A Glimpse at 1786

THE year 1786 was one of the most uneventful of modern times in the world at large, one of the most important and critical in the history of America. It began two full years and more after the peace of Versailles ended the last of a long series of European wars; and at its close the next series, which was to deluge the continent with blood during twenty years, was still far in the future. It was in 1786 that Frederick the Great died ; that the mad woman, Margaret Nicholson, attempted the assassination of George the Third ; that the charges were made on which the impeachment of Warren Hastings was based. History records hardly another event, of the year, occurring on the other side of the ocean, which is worth remembering. Life in Europe must have been unspeakably dull to the quidnuncs of those days; for the great things that were happening in the thirteen mutually jealous States, which insisted upon being treated as if the name United States expressed a truth, did not interest the people of the Old World in the smallest degree, and would not have interested them if they had been capable of understanding American politics.

It is always idle to speculate upon what might have been if the determining causes of events had been slightly different from what they actually were. Yet those who are not to be deterred by the consideration that it will profit them and the world nothing to indulge in such speculation, could find occupation less attractive than is to be had in imagining what a different country this might have been to-day, if the old Articles of Confederation had given to Congress a trifle more power than it really possessed; or if certain elements of society had been rather less courageous in asserting their principles and in urging their wild schemes of reform than they were; or, finally, if these same elements had been numerically as strong in all, or in a majority, of the States as they were in some of them, as, for instance, in Rhode Island. Certainly it was the collapse of congressional government in 1786, and the disorder, not far removed from anarchy, in some parts of the country, that forced the conclusion upon those who were thoughtful and well disposed that a stronger central government was needed, not only in the interest of the nation as a whole, but for the protection of the several entities which boasted themselves as independent Slates. Suppose that New York had withdrawn from her position as the single State which refused to allow Congress to establish an independent national revenue : what then? Probably the next emergency of the same kind would have been met in the same way, — by endeavoring to put a new patch upon the flimsy Articles of Confederation, — but how the attempt would have resulted is a matter affording the freest scope to the imagination.

Again, if there had been less recklessness of consequences on the part of Job Shattuck and Daniel Shays, and of those who aided them in the disgraceful occurrences of 1786 in Massachusetts, to say nothing at present of other disturbances in New England, the substitution of a firm central government for the weak confederation could assuredly not have been made so soon as it was. On the other hand, had Massachusetts and New Hampshire joined Rhode Island in its wild assault upon property, it is more than conceivable that a monarchy might have been set up as the only means of escape from anarchy.

Happily, none of these things occurred, and no permanent harm resulted from the remarkable series of events which showed the need, as clearly as they pointed out the absence, of an adequate government. The perils and evils encountered were nicely adapted to warn and instruct, without destroying; for they were too startling to be disregarded, and action to avert them was sufficiently prompt to prevent them from leading to disaster. Some of these perils had been threatening for years, others were new. Let us try to reproduce the situation, and see how dangerous was the storm which, one hundred years ago, overhung the Union, threatening to burst and to cause devastation and ruin.

The Revolutionary War had closed three years before. The people had the independence for which they had fought, but, having it, knew not what to do with it. They were curiously indifferent to political duties. For their state governments they cared very little, for Congress almost nothing. They seem to have thought that there was no need of much government. Independence was — independence. Thoughtful men bewailed the frivolous and lawless spirit that was rife, but they could not rouse the people to a discharge of public duties. The population of Massachusetts in 1786 was probably three hundred and fifty thousand. The whole number of votes given for governor of the commonwealth that year was but eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one. What was it, then, which finally did awaken the people to a sense of the perils to which indifference exposed them? It was not the pressure of political evils, but a touch upon the pocket nerve. Congress, always weak, had become positively impotent as soon as the Articles of Confederation went into operation; but the country manifested no disposition toward a more efficient government until society and property were threatened. The key to all the disturbances of 1786, the explanation of the remarkable legislation which then was placed on the statute-books of the States, and the secret of the movement which led to the formation, and subsequently to the adoption, of the Constitution may all be found in the single word Debt.

A writer in the New York Journal, June 1, 1786, gives what he terms a “ Cursory Perspective of the States of America,” thus : —

“ New Hampshire, complaining of her late tender act, of her poverty, and disputing upon points of private concern which may possibly affect the Constitution. Massachusetts, firm in politics, forward in promoting the federal interest, encouraging the sciences and agriculture, possessed of little cash and a stagnated trade, jealous of their Rogue, or Rhode, Island neighbor’s new emission of money. Rhode Island, happy at present in their new acquisition of a paper medium. Connecticut, complaining of hard times, but do not yet express great uneasiness. A branch of them, however, are determined to hold their Wyoming settlements at the expense of blood and treasure, in opposition to the demand of Pennsylvania. New York, as tranquil as any State in the Union, trade brisk, but cramped in some degree for want of a circulating medium; which objection will be taken off in August next by an emission of paper, if proper means be taken to support its credit. New Jersey, acting as others act; small in herself, and somewhat dependent upon her neighbors. Pennsylvania, trade at a low ebb. Paper currency in good credit. Credit with her foreign correspondents lost by the abrogation of her bank charter. No material state uneasiness, except what is occasioned by their demand upon the Wyoming settlers. Not behindhand in promoting a general union. Advancing the interests of science and agriculture. Delaware, peaceable within herself, not coveting her neighbor’s goods. Maryland, lifting up her head from among the tobacco plantations, and saying, ‘ I will not always hold rank in the rear of the States.' Virginia, rich, haughty, luxurious, growing effeminate in manners, but patriotic ; not fond of quarreling, but disturbed by the Indians back. North Carolina, becoming civilized by degrees ; spirited, of late, in federal matters. South Carolina, patriotic; trade declined of late for want of a power of remittance to Europe upon advantageous principles. Georgia, adopting the principles and spirit of the Union by degrees. Peaceable.”

This seems, on a first reading, to be an encouraging picture. More carefully considered, it furnishes some indication of the dangers that were threatening, yet it passes over them with so cheerful a touch of the brush that the writer can be credited with a desire to tell the truth only at the expense of his power of observation. Contrast the account given of South Carolina by a correspondent of another paper, only a few months before. “ Such a degree of anarchy prevails,” he wrote, “ as to excite horror.” The people had plunged into extravagance ; but when the luxury induced by easy credit had become a habit, the bills began to come in, payment was impossible, and disorder and distress succeeded to peace and abundance. A concerted effort was made to induce the lawyers of the State not to plead the cause of creditors.

The evidence is too good and too uniform to be doubted that, after the close of the war, a passion for luxuries manifested itself, not only in South Carolina but throughout the country. The demoralization resulting from a long war prepared the soil for the growth of extravagant tastes and habits. Opportunity to gratify those tastes was afforded by the resumption of almost untaxed commerce, after a protracted season of exclusion from the great markets of the world. Finally, the example was set by the nouveaux riches, and was eagerly followed by men who regarded the principle of democratic equality as something more than a pretty but unworkable theory, and who found it all too easy to contract debts.

Not to dwell upon the fact, which needs no proof, that public debt, both national and state, and private debt were deranging governments and giving strength to parties which sought relief, by any and every means, from the burden, let us notice the particular measures by which politicians tried to accomplish this object. One of the most interesting class of enactments of this period goes under the name of “tender acts.” That of New Hampshire is referred to by the “ cursory ” observer quoted above. Tender acts were passed by many, perhaps by a majority, of the States, and the injustice sanctioned by them led directly to the insertion in the Constitution of that prohibition upon the States to “make anything but gold and silver coin a tender for the payment of debts,” which the modern bi-metallist misinterprets as a command to Congress to make both gold and silver coins a legal tender. Money was wofully scarce in America a hundred years ago. The people, instead of attributing the deficiency to its true cause, general poverty, chose to regard themselves as really rich, but suffering from the want of a circulating medium. Accordingly, laws were passed, all bad, but some worse than others, making various sorts of property a tender. Land, pigs, hay, and cord-wood were available in some of the States for the discharge of debts. In most cases, however, the operation of tender acts was limited to a single year, and creditors quickly learned the trick of waiting. If they did not press for payment, the debtor could not force them to accept property of which they could not dispose. At the expiration of the year the obligation to pay the debt in money revived. The failure of tender acts to give the relief which debtors had expected added strength to the demand, to which some of the States had yielded already, for a paper currency in which all debts might be paid.

The agitation for bills of credit became violent in New England, in 1786. Connecticut resisted the demand firmly and consistently. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts the advocates of paper money were very noisy and clamorous, though they were never even a strong minority. In Rhode Island the political contest was fought on this issue, and paper money carried the day. The enactments of the Rhode Island legislature of 1786, when John Collins had been elected governor, may challenge comparison, for recklessness and folly, with those of any other law-making body at any time. It was voted to make an issue of £100,000, to be apportioned to the towns in the proportion of the last state tax, — a tax which was never paid, — and to be lent to citizens upon the security of land. The currency so created was to have a forced circulation, and to be a tender for the payment of all debts. As if in mockery of the demand of Congress for funds, the legislature directed the national requisition to be paid in this money. Of course the depreciation of the currency began with its issue, and the legislature was called together again to pass a law imposing a penalty of one hundred pounds and disfranchisement upon any citizen who refused to accept it at par. This did not help matters. Trade ceased. Merchants refused to sell their goods for paper, and the farmers retaliated by refusing to bring their produce to market. So dependent were the inhabitants in the towns upon the country that the failure of supplies Caused real distress in Providence, and in Newport there was a riot, a mob having undertaken to compel grain dealers to sell corn for paper money.

Governor Collins called the legislature together once more, and another law was passed, designed to secure the summary punishment of those who treated the Rhode Island money with scant respect. The accused person was to be tried within three days after complaint was made against him, before a single judge, without a jury, and without the right of appeal. Upon failure instantly to satisfy a judgment, after such a trial, the convicted person was to be imprisoned until he should pay the fine imposed. This enforcement act was presently pronounced unconstitutional by the state court; whereupon the legislature summoned the judges who had so decided to appear before it to answer for their contempt of the law-making power. The summons was expressed in extremely insolent terms. Nothing, however, came of the attempt to punish the judges for their independence. Reckless as were the leaders of the paper-money party, they were not so desperate in their folly as to adopt all the suggestions with which they were favored. They could not see their way clear to the establishment of a system of “ state trade ” in which the commonwealth was to own ships and import and deal in goods. Nor could they be persuaded to pass the law, urged upon them, to require the whole population to take an oath to respect the paper money and receive it at par, under penalty of disfranchisement.

By the end of the year 1786 the value of the paper money was to that of silver coin as six to one. Contemporary accounts of the legislature, controlled by the party which made the position of Rhode Island in the Union a shame and a disgrace for years afterward, are far from complimentary. “ I never saw,” says one writer in a Boston paper, “ so great a proportion of ignorant men in a public body.” Possibly some modern city councils would hold their own in a comparison. Moreover, the legislative caucus, of which Rhode Island furnished perhaps the original type, has been perfected since then. It was necessary to keep the rank and file of the party up to the work before them by means of the party whip. For this purpose “ Sunday and nightly juntos, formed of the majority, are the theatres where public measures are canvassed and determined ; the business of the house is stayed until these meetings, where the weak and deluded are properly marshaled, and then they come fire hot to legislate for their fellow citizens.” Not a bad description of a bad political invention.

In New Hampshire the paper-money party did not get the upper hand, but it made much trouble. In August, 1786, a convention, formed of delegates from thirty towns, demanded that the legislature should emit bills of credit, in conformity with a plan which gave no basis of value to the proposed notes, and made no provision for redemption. What was asked for was " flat money,” pure and simple. The legislature resorted to a practice common in those days. A plan, a projet de loi, embodying the views of the paper-money party, was prepared and sent out to the towns, in order that the will of the people might be ascertained and made known by town meetings, for the guidance of the legislature. The result was a rejection of the scheme by an overwhelming majority of the towns. Pending this decision, the papermoney party showed its impatience by an attempt to coerce the legislature. A large number of men gathered at Kingston, near Exeter, where the General Court was sitting, marched to Exeter, armed with swords, scythes, clubs, and muskets, and formed before the meetinghouse wherein the legislature was assembled. They began to cry out, “ Paper Money ! ” “ Distribution of Property ! ” " Annihilation of Debts ! ” and “ Release from all Taxes! ”

General John Sullivan, the president of the State, came out and addressed the crowd. He gave reasons why the legislature could not yield to the demand for paper money, and least of all in the presence of an armed and threatening mob. His speech was not satisfactory to the rioters, who then stationed guards in and around the church, and imprisoned the president and the legislature. Two or three hours later, just as the shades of night were gathering, the beating of a drum was heard in a distant part of the town. The rioters, taking counsel of their fears, fled from the spot. They reassembled in another place, however, upon finding, after their prisoners had escaped, that no hostile force was coming against them ; but the next morning they were really attacked by militia and dispersed. The numerous prisoners who were captured were afterward released, and none of them was ever punished.

The agitation in Massachusetts was not only peculiar in its form, but it was more violent than that in any other State. The evil of debt was attacked, so to speak, at the other end. Instead of endeavoring by means of cheap money and tender acts to make it easier to pay debts, the leaders of the debtor party devoted themselves to the task of rendering it more difficult to collect debts. There were, to be sure, here as well as elsewhere, a tender act and an urgent though not a general demand for paper money ; but the most alarming disturbances of the whole year arose from the movement hostile to the courts which gave judgments in civil suits. No one who is at all familiar with the history of the country needs to be told that during the year 1786 local mobs, reinforced on some occasions by rioters from a distance, prevented the sitting of the courts of General Sessions of the Peace and of Common Pleas, at Northampton, Concord, Worcester, Great Barrington, and Springfield. Made bold by success, and encouraged both by popular sympathy and by the apparent indisposition of the state authorities to offer a forcible resistance to them, they meditated an attack upon the armory at Springfield. It was at the very close of the year that the situation in and near Springfield proved beyond all doubt that force must be used against the insurgents. The vigorous action of Governor Bowdoin, the embodiment of the militia, the rapid march to Springfield, and the brief campaign against Shays, which ended the war in the battle of Petersham, not only belong historically to the year 1787, but they have been narrated so carefully and so well in Minot’s History of the Insurrections that nothing is to be added to that account.

Much light is thrown upon the social condition and the political temper of the people by the proceedings of the county conventions and the lists of grievances enumerated by those assemblages. But perhaps there is no part of the story of the eventful year under view more remarkable than that which has to do with the raid against the legal profession. It was all the work of one man, sending anonymous communications to a Boston newspaper. Early in the year an article signed “ Honestus ” appeared in the Independent Chronicle, ascribing to the lawyers some of the evils under which the community was suffering. The article seems to have attracted some attention, and the author soon followed it with another, in which the “ order of lawyers ” was more pointedly assailed. Presently the attack drew forth from a merchant a word in defense of the lawyers. " Houestus ” thereupon replied, and the prosecution of his original plan and his controversies with defenders of the legal profession occupied a large share of the public notice and a great many columns in the Chronicle.

“ Honestus ” was Mr. Benjamin Austin, a very ardent politician and a very persistent writer from the time of the Revolution until, in Jefferson’s administration, his writings caused indirectly a most lamentable tragedy and the death of his own son. More dreary, inconsequential, and altogether absurd reading was never printed than were these articles against the lawyers. It is almost incredible that they could have had an effect upon the community, but they did. “ Honestus ” charged the lawyers with thrusting themselves in large numbers into the legislature, and there exerting an undue influence in the making of laws by the administration of which they were afterwards to profit. Yet the whole " order of lawyers” in Massachusetts, in 1786, comprised but eighty-one members; and in a House of Representatives numbering two hundred and fifteen, only nine were lawyers, while but one member of the profession was a representative for Boston.

The accusations against the lawyers were for the most part vague, general, and unsupported by facts. At first no one thought it worth while to reply to them, but when it began to appear that the writer was making an impression upon the public mind, one and another took up the cudgels in behalf of the maligned profession. “ Honestus ” met his antagonists in a manner which forces one to think that a very good lawyer of a certain sort was spoiled when he chose commerce for a vocation. The first reply to his assertions was a concise, pointed, and effective answer, containing facts which overthrew “ Honestus” completely ; and the writer, in order to prevent its being said that he was contending for his own profession, assured his readers that he was not a lawyer, but a merchant. “Honestus” perverted the disclaimer, and, with a sneer, treated it as evidence of anxiety to avoid the odium of belonging to the profession. Again, when he had printed what he declared to be an actual bill of costs allowed by a court of the commonwealth, in order to show the ruinous expense of legal process, one who avowed himself to be a lawyer replied, with an explicit denial that any such bill was ever allowed in Massachusetts. The first specific accusation made by “ Honestus,” capable of being tested as to its truth, was thus met with a flat contradiction, and the accuser was challenged to name the suit, the court, or the county in which the bill was presented. Instead of responding frankly to this challenge, the agitator indulged in a shout of triumph at having provoked the lawyers to defend themselves, “notwithstanding the pretended contempt of my remarks.” Later in the controversy “Honestus” was “done” into poetry. An ironical versified travesty of his accusations and statements was printed, covering a whole page of the Chronicle.

But if this assault upon the lawyers by " a young incendiary,” as he was impatiently designated by a correspondent styling himself " Seneca,” was met in some quarters with jeers, in other quarters it had a great effect. It was then a common custom for towns to adopt, in town meeting, addresses of instruction to their representatives in the General Court. Not a few of the towns inserted in their instructions to representatives a paragraph requiring them to do all in their power to mitigate the evil of lawyers. For example, the town of Dedham solemnly voted, concerning the lawyers, that “ we think their practice pernicious and their mode unconstitutional.” The representative was to do all he could to promote a reform, and if that should prove to be impracticable, " you are to endeavor that the order of lawyers be totally abolished.” Dedham, by the way, voted the same year, with reference to the representative instructed as above, that his compensation should be five shillings a day ; and if the sum granted by the General Court — for then, as now, the State paid the members — should exceed that sum he was to pay the overplus into the town treasury. A resolution to instruct the Boston representatives to vote for the abolition of lawyers was brought forward at a town meeting in May, but was supported by only seven votes.

Boston, indeed, was the chief restraining force which prevented Massachusetts from lapsing into hopeless anarchy. Another proposition discussed during the year was to limit the number of lawyers in the State to twenty-five, and to designate them by popular election.

The Massachusetts legislation of 1786 was intended to redress all the real grievances of which the county conventions complained, and to satisfy the malcontents, if possible, even in matters concerning which their demands were unreasonable. The purpose was not accomplished ; but the failure proved, to the satisfaction of all who were well disposed, that it was folly to accept the preposterous programme of the leaders. One way alone was left to meet successfully the dangerous spirit that was dominant in the western counties. One act of the legislature, however, though avowedly an attack upon the creditor class, met with universal approval. It was an act making paper money a legal tender for the payment of debts due to citizens of States which permitted their own citizens to satisfy demands upon them in similar currency. The shot was aimed at “ Rogue ” Island, and it told.

Not only was society tending to disintegration at this time, but some of the States themselves were threatened with division. To say nothing of the long controversy between the States as to the ownership of the Western country, or the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania regarding the Wyoming region, the people of what is now Tennessee had set up a government as the State of Frankland, in rebellion against North Carolina ; Kentucky was demanding separation from Virginia; the dispute whether Vermont belonged to New York, to New Hampshire, or to herself was still undecided ; and a determined movement was making for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. Two conventions were held at Falmouth,— the name of which town was changed to Portland in the interval between the two conventions,— the grievances of the district were recited, and a memorial to the General Court, asking its assent to the separation, was adopted and sent out for signature. But there is no doubt that at that time a very large majority of the people of Maine were opposed to severing the connection with Massachusetts.

Turn now to the national situation. The Congress of 1786 was the weakest body ever constituted by the action of the state governments. There was no credit to be gained by any man from membership in an assembly which was deprived of all real power, and consequently there were few members who conferred credit upon Congress. The people of the States were indifferent, hardly caring to be represented in the national assembly, and the members seem to have regarded the duties imposed upon them as a terrible burden. The Articles of Confederation made Congress an impotent body. This character, impressed upon it, so affected its membership that the advice to the States came with little weight of authority ; and the States themselves finished the work by neglecting to follow that advice when to do so involved a sacrifice.

The day of meeting of the Congress of 1786 was November 7, 1785. The total membership was fifty-six. On the 7th November ten members put in an appearance, but only three States were " present; ” that is, there were as many as two members each from the States of New York, Maryland, and South Carolina only. On the 23d of the month, for the first time, seven States, the requisite number, were sufficiently represented, but still only sixteen members were in attendance. Two other States became represented in December, one in February, two (Delaware and North Carolina) in May, and Rhode Island was not able to give an effective vote on any division until July 14th. During the whole year there were frequent adjournments without transacting any business, for lack of a quorum of States, and the largest number of members who voted on any question presented to Congress was thirty-one. Not once during the whole year were all the States represented by the necessary two members each on the same day.

Reasons for this neglect of duty were various. Sometimes a state legislature would elect persons to represent it in Congress, and then adjourn without waiting to see whether the commission was accepted or declined. In other cases, as each State paid its own members, legislative parsimony accounted for the absence of Congressmen. The story of the Rhode Island delegation of 1786 is typical, and decidedly interesting. Mr. Manning, the president of the Rhode Island college, now Brown University, happened to visit the legislature one day, on business of his own. It had been difficult to find suitable persons to accept an election to Congress. A friend perceived Mr. Manning in the hall, suddenly conceived the idea of making him a delegate, and proposed his name to the house. He was immediately and unanimously elected within half an hour of the time when the first thought of making such a choice presented itself to any mind. As Mr. Manning believed he could be useful to his college, by pressing a claim which it had against Congress, he accepted the appointment. He soon had reason to regret that he had done so. His colleague, Mr. Miller, who had been entrusted with an advance payment of one hundred dollars for Mr. Manning and the same sum for himself, did not go to New York, where Congress was sitting, until July, and Mr. Manning could get neither the money nor an answer to his letters. He wrote most beseeching appeals to Governor Collins for some money, and pictured his most humiliating position, being able neither to pay his board and washing bills, nor to get away from New York. Finally the legislature, at one of the numerous sessions called for the purpose of forcing the state paper money up to par, passed a munificent vote to allow him seventyfive dollars. It is to be presumed that this unfortunate delegate succeeded in paying his bills ; but although he was reelected to Congress for 1787, he did not take his seat.

Not only was Congress so thinly attended at all times as to make it necessary to send out a special appeal that each State should endeavor to be represented by at least two members, but the personnel of the body left very much to be desired. Not many of the States sent to the Congress of 1786 even one of its best men. When members of the convention of 1787 were to be chosen, the true leaders reappeared in public life by the score, but they were not in Congress in 1786. Fully one half of the members of Congress in that year were never heard of again, unless it were in some subordinate state capacity. There were some able men among them, nevertheless. The delegations from Massachusetts and Virginia were the strongest. The former included Nathaniel Gorham, Theodore Sedgwick, Nathan Dane, and Rufus King; and John Hancock, most overrated of Revolutionary heroes, was elected, but prevented by illness from taking his seat. Virginia was represented by James Monroe, William Grayson, and Henry Lee. The additional names of Livermore of New Hampshire, Wilson of Pennsylvania, McHenry of Maryland, and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina almost exhaust the list of men who had ever been or were ever to be prominent in national affairs, who then sat in Congress. Where were Langdon and John Sullivan, of New Hampshire ; the two Adamses, of Massachusetts ; Arnold, Hopkins, and Marchant, of Rhode Island ; Ellsworth, Huntington, Roger Sherman, and Wolcott of Connecticut; Hamilton, Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Peter Schuyler, of New York ; Boudinot, Frelinghuysen, and Stockton, of New Jersey; Franklin, Robert Morris, and Clymer, of Pennsylvania; Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry, of Virginia ; Laurens and Rutledge, of South Carolina; or Telfair, of Georgia ? Some of them were governors or judges in their own States, or members of the local legislatures ; others were in retirement. Others, still, like John Adams, Jefferson, and Jay, were in the public service of the country, either at home or abroad, although not in Congress.

A study of the Journal of Congress for the year under view furnishes a sufficient argument in itself for the virtual abdication of authority, by Congress, which made possible the convention of 1787 and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution. Two hundred and sixtyseven duodecimo pages in large print are sufficient to contain the whole record of the year. And what did Congress do ? It granted a few “ sea letters ; ” considered and adopted several reports bewailing the shortcomings of the States in the matters of the revenue system, the supplemental funds, and other schemes submitted for state approval ; accepted the cession of Connecticut’s claim to Western territory ; and took steps to harmonize a boundary dispute between South Carolina and Georgia. Hardly anything else. Some of these acts, however, throw light upon the situation or upon the modes of action, in those times.

The State of Pennsylvania not only agreed to both of the financial schemes just mentioned, — the right to lay an impost, and the provision of a supplementary fund, — but made its assent so given inoperative until all the other States should have made the grant of power to Congress in equally broad terms. Accordingly, Congress passed a vote that the legislature of Pennsylvania should be asked to rescind this condition, so that when all the States had agreed to the impost, that part of the plan might be put in operation. A committee was appointed, which proceeded to Philadelphia, and laid the matter before the legislature with such effect that the suggestion of Congress was heeded. In examining the reports of proceedings in state legislatures in those times, one must be impressed with the fact that a great part of every session was occupied in the discussion of “ federal ” questions. Thirteen legislatures were debating and quarreling over matters which one legislature should have decided, with the result that, as all thirteen could not finally agree upon one course of action, nothing could be done.

New York, as every student of history knows, was the one State which stood out to the end against granting the impost. At one time it was willing to allow Congress to establish an independent revenue, to be collected by agents appointed by and responsible to the State. All appeals by Congress to New York to amend the condition which made its offer valueless were in vain. The truth was that New York was able, under the existing system, to levy impost duties for her exclusive benefit upon goods intended not only for her own consumption, but for use in Connecticut and New Jersey. The advantage was too great to be surrendered; and a refusal to assent to the plan of Congress and the imposition of inadmissible conditions to the grant of power came to the same thing. It gives one to-day something of the feeling of national humiliation to read the letters in which that ponderous old obstructionist, Governor George Clinton, then midway of his eighteen years’ term as chief executive of New York, refused to call his legislature together to consider further the impost question.

The local selfishness which was the characteristic of that time — perhaps it has not entirely disappeared to-day — is finely illustrated by one fact revealed by this Journal of Congress. Connecticut, whose claim to Western territory was shadowy, was anxious that Congress should accept such a cession as would guarantee to the State the possession of a considerable tract (now known as the “Western Reserve” of Ohio), though not the jurisdiction over it. After several days’ debate the cession was accepted by Congress upon terms satisfactory to Connecticut. This vote was passed on the 26th day of May. Both the members of Congress from Connecticut seem to have gone home immediately after they had carried their point, and the State was not again represented — though one member was occasionally present meanwhile — until the 12th of July, almost seven weeks.

With such matters was the time of Congress occupied. Yet mention should not be omitted of one important act. Before 1786 the dollar was divided, not into cents, or one hundredths, but into ninety parts. In that year the decimal system of money was established, and the cent, the dime, and the eagle received their names. Moreover, the commission to negotiate treaties with European governments succeeded in making a treaty with Prussia, — the one important country with which our commerce was too insignificant to need a treaty. The greater part of the Secret Journal of Congress, which contains all the foreign relations of the United States, is occupied with Mr. Jay’s report upon the objections by England to considering that this country had carried out the stipulations of the treaty of peace. Mr. Jay found that the objections were for the most part well grounded.

To this desultory sketch of what was happening throughout the country, in reference to federal matters, should be appended a mention of the Annapolis meeting, called by Virginia for the purpose of considering the best means of conferring upon Congress the right to regulate commercial relations with other countries. Representatives were present from only five States. The same exasperating indifference which was threatening the country with ruin was manifested in regard to this important meeting. Massachusetts appointed a full delegation, every member of which declined. A second choice was made, with like result. Some persons appointed later started to attend the meeting, but were met on the way by delegates returning from Annapolis. Only twelve persons actually assembled to consider the regulation of trade. Alexander Hamilton saw at once the possibility which was opened before the country, and all the acts of the convention, including the call for the Philadelphia convention of 1787, were suggested by him, and the adoption of them was due to the ability and skill of his management.

As might have been expected from the condition of disorder, indifference, and impotence which has been described, the public forces of the United States were not in an efficient state. There was a situation suggestive of general mutiny in the navy. In a letter dated November 8th, in one of the newspapers, an account is given of the troubles which broke out in the fleet, shortly after sailing from port. There was a “ dispute ” on several ships, and the officers and crews refused to obey the admirals and commodores. One ship, the Hampshire, narrowly escaped being wrecked, owing to the insubordination that prevailed. On the ships Boston and Rhode Island there was actual mutiny. The letter adds that “ the captain of the Philadelphia wishes the commodores and admirals to be obeyed. " That captain seems to have been a peculiar being.

But if the political situation one hundred years ago was thus gloomy, there were some things occurring to give our great-grandfathers passing joy. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company paraded for the first time, in 1786, since the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Then, too, the Charles River bridge was opened, the first structure which connected Boston with the mainland, except by the circuitous way of the “Neck” and Roxbury. The opening took place on the 17th of June, the twelfth anniversary of Bunker Hill. There were a procession, a dinner, toasts, and the rendering of an ode, which was “ sung in a manner that might equal but could not exceed the merit of the composition.” “ Joy crowned the day, and in the evening the lamps were lighted on the bridge ; ” and, if we may believe the local chronicler, something more than light was needed to direct the homeward footsteps of some of those who had joined in the festivities of the day.

There were sorrows, too, in those times. The corporation of Harvard College found it necessary to use strong measures for the repression of the luxurious tastes of the students in their attire. By a formal vote passed in 1786, every student was forbidden to appear on the college grounds, or in the town of Cambridge, in any other than the dress which was by this vote prescribed. Blue-gray wool clothing — coat, waistcoat, and breeches of seven eighths blue and one eighth white wool — was the uniform. Freshmen should wear no ornaments; sophomores were to wear frogs on the button-holes of their coats; juniors, frogs also “ on the button side " of their coats; seniors, buttons and frogs on their coat cuffs. In comparison with their present gay appearance on Class Day, how unpicturesque must the college grounds have been when the artistic tastes of the students were thus discouraged!

Did science flourish then ? Apparently it was neglected by the editors, at least, who were one and all taken in by a Portsmouth Yankee’s announcement that he had discovered a way of uniting water with tallow, or, as he put it, “ the true method ” of uniting them. He could use one third water, so he declared, in manufacturing candles. All the newspapers in the country copied this important intelligence from their “ esteemed contemporary ” of New Hampshire.

But we need not fill in the picture any further. Poverty and debt controlled the direction of public and private affairs. Men were filled with a blind rage because, having won independence and the secure possession of a land having limitless resources, they were burdened with debt, and were unable to establish at home, or to extort from other countries, regulations of trade that should help and not hinder the material development of the country. When they were convinced that only by giving up their absurd ideas of state independence and sovereignty, and founding a truly national government, could they find a way of escape from their misery, they took the steps which were needed, and won the praise of succeeding generations. The events of 1786 did more than anything else to open their eyes to the peril that lay before them.

Edward Stanwood.