted, closed the books, and instantly adjourned, that they might consider what to do with the extra subscriptions^ Only a few payments were made, and the gentleman who was so for tunate as to have put down the first twenty-five dollars re ceived fifty for his receipt before quitting the building. J Early the next day a meeting of the subscribers was held, and the conclusion reached that it was no more than just that each should suffer a pro rata deduction from his subscription — that every man who made a bid might get some stock.**
But this amicable arrangement was far from satisfying the unfortunate ones who stood in the outskirts of the crowd or lived in distant cities. They went into a rage, and denounced the Bank as a job. Certificates, it was said, sent by gentlemen at New York for eight hundred shares, and by gentlemen at Boston for a yet larger number, had been excluded ; but not a single refusal had been given to a Philadelphian. The Bank, therefore, was clearly to be carried on for the good of Phila delphia. I Nor were the grumblers silenced when it appeared that more than half the bank scrip, as it was called, was owned in Massachusetts'^ and New York. Not a dollar was sub scribed at Baltimore, and very few in North Carolina or Vir ginia. Q Late in May a meeting was held at Charleston, and resolutions passed to purchase some of the shares. For a week a paper was carried about the city, the citizens urged to be
* The newspapers of the time state that the bank was filled in fifteen minutes. American Daily Advertiser, July 8, 1791. Jefferson says in less than an hour. Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791. Washington to Humphreys, July 20, 1791, and to G. Morris, July 28, 1791.
f See the account in the Pennsylvania Gazette, July 6, 1791. J American Daily Advertiser, July 12, 1791.
* American Daily Advertiser, July 7, 1791. The bank opened its doors for deposits December 12, 1791. Ibid., December 19, 1791.
I Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791.
A Late in March the subscriptions to the Bank of the United States summed up in Massachusetts to $3,534,731^- American Daily Advertiser, August 23, 1791. An attempt was made to have the State subscribe to four hundred shares, but the vote stood : ayes, 35 ; nays, 112. See Herald of Freedom, June 13, 1791 ,' American Daily Advertiser, June 27 and 28, 1791.
0 Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791.
1791. SPECULATION. 39
prompt, and told that, unless the deposit was paid in Philadel phia on the first of July, they would surely be " left out," so great was the eagerness to subscribe at the North.* Yet little of the scrip went to Charleston. That this should have been so is not strange. It is in part to be ascribed to the dis tances these cities were from Philadelphia, and in part to the thorough search the speculators had made for certificates in every village and hamlet of the South. But, when all due allowance has been made, the significant fact still remains that in 1791 the wealth of the Republic was in the North.
And now that the Bank, as the phrase went, had filled, the price of its stock began to rise. Before the close of July a wild desire to speculate in the scrip broke out at Philadelphia and New York. Men of all ranks f made haste to buy it, and, if they had not the money at hand, borrowed and gladly paid, some two and a half per cent a month, and some one per cent a week. J For the whole summer scarce anything else was bought or sold or talked of. The sfock- jobbers, it was said, were the only men having anything to do, and if a man had not stock he might as well shut himself up in his cellar.* Tradesmen complained that their shops were deserted; mer chants that their bales lay unopened in their warehouses. Even busy men asserted that they could not snatch a moment from their labors and sit down in the coffee-house to read the gazettes but the eternal buzz of the gamblers drove them out. I
By the first of August the scrip had gone well above par. On the second, a New York house which dealt largely in stocks sold two hundred shares at one hundred dollars pre mium ; and it was noticed that on the same day the Bank of
* American Daily Advertiser, June 24, 1791.
f " Of all the shameful circumstances of this business, it is among the great est to see members of the Legislature, who were most active in pushing this job, openly grasping its emoluments." Madison to Jefferson, July 10, 1791.
J Madison to Jefferson, New York, August 4, 1791.
* American Daily Advertiser, August 29, 1791.
H " In fact, stock-jobbing drowns every other subject. The coffee-house is in an eternal buzz with the gamblers." Madison to Jefferson, New York, July 10, 1791. "The land office, the Federal town, certain schemes of manufacture are likely to be converted into aliment for that rage (speculation)." Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791.
40 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vu
the State of New York was filled in five minutes.* A week later two hundred and eighty dollars was asked and paid down for shares at New York.f The next day, August llth, they fell to two hundred and five, f but twenty-four hours later rose again to two hundred and twenty.* News had come in that far higher prices were being freely paid at Phila delphia. Indeed, on the eleventh of August, while the scrip was bringing but two hundred and five at New York, it was selling for three hundred and twenty at Philadelphia. The excitement became intense. On the morning of the twelfth the coffee-houses were filled with men eager to sell, and, as a natural consequence, || the men who in the morning sold at three hundred bought back before sundown at one hundred. The rage of those who a few hours before had fancied themselves the owners of fortunes was great. In their fury the losers railed at the Government,A and reviled their luck and the men who in an evil hour had sold them the stock. The Bank was, they said, a vile South Sea dream ; Law's Missis sippi scheme was pure and honest compared with it. Duer and Constable and some other treasury agents had sent up the balloon, while a combination of knowing ones at New York had, by fictitious purchases, maintained the price of stock and deceived the credulous and the ignorant. Q It was all the work of the certificate men, the tools of the ministry, the aristocrats, the conspirators against liberty, the workers of that " aristocrat- ical engine " which was to squirt money into the pockets of the people as plentifully as dirt. J But the public gave them small comfort, and the press made merry with them. When they denounced speculation they were laughed at as sufferers of the prevailing distempers, scripomania and scripophobia. $
* New York Journal, August 3, 1791. f Ibid., August 13, 1791.
t Ibid. * Ibid. f Federal Gazette, August 12, 1791.
A Two years later, in a virulent Democratic pamphlet, it is asserted that " a faction of monarchic speculators seized upon its legislative function in the com. mencement, and have directed all its operations since." See An Examination of the Late Proceedings in Congress respecting the Official Conduct of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1793. 0 Hamilton to Duer, August 17, 1791.
| New York Journal, August 10, 1791.
$ Ibid. See, also, some complaints in New York Daily Advertiser, August 17 1791.
1791. • "SCRIPOPHOBIA." 4-1
The symptoms of the diseases were declared to be a long face, a pale complexion, deep silence, a light purse, and a heavy heart.* The misery of those afflicted became the subject of numberless poems and squibs, f When they charged their ill-fortune on the members of the Government, they were told they dealt in generalities. Come down, it was said, to facts. Specify some one, not members of the Government. Speculation and job bery charged in the lump are as vague as witchcraft and heresy.
Little buying and selling of scrip seems to have gone on outside of the coffee-houses of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Yet the enemies of the Bank were everywhere, in the East, in the far South, and among the whiskey-stills, which, more plentiful than grain-mills in New England, studded the shores of the Monongahela and the Ohio ; but to the still- owner this was only one of many mischievous institutions of Government of which the excise was chief. It is quite safe to assert that in no other part of the United States could so many stills be found, could so much whiskey be made and consumed, as in the four western counties of Pennsylvania. Nowhere else in the United States was the duty, therefore, so hateful. The law went into operation on the first of July, and on the day before officers were busy in all the large cities branding tuns, puncheons, and pipes with the words " Old
* Aurora or General Advertiser, August 16, 1791.
f The Glass ; or, Speculation. A poem containing an account of the ancient and genius of the modern speculators. New York, 1791. For some remarks on the mania, see The Prompter, p. 11 ; a poem called McScrip-Crack, in Aurora, August 26, 27, 1791 ; Columbian Magazine, August, 1791 ; Independent Gazetteer, August 2, 1791. New York Journals, August 13 and September 14, 1791.
At New York scrip on which twenty-five dollars had been paid sold for cash on
August 10, at 280. " 11, " 205. " 12, " 220.
August 13, at 206 to 212. " 16, " 160 " 172. " 26, " 199-5 " 200-5.
At Philadelphia, August 12, 141-161 ; August 14, 307-312. On forty-five days' credit, 315.
At Philadelphia, one hundred and fifty dollars were often paid by single specu lators to an express who, leaving New York on the evening of one day with the closing price of stocks, would be in Philadelphia early on the morning of the next day. In the Rush manuscripts some of the tricks of the speculators are men tioned.
42 THE BEGINNING OF PROSP ^RITY. CHAP, vu
Stock." * But in the whiskey region no one could be found to do such work. The resolutions of North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland against the excise, and, above all, the shameful debates and resolutions of Pennsylvania, had made the distill ers bold. They began by dissuading men from taking office under the inspector. They next formed associations of those who, in the language of the district, were ready to "for bear" entering their stills. They ended by working them-' selves into a fury and calling a meeting of distillers for the twenty-seventh of July at Redstone Old Fort, a town on which the inhabitants have since bestowed the humbler name of Brownsville. From this gathering went out a call for two conventions. One was to meet on the twenty-third of August at Washington, in Pennsylvania. The date chosen for the meeting of the second was September seventh, and the place Pittsburg. Both were held. That at Washington denounced the law, and called on all good people to treat every man tak ing office under it with contempt, and withhold from him all comfort, aid, and support.f That at Pittsburg complained bitterly of the salaries of the Federal officers, of the rate of interest on the national debt, of the Funding System, of the Bank, and of the tax on whiskey. J
Meantime the collector for the counties of Washington and Alleghany was set upon. On the day before the Pittsburg meeting a party of armed men waylaid him at a lonely spot on Pigeon Creek, stripped, tarred, and feathered him, cut off his hair, and took away his horse.* They were disguised, yet he recognized three of the band, and swore out warrants against them in the District Court at Philadelphia. These were sent to the marshal ; but the marshal was a prudent man, and gave them to his deputy who, early in October, went down into Alleghany to serve them. He hid his errand, and, as he rode along, beheld such signs of the angry mood of the people, and heard such threats, that he came back with the writs in
* New York Journal, July 2, 1791. American Daily Advertiser, July 6, 1791. f Brack enridge's Incidents of the Insurrection, iii, p. 17.
\ American Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1791.
* Findley's History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pent sylvania in the Year 1794, ed. 1796, p. 68.
1791. VIOLENCE OF "THE WHISKEY BOYS." 43
his pocket, unserved. And now he determined to send them under cover of private letters, and selected for the bearer a poor, half-witted cow-driver. The messenger knew not what he bore ; but when the people found out that he was deliver ing writs, he was seized, robbed of his horse and money, whipped till he could scarcely stand, tarred, feathered, blind folded, and tied to a tree in the woods. Yet more atrocious was their treatment of an unfortunate man named Wilson. He had long been known in the region as a person of disordered mind, and he now, under the excitement of the time, became insane. He fancied himself an inspector, went about among the stills and warehouses, and told openly that he was collect ing information for the Government. To those whose minds were not as dark as that of Wilson, the dress, the behavior, the babble of the poor fool would have marked him out as an object of pity. Not so the mob. Led away by passion and whiskey, they went one night to the house where he lay, dragged him from his bed, carried him to the nearest smithy, burned his clothing, branded, tarred, feathered, and turned him loose. During his punishment the wretched man dis played the heroic fortitude of one who thinks himself a martyr in a great cause. When his tormentors had finished he was, says one who saw him, " a sight to make human nature shud der." A few days later another named Roseberry was visited. He had been overheard to say in conversation that the " whis key boys " had no right to expect protection from a govern ment whose laws they set at naught. Two who were witnesses in the case of Wilson were then carried off, and with this the violence of the rioters ceased.
It was some time before full reports of these proceedings reached Philadelphia, and, while they were yet fresh in the public mind, news of a still more alarming kind came from Ohio. An officer in full uniform was seen one afternoon to gallop through the streets of the city, draw up at the Presi dent's door, throw his bridle to an orderly, and hastily ascend the steps. The President, he was told, was at dinner and could not see him. But he insisted so firmly that the servant took his message to Mr. Lear, who then acted as private secretary to Washington. The secretary came out, was told by the officer
44: THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vn
that the letters could be delivered to none but the President, went back and whispered his message in the President's ear. But none of the company who looked on the placid and mo tionless face of Washington, as he again took his seat among them, saw any sign of the passion that raged within. Not till the meal was ended, and the last guest had departed, did he give way to his feelings and burst forth into a storm of re proaches. For a while Mr. Lear was at a loss to know what to make of it ; nor did he learn, till the fury had spent itself, that General St. Clair had been beaten and put to flight by the savages in the West.*
The purpose of St. Glair's expedition was to overawe the Indians by building a chain of forts from Cincinnati to the junc tion of St. Joseph and St. Mary rivers. The burning and scalp ing that had begun all along the Ohio on the fatal day when the troops of Harmar fled in dismay before the savages had been checked by two expeditions sent out from Kentucky. St. Clair, therefore, spent the spring and summer in slowly collecting troops and arms, and late in September marched from Ludlow station with two thousand three hundred regular troops, and a host of militia. His first stop was at the Great Miami, and there, on the high benches which border the river, he made a clearing and put up Fort Hamilton. f This done, he pushed on forty-four miles farther, and on the twenty-fourth of October finished Fort Jefferson. And now his troubles began. His health, for he had long been ailing, gave way, and, as the troops toiled slowly on, he was often compelled to lie down upon a litter. Food grew scarce, and the way became so bad that seven miles was a day's march. The regulars murmured. Every sunrise found the ranks of the militia diminished by scores. J Hundreds more were alternately burning with fever and shaking with chills. At last, on the third of November, the army, hungry, tired, sick, and wasted to fourteen hundred men, reached a small stream scarce fifty feet wide, and there
* Washington in Domestic Life, by R. Rush ; and Recollections and Private Memoirs, by G. W. P. Custis, pp. 416-419.
f St. Glair's Narrative of his Campaign, Philadelphia, 1812, pp. 14, 16.
\ St. Clair says they deserted sixty at a time. See his journal, American State Papers, v, 136, 137.
1791. THE INDIAN WAR. 45
camped. St. Clair believed it to be the St. Mary, a feeder of the Maumee. It was a branch of the Wabash river. On the bank of this creek the regulars were camped in two lines. Across the creek, and a quarter of a mile away, lay the militia, and a mile beyond them, in the dense brush, a little band of volunteer regulars commanded by a captain named Slough. His duty was to scour the woods for Indians. But the night had scarcely set in when he saw so many moving toward the tents that he led back his troops and made all haste to report to a general officer, was thanked for his vigilance, and bidden to go and rest. No more was seen of the enemy till the first streaks of dawn appeared in the sky. Then a heavy musketry-firing was heard in the direction of the camp of the militia, and, a few minutes later, such of them as had escaped with life rushed through the brook and into the camp of the regulars, with the Indians close in their rear. A sharp fire from a handful of troops that were in line checked the Indians, and they fled to cover. And now each party fought after its own fashion. A brave crouched in every bush, or stood be hind every tree. The soldiers, with a strict adherence to the rules laid down in the manuals, were drawn up in a compact body, with the artillery in the centre. The result was inevi table. Officer after officer was shot down. Again and again men went to the guns only to add fresh corpses to the heaps that lay around the carriages. Several bayonet charges were made with great spirit, to dislodge the Indians. But the instant the troops wheeled about, the foe in turn became pur suers, chased them into camp, poured in a fire more galling than ever, and with great deliberation scalped the soldiers who fell. After the fight had gone on for four hours it became evident to all that victory was with the Indians. Five officers of high rank lay dead and scalped. Five more could scarce stand up from wounds. Of the soldiers, not six hundred remained un hurt, and these, surrounded on every side, were cut off from the road, their only hope of retreat.* St. Clair determined to gain this at all costs and flee. No attempt was made to save
* An account of the battle may be read in American State Papers, vol. v, in American Daily Advertiser, December 13, 1791, and in a very graphic narrativ? by Benjamin Van Cleve. ,
£6 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. vn.
anything but life. Leaving the guns in position, the clothing and the blankets in the tents, and the half -cooked breakfast in the camp-kettles, the regulars made a final charge, gained the road, and, while the militia, pale with fear, rushed wildly along it, covered the retreat. Nothing could stay them. Every man dropped his musket, pulled off his heavy boots, threw away his hat and coat, and, deaf to the cries of the weak and wounded, ran with all his might.* So great was their speed that the twenty-nine miles it had taken ten days to march were passed over during the short sunlight of a November day. Before six that night the army was once more at Fort Jefferson.
The Indians pursued four miles, and then went back to perpetrate the most shocking cruelties on the wounded. The men they tore limb from limb. Through the bodies of the few women who had followed the troops they drove huge stakes. Never has there been such a crushing Indian victory. Of fourteen hundred men and eighty-six officers who went into the battle, but five hundred and ten men and seventy officers came out unscathed. The Indians did not number more than a thousand, but they fought with the courage of desperation, and were animated by the presence of the greatest of all chiefs. It was long supposed that the leader of the tribes on that terrible day was Little Turtle, a noted chief of the Mi- amis. But it is now known that they were led to the fight by Thayendanegea, whom the English called Joseph Brant. Many have supposed him to have been a half-breed; some have thought, the son of Sir William Johnson. There can be little doubt, however, that he was a Mohawk, and that his mother bore him on the banks of the Ohio river. His boyhood and youth he passed with the Onondagas at Canajoharie, rose to distinction among them, and was made secretary to Sir Guy Johnson while General Superintendent of the Indians. At the outbreak of the war the English won him to the side of the Crown, induced him to take up the hatchet, and to go upon those campaigns in which the massacres of Wyoming and the Minisink are the darkest and most terrible episodes. In the defeat of St. Glair one more was added to the already long
* See a letter from Captain Buntin to General St. Clair. Dillon's Histo*7 of Indiana, ed. 1843, vol. i, p. 308. Cist's Cincinnati Miscellany, vol. ii, p. 40
1791. CAUSE OF ST. GLAIR'S DEFEAT. 47
list of victories with which the name of Joseph Brant is joined.
As the news spread eastward a cry of terror went up from the whole western country. The citizens of Pittsburg re minded the Governor of Pennsylvania that Fort Pitt had been stripped of guns, troops, and powder ; that they were unable to defend themselves ; and that, if they fell a prey to the Indians, every town and hamlet in the valley would go with them. The people of western Pennsylvania begged hard for eight hun dred men, well armed, well officered, and well paid. A like appeal came from western Virginia.
Meanwhile every one was busy seeking where to lay the blame. The Antifederal sheets declared the disaster was due to the Bank and the Funding bill. It was a wise maxim that money easily got was as easily spent. Had not the Govern ment found a ready way to tap the purses of the people, thou sands of dollars would not have been squandered in a wicked attempt to rob the Indians of their liberty and their lands. The people put the blame on St. Clair, and, as he passed through the villages on his return home, came in crowds to hiss him and taunt him with jeers. The Secretary of War thought the defeat was to be ascribed to the rawness of the troops. The committee of the House of Eepresentatives laid it to the lateness of the season and the negligence of Hodgdon, the quartermaster, and the dishonesty of William Duer, the contractor for army supplies. But there were those who thought the month of November and a lazy officer had noth ing to do with an Indian surprise.
The Houses met on the twenty-fourth of October, 1791, and opened the first session of the second Congress. Many of the old members had been returned. But death and political intrigue had been busy among them, and some new faces were seen in the halls. To the House of Representa tives came Artemas Ward, a revolutionary general and a judge ; William Findley, the most bitter and acrimonious of all Anti- federalists, and General Anthony Wayne. Wayne was from Georgia in place of James Jackson, whose rants had so often disturbed the House for two sessions. But Jackson protested against the return, declared that fraud had been used at the
48 THE BEGINNING OF PEOSPERITY. CHAP. VIL
election, and made out so strong a case that, before the day of adjournment, Wayne was unanimously unseated. An attempt was made to bestow it 011 Jackson ; but the motion was lost by the casting vote of Trumbull, who sat in the chair as Speaker.
In the Senate, Johnson was gone and Elias Boudinot, and, as their successors, were Roger Sherman and George Cabot, a Boston merchant of wealth. New York sent one whom neither illustrious descent, nor physical courage, nor high breeding, nor eloquence, nor public renown, nor a mind singularly vig orous and acute, could save from a long life of ignominy and shame.
At the time, however, when Aaron Burr became a Senator, his career was yet before him. All who knew him still thought him a young man of great promise. Save Hamilton, no one had at so early an age risen to so high a place. Long after ward, when hated and despised, it became the custom to ascribe this early success to the influence of his family and the power of his name. Had not his grandfather, it was said, been the most profound scholar and the most acute theologian New England could boast ; had not his father been a power in the church, young Aaron would not have found the way to fame so easy and so short. But he owed it to his industry and his parts. At an age when most young men are about to enter college, Burr received his degree and went, when seventeen, to study theology under Joseph Bellamy's roof. No preacher in Connecticut was better known. His writings were popular, and his fame as a theologian brought so many students to his house that it might well have been considered a seminary for the education of divines. From this school Burr came forth at the end of a year with a profound contempt for sects and creeds, and began the study of law. But the moment the news of Lexington reached him, he flung away his books and joined the army at Cambridge. Thence he went with Arnold to the Sorel river, rose to be a colonel and an aid on Washington's staff, and, in 17Y9, quit the army and again took up the study of law. For a time he was at Haverstraw, on the Hudson. Then he practiced at Albany. In 1783 he removed to New York. The opening was a fine one. The war had greatly in creased the number of suits. The expulsion of the Tories
1791. AARON BURR. 49
had greatly reduced the number of lawyers, and Burr soon found plenty to do. Indeed, with Hamilton, he led the bar, and was sure to be found in every suit in which Hamilton was retained. The two were repeatedly opposed. For Hamilton belonged to the moderate Whigs, and Burr to that branch of the party which took an extreme and violent view, favored disfranchisement, and clamored for confiscation and the test act. By these men Burr was sent to the Legislature in 1784. But he seems to have been oftener in court than in his seat, and wa,s never returned. In the spring of 1788, it is true, the walls of the city were plastered with handbills informing the public that at the coming election the Sons of Liberty would give their support to Deming, Melancthon Smith, Marinus Willet, and Aaron Burr. But the Federalists carried the day. In 1789 Clinton made Burr Attorney-General of New York. In 1791 he took Philip Schuyler's place in the Senate of the United States.
While the Senators and Representatives were slowly arriv ing, a new journal was seen lying on the tables at Oeller's and the Wigwam. Subscriptions to it had long been solicited, and many had put down their names. Yet none understood that its appearance was full of great political meaning, and that it marked the beginning of a new party. The name of the news paper was the National Gazette. The editor was a man well known to all readers of the poetry of the revolution, and the few original articles its columns contained were sprightly and not ill written. In tone they would have been called Anti- federal had not that term of late begun to fall into disuse. Each of the two parties which three years before had disputed and wrangled over the Constitution had undergone a great change. That instrument was every day becoming more and more popular. The Federalists, therefore, while they still kept the party name, had ceased to be the upholders merely of the Constitution, and had become the supporters and defenders of the men they had placed in power. A Federalist in 1791 was a man who approved of assumption and funding, who thought the Bank a public blessing, who believed in the excise and reve nue system, who looked upon Hamilton as the first financier of the age, and impatiently awaited the day when his name and
VOL. II.— 4
50 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP, vn
his seal should appear at the end of proclamations and mes sages and national laws. The organ of this party was the United States Gazette.
Opposed to it were men who are by no means to be con founded with the Antifederalists. Many of the latter had, in deed, been won over to the Federalists by the amendments, the vigorous financial policy, and the revival of business which had followed so hard upon the adoption of the Constitution by eleven States. Ko small part of the Federal Republicans, for such was the name they assumed, were men who had gone with light hearts to cast their votes for Federal delegates to their State Conventions, who had cheered themselves hoarse, had built bonfires, discharged cannon, or marched in processions as the news of the ratification of State after State reached them, or had wept tears of joy as they saw the American Fabius pass through long lines of shouting people to take the oath of office. They had indeed deserted their old friends. But they were in no sense opposed to the Constitution. They were as deeply attached to it as on the ever glorious fourth of March whereon it became the supreme law of the land. They merely opposed the men who, under the Constitution, filled the high places in the Government. For in them the Republicans felt sure they saw unmistakable signs of monarchical feeling. What else, it was asked, could be the meaning of the titles with which the Senate had sought to disgrace Washington before it had been a week old ? Was it republican for a great people to celebrate the annual return of the birthday of its chief servant with bon fires, with bell-ringing, and with toasts \ Was it republican or monarchical to hold levees to which it was as hard to gain ad mission as to the court-balls and drawing-rooms of the Sovereign of Great Britain?* What was the meaning of the tawdry gowns in which the justices of the Supreme Court were tricked out ? Could any fair-minded and just man behold the equipage, the state ceremony of the Vice-President, and say it became a simple, frugal republican officer? Was a perusal of Mr. Adams's
* In summing up the Forerunners of Monarchy and Aristocracy in America, the National Gazette of December 12, 1792, puts in the list titles of Excellency, Honor- able, etc., levees, keeping the birthdays of servants of the Republic, huge salaries, and an irredeemable debt.
1791, RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 51
" Defence of the Constitutions " and his " Discourses on Davila," with their balances, their well-born, their distribution of titles, likely to inspire the youth of the country with a love of that simplicity and equality which is the life-blood of republics? Who was it the Secretary of the Treasury strove to attach to Government ? Who, to be sure, but certificate-men and stock jobbers, speculators and moneyed aristocrats? Did any one want better proof of the monarchical tendencies of the day ?
That discontented men should have raised such a cry, and that weak men should have taken it up, is not strange ? But no man at that time was so deeply impressed with the idea as Thomas Jefferson. After five years' residence in France he had come home, had been warmly welcomed by Washington, and rewarded for the great things he had done with the high place of Secretary of State. But scarcely had he taken office, and gone out to a few dinners and tea-parties at New York, when he began to discover odious signs of a coming monarchy. Both the man and the place were well suited to the growth of such an idea. Jefferson had but lately quitted a land where the whole nation, princes and dukes, learned doctors of the Academy and venal beauties of the court, were prating and singing and writing odes in praise of liberty and equality and the rights of man. He was saturated with democracy in its rankest form, and he remained to the last day of his life a ser vile worshipper of the people. New York was the least demo cratic city in the thirteen States. One half the population were avowed Tories. Of the rest, not a few recalled, with feelings of regret, the splendor of the colonial Governors, and still kept their coats of arms hanging in their libraries or in conspicuous places in their halls. The very members of Con gress and high functionaries of the Government seemed to this ardent lover of the people to be devoted admirers of kings. It is now well known that few of the public characters who jostled each other at the President's levees were strongly at tached to the Constitution. One has called it a frail and worth less fabric. Another has declared he never believed the union could be permanent. A third did not think its principles could be maintained. That men so disposed should, in conversation or over their wine, have let fall remarks which to a suspicious
52 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. vii.
listener seemed alarming, is quite likely. But that they could at the same time be faithful and zealous servants of the Repub lic was beyond the comprehension of Jefferson's mind. Their zeal, their patriotism, their illustrious public services, were to him but a cloak to cover up some horrid plot dangerous to the liberties of the people. What this plot was he longed to know ; and to discover it, he lowered himself to become the political Boswell of his time. No man could talk with him on the most trifling matter of state but he went straightway, the moment the door closed behind his guest, to put down the conversation for his Anas. If he attended a cabinet dinner or a levee, he came away with a memory stored with bits of garbled talk to be carried home and noted in his journal. Fragments of idle gossip reported to him by tale-bearers, anecdotes, remarks care lessly dropped by political opponents, were all carefully pre served. In a little while, therefore, he began to brand as mon archists and aristocrats men whose republican principles were as sound, and whose patriotism was as pure and lofty, as his own. The medium of his attacks was the National Gazette. Its editor was a poor clerk in his employ, named Freneau.
Philip Freneau had been in turn a poet, a journalist, a maga zine writer, and the captain of a ship, and had in these many occupations shown ability and skill. His " House of Night " and " Santa Cruz " were still thought fine poems. Thousands of men could never hear his name spoken without recalling the hearty laughs they once had over the " Reflections," " Confes sions," and " Last Will and Testament of Rivington." It was as a writer of news, however, that he was most successful, and, after several ocean voyages as a ship-captain, he abandoned the sea, went back to journalism, and began to think about setting up a newspaper of his own. At first he was for settling at Elizabethtown in New Jersey. But Madison, who was his old college friend, and Henry Lee, who was his devoted admirer, urged him to go to Philadelphia. For a time he hesitated. But finally he went, was made translating clerk in the Depart ment of State, and editor of the National Gazette, of which Jefferson was the master-mind. Freneau did indeed at one time take a solemn oath that none of the shameful articles that filled its columns were from Jefferson's pen. But as old age came
f O
1791. ABUSE OF WASHINGTON. 53
upon him he took back his statement. To one friend he de clared that Jefferson wrote or dictated the most abusive of them all. To another he showed a file of Gazettes in which were marked the articles that came from the hand of the Secretary of State. However this may be, it is certain that the Secretary approved of all that was printed, and, while he sat in the Cabi net and ate the bread of the President, continued to keep in his pay a clerk whose abuse of Washington makes that after ward poured out by Benjamin Franklin Bache seem almost decent. Civil remonstrances and broad hints were of no avail.* There was a vile taste for monarchy abroad which must be checked. That excellent Constitution which the Secretary had himself once called " a balloon sent up to keep the barn-yard in order" must be preserved. Adams was denounced as a monarchist. Hamilton was an aristocrat The holders of scrip were the " corrupt squadron." The Bank was a monarchical institution, a machine for the corruption of the Government. Language such as this was for some time confined to the columns of the Gazette and the mouths of a few Republicans. But, before the session closed it was boldly spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives. The results of the first census had been laid before the House, and a motion made that, till the next counting of the people, the ratio of representation should be one for each thirty thousand. During all the voting and de bating the line which parted the supporters from the opponents of the measure was strictly a geographical one. The North was for lowering the ratio. The South was for keeping it up. The present system of apportionment, said the friends of the motion, is most unjust and dangerous. Too much power is placed in the hands of a few. It is indeed true that a large
* On one occasion at a Cabinet meeting Washington observed : " That rascal Freneau sent him three copies of his paper every day, as if he thought he would become the distributer of them ; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him ; he ended in a high tone." Again on another day : " He ad verted to a piece in Freneau's paper of yesterday; he said he despised all such at tacks on him personally, but that there had never been an act of the Government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in any line, which that paper had not abused. He was evidently sore and warm, and I took his intention to be that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw hie appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it." Jefferson's AnaB.
54 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vn.
representation is not free from objections. Where responsibil ity is divided among a great number, each feels less of it. Public business, too, is retarded, more diversity of opinion brought in, and a way opened for all the evils of a pure democracy, or gathering of the whole people. But it must be remembered that the tendency of republics is not toward democracy, but toward monarchy. With wealth comes desire for rank and titles and vain distinctions. And could any man deny that this movement was going on in America? Had there not been a most alarming revolution in property within a year ? Had not a prodigious inequality in circumstances followed ? Had not Government itself done much to further this growth of a moneyed class? Was not the Bank of the United States a most important machine in promoting the interests of the rich ? Nay, in time, and in a short time, it would be a most powerful engine for corrupting the House of Representatives itself. Were not some of the members already become directors ? It was only by increasing the representation that a barrier could be set up to this moneyed interest. The House of Representa tives was the bulwark of the people. No man could deny that the Federal Government was highly seasoned with prerogative. How much control had the people over the appointment of a Federal officer ? How much did they have over the choice of Senators? On what, then, must they depend for checking encroachments on their liberties and hindering the spread of a monarchical spirit ? On their Representatives. There was, of course, a limit to the number of them, and this limit, most happily, had been set by the Constitution. That instrument ordered that the ratio should never be more than one to thirty thousand. By the showing of the census, this would send to the House each year about one hundred and thirteen members. Some gentlemen might cry out against this number and com plain of the cost. But it would indeed be a dark day for the continent when the people were too poor to pay for having their liberties well guarded.
The opponents of the motion replied to these statements and said, that of all possible ratios, one to thirty thousand was the worst. No other would produce so many and so large frac tions. Whoever would be at the pains of going through the
1791. RATIO OF REPRESENTATION. 55
census-returns, dividing the population of each state by thirty thousand, would get results which, unless he were indeed blind to the light of truth, must convert him at once. In Virginia there would be a remainder of five hundred and fifty-nine ; in Massachusetts twenty-five thousand three hundred and twenty- seven ; while in the fifteen States there would be more than three hundred and sixty-nine thousand citizens without any rep resentation whatever. Could any man behold these figures and for a moment longer maintain that the proposed ratio was just ? The gentlemen who supported the motion were loud in favor of a full representation. Was this a full representa tion ? Were long arguments needed to prove that the fullest representation was that which left the smallest unrepresented fraction in each State ? But the ratio which produced this re sult was one to thirty-five thousand. Surely, then, it ought to be used. Much had been said about the size of the British House of Commons and the National Assembly of France. God forbid that America should ever make an example of them. As for the dreaded influence of the Bank, it was a waste of precious time to discuss it. Such an objection merely went to show that the members who made it were displeased that so much of the stock was owned at New York and so lit tle at Conococheague. This might be branded as the language of an aristocrat. Yet it was a true statement. Did anybody really believe that stockholders and speculators, with thousands of dollars at stake, were less anxious for a wise and good rep resentation than the men who followed the plough, and never loaned the Government a shilling in their lives ? The idea was ludicrous.
A member from Virginia denied this flatly. Everybody knew, he said, that an unequal distribution of worldly goods led straight to monarchy. In the United States a hundred causes combined to produce this unequal distribution. Before the farmer lay a land so fertile that the like of it could not be found on the face of the earth. For the merchant there was an unshackled commerce. For the manufacturer, plenty of raw material and cheap food. For all men there were the bl essings of peace, and the right to the sole enjoyment of the fruits of their industry, however great. These were intrinsic circumstances.
56 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. YII.
But there was also a contingent one. There was a public debt. Most men thought it a heavy burden. But a wise and just Government thought otherwise. Not content with paying the obligations due in the name of the continent, it had assumed those contracted by the separate States. It had gathered the scattered claims from the many and placed them in the hands of the few. Instead of an agricultural or republican, a mon eyed interest had been enlisted in the country, ready to do all things at its bidding and to go all lengths in its behalf. An unauthorized corporation of wealthy men had been set up and put far beyond the reach of Congress. A sinking fund had been founded. One financier had been declared better able to tax the people and manage their money affairs than the whole collected wisdom of their chosen representatives. Was there no danger in this ? Did it not smell of monarchy, of aristoc racy ? " The Government of America,'7 said he as he closed his harangue, "is now in a state of puberty. She is soon to take on a fixed character. On the vote of this House depends whether she preserves the simplicity, purity, and chastity of her native representation and republicanism, or, so early in youth, prostitutes herself to the venal and borrowed artifices of a stale and pampered monarchy."
When the vote on the motion that the ratio should be one to thirty thousand was taken, the Speaker declared the ayes had it by thirty-five to twenty-three. In this form the bill went to the Senate, was there amended to read one to thirty-three thousand, and sent back to the House. That body was far from pleased. A member from North Carolina murmured that, if the new bill cut down the fractions in the North, it put up those in the South. But his complaints were quickly silenced. One of his hearers proved from the figures of the census that the fractions of but one State would be in creased. Another told him plainly that the South ought to be ashamed to object, after so liberal a representation had been given to her slaves. A third showed that, if the ratio stood at one to thirty thousand, Virginia would send as many mem bers to the House as six other States whose Federal population was greater than hers by seventy thousand souls. The House, however, threw out the amendment. The Senate stood firm,
U92.
RATIO OF REPRESENTATION.
57
insisted on it by the casting vote of the Vice-President, and, as the House would not give way, the bill was lost.
No more was heard of the matter till late in March, 1Y92. A new bill had by that time been hastily made ready, a ratio of one to thirty thousand and a provision for a new census and apportionment before the end of the next Congress inserted, and in this form sent to the Senate. The upper House struck out the census clause and raised the number of representa tives to one hundred and twenty. The idea was old. It had indeed already been urged in the House. But Madison had declared it contrary to law. The constitutional provi sion, he said, of one to thirty thousand applied to the States individually, not to the total number of inhabitants. When the debate came on in the House it was warm and bitter. Threats of secession were heard on all sides, and, when the vote was taken, the ayes were thirty, the nays thirty-one. A conference was then held, but, the Senate non-concurring, the House yielded and passed the bill. The vote was thirty-one to twenty-nine. It soon came back, however, with the Presi dent's veto. Jefferson and Randolph had persuaded him that it was unconstitutional, and, on reconsideration, the House thought so too.
And now a third bill was brought in. This put the ratio at one for thirty-three thousand, gave the House one hundred and five members, and soon became a law.*
During the whole of this long and stormy debate the peo ple showed little concern for the bill. ~No meetings were held on the subject. Scarcely a word of comment appeared in the gazettes. There could be no better proof of a lack of interest, for, while the newspapers of that day were as powerful in guiding public opinion as in our own, they were a much surer
* The representation of the States thus became —
Virginia 19
Massachusetts 14
Pennsylvania 13
New York 10
North Carolina 10
Maryland 8
Connecticut 7
South Carolina. . 0
New Jersey 5
New Hampshire 4
Vermont 2
Georgia 2
Kentucky 2
Rhode Island 2
Delaware 1
105
58 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vu.
index to the state of the public mind. No editor had then in his pay a large staff of correspondents and reporters busy gathering news from every quarter of the land, and furnish ing opinions to men too busy or too indolent to think. With the exception of a column of local items, and it may be an other, which, giving a summary of news for the week, did duty as an editorial, the newspaper was made up of contri butions which came directly from the people or were copied from other gazettes. It is not uncommon to find in several consecutive issues a half-dozen lines in which the editor re grets that he is forced to decline the papers of " Cassius " and " Citizen," or promises to publish that of " An Old Soldier " in his next. Every gentleman of leisure who took an interest in manufactures, or had a taste for politics and could turn a neat essay, was sure to send something to the press. Every citizen who felt aggrieved at the conduct of Congress, or the negligence of his town officers, gave expression to his anger in some Advertiser or some Packet. Even the officers under Government made use of the journals to publish their opin ions on politics, or to reply to the strictures and abuse of un known foes. It often happened, therefore, that they became engaged in disputes which would now be thought unseemly in a department clerk. Such, indeed, happened to Pickering.
On the resignation of Samuel Osgood in 1791, the office of Postmaster-General was bestowed on Timothy Pickering. So insignificant was the place, and so light the duties that officer was to perform, that Washington did not think him worthy of a cabinet seat. Yet there is now no other department of Govern ment in which the people take so lively an interest as in that over which the Postmaster-General presides. The number of men who care whether the Indians get their blankets and their rations on the frontier, whether one company or two are sta tioned at Fort Dodge, whether there is a fleet of gunboats in the Mediterranean Sea, is extremely small. But the sun never sets without millions upon millions of our citizens intrusting to the mails letters and postal-cards, money-orders and pack ages, in the safe and speedy delivery of which they are deeply concerned. The growth of the post-office in the last ninety years is indeed amazing. In 1792 there were two hundred
1792. THE POST-OFFICE. 59
and sixty-four post-offices in the country ; * now there are forty- nine thousand. The yearly revenue which they yielded then was twenty-five thousand dollars, f Now it is far above forty- five millions. More time was then consumed in carrying letters ninety miles than now suffices to carry them one thou sand. The postage required to send a letter from New York to Savannah was precisely eighteen times as great as will now send one far beyond the Kocky Mountains, into regions of which our ancestors had never heard.
With newspapers the Postmaster-General would have noth ing to do. The postmasters in the towns and villages did, indeed, receive them and send them on with the mails, but they were under no obligation to do so. It is, therefore, a common thing to read, in the papers printed at towns remote from the seaboard, complaints that the Pennsylvania Packets or the New York Journals were kept back, and civil requests to the postmasters to let them come on. J When they did come it was usually in saddle-bags, and, as the riders never travelled by night, they were several days old. From the official post- office notices in the newspapers, it appears that letters which went out from Philadelphia at eight and a half in the morning of Monday were expected to reach New York at two in the afternoon of Tuesday. Precisely the same number of hours was spent on the road from Philadelphia to Baltimore.* Un der the confederation this pace was thought speedy enough ; but times had changed. A new Government had been set up ; the debt had been funded ; the Bank had been established. A wild desire to speculate had taken hold upon men, and, in their anxiety to hear of the doings of Congress and the price of stocks in the neighboring cities, a post that made ninety miles in twenty-nine hours and a half seemed insufferably slow. An attempt was therefore made to hasten the mails, and Jef ferson, at the suggestion of Washington, had a long confer ence with Pickering. The wish of the President was that let-
* The number of post-offices in 1776 was twenty-eight, in 1790 there were seventy-five, and in 1796 four hundred and fifty-three.
f Osgood's Report to Secretary of Treasury, January 20, 1790. t Albany Gazette. American Daily Advertiser, March 26, 1792.
* American Daily Advertisers for January, 1792.
60
THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY.
CHAP. VII.
ters should travel one hundred miles in twenty-four hours, The plan was to have the pouches carried by the riders in the day and by the coaches during the night ; but the country was too poor. An attempt had, indeed, been made in New Jersey to run mail-coaches with seats for four passengers ; but that State laid a yearly tax of four hundred dollars on stages and taverns, declared the Federal Government was no better than an individual, and demanded payment. In Maryland and Vir ginia the right to convey passengers had been granted as a mo nopoly to certain men. When, therefore, the motion was made in Congress that all stage- wagons of the post-office should have the right to carry passengers too, a cry went up that such a law would be a violation of State rights, and the motion was lost.*
Another motion, however, was more successful. Indeed, it became a law, and for nearly a half -century controlled the affairs of the post-office. The act, as it passed from the Presi dent, fixed the rates of postage, gave the franking privilege to Congressmen and heads of departments, and made newspapers mail matter. The postage on a letter was six cents for any distance not greater than thirty miles. This limit passed, it grew rapidly, till it stood at twenty-two cents for four hundred and fifty miles ; f beyond that twenty-five cents was exacted.
* Annals of Second Congress, January 3, 4, 1792. f The rates of postage for single letters were :
0 to 30 miles, 6 cents.
30 " 60 " 8 u
60 " 100 " 10 "
100 " 150 " 12| "
150 " 200 " 16 "
200 to 250 miles, 17 cents. 260 " 350 " 20 " 350 " 450 " 22 " 450 " 26 "
An Act, etc., approved February 20, 1792, section 9. Also, American Daily Advertiser, December 29, 1791.
The revenue yielded by these high rates is worthy of consideration :
|
Gross Revenue. |
Expenses. |
Net Revenue. |
|
|
From Oct. 1, 1789, to June 30, 1791. From July 1, 1791, to Dec. 31, 1792.. For year 1793. |
$71,295.93 92,988.40 103 883 19 |
$67,113.66 76,586.60 74 161 03 |
$4,182.27 16,401.80 29 722 16 |
|
For year 1794 |
129,185.87 |
95,379.53 |
33,788.34 |
A Sketch of the Finances of the United States, p. 179, Gallatin.
1792. NEWSPAPER POSTAGE. 61
In passing by sea from port to port the charge was eight cents.* These rates applied only to single letters, and by a single letter was meant one written on a single sheet of paper, however large or small. Two sheets made a double letter. Three sheets a triple. Packets, however, went by weight, each ounce, avoirdupois, costing as much money as four sin gle letters. No postmaster in future, it was further decreed, should receive or distribute newspapers free of postage, and the postage was to be one cent a paper for any distance to a hundred miles ; after that the rate became a cent and a half. In the House the franking privilege and the powers of the Postmaster-General provoked a warm debate. Among the peo ple little notice was taken of any part of the bill save the news paper clause. One grumbler declared that it would now cost more to send a paper from Portland or Savannah to Philadel phia than to bring it over from London, and in support of his statement quoted Pickering.f A Postmaster-general of our time would scarcely feel called on to defend the justice of an act of Congress, or to reply to all the slurs cast on his depart ment by the press ; but it was not thought so then, and Pick ering, after the manner of his age, replied. He called his critic a liar, who lied because it was natural to him and he could not help it, ^ and then gave some facts and statistics which are both curious and valuable. The greatest mass of newspapers that had ever in any one week been lodged in the post-office by the Philadelphia printers weighed two hundred and forty-two pounds. No count had been made, but, as the papers always came wet, it was safe to take the weight of each at one ounce,* and hence the number at three thousand eight hundred and seventy-two. During the same week one thou sand one hundred and forty newspapers came into the city from all parts of the country, some to stay, some to pass through. I The whole number of copies of newspapers printed in the United States in a year might, he said, be liberally esti mated at four millions and a half. Of these not above one
* An Act, etc., section 9, Laws of the United States, 1792. Also, American Daily Advertiser, February 27, 1792.
f American Daily Advertiser, February 2, 1792.
j Ibid. * Ibid. I Ibid., February 9, 1792.
62 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. ra
ninth, or five hundred thousand copies, would ever find their way to the post-office. It seemed quite reasonable that one hundred and fifty thousand of these might be assumed to pay a cent and a half ; the remainder paying one cent, the gross revenue would probably be five thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. The net revenue would be one half that sum, for the other half was to go to the postmasters for their trouble in taking and delivering papers and collecting postage. To talk about the princely income the Government would receive was, therefore, absurd.
But the grumblers were not to be persuaded that the meas ure was a wise one.* It was, they said, a vile tax on knowl edge. The business of a newspaper was to spread informa tion, and that kind of information which was most valuable in a republic, information regarding the doings of Government. Men who dwelt far from the seat of Congress had come to look upon the Gazettes and Journals as their only means of knowing what steps were being taken to protect the frontier, to pay the public debt, to encourage arts and commerce. When, however, to the eight dollars a year paid to the printer was added the four dollars and sixty-eight cents they must pay to the postmaster, poverty would force them, loath as they were, to withdraw their subscriptions. Then Govern ment, removed from their searching gaze, would make in roads on their liberties and sport with their dearest rights. Nay, this had already been done. What else was the frank ing privilege but an aristocratic distinction ? Why should the mass of the people be loaded with an odious tax while a select few escaped ? Was the information likely to be conveyed in the letters of Congressmen better than the information to be found in the Packets and Journals ? What kind of informa tion did these letters convey while the funding system was be ing framed? Had not these self-appointed aristocrats most
* Even Madison looked on the " newspaper tax " with alarm. " I am afraid the subscriptions will soon be withdrawn from the Philadelphia papers unless some step be speedily taken to prevent it. The best that occurs seems to be to advertise that the papers will not be put into the mails, bitt sent, as heretofore, to all who shall not direct them to be put into the mail. Will you hint thig to Freneau ? " Madison to Jefferson, June 12, 1792.
1792. INCREASE OF NEWSPAPERS. 63
shamefully abused their privilege on that occasion ? Had they not by their franked letters sent and gathered news from all parts of the country for nothing, which, had their constituents sought it, would have cost great sums of money ? And now they had the face to gloss over the newspaper postage with the name of revenue ! That scheme of finance which collected a revenue from the mails by loading them with free letters might be understood by the mind of a Congressman; but, happily, such minds were rare.
The long list of newspapers which our ancestors feared would be cut down in circulation by the new postal law is well worthy of examination. Of the Packets and Journals, Gazettes and Centinels there contained, not one came out on Sunday. No religious paper, no scientific paper, no illustrated paper, nor one which, in our time, would be called a literary or a trade journal, appears in the list. Yet it would be erroneous to suppose that the newspapers had not made great progress in the seven years of peace. A few that witnessed the revolu tion had indeed ceased to exist. But their places were more than filled by others which sprang up in every part of the Union. Towns once content to read such Packets and Cou- rants as came by the post-boy now boasted of Mirrors and Ora cles of their own. At Falmouth, in Maine, at Northampton, in Massachusetts, at Harrisburg, at Pittsburg, and far down the Ohio, where, ten years before, the country was a wilderness, rude presses had been set up and newspapers appeared. In the East two journals of enterprise put forth issues each day. The attempt was a bold one. News was hard to gather. The presses were so rude that the best workmen could turn off no more than two hundred copies in an hour. The cost of paper was high, and no newspaper had yet reached thirty-six hundred subscribers.
Six years before the war but two paper-mills could be found in New England. One was at Norwich, in Connecti cut ; the other was at Milton, whence a bell-cart went out each month to collect rags at Marblehead and Salem, at Providence and Newbury, at Charlestown and Boston.* When the war
* News Letter, March 6, 1769.
64 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OHAP. vu
opened, the supply of paper from England ceased, and the forty mills in the United States were unable to supply the demand. Rags could not be gathered. Again and again the newspapers were forced to suspend. The printer of the Con necticut Courant in desperation established a paper-mill of his own. The Massachusetts Spy besought "the fair daughters of Liberty " to save every scrap of rag and send it to some paper-mill.* Still they did not come in fast enough, and the newspapers were compelled to become gatherers for the mills. Indeed, to the close of the century, and even later, it is hardly possible to look over the four stiff, blue pages of a country newspaper without meeting writh an offer of the printer to buy old rags.f Under this stimulus the mills increased rapidly in number. When 1797 came there were sixteen in Connecticut. They would employ, it was proudly said, one hundred and sixty hands, and consume three hundred and twenty tons of rags each year. Taking the number of families in the State at thirty thousand, each should, therefore, furnish its quota of twenty -four pounds. It was earnestly hoped every man would say to his wife, " Molly, make a rag-bag and hang it under the shelf where the big Bible lies." ^ Another paper wished that every child should be taught his " rag lesson." # When the first paper-mill west of the mountains was set up, like appeals went forth repeatedly to the public. [
Something, however, had been gained by the new postal law. Newspapers had at last become mailable. They would no longer be dependent for circulation on the pleasure of the post-rider. But the law said nothing about books or maga-
* Massachusetts Spy, November 16, 1780.
f Stanton Spy, September 21, 1793; Maryland Gazette, November 12, 1796; Hudson Gazette, May 26, 1796 ; Albany Gazette, May 17, 1796; Federal Mirror, January 21, 1796; Republican Journal and Dumfries Weekly Advertiser, April 7, 1796; Centinel of Liberty, June 14, 1796; Washington Spy, June, 1796; Washington Gazette, 1796 ; Frothingham's Long Island Herald, July, 1798; Con necticut Courant, April 8, 1793; Herald, December 21, 1796; Weekly Oracle, New London, March, 1800; Weekly Register, Norwich, December, 1791; The Argus, January, 1793; Columbian Chronicle, August, 1794; Washington Adver tiser, March, 1796.
\ Norwich Courier. Boston Gazette, May 27, 1797.
* Boston Gazette, May 14, 1798.
N Western Telegraph, January 12, 1796.
1Y92. THE MAGAZINES. 65
zines ; the Postmaster-General refused to have them enter the mails, and, in consequence, one of the best magazines of that time was forced to suspend.*
When the " American Museum, or Kepository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, Prose and Poetical," expired, there were but two older periodicals left in the country. In deed, when the first number appeared, in January, 1T8T, two rivals were all it encountered. One was printed at Boston ; f the other, and unquestionably the better of the two, the Co lumbian Magazine, had been started four months earlier at Philadelphia. J " The Universal Asylum and Columbian Maga zine," conducted " By a Society of Gentlemen," was remarkable for the variety and the excellence of the copper plates which " embellished " its pages. Yet neither it, nor its fellows, have any resemblance to a modern monthly magazine. The custom, now so common, of preparing a November number for the press in the middle of July, and issuing it in the middle of October, was unknown. Those for November came out in De cember, and the same contributions often appeared in several. Each had a " Parnassiad " of " selected poetry," generally odes to Laura ; selections from the writings of Colonel Humphreys and Philip Freneau ; epigrams, epitaphs, songs translated from the French, and, at times, a few lines from Homer. There were "Political Speculations," in which were "Ke- marks on the Conduct of Spain with respect to the Mississip pi," and " Considerations on the best Interests of the United States." There were " Public Papers " and " Physical Papers," giving some " account of a horse with a living snake in his eye," and " The true nature and cause of the tails of comets." There was a chronicle of foreign and domestic news, " Satiri- cals " on old bachelors, old maids, and married men ; reports of law-cases ; now and then an " impartial review " of such a
* " Besides the reason for its discontinuance that has been assigned, another has had some influence, and perhaps ought not to be passed in silence ; that is, the construction, whether right or wrong, of the late post-office law, by which the postmaster here has absolutely refused to receive the Museum into the post-office on any terms." American Museum, December, 1792.
f Boston Magazine.
\ See for one instance American Museum, August, 1792 ; and Columbian Magazine, August, 1792.
VOL. II. — 6
66 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. CHAP. VH.
novel as " Modern Chivalry " or such a book of travels as Bartram wrote; long biographies and long laments over the degeneracy of the time. Nor were "Kural Concerns" for gotten. Farmers were given " hints," and instructed as to the culture of Tartary oats and the use of plaster of Paris for manure. The back of the title page was often used by the printer to acknowledge the verses of J. II., to regret that the paper of Americus could not be used, or to beg Baltimorean not " to pester " him with any more " collections," as the post age on each was twenty-five cents.
Between 1786 and 1792 ten magazines sprung up.* Some struggled on for a few years, but more quickly perished. In 1792 a Ladies' Magazine was begun, with a preface of that kind of fulsome flattery it was the fashion for women to re ceive. When the century closed, the first religious magazine, the first " review," and the first political monthly were begun.f Long before that day, however, books and pamphlets were admitted to the mails.
The act of 1792 expired by limitation on June first, 1794. Some changes were then made. Carriers were to be employed in the great cities, and two cents paid them for every letter delivered. On such as by written request were held at the oifice, one cent was charged. Postage on a single newspaper going to any town in the State wherein it was printed was reduced to one cent. When the size of the mail and the mode of conveyance would permit, magazines and pamphlets might be taken. The rate was one cent a sheet for fifty miles
* The Boston Magazine, The South Carolina Magazine (published for three years), The American Museum, The Columbian Magazine, Massachusetts Maga zine, or Monthly Museum, Philadelphia Magazine, New York Magazine, Worcester Magazine, Gentlemen and Ladies' Town and Country Magazine (pub lished at Boston), The Ladies' Magazine and Repository of Entertaining Knowl edge.
f 1798, Farmer's Museum; 1795, American Monthly Review, or Literary Journal ; this was devoted entirely to the review of books ; 1796, Lady and Gentleman's Pocket Magazine ; United States Magazine ; 1797, American Univer sal Magazine; Methodist Magazine; 1798, Review and Annual Register; Phila delphia Magazine ; Dessert to the True American ; The Weekly Magazine ; Philadelphia Nimrod; 1799, The National Magazine, or a Political Biography and Historical Repository; 1800, The Political Magazine and Miscellaneous Repository, Ballston, New York ; The Ladies' Magazine ; Monthly Magazine.
1792. OPPOSITION TO THE INDIAN WAR. 07
or less, half as much more for the next fifty miles, and ten cents when the distance was over one hundred. Had the American Museum been in existence, the postage on the thir teen sheets which made each monthly number would, at New York, have been twenty cents.
The feelings aroused by the newspaper postage act, how ever, were mild and placid compared with the indignation awakened by the Indian war. Some of the grumblers who had acquired the habit of denouncing everything done by the Gov ernment fell upon the Secretary of War and abused him roundly. Some bemoaned the expense of buying arms and cannon for raw troops to fling away every time they heard the whoop or saw the painted face of a Miami. Others took a higher ground and pretended to be greatly shocked at the in humanity of robbing Indians of their land. " Why," said they, " is the sword, but just sheathed after a bloody contest with Great Britain, again to be laid bare ? To what purpose is the outstretched arm of the union to be exercised ? Do these natives hold a land we have an indubitable right to claim ? Are we so contracted in territory that we stand in immediate need of im measurable tracts of wilderness ? We are told we have pur chased it! Purchased it! Is a keg or two of whiskey, a couple of bundles of laced coats, and a few packages of blank ets, an equivalent for a region as great as a kingdom ? Is a treaty signed by the scratches of the drunken chiefs of two tribes to be binding on the sober chiefs of a hundred tribes ? No. They have as much right to their hunting-grounds as we have to our cities or our farms. It is painful to arraign the conduct of the administration, but it is time the attempt to gloss over the shameful defeat of the Federal army and turn aside the censure of enraged freemen was stopped. More than half a million of dollars have been spent, two brave armies have been slaughtered, the glory of the Republic is prostrate ; and for what ? Does anybody know for what ? Was it to ac quire land ? Surely not, for we have too much already. Was it to defend the frontier ? No, for the settlers in that unhappy country find no relief. Was it to punish the burning, massa cring, and stealing of the Indians ? No, for they have done none of these things. A very respectable minority of men be-
68 THE BEGINNING OF PROSPERITY. OBAI>. vtt
lieve the whole war is simply the result of a capricious minis terial resentment ; an ill-timed desire to dazzle the country with the brilliancy of the Department of War. The able min ister who is charged with the management of its affairs seems to think, since the census was taken, that the United States ia overstocked with men and money. The Secretary of the Treasury has a sinking fund. Therefore the Secretary of War must have one also, and begins by putting into it six hundred brave men and five hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. The President may be able to excuse to himself the folly of bestowing the command of such an array on such a general, but not to the country. The courage, the loyalty, the skill of St. Clair, are indeed above reproach. The country still remem bers with gratitude the great things he did at Trenton, at Ti- conderoga, at Saratoga, among the Indians. But disease had so broken him down that he ought never to have left the fort. The sight of an army moving to attack the most active, the most vigilant, the most cunning of foes, yet led by a general wrapped in flannels, unable to stand, lying in a car bolstered with pillows, surrounded with physic, and groaning at every jolt of the wagon, must indeed have been a ' raree-show J to the sturdy frontiersmen of Kentucky. No wonder he was soundly beaten. He ought to have been soundly beaten. Was there ever such mismanagement ? The Secretary of War gathers an army of raw recruits, gives them muskets charged with single ball and fitted with bayonets, and sends them brass field-pieces to drag floundering and tumbling through the marshes of an unknown country, that they may batter down the limbs of trees on an unseen foe. The officers wrangle and fall out, the troops desert by scores, a sick general, neglecting patrol parties and spies, lies down to sleep within gunshot of his enemies, and never knows it till they wake him in the morning with their hideous yells." *
* Many years later a ballad on St. Glair's defeat, entitled "A Patriot Song," by M. Bunn, was written:
" November the fourth, in the year ninety-one, We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson ; St. Clair was our commander, which may remembered be, Since we lost nine hundred men in the western territory. , n j
1792. OPPOSITION TO THE INDIAN WAR. 69
Much the same language was heard in the House. The occasion was a long wrangle over a Bill for the Protection of the Frontiers. The second section provided for raising and equipping of infantry and light dragoons to the number of three thousand and forty men. The motion under debate was to strike this out. The present Indian war, it was said by the supporters of the motion, is as unjust in its origin as it has been unsuccessful in its conduct. The aggressions of the whites be gan it. Two Indian victories, it is to be hoped, will end it. To carry on hostilities in the face of these facts is to put good money to a bad use. Suppose our arms are crowned with vic tory. What then do we gain ? We gain possession of thou sands of acres of Indian lands. Do we want these acres? Have we not now more land in the West than we will ever be able to turn into farms and hamlets for a hundred years to come ? Look, too, at the army that is to be gathered. During our late arduous struggle for liberty, when we had to cope with the most powerful nation on which the sun shines, the com- mander-in-chief never had, at any one time, above ten thousand men under his command. Now it is proposed to enlist near six thousand men to fight a handful of Indian banditti, whose number, as the papers on the table show, is not above twelve hundred. Where is this business likely to stop if it goes on growing at the present rate ? At first a single regiment was wanted ; this cost one hundred thousand dollars. Then a second was added, and the expense rose to three hundred thousand dollars. Now a standing army of five thousand one hundred
" Young Major Dark received a ball close to his father's side. ' These feeble hands shall be revenged on my son's death,' he cried. He quickly drew his sword in hand, and through the ranks he flew, And, like a brave Virginian, the savage there he slew.
" These words he scarcely uttered when he received a ball, And likewise our Lieutenant Spear down by his side did