Class. Book. ^n^' Gop}TightN°_ \'\\'\ COFOilGWT DEPOSm AN AMERICAN HISTORY BY NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON u PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON Know one another, my countrymen, and you will love one another." — L. Q. C. LAMAR GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO L COPYRIGHT, 1913 1917, 1919, BY NATHANIEI, WRIGHT STEPHEN's6n ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TEbt atftenaum fircea GINN ASU CUMl'AN'^ ■ IKU- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. ©CUR5!J82(I -v/vv:) I n i H- i PREFACE Doubtless every teacher of American history has felt at times the oppression of an apparent lack of unity in his subject. Colo- nial history in particular has proved a stumblingblock. The old way of tracing thirteen tales, one after another — neatly laying down one thread to pick up the next — roused dislike in our pupils who, fortunately, brought to their study the dramatic sense, the demand for sequence, which is the literary inspiration of normal youth. Atlast we see how to meet that demand. Through a reformed conception of our past, we now perceive that colonial American history finds its own noble unity only when seen in perspective as part and parcel of the general politics of the Em- pire. One endeavor of the present text is to be true to this larger conception of our colonial period. It is quite unnecessary in this connection to insist upon the debt which all of us owe to such original observers as Professor H. L. Osgood and Professor C. M. Andrews — to name but two conspicuous benefactors. As to our history subsequent to 1783, the patriotic teacher should be a stranger to all its hatreds while keenly a sympa- thizer with all its aspirations. Whatever be the shortcomings of this text, it may at least make confident claim to being in- formed by such a temper, the temper expressed in the fine line quoted on the title-page. Passing to more technical matters, it is a pleasure to acknowl- edge my indebtedness to a great scholar — Professor Albert Bushnell Hart — from whom, long ago, I learned whatever I know of historical workmanship. His able " Essentials in Amer- ican History," though embodying a point of view to which I can- not wholly subscribe, has, nevertheless, been my leading guide in the difficult task of determining what data belong of right in a vi AMERICAN HISTORY textbook. My thanks are due to the Honorable Theodore Jervey, Recorder of the city of Charleston, and to my colleagues, Pro- fessor P. M. Rea, Professor L. M. Harris, and President Har- rison Randolph, by whom the labor of reading and criticizing manuscript has been generously endured. I have had similar considerate aid from Professor Amos S. Hershey and Professor A. M. Brooks, of the University of Indiana; from Mr. Archi- bald P'reeman, of Phillips Andover Academy ; and from Miss Sarah Barnwell Elliott. Miss Ellen M. EitzSimons, librarian of the Charleston Library, has assisted me in many ways. My last word of indebtedness is due to Professor Philip Van Ness Myers. His method — simple yet without condescension, exact but vivid — forms an admirable model. His personal influ- ence is ever on the side of those large views of historical signifi- cance that eschew the transitory and build upon the permanent. I must be permitted to quote a remark he once made to me. We had spoken of the convincingness attained by Japanese draftsmen through their renunciation of the temporar)^ aspects of objects — the wavering light and shadow — and their preoc- cupation with the permanent form. "There," said Professor Myers, " is the secret of textbook writing." If I have not succeeded in profiting by his example, it is not through lack of faith. NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON College of Charleston CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY i 1. Primitive America 2. The Search for America 3. The Italian Explorers 4. The Rush to the New World 5. Spain and England First Period {1606—16^8). The Foundations of A fnericanism II. THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 26 III. THE COMMONWEALTH OF PLYMOUTH 35 IV. REACTION AGAINST THE LIBERALS OF VIRGINIA . . 39 V. MASSACHUSETTS, THE GREAT SECTARIAN STATE. 45 VI. MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 56 VII. THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . 65 1. The Colonies and the Long Parliament 2. The New England Confederation 3. The Colonies under Cromwell Second Period {id^S-iydd). Fast and West in the British Fnipire VIII. THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 82 1. Royal Exploitation of America 2. The Struggle to possess the Land 3. Quakers and Huguenots 4. The Establishment of a Northern Boundary IX. THE STUART TYRANNY 102 X. OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT 109 1. The Reorganization of the Empire 2. Life in the Seventeenth Century vii viii AMERICAN HISTORY CHAPTER PAGE XI. THE SPANISH DANGER 126 1. Carolina, the Southern Bulwark 2. Georgia, the Sentinel State 3. Collapse of the Spanish Power XII. THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . 138 XIII. WILLIAM PITT 151 Third Period {lydd-iSij). The Establishment of a Western Power XIV. THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 168 XV. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION . . 183 1. The British Invasion 2. England and her Enemies 3. The World-Wide War 4. The Disruption of the Empire 5. The End of Absolutism XVL THE THIRTEEN STATES 213 XVII. THE CONSTITUTION 231 XVIII. THE UNITED STATES IN 1789 241 XIX. THE NEW RfiGIME 248 1. Introductory Legislation 2. Problems of the Frontier 3. Washington's Foreign Policy 4. The Rule of the Federalists XX. THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 267 Fourth Period {iSi^-iSyy). North and Soicth in the American Union XXI. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 288 1. The Needs of the West 2. Slavery Co.mplications 3. The Tariff Problem 4. Nullification XXII. THE DUAL REVOLUTION 320 XXIII. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS • . ■ ■ 339 1. Andrew Jackson 2. The New Parties CONTENTS ix chapter page 3. The Texan Complication 4. The Oregon Question 5. Polk and his Plans 6. California 7. Reorganization of Parties 8. The Compromise of 1850 XXIV. THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . 377 XXV. "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 389 XXVI. THE CRISIS OF 1860 401 XXVII. THE WAR 406 1. The Dissolution of the Union 2. The Combatants 3. The Period of Uncertainties 4. The Crisis 5. The Confederate Rally 6. The Conquest of the South XXVIII. RECONSTRUCTION 466 1. The Presidential Program 2. The Contest between the President and Congress 3. The Recovery of Local Independence Fifth Period {iSyy-igij). The American Federal Republic XXIX. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 493 XXX. RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 519 XXXI. THE NEW AGE 532 APPENDIX A. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE .... 559 APPENDIX B. THE CONSTITUTION 563 APPENDIX C. STATES OF THE UNION ' 578 APPENDIX D. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES . . 580 APPENDIX E. CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATION OF THE SECTIONS, 1790-1860 581 APPENDIX F. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 582 INDEX 589 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE George Washington Frontispiece Columbus appealing to Isabella lo Drake repairing his Ship 22 The Puritan 46 Lord Baltimore 61 The Long Parliament in Session "" 70 James Oglethorpe 134 Benjamin Franklin 148 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 166 Signing the Declaration of Independence 182 Development of the American Flag 194 Lady Washington's Reception 244 Alexander Hamilton 258 Thomas Jefferson 268 Henry Clay 304 Daniel Webster 3^8 John Caldwell Calhoun 33^ Andrew Jackson 34- The Occupation of the Northwest 358 Jefferson Davis 408 Confederate Flags 4'3 Robert Edward Lee 43° Abraham Lincoln 44° Scene of Pickett's Charge, Gettysburg 446 Ulysses S. Grant 45^ The Republic 558 LIST OF FULL-PAGE AND DOUBLE- PAGE MAPS PAGE Early Voyages to America 15 America, 1555 21 French Explorations 98 English America, 1 689-1763 158 British Empire in 1766 164 Eastern North America previous to Revolution 172 United States in 1783 214 United States in 1790 252 Louisiana Purchase Territory 272 United States in 1810 278 The Acquisition of the Far West, 184 5- 18 50 364 System of Communication, 1850 378 Territorial Growth of United States 380 United States in 1850 386 Confederate States, 1861 418 The United States 548 AN AMERICAN HISTORY CHAPTER I THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY I. PRIMITIVE AMERICA 1. The First Americans. No one knows how America was first peopled, and yet almost everywhere in the United States we find traces of an ancient people that have left httle behind them except their graves. Who were they ? Where did they come from ? We call them the mound builders because their burial places are earthen mounds. In these mounds have been found pottery, tools, and weapons ; also the bones of men. But we have not yet found any writing. The tools and weapons are so rudely made that it is plain they are the work of savages. There were other native races in ancient America. Three of them that did remarkable things were the Peruvians, the Mexicans, and the people of Yucatan. Like the mound builders, who may have been their kinsmen, these people have left no books for us to read. But they had a sort of picture writing much hke the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. Many of their hieroglyphics, carved in stone, may still be seen, especially in Yucatan and Peru. There are also ruins of temples, palaces, and gigantic fortifications. 2. An Ancient American Fortress. In Peru, near the city of Cuzco, stand the ruins of a vast fortress of the ancient Americans. Some of the stones in its walls are so huge that we cannot see how they could have been set in place without 2 AMERICAN HISTORY the use of engines. In metal working as well as in masonry the Peruvians were highly skilled. Very early they discovered the rich mines of the Andes ; and Cuzco, their capital, became in large part a city of silver and gold. Its cliief temple, dedi- cated to the sun, was called " the place of gold." Still more remarkable than either the fortress or the temple was the summer palace of the Peruvian monarchs in a lovely valley among the Andes. Surrounding the palace were artificial TEMPLE PYRAMID AT PAPAUTLA, MEXICO gardens in which the plants and flowers were all of the precious metals. Tall stalks of corn stood high in the bright mountain air, but the stalks were of silver and the ears and tassels of the corn were gold. 3. Yucatan. Passing from Peru to Yucatan we find there the empty city of Uxmal. The people have been destroyed. Their treasures were long ago carried off by Spanish con- querors. The city, left desolate, has been taken possession of by the tropical forest. In this forest, the modern explorer of Uxmal finds himself among stone pyramids on which seeds have lodged and grown into trees. Among the trunks, on the THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 3 walls of shattered temples, appear strange carvings. The twilight of the forest is filled with these ancient images which were once the gods of Yucatan. 4. Mexico. More splendid, probably, than either Cuzco or Uxmal was the capital of a strange and terrible people that inhabited the mountain country known to-day as Mexico. Built upon a group of islands, the ancient capital of the Mexi- cans was the American Venice. Like Cuzco it was bar- barically rich in gold and silver. Like Uxmal it had its pyramid temples. In the midst of its blue lake, surrounded by mountains that were crowned by perpetual snow, the Mexican city glittered like an enormous jewel. However, we cannot think of ancient Peruvians and ancient Mexicans as civilized peoples in the sense in which we think of ancient Greeks and Romans. In the science of government they never advanced beyond comparatively primitive stages. In religion, the Mexicans, at least, were still upon the lowest level, worshiping hideous gods with human sacrifices. 5. The Indians. The red Indians of our own country are still to be accounted for. Were they related to the Mexicans ? Perhaps, but we are not quite sure. All we can assert posi- tively is that the central part of North America was once occupied by a tall, well-built race, with straight black hair and copper-colored skins. They were bold, could endure much pain, and were able warriors, but they had Httle of what we mean by " civilization." That is, they did not build cities ; they supported themselves largely by hunting ; they knew Httle about the use of metal ; and they could not write. How long the Indians have lived in America it is impossible to say. Very Hkely their remote ancestors came from Asia, but if that is the case, the migration took place so long ago that the Indians themselves have lost all knowledge of it. Nor is the memory of it preserved in Asiatic tradition. Never- theless, the Aleutian Islands, strung along between Alaska and Siberia, may well have been the stepping-stones by means of which some old Asiatic people, thousands of years 4 AMERICAN HISTORY ago, passed from Asia to America. Possibly the forefathers of our Indians were driven northward out of middle Asia by some younger, more powerful people into the snow and ice of Siberia. Expelled from habitable Asia, they were left to live or die apart in a land which no one visited. If in the course of time they found their way eastward and southward and at last reached a better country, no one in Asia either knew or cared. So, for many centuries, all Asia bcheved that the Pacific Ocean was the end of things. Looking out across it, Asiatics thought, '' Beyond this there is nothing." 6. Europe and America. The Europeans at the other end of the world had a similar delusion. In those far-off days, when the earth was supposed to be fiat, they looked westward over the Atlantic Ocean and said, " There is nothing beyond." And all the while, without ever suspecting it, the Europeans and the Asiatics were looking in each other's direction, round the curve of the earth's ball. Between them all the while lay the unknown land, America, with its savage, red-skinned warriors, its bestial human sacrifices, and its golden temple of the sun. n. THE SEARCH FOR AMERICA 7. First Link with Europe. The earliest known events which connect the Old World with the New took place toward the end of the ninth century. To the far western island of Iceland, in 874, came the Vikings from Norway. All the west coast of Norway is cut into by the sea. Long, narrow channels go deep into the land. The tide, as it rises, roars through these channels, and the waves crash upon the bases of lofty mountains. There, more than a thousand years ago, lived the Vikings— restless, piratical folk who issued from their bleak inlets to rove the seas in search of adventure. The most daring of sailors, they braved the worst storms in a type of boat which we should not consider seaworthy. A viking " ship " was but sixty or seventy feet long, with a single mast and one square sail, and oars on either side. In such THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 5 boats the Norsemen went as far east as Constantinople ; while in the west they did what we shall now hear. 8. Settlement of Iceland and Greenland. In Iceland the Norsemen settled a new Norway, where the descendants of the Vikings live to this day. A hundred years later, a famous sea rover, Eric the Red, made his way to Greenland. The news of his discovery caused great excitement in Iceland ; and in 985 Eric sailed for Greenland a sec- ond time at the head of a numer- ous party of emi- grants. Few spots on our continent ap- peal so powerfully to the imagina- tion as does a ^^ _-^_^..ri.., little piece of a nur.e .hip meadow land, at the head of an inlet on the west coast of Greenland. There Eric fixed his colony, the first European settlement in North America. The site of it is still marked by a group of ruins. 9. Vinland. It would seem that there was a considerable migration from Iceland to Greenland. Presently the Norse began to wonder what, if anything, lay to the south and west. There are different tales as to who was the first European to reach continental America, but that honor is generally accorded to Leif Ericson, one of the sons of Eric the Red. We may take it as settled that Leif reached the mainland of North America about the year 1000. He cruised along the coast, entered a great bay, found grapes growing wild, and therefore called the country Vinland.^ * It is not certainly known just what part of the coast Leif visited. Many students are convinced that his great bay was Boston harbor. There is a monument to Leif in the Fenway Park, Boston. AMERICAN HISTORY 10. The Norsemen in Vinland. The Norsemen attempted to plant a colony in Vinland. We have record of at least one man who was born there, a certain Snorre, from whom many persons in later years claimed descent. The very beginning of the struggle between the white and red races to possess America was a skirmish be- tween Norsemen and Indians, in which the Norse leader was shot dead by an Indian arrow. Soon afterward a fierce attack by Indians drove the Norse- men to their ships. That was the end of the colony, but the Greenlanders did not forget what Lcif had found, and long afterward they were still mak- ing voyages to Vinland for timber. In time even these ceased. During many generations there seem to have been no Europeans west of Greenland. LEIF ERICSON STATUE, BOSTON III. THE ITALT\N EXPLORERS 11. The Vinland Tradition. In the countries of the far North people continued to talk of Vinland. In Iceland the story of it was set down as part of Norse history. It was carried eastward to the Orkney Islands. Two Italians of noble birth, the brothers Nicola and Antonio Zeno, heard the story while visiting the Orkneys and resolved to explore the West. The narrative left us by the Zenos tells of a visit to a great island in the West ; of long wanderings in sea fog ; of a western country which has not been identified ; and of exploring the coasts of Greenland. That is all we know of the earliest visit of the Italians to North America. THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 12. The Renaissance and Exploration. However, the time had come when ItaHans were to outdo all other peoples in making voyages and discoveries. Italy was then in the midst of that great awakening which we call the Renaissance. After a long neglect of thought, Europe rediscovered the dehght of it, chiefly through rediscovering the classic writers of Greece and Rome. One of the signs of the time was a passion for knowledge; another was the spirit of adventure. Thus Region of the Norse Discoveries ( Southern Europeans, probably had no knowledge o£it,')^ THE KNOWN WORLD IN 1492 arose the Italian enthusiasm for travel, which the Zenos were by no means the first to feel. Long before, Marco Polo had set his countrymen a famous example. Lured eastward by the tales of Arab traders, he made his way through Persia, across India, to China. His reports of the wonders of those countries — the silks, the spices, the gold and precious stones, the temples and palaces — opened to his countrymen a vision of magnificence which captivated their imagination. 13. The Problem of India. Trade between Italy and India had long been carried on by the Arabs over caravan routes through western Asia. In the fifteenth century, however. 8 AMERICAN HISTORY the Turks, rude soldiers who despised commerce, conquered most of the Arabian world. They even entered Europe and in 1453 fixed their capital at Constantinople. By these Turkish conquests overland trade between Europe and India was practically abolished. Thereupon, throughout Italy the ques- tion was eagerly discussed : How can trade with India be re- covered ? At this juncture the scientists of Italy came to the assistance of the traders. They had long since convinced themselves that the earth is not flat and stationary, as their fathers had sup- posed, but a great ball whirling on a vast orbit around the sun. At Florence, in 1470, the famed astronomer, Toscanelli, calculated the circumference of the earth and got it almost right. Thus was revealed the fact that any spot on the earth may be reached round the earth's circle, either by going east or by going west. 14. Columbus. Who first suggested that India might be reached by going west we do not know. Perhaps it was Tos- canelli. Perhaps it was a still more celebrated Italian, a sailor of Genoa, Christopher Columbus. Perhaps it was some one whose name has been forgotten. At any rate, in the year 1474 the king of Portugal was consulting Toscanelli — " taking expert advice," as we should say to-day — for a full statement of his views on the subject. The great Columbus was then in the employ of Portugal. It is not unlikely, therefore, that it was Columbus who suggested to the king to write to Toscanelli, and that the astronomer merely passed judgment on the scheme of the sailor. But it is certain that he approved. Letters passed between him and Columbus, and the astronomer sent the sailor a map, together with calcu- lations of the probable position of India on the globe of the earth. What did we say about the European and the Asiatic looking in each other's direction round the earth's ball, and never suspecting the unknown land, America, in between? Of course neither Columbus nor Toscanelli dreamed of such THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY . 9 a place. Their information as to the distance overland through Asia to India was vague. The best they could do was to take the circumference of the earth as calculated by Toscanelli, subtract from it what they beheved to be the dis- tance eastward to India, and conclude that the remainder was the distance westward. This they did. The result persuaded both men that the most advantageous commercial route to India lay directly west across the Atlantic Ocean. THE TOSCANELLI MAP The outline of the Western Continent is in black dots, showing its actual position. The black line shows the voyage of Columbus. 15. The African Route. But there was a rival opinion. Others held that if they could find a way southeastward round Africa, it would prove to be much shorter than the westward way advocated by Columbus and Toscanelli. After wavering some time, the king of Portugal turned against Columbus and adopted the opposite view. Columbus, in disgust, left the country and went to Spain. There, in 1487, he had news that troubled him. Until then many people had believed that Africa extended to the South Pole. The news which startled Columbus was the discovery by Bartholomew lo AMERICAN HISTORY Diaz, a Portuguese, of the Cape of Good Hope. This meant that Africa did not extend to the Pole, that to the south of it was an open sea road to India. 16. The Appeals of Columbus. Columbus saw that he must be up and doing. Presently, if he did not contrive to prove his own theory, all Europe would be sending ships southeast- ward round the Cape to India, and no one would be willing to risk the cost of an expedition due west. He now set to work to canvass the states of Europe for financial backing. For four years he sought it in vain. Portugal, Spain, France, England, were all too busy to give heed to him. In 1492 for the second time Columbus appealed to Spain. Some great men in Spain who had become interested in Columbus en- Usted on his behalf the sympathies of the queen, Isabella of Castile. His scheme was presented to her as the means to a great campaign of foreign missions. As such the good queen became interested in it. Finally, she agreed to supply Colum- bus with the ships and men for which he asked. 17. The Voyage of Columbus. On the third of August, 1492, from Palos in Spain Columbus set sail. He had three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. They were no bigger than fishing smacks of to-day, and on board them all were but ninety men. From Palos they sailed to the Canary Islands, the most westerly land then known to Europeans. Five weeks after their departure from Palos, they left the Canaries and stood boldly forth upon an unknown sea. For thirty-three days they were out of sight of land. The sailors became mutinous and Columbus had great difficulty in keeping them from turn- ing back. At length, on the morning of Friday, October 12, 1492, land was sighted. Columbus, writing of his discovery, says, " I gave (it) the name of San Salvador, in commemoration of his Divine Majesty who has wonderfully granted all this. The Indians call it Guanaham." ;,?:*;; '^-- J ;^^r V;r^ !w fl » 1 ^ 1 ■r 1 1 I ^Hb^i^^^^' -'• 7 1. ^K ' 'i^^ ::j^^^- ■ \ 1 ^^^^ 'fl- ^C ■t'*" ^' 4 1 ^:J| P^^^'-rV. f^„ ^ ),; 1 m i ^ l^n Jl i UJ 3 (d a> < 10 -1 CAI 2 O H O o Q. Z O J . J J-J O !X0 U " THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY n IV. THE RUSH TO THE NEW WORLD 18. The Indies. Though Columbus had found a new world he had no comprehension of what he had done. In his own eyes he had merely visited islands off the coast of India. He therefore named his discoveries, " the Indies." We know to-day that he had visited the Bahama Islands and cruised along the shores of Cuba and Hayti. Curiously enough, THE LENOX GLOBE (1510) SHOWING THE NEW WORLD AS AN ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF ASIA it is not known with certainty which island it was that he saw first and named San Salvador. Probably it was what we now call Watling Island. 19. America and the Fortune Hunters. The news brought home by Columbus made an immense sensation. At once bold adventurers turned westward to make their fortunes. Every needy gentleman of Spain began to dream of golden cities waiting to be plundered by Europeans. There followed 12 AMERICAN HISTORY a succession of exploits, so daring that they take away one's breath, and so fruitful in plunder that the Spaniards passed, at one step, from the poorest to the richest of European peoples. Columbus himself did not share in this vast but ill-gotten wealth. Though he made three more voyages, he never found the way to the rich parts of America. He died in 1506, poor and disappointed, unaware that his " Indies " were not a part of Asia. Soon, however, the Spaniards began to find what they sought. Hernando Cortez made his way into the heart of the Mexican dominions, fought a terrible battle among the canals of the capital, and established there the authority of the king of Spain. Peru was found and conquered by Fran- cisco Pizarro. Many others, scarcely less audacious, followed the lead of these two. Before long all the temples and palaces of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru had been stripped of their gold and silver by the Spaniards. The native Americans, over- awed by the steel-clad Europeans, were driven to work their own mines for the benefit of the strangers. So hard were they driven that they died in great numbers, and negro slaves were brought from Africa to take their places. Meanwhile, from Mexico, Central America, Peru, year after year, ships laden with gold and silver went across the sea to the king of Spain. The riches they bore were too vast for us to form any just estimate of them. 20. Significance of the New World. From the day Colum- bus returned to Palos, America has been a prime factor in European politics. From the very start it was looked upon by Europe as a vast reservoir of wealth. Before long the most vigorous European races were competing with each other for the control of America. Spain and Portugal instantly became rivals in this new field of speculation ; but soon France, England, and, a little later, Holland boldly demanded a share in the New World. During the hundred years following the voyage of Coumbus there was no more \4tal issue before THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 13 the world than this : Shall Spain be allowed to keep the whole of America, or shall other nations be allowed a share of the immense treasure contained in the New World ? 21. Spain and Portugal. A contest between the Spaniards and Portugese in America was prevented by Pope Alexander VI, who decreed that the whole world, for purposes of colonization, should be divided into two hemispheres separated by a north and south line through the Atlantic Ocean. Spain was to colonize the western hemisphere ; Portugal, the eastern. Later ^ it was decided that the line should run " from pole to pole, three hundred and seventy leagues west from the Cape Verde Islands." Brazil was afterward allotted to Portugal because it was found to extend east of the dividing line. 22. England follows Spain. The success of Spain in America roused the English king, Henry VII. In 1497 he sent out John Cabot, a Venetian, " to discover any heathen regions which up to this time have remained unknown to Christians." Cabot came home the next year and reported that he had reached the "territory of the Grand Chan" and that it was seven hundred leagues west of England. He doubt- less touched North America, and, like Columbus, thought he had reached Asia. His son, Sebastian, is supposed to have made a second voyage westward and to have explored the American coast as far south as Virginia ; but of this second voyage of the Cabots we know little with certainty. What- ever the Cabots discovered, England was not yet ready to take possession of it, and therefore their discoveries were not followed up. 23. France enters the New World. France also made a prompt attempt to compete with Spain. Her first explorer was an Italian, Verrazano, who probably sailed along the same coast explored by the Cabots. It is generally thought that he entered New York harbor. But the first great achievement of the French in the West was the discovery of the St. Law- rence River by Jacques Cartier in 1535. ^ By the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal, 1494. 14 AMERICAN HISTORY 24. The Struggle among the Nations. The inevitable warfare among the nations over America began in 1565. A party of Frenchmen had formed a settlement on the St. Johns River in Florida. Almost at the same time the conquest of Florida was undertaken by a Spaniard, Pedro Menendcz, who in 1565 founded the city of St. Augustine.^ Thence he marched against the French on the St. Johns. Taking them SPANISH FORT, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA by surprise, Menendez killed every man and boy over fifteen years of age, except a few who escaped to the surrounding forest. That was the end of French settlement in the South. 25. The Fury of the Conquest. That savage butchery near St. Augustine struck the keynote of the struggle among the nations for the New World. It was war to the knife. ' St. Augustine, Florida, is the oldest city within the limits of the present United States, but a number of places, now part of our country, were visited by Spaniards during the sixteenth century. As early as 1513 Ponce de Leon visited Florida. The Gulf coast was explored by Pineda in 1519. The Missis- sippi was partially ex[ilorcd by Ferdinand de Soto in 1541. The town of Santa Fe was founded as early as 1605, possibly much earlier. There were also expeditions along the coast of California and as far north as Puget Sound. EARLY VOYAGES TO AMERICA SCALE OF MILES 1 Lief 1000 2Zeno SColumbus's 1st Voyage 1492 2nd •• M93-96 5 Cabots li97-98 6 Vespucius for Spain 1199 7 Columbus-s 3rd Voyage 1498 00 8 Cabral 1500 9 Vespucius for Portugal 1501-02 10 Columbuss 4th Voyage 1602-04 11 Pineda 1519 12 Magellan 1519-22 13 Verrazano 1524 11 Cartier'8 First Voyage 1634-35 15 •• Second •• 1535-36 IS i6 AMERICAN HISTORY Never was Europe more fiercely divided than in the latter part of the sixteenth century ; never have the nations struggled more cruelly to destroy each other. And never have men been animated by such vehement and contradictory motives. It was an age of religious wars, when faith, patriotism, specula- tion, Hcentiousness, all clashed, sometimes in the same indi- vidual, with terrible results. Our present standards of right and wrong seem hardly to apply to the sixteenth century. Through all that turmoil of desperate competition emerged the ruthless warfare of two great nations to possess America. 26. France loses her Chance. It might be expected, from what has been said of Florida, that the chief rivals for America would be France and Spain. But such was not the case. France, at a crisis in her career when an American empire was within her grasp, was rendered impotent by civil war, long, desperate, and exhausting. The people who now rushed into the field for a duel to the death with Spain were the English. V. SPAIN AND ENGLAND 27. England enters the Field. The English took up the matter in earnest in 1566. A charter was granted by Parlia- ment to Sir Humphrey Gilbert and others, who were to form a company to trade with India. The aim of Gilbert was to find a "northwest passage " round America through the Arctic Sea. By this time people had formed fairly correct ideas about the geography of the New World. ^ As early as 15 13 Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean. Somewhat later the famous navigator Magellan set out on a voyage which ended in the first com- plete circumnavigation of the globe. The old notion that ^ The name "America" was adopted graduallj'. It is derived from Americus Vespucius, a Venetian geographer, who made several voyages in the service of Spain and Portugal between the years 1499 and 1507. His writings made an impression, and in 1507 an Alsatian geographer coined the word "Amerige," that is, the land of Americus, or America. At first the word was applied only to the eastern part of South America. Gradually it came to have the signifi- cance it has to-day THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 17 America was part of Asia was now done away with. There- fore the English dreamed of finding the " northwest passage " to India. For a while, however, nothing came of the plans of Gilbert. 28. Sir John Hawkins. A typical Englishman of that day was Sir John Hawkins. In him the strange contradictions of his time were incarnate. Though he doubtless considered himself a good Christian, he combined in one business slave- trading, smuggling, and piracy. The slaves he kidnaped in Africa. But the only market for slaves was in the West Nuc iro 6^ h^ partes funt latius luftratje/S^ alia quaf ta pars per Americu Ve{putiu(vt ix\ fequenti bus audietur)inuenta eft/qua non video cur qm's iure vetet'ab Amerko inuentore fagacis ingeni] vi to Amerigen quafi Americi terra / fiue Americam dicenda: Facsimile of part of the page in Martin Waldseemiiller's CosmographicB Iniroductio, 1507, which contains the first printed suggestion of the name America. Indies, whence English ships were excluded by Spanish law. To get rid of his slaves Hawkins boldly sailed into Spanish ports and sold them to whomever would buy. Naturally Hawkins was sought after by Spanish ships of war. However, the English had learned how to build better ships than the Spanish, — ships that could sail faster and were quicker in all their movements. England teemed with such men as Hawkins, men who delighted to take their lives in their hands and run great risks on the chance of enormous gain. With a good English ship and a reckless English crew, Hawkins proved too much for any Spanish force he ever met, except on one dreadful occasion. In 1568, while in the harbor of Vera Cruz, Hawkins with five English ships was surrounded by thirteen ships of Spain. The battle which followed, considered merely as gallant fighting, is one of the brilliant things in history. Though so fearfully outnumbered, the i8 AMERICAN HISTORY English were not quite beaten. A great part of their force, it is true, were killed or taken prisoner, but the commander with two ships fought his way through the Spanish fleet and escaped. 29. The Feeling between England and Spain. Even before then hatred had been engendered between England and Spain, due partly to conflicting principles in poHtics and reHgion, partly to commercial jealousy. Subsequent to 1568 their hatred became intense. The English accused the Spaniards of having deceived Hawkins previous to the bat- tle at Vera Cruz by a sol- emn promise that he should not be molested there. They also circulated horrible sto- ries of the tortures of the English prisoners in Spain. To all this Spain made the simple answer : These men were pirates, defying the laws of Spain within the Spanish empire. And Queen Elizabeth, much as she s^Tnpathized with her own people, could not deny that Hawkins in Mexico was a trespasser. 30. The Policy of Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth could not openly take sides with Hawkins, she secretly encouraged him. Other Englishmen followed his example, and the queen, in spite of numerous protests from Spain, refused to treat them as pirates. Her motive was twofold. Being a farsighted statesman, she saw that America was the key to the future, that whoever controlled the treasures of America would play a leading part in Europe. Furthermore, England, once a first-class power, ^ had sunk to a secondary position. It was ' During the Middle Ages England rose to the high position of chief power in the west of Europe. Henry V, called "the Napoleon of the Middle Ages," was the mightiest sovereign of his time. Under him England was at the head of "-^.m^ii THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 19 a passion with Elizabeth and all her people to restore England to its old importance. But if they did that, Spanish ascend- ancy in Europe ^ would be threatened. They judged correctly that Spain would make every effort to prevent the return of England to a place among the great powers. Therefore they concentrated their energies in a fixed determination to under- mine the strength of Spain. 31. The Revolt of the Netherlands. They had a great chance in 1576. In that year the Netherlands (see footnote below) seceded and formed a separate government. Relent- less war was the result. The Dutch appealed to England. But Elizabeth was not quite ready for open war with Spain. She refused to become the confessed ally of the Nether- lands, although in secret she ser^t them both money- and soldiers. 32. Sir Francis Drake. She took a similar course for some ten years longer with regard to the Indies. While denying that she was an enemy of Spain, she shut her eyes to numerous depredations upon Spanish commerce com- mitted by Englishmen. The most famous exploit of this an empire. But soon after his death, from a variety of causes, her power de- dined, her imperial position was lost, and finally civil war — the brutal Wars of the Roses — paralyzed her strength. She relapsed into the class of the minor powers. From this position Elizabeth raised her again to the first rank. ^ The Spanish kingdom had been raised to imperial position partly by acci- dent, partly by diplomatic ability, partly by military genius. The all-important accident was the finding of America by the Spaniards when they were seeking for something else. Their chief diplomatic triumphs were two. By a marriage between the heiress of Spain and the heir of the House of Hapsburg, Spain and the Netherlands were united and Spanish influence made predominant in Ger- many. Carlos I, of Spain, son of the Hapsburg marriage, was chosen emperor by the German states and reigned as Charles V. Though the imperial crown was not continued in the Spanish branch of the Hapsburg family, the prestige thus acquired by Spain was not dimmed when the son of Charles became king as Philip II. Under Charles and Philip Spanish diplomacy won a second great triumph. This consisted in appropriating to Spain the position of leader and protector of all the Catholic states of Europe. The military genius of Spain had been developed in centuries of war with the Moors. It bore fruit in the re- nowned Spanish infantry, whose achievements on the field of battle may com- pare with those of the greatest military races of the world. 20 AMERICAN HISTORY sort was the voyage around the world of Sir Francis Drake.^ Drake had been with Hawkins at Vera Cruz, where he com- manded one of the two ships that escaped. Since then he had outdone his commander in the boldness of his looting in the West Indies. He had brought home whole shiploads of gold, silver, and rich merchandise. In the year 1577, with the secret approval of the queen, but without official warrant, Drake set sail on the most famous of his voyages. What was done on that voyage makes reading that is like the " Arabian Nights." In the report of his booty we read of " thirteen chests full of royals of plate, four score pound weight of gold and six and twenty tunne of silver." This was taken from Spaniards at the mouth of the cannon. Drake's ships were so swift, and so well handled that when Spanish ships were too strong for him he easily outsailed them and got away. When he was their match in cannon, he overhauled them and took all their treasure. One ship taken on its way home from the Philippines was worth a million dollars. 33. England attempts Colonization. This piratical record is nobly broken by the first English attempt at genuine colo- nization. In 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert made a vain en- deavor to plant a colony in Newfoundland. Gilbert was a brave, high-minded gentleman, and his death in a storm that wrecked a later expedition (1583) was a loss to the world. 34. Second English Attempt. Gilbert's half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, a few years later made a similar attempt. The queen gave him warrant to colonize " remote heathen and barbarous lands . . . not actually possessed by any Christian Prince." Raleigh sent out an expedition which planted a settlement, and the queen showed her interest by naming the country Virginia — for herself, the " Virgin Queen." However, Raleigh's attempt failed miserably. His 1 Drake effected a landing in a harbor of the west coast of what is now the territory of the United States. Very probably that harbor was the Bay of San Francisco. See section 516. BREYJS XX ACTAO, TO-nV !> >^OVl OKBIS lltSCX •r7BVlA?.V^i TJHSCRIPTIO J«£GEW5 A lOAV F.UU ROIDk^ 5^iSrr'HSl«\ EUROPEAN CONCEPTION OF AMERICA, MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY From a map of Joan BeUerus, 1555. 21 22 AMERICAN HISTORY colonists disappeared, and to this day we do not know what became of them.^ 35. War between England and Spain. We come now to the year 1588. Philip II saw that the time had come for him to attack England. In fact, the EngUsh, now prepared for war, were thrusting it upon him. He accepted their challenge and sent against them a vast fleet, called by the Spaniards the " Invincible Armada." 36. England strikes a New Note. Up to this point, the story of the struggle between England and Spain has been thronged with contradictions. Courage and duplicity, mental greatness and moral baseness, splendid faithfulness to one's friends and utter barbarity to one's enemies, these are the irreconcilable things that meet us at every turn. So sharply do they contradict each other that we know not what to say in judgment of that startling age. At last, something comes before us that is unquestion- ably noble in every way. At the supreme moment the Eng- lish people took a stand for a new idea, destined to be the shaping principle in the formation of a New World. Hitherto the world had been shaped politically, in no small measure, by the ideas of the later Roman empire. One of these was the idea that religion should be under state control. The Spaniards in their political thinking imitated the Romans. REGION OF RALEIGH'S SETTLEMENT ' The site of Raleigh's settlement is on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. He sent over three relays of colonists — in 1585, 1586, and 1587. The third was com- manded by John White. It comprised one hundred and fifty people, including seventeen women. The first American child of English blood was born in this fated colony of Roanoke. She was named Virginia Dare. DRAKE REPAIRING HIS SHIP THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 23 In their country they allowed no one to hold any religious views not authorized by the government. Abroad their dip- lomats had sought to make their religion a means for advanc- ing the interests of Spain. They had skillfully undermined the influence of France and had set Spain in the place of France at the head of the CathoHc world. They now at- tempted to use their religion as a political weapon in the attack on England. PhiHp II appealed to the English Catho- lics to look upon him, not as the invader of their country, but as the champion of their faith. Had the Catholics of England met him in that spirit, the war of 1588 would have had only political significance ; but what was done by Enghsh Catholics ^ that year opened splendidly a new chapter in the evolution of human freedom. Elizabeth offered the command of the English navy, the supreme responsibility for the defense of England, to a great Catholic nobleman, Charles, Lord Howard, of Effingham.^ Lord Howard accepted that great trust. In the council of war which he held at Plymouth Catholics and Protestants worked side by side, all eager to resist the invaders. It was the first demonstration, on a great scale, of the principle that religion and politics should be separate. To-day, as we look back, we regard the year 1588 not merely as the point of con- flict of two great races, but as the opening of a war between two ideas. The most far-reaching issue of the moment was the question whether the new states to be formed in America should be molded on the ancient despotic principle of a rigid state with a fixed standard of belief, or on the modern principle ^ The word "Catholic," especially when modified by the adjective "English," has given rise to acrimonious disputes. It is used here with no doctrinal inti- mation, but merely as the label of a certain group of people living in 1588. It is the label which they used themselves, and which is popularly understood to-day. ^ Some recent writers deny that he was a Catholic. However, even if they make good their contention, the main point is not affected. No one questions the gallant loyalty to the Crown of many powerful Catholics. See Lingard, "History of England," and "The National Dictionary of Biography" for the course taken by Lord Montague. 24 AMERICAN HISTORY of an elastic state, in which beHef is a personal matter, unin- fluenced by the government. All subsequent history would have been different had Spain succeeded in making the latter principle dominant over North America. 37. The Arrival of the Armada. Spain was not destined to do this, however. In midsummer, 1588, the Invincible Armada was sighted off the southwest coast of England. It was saiUng in the form of a half moon, seven miles across. Lord Howard and his fleet were then at Plymouth. With him was almost every noted seaman England had. There were Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, and many more. It had been the business of Howard to combine all these into a great fighting force that should be too strong for Spain. Very ably had he done his work. The fleet he led forth out of Plymouth harbor was probably the finest the world had seen since the day the Greek triremes went forth against Xerxes. The battle which followed was the greatest sea fight since that of Salamis. 38. The Battle of the Channel. With a cool audacity that must have amazed the Spaniards, Howard allowed them to pass him. But no sooner had they done so, than he revealed his plan of battle. He meant to hang on their flanks all the way up the Channel,^ and derange their formation by de- grees. The English sliips were smaller than the Spanish, but more numerous. They were much swifter, were better able to turn and double, and were far more skillfully handled. They might be likened to a pack of wolves attacking a herd of elephants. The wolves were as quick as thought ; if an elephantine Spanish ship lumbered out of Hne, some of the nimble httle English ships dashed in, surrounded it, forced it away from its fellows, and destroyed it. So the battle raged all the way to the Straits of Dover. Long before they reached the straits, the Spaniards were on the verge of demoralization. ' The Spaniards intended to make a landing in Flanders, take on board a great army, and then proceed to England. See Hakluyt (Everyman edition), n, 369. THE PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN HISTORY 25 39. The Battle of the Straits. On the night of July 28 the Armada had sought shelter in the harbor of Calais, and Howard made ready for his final attack. In the darkness of the night eight fire ships were set adrift on the rising tide, which bore them straight toward the Armada. To escape these, the Spaniards hoisted anchor and hurried out to sea. The next day the two fleets closed with each other in a struggle to the death. By nightfall the Armada was hopelessly de- feated. " We are lost," cried its commander, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. And indeed they were. That was the last great deed of the old Spanish empire. The ancient principle had lost in the duel for the New World. The modern principle had won. Selections from the Sources. Bureau of Ethnology, Bulletin No. 30, American Indians; Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World; American History Leaflets, No. 3 (for Icelandic Sagas) ; Major, Select Letters of Columbus; Jameson, Original Narratives of American History; the volumes on The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, edited by Olson and Bourne ; The Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, edited by Hodge ; and Early English and French Voyages, edited by Burrage; Hart, History told by Contem- poraries, I, Nos. 16-43; Hakluyt, Principal Navigations. (At the end of the sixteenth century Richard Hakluyt brought together this great collection, which has become a classic. Every young American should taste the flavor of Elizabethan adventure, at first hand, by reading a portion of Hakluyt.) Secondary Accounts. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, II; III, 1-126; IV, 1-103; Markham, Christopher Columbus; Prescott, The Conquest of Peru, and The Conquest of Mexico; Parkman. Pioneers of France in the New World; Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic; CoRBETT, Sir Francis Drake; Creighton, Sir Walter Raleigh; Fiske, The Discovery of America. Topics for Special Reports, i. Ancient American Life. 2. The Norse in America. 3. The Zeno Brothers. 4. Columbus. 5. Growth of the Idea that America was not a part of Asia. 6. The Elizabethan Sea Rovers. 7. The Spanish Empire under Philip II. 8. Raleigh's Colony. FIRST PERIOD (1606-1658) THE FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICANISM CHAPTER II THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 40. The Spanish War. England and Spain were at war foi fifteen years after the defeat of the Armada. Until the close of the war, the EngHsh made no further attempt to colonize North America, but no sooner was peace made than they began to colonize. They had a wildly false idea of the wealth of " Virginia." ^ In a drama ^ of the day, one of the characters speaks of Virginia as a place where " gold and silver are as common as copper is with us." 41. The First Settlement. In May, 1607, one hundred and four men ^ were landed from English ships on a marshy ' At first the name was applied vaguely to all that part of the Atlantic sea- board which Englishmen had explored. In 1606 the English claimed the sea- board from 34° to 45° north latitude. In that year two companies were organized under a charter of James I providing for the colonization of " that part of America commonly called Virginia." One of these companies, known as the London Company, succeeded in colonizing what we now call Virginia. Hence this company is frequently, though not with strict accuracy, called "The Virginia Company." The other, the Plymouth Company, proved unsuccessful. Each company was given permission to choose a "fit and convenient place" for its first settlement and to occupy thereabouts a region 100 miles square. The London Company was required to locate somewhere between 34° and 41°; the Plymouth Company between 38° and 45°. Thus each was allowed a "sphere of influence," as perhaps we might say, from which the other was e.xcluded, while an intermediate area was open to both. See the admirable discussion in Osgood, "Colonies," I. * " Eastward Hoe," by Chapman, Marston, and Ben Jonson. It was acted in the winter of 1604- 1605. * Sent out by the London, or Virginia, Company. See note i, above. 26 THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 27 peninsula that juts out into the James River. There they founded Jamestown, naming it for the new king, James I, who had succeeded Elizabeth. Seldom have hopeful dreamers met with more crushing disappointment. Instead of golden cities and teeming mines like those of Mexico and Peru, they found only low stretches of alternate forest and river, millions of mosquitoes, and naked Indians, fierce, capable, and hostile. Within two weeks the Indians at- tacked them and they had to fight hard for their lives. The effort to secure food proved a bitter struggle, and be- fore long fever, due to their swampy location, made its appearance. They were sustained by the dauntless will and buoyant temperament of their commander. Cap- tain John Smith. This remarkable man has left us an account of his ad- ventures, among which is the famous incident of the Indian maiden Pocahontas. Smith's narrative represents him as having been a prisoner among the Indians, who had decided to beat out his brains. But just as a powerful Indian swung up his club to make an end of the stranger, Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the tribe, sprang between them, threw her arms around Smith's neck, and refused to move until her father promised to spare him. This incident has become one of the few traditions of the whole American people. Perhaps "THE TOWNE OF SECOTA" Picture of an Indian village drawn by John White in 1585 and incorporated in a report to Sir Walter Raleigh. The original is one of a series preserved in the British Museum. 28 AMERICAN HISTORY it gives us an insight into Smith's character, with some inkling of how he managed to keep up the spirits of the desperate men at Jamestown during its terrible beginning. During two years and a half, out of six hundred and thirty colonists who came over, five hundred and seventy perished. A merely stern man could not have inspired those unhappy people to keep up their dreary struggle. Reading between the hnes of Smith's narrative, we seem to catch a glimpse of grim humor in the commander, of a deep, rough joyousness, of a large delight in danger, which may well have been the one ray of sunshine illuminating the darkness of early Jamestown.^ 42. The Starving Time. The lowest ebb of the fortunes of the colony was the winter of 1 609-1610. It is known as " the starving time." Smith had gone back to England, and without his powerful will to keep them at work, and his im- mense cheerfulness to sustain their spirits, the colonists lost heart altogether. The severity of the winter, the scarcity of food, and the attacks of the Indians drove them to despair. In the spring of 16 10 there were but sixty left at Jamestown. These survivors decided to abandon the settlement. They actually went aboard ship and set sail, but before they cleared the mouth of the James River they were met by Lord Delaware with three ships bringing them ample supplies. Joyfully they faced about and went back to Jamestown. 43. Despotism at Jamestown. As it turned out, however, they had escaped one species of torment only to become the victims of another. To keep them in subjection there was promulgated a brutal code afterward known as " Dale's laws." As a specimen of what resulted may be cited the case of a man who stole a calf and fled to the Indians : he was sentenced to death. Speaking of Dale's laws^ a noted historian says,^ ' See Osgood, "The American Colonies," I, 38-45. * "Articles, Laws and Orders, Divine, Politique and Martial for the govern- ment of Virginia" (Force's Tracts, III). This code expressed, in part, "the stern and energetic spirit of Governor Dale " (Osgood, " Colonies," I, 69), who now became the ruler at Jamestown. ' Channing, "History," I, 183. THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 29 " The knife, the lash, the galleys, and the gallows met the offender at every turn." Furthermore the early colonists were not permitted to own land. The authorities managed the colony upon what was known as " the plantation system," which was carried out " with great rigor, the colonists working in gangs under officials acting as overseers, eating at a common table and living in common barracks." ^ 44. Virginia as a Business Proposition. It must be under- stood that the colonization of Virginia had been undertaken by a great commercial company in England for business reasons. As we have seen, its members had misapprehended the situation, and their venture threatened to end in total loss. About 161 5 certain capitalists who controlled the Virginia Company^ decided that some new move must be made to arouse fresh interest in the colony. The course adopted by them involved Virginia in the complex tangle of English politics, at which we must now glance. 45. The English Liberals. In 16 14 James I dissolved Parliament, which did not meet again until 162 1. Previous to the dissolution, a group of broad-minded politicians had busied themselves advocating those principles of religious and political freedom which, to-day, we take for granted, but 1 Osgood, "American Colonies," I, 63-64, 75. Somewhat later some of the colonists were permitted to become tenants of particular pieces of land for which they paid rent, using their labor during eleven months each year for its cultiva- tion. The labor of the twelfth month continued to be at the service of the authorities. 2 Under the charter of 1 606 the king kept in his own hands the power to appoint the governing officers of the colony. The company received from him only the land and the control of trade. In 1609 the London (Virginia) Com- pany secured a new charter which separated it entirely from the Plymouth Company and added to its other privileges the right to appoint the rulers of the colony. Under this second charter, the boundaries of the colony were en- larged, so as to include all the coast two hundred miles north and two hundred miles south of Point Comfort "up into the land throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." The ultimate governing body of Virginia now became the "Council" of the Company, meeting periodically in London. A third charter in 161 2 confirmed and extended the privileges of the second charter. See note 2, p. 26. 30 AMERICAN HISTORY which were then new. The chief of the Liberals was Sir Edwin Sandys. His close comrade was Henry, Earl of Southampton, the famous friend of Shakespeare. Nicholas Ferrar, one of the most lovable men in Enghsh history, was also of the group. They met with powerful opposition from the king and from a strong party that beUeved in despot- ism and steadily supported James. When Parhament was dissolved, these reformers lost their field of action, and this may account for the fact that they turned at once to the business of colonization. Per- haps they thought they could best ce- ment their party by putting its prin- ciples into practice in the organization of a colony. Be that as it may, the English Liberals, after 1614, while Parhament was not in ses- sion, showed a marked increase of interest in Virginia. In this fact the capitahsts who controlled the Virginia Company saw their opportunity. They were headed by Sir Thomas Smith, ^ one of the richest men of his time, who prob- ably devised the shrewd scheme which he and his friends now put into operation. Though totally out of sympathy EARLY ROYAL GRANTS • (At least so the Virginia Company subsequently interpreted the grant which described their territory as extending " West and Northwest.") ^ Never to be confused with John Smith. THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 31 with the Liberals pohtically,^ he wished to induce them to give their time and money to developing Virginia. Conse- quently he brought about a " deal," so to speak, by which the management of the Virginia Company was taken over by a group of Liberal poUticians, and Sir Edwin Sandys became the company's chief officer. 46. Reforms of the Liberals. Immediately reforms began. The colonists were put on the footing of free citizens. It was made easy for thiem to become owners of the land they worked. Land was offered for sale in England. But perhaps the most striking detail of this revolution in the policy of the Company concerns a congregation of EngHsh Puritans^ then living at Leyden in Holland. We shall hear of them later as the " Pilgrims," and may as well call them by that name through- out. 47. Religious Freedom Begins. In the previous chapter we beheld Englishmen, at a great crisis, forgetting their religious differences and remembering only that they were Englishmen. Unfortunately, the splendid impulse of 1588, which led Protestant and Catholic to lay aside their differences, was followed by a reaction. The older, despotic idea of state control over religion revived. When James I came to the throne, all the forces of reaction found in the new king their appropriate leader. He was narrow, self-opinionated, and obstinate. Liberals, of all persuasions, whether political or religious, he abhorred. Among other objects of his dislike was a small group of earnest people — the Pilgrims — who differed in theology from the Church of England. To escape the royal enmity they left England and found refuge in Holland. But these people longed to return to the shelter of the English flag. Thinking that there might now be a chance for them in Virginia, they applied to the Company, asking to be allowed ^ During Smith's administration only members of the Church of England were tolerated in Virginia. An emigrant who could not satisfy the authorities as to his orthodoxy was flogged daily until he could. ^ See section 64 for the place of the Puritans in English pohtics. 32 AMERICAN HISTORY to settle there. Though Sandys and his associates were church- men, they warmly took up the cause of the Pilgrims and attempted to secure for them a guarantee of freedom of worship. But they had to deal with the king. The one restriction upon the political authority of the Company was that it should enact no law contradictory of any law of England. It could not guarantee religious freedom while there was an Enghsh law restraining it. The only concession the Liberals could secure from the king was a promise that if the Pilgrims went to Virginia and kept quiet he would not, for the present at least, put the laws in operation against them. This was not much of a concession, but it was something. It had great consequences of which we shall hear presently. 48. Virginia's Magna Charta. What appeared at the time of far more importance to Virginia itself was a new system of government devised by the Liberals. Having abolished the despotism of the old order of things, they sent out to the officer who represented them as Governor of Virginia a famous set of Instructions. These Instructions have been called Virginia's Magna Charta. In obedience to them, Sir George Yeardley, in July, 1619, called together the first legislature of English America. There were now eleven settlements in Virginia. Each of these elected two " burgesses," and the twenty-two representatives met in the church at Jamestown. This was the opening of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which began at once to enact laws for the colony. American con- stitutional history began that day. 49. The King against the Liberals. The course of the Liberals in their management of Virginia was watched by the king with jealous eyes. He spoke of the Company as a " Seminary of Sedition," meaning that Sandys and his party were there nursing into strength revolutionary ideas. At the Company's annual election in May, 1620, when officers^ ' The Company's organization was similar to that of a modern stock company. The shareholders elected annually a "Council" or Board of Directors, and various oflicers, of whom the chief was known as treasurer. Sir Thomas THE BEGINNINGS OF VIRGINIA 33 were chosen for the ensuing year, James forbade the reelection of Sandys as head of the Company.^ There followed negotia- tions between the Liberals and the king during which James is said to have exclaimed, " Choose the devil if you will, but not Sir Edwin Sandys." He consented at last to a compromise. The Liberals retained control of the Company, but instead of Sandys they put into office Lord Southampton. Sandys, however, con- tinued in the background to be the real director of their policy. 50. The Political Issues of 1620. The poHtical battle between Liberals and Reactionaries^ had now become gen- eral throughout England. The control of the Vir- ginia Company was but one of the several issues upon which the two par- ties clashed. In 1620 the Liberals saw that if they wished to accomplish their purpose and make Virginia a free country, they must fight for their life, politically speak- ing, against the king and the Reactionaries. They faced their danger and prepared for a great poHtical struggle. At OLD BRICK CHURCH, ^L\K bMllHlIELD, VA., ERECTED IN 1632 Smith served as treasurer many years. He was succeeded by Sandys, who was succeeded by Lord Southampton. 1 The king submitted a Hst of names, in which Sandys' name did not occur, and commanded the Company to choose its head from that list. See Osgood, "Colonies," and Fiske, "Old Virginia," to understand how a party was drawn together, both within and without the Company, for the purpose of breaking the hold of the Liberals on Virginia. The matter is set forth in great detail by Alexander Brown, "First Republic in America." 2 Thus we may label the opponents of the Liberals. 34 AMERICAN HISTORY this point let us leave them temporarily and pursue the for- tunes of their proteges, the Pilgrims. Selections from the Sources. John Smith, General Historie; Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, I, Nos. 47, 48, 50, 59, 61-65, 82 ; Macdonald, Documentary Source Book of American History, for the three Virginian charters; Force's Tracts, III, for Dale's Laws; Sir Edwin Sandys, Survey of Religion in the Western World; The Records of the Virginia Company, edited by S. Kingsbury ; Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia. Secondary Accounts. Gardiner, History of England, HI; Chan- NiNG, History of the United States, I, chaps, vi-viii; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. I; Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, I, chaps, ii-iv; Beers, The Origins of the British Colonial System; Thwaites, Colonies, 38-74 ; Brown, First Re- public in America.- Topics for Special Reports, i . Motives of the English in colonizing Virginia. 2. Constitution of the Virginia Company. 3. John Smith. 4. The Virginia Colony in 1615. 5. EngUsh PoHtics in 1615. 6. Sir Edwin Sandys. CHAPTER III THE COMMONWEALTH OF PLYMOUTH 51. The Migration of the Pilgrims. For some seventy years (1620-1691) on the shores of Massachusetts Bay there was a httle commonwealth which had only a vague connection with the crown of England. This was the settlement of the Pilgrims. How it came to be there, what made it different from other places, and how it came to an end, let us now see. As we know, the original intention of the Pilgrims was to settle in Virginia. With that end in view a party of a hundred sailed in the Mayflower, September, 1620. But these en- thusiasts never reached Virginia. The voyage was a stormy one, and they were carried far out of their course. Early in No- vember they were off the coast of Cape Cod, where the captain of the Mayflower, in spite of their protests, in- sisted upon landing them. Thus they found themselves adrift politically in a part of the English dominions where they had not title to so much as a foot of land and where, as yet, there was no estabhshed government nor any settlement of Englishmen. 52. The Mayflower Compact. Instinctively they formed a commonwealth. In the cabin of the Mayfloiver, November II, 1620, they signed a " compact," which is the first document 35 THE MAYFLOWER 36 AMERICAN HISTORY of its kind known to history. By their own deliberate act a group of men bound themselves to form a " civil body politic." They were to be governed according to the simple plan of majority rule. The whole body was to vote upon all pubHc questions. They also decided to have a governor regularly elected, and John Carver was chosen to be the first head of the commonwealth. However, they had no intention of doing anything in defiance of the English crown. In their compact they expressly stated that they were '' loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, Ring James." After the painling by Bayes DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER On the shore of a harbor to which the name of Plymouth had been given by earlier voyagers the Pilgrims decided to fix their settlement. There they laid out the town of Plymouth. The landing was made on or near a great bowlder, known ever after as Plymouth Rock.^ 53. Status of the Commonwealth. The surrounding country had been granted to an EngHsh company known as ' The vicinity was free from Indians. A pestilence had recently depopulated it. Soon after the coming of the Pilgrims, however, a native "king," Massasoit, visited their settlement and concluded a treaty of peace and good will. THE COMMONWEALTH OF PLYMOUTH 37 the Council for New England.^ From this organization the Pilgrims made haste to secure a patent authorizing their settlement. However, it must be born in mind that this patent, like the one assigned them in Virginia, was merely a grant of land. It did not ratify the formation of the Plymouth commonwealth. It did not vest in the Pilgrims any powers of government. As a poHtical organization, the Plymouth commonwealth, in the eyes of the EngHsh courts, did not exist. The king could abolish it any moment he chose. At last the time came when a king of England chose to do so, and then the commonwealth of Plymouth vanished from the map. 54. Characteristics of Plymouth. Thehttlere- pubHc — for such it prac- tically was — existed more than seventy years. During that time it was a bright spot amid so much that was dark in the history of the seven- teenth century. It was a land of peace and good will.2 The most notable figure in the history of Plymouth is prob- ably the second governor, WilHam Bradford, whose ad- ministration lasted thirty years. He wrote an account of the commonwealth which is one of the precious documents of ^ See note i, p. 26. That Plymouth Company created by the charter of 1606 had lately been reorganized with the title, Council for New England. See Chapter IV. 2 The investigations of recent years have convinced some students that the most striking instance of toleration at Plymouth was the attitude of the Pil- grims toward the renowned captain, Miles Standish. He was one of the signers of the compact of the Mayflower and served thereafter as general of the com- monwealth. His courage and ability contributed much to set the infant state on a firm foundation. According to a recent view, there is evidence that he was a Roman Catholic. THE STANDISH HOUSE, DUXBURY, MASS. 38 AMERICAN HISTORY early American history. During Bradford's administration the men of Plymouth organized the first town meetings in America, making each town a pure democracy, and also set up a representative assembly for the whole state. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Documentary Source Book, for the Mayflower Compact ; Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 97-104 ; Bradford, History of Plymouth (Original Narratives Series) ; Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims. Secondary Accounts. FiSKE, Beginnings of New England; Osgood, The American Colonies, I, 105-119, 290-299; Channing, History, Vol. 1, chap, xi ; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, Vol. Ill, chaps, vii-viii ; Griffis, The Pilgrims in their Three Homes; Gardiner, History of England, Vol. Ill ; Doyle, The Puritan Colonies ; National Dictionary of Biography, article on Miles Standish ; Dexter, Story of the Pilgrims. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Separatist Movement before 1620. 2. The Pilgrim State. 3. Relations between the Pilgrims and the Indians. 4. Miles Standish. 5. ReUgious Toleration at Plymouth. CHAPTER IV REACTION AGAINST THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT OF VIRGINIA 55. The Council for New England. We now return to the political battle in England to control the Virginia Company. Those members of the Company who were opposed to the Liberal faction appear about 1620 to have given up hope of wresting its management from the Liberals. They withdrew from the Company and by way of revenge set to work to destroy it.^ Some of them figured in a rival colonial organiza- tion of which we have already heard, the Council for New England.^ The king granted to it all America between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels from the Atlantic to the Pacific.^ The purpose of the council was to organize its vast domain in a strictly aristocratic way. Many great nobles were 1 Speaking of this secession of the anti-Sandys faction, the court book of the Company says, "The said Earl (of Warwick) . . . with others . . . have generally absented themselves from the Courts of the Company and . . . together with Sir Thomas Smith have also sold awaie their interest in Virginia." Kingsbury, "Records of the Virginia Company," II, 405. 2 See notes, pp. 26, 36. The Plymouth Company had not prospered. In 1607, under the auspices of Chief Justice Popham, it sent out an expedition which made a settlement on the Kennebec, in what is now Maine. One severe winter so disheartened the colonists that they gave up their attempt and returned home. In 1620 occurred the reorganization of the Plymouth Company as the Council for New England. See note, p. 36. ^ The term " New England " was coined by Captain John Smith. In 1614, after he had given up the governorship of Virginia, he was sent out by the Plymouth Company to explore the northern coast. He made a fairly correct map of the coast line from Cape Cod to Maine. He gave Cape Ann, Charles River, and Plymouth Harbor the names they still retain. To the whole region he gave the name New England. It should be observed that the English crown by the grant to the Council for New England advanced the northern boundary of the region claimed by it from the forty-fifth degree north latitude to the forty-eighth. 39 40 AMERICAN HISTORY interested in the project. There were the Dukes of Bucking- ham, Lenox, and Hamilton ; the Earls of Warwick, Salisbury, Pembroke, and Arundel. The Council was to be a self-per- petuating body of forty members, constituting the supreme legislature of New England. It proposed to divide its terri- tories into feudal principalities, to be held under the king precisely as were the great feudal estates in England and Scotland. In 162 1 there was drawn up a scheme of gov- ernment which provided that " authority in all cases was to proceed from above downward." ^ In furtherance of this scheme, the coast of New England was subsequently divided among the councilors. One Sunday after- noon,- at a palace in Greenwich, a map of New England was di- vided into sections, and lots were cast to determine which sections should be assigned to the various councilors. The Duke of Buck- ingham got what is now southern New Hampshire ; the Earl of Warwick, Cape Ann ; the Earl of Arundel, eastern Maine ; Lord Georges, the vicinity of Boston. 56. Contrast of the Two Movements. Almost at the very time when these great nobles were drawing up their scheme for a government of America " from above downwards," Sir Edwin Sandys, by order of the Virginia Company, was perfecting a code of laws for their American possessions. In 1621 this code, known to-day as the "Sandys Constitution," was put in force. Its aim was exactly the opposite of that of the Council for New England. In Virginia the representa- tives of the people were to be the real source of authority. Though the home government retained a veto upon the acts * Osgood, "Colonies," I, 104. ^ In June, 1623. SEAL OF THE COUNCIL FOR NEW ENGLAND REACTION AGAINST LIBERAL GOVERNMENT 41 of the Burgesses, this document^ secured to the colonists a large measure of control over the colony. Thus, in that memorable year 162 1, the lines were plainly drawn separating the two parties which were contending for the mastery of the West. On the one hand, a syndicate of unscrupulous capitalists, backed by a ring of powerful courtiers, formulated the reac- tionary conception of government in their scheme for the or- ganization of New England as a group of feudal principalities. On the other hand, the Liberals, animated by a new principle in human affairs, were an- ticipating the modern con- ception of a state. These groups of enemies were rapidly consolidating into political parties. Each side turned to America as to fresh soil in which to plant its ideas and expand them to their fullest pro- portions.^ 57. The Great Mas- sacre. We must now turn our attention to a dread- ful event which occurred about this time in Vir- ginia. At the opening of 1622, the colony, as it showed upon the map, was a narrow strip, stretching inland from the sea along the James River to about the site of the present city of Richmond. Under the wise administration of the Liberals, the colony had begun to show many signs of SIR EDWIN SANDYS 'It was entitled "An Ordinance for Virginia." The essential parts are re- printed in Macdonald's "Documentary Source Book." 2 Parliament met again in 1621. At once the contest between the two parties began. The apparently simple matter of fishing rights off the American coast opened the struggle and aided in defining the positions of both sides. See a full discussion in Beer, "British Colonial System." 42 AMERICAN HISTORY prosperity. Corn, fruit, and tobacco were grown in abun- dance. The culture of silkworms had been introduced. There were iron works, glass works, and salt works. On both sides of that narrow strip of settled country were the Indians. In the past they had not always been friendly. Of late, however, good feeling appeared to have been established. Indians came and went freely in the villages of the colony, and visited the lonely farmhouses strung along the river. There is reason to think that the Powhatan, or Great Chief, of the surrounding Indians was sufficiently far-sighted to perceive the danger to his people of the presence of the white men, and that he had long wanted a pretext on which to incite his " braves " to war. This was given early in 1622. An Indian who had killed a white man was killed by the settlers. Soon afterwards Indians in war paint burst across the bound- ary of the colony, all along its length, like a rising tide across a dike. Dreadful scenes followed. At many of those lonely houses a handful of settlers fought for their lives against a horde of savages. At many places the attack ended in the butchery of the defenders. In the main, however, the in- vasion was unsuccessful, but the colony was seriously crippled and some four hundred whites were killed. 58. Renewal of the Attack on the Liberals. The news of this catastrophe was made use of most unfairly by the Reac- tionaries. They tried to show that Virginia had been ruined by the Liberals. In this they were assisted by a certain Captain Butler, of unsavory reputation, who wrote a pamphlet on " The Unmasked Face of Our Colony in Virginia." Butler pictures Virginia as consisting chiefly of " mere salt marshes full of infectious buggs," where all sorts of misery prevailed. The Company rephed with a statement which should have persuaded all fair-minded persons that Captain Butler was not to be trusted. It showed that the two thousand or more people then living in Virginia were, considering all the cir- cumstances, getting on very well. REACTION AGAINST LIBERAL GOVERNMENT 43 59. The Virginia Commission. However, the opportunity of the Reactionaries had come. Early in 1623 James appointed a commission, nominally to examine in full the affairs of the Virginia Company, but in reality to discover a way to destroy it. A way was found. James I had made the courts of law mere tools of the crown. On this despotic practice of the king, the commissioners based their plan. The Court of King's Bench was now to be called upon to decide whether the charters of the Company were legally vaHd. If, on any ground whatever, these charters could be pronounced invahd, then all the property and all the power of the Company would immediately revert to the king. In 1624 the question of the Virginia charters and the right of the Company to continue in possession of its lands and authority was taken into court. 60. The Last Stand of the Liberals. The Liberals knew perfectly well what tliis meant. The case was as good as decided beforehand. The judges would be mere mouth- pieces of the king. Thus the time had come for a full trial of strength with James. Had the new political party, the party of the Liberals, gained sufficient strength to defy the king ? Sandys and Southampton made up their minds to take the desperate course. They appealed to Parhament. In May, 1624, a petition of the Virginia Company asking for assistance in its difficulties was laid before the House of Commons. Representatives of the Company who were also members of Parhament — Sir Edwin Sandys, Nicholas Ferrar, Lord Cavendish, and Sir John Danvers — appealed to the House to take a hand in the management of Virginia. But once more the king interfered. On the ninth of the month, a letter was deHvered to the House of Commons from King James. He commanded the Commons "not to trouble themselves " with this petition of the Liberals, but to leave the matter to him and his Privy Council. The Parhament of England had not yet acquired sufficient resolution to defy the king. On the reading of his letter the Reactionaries exulted openly. The Liberals were silent and 44 AMERICAN HISTORY downcast. A few muttered their discontent. But none were bold enough to propose resistance. The Virginia petition was set aside. The Company was left by Parliament at the mercy of the king. 61. The Virginia Company Abolished. There followed what every one knew would follow. The Court of King's Bench gave the judgment the king wished and pronounced the charters null and void. The king at once took possession of the property and of the records of the Company, appointed officers of his own to conduct its business, abolished the Sandys constitution, and commissioned the first royal gov- ernor of Virginia. Thus we take farewell of that noble first attempt to make America free, tolerant, democratic. For the moment it had failed. But the good seed had been sown ; it had taken root, and as we shall see, even royal despotism could not entirely uproot it. Selections from the Sources. Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia; Macdonald, Documentary Source Book, for the Ordinance of Virginia; Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 51, 66, 67; the charter of the Council for New England is reprinted by the United States government in Charters and Constitutions, I, 951 ; Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company. Secondary Accounts. Brown, First Republic in America; Osgood, American Colonies, 1, chap, v, III, chap, ii; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, I ; Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in the Seven- teenth Century, I, 1-188; Channing, History, 1, 143-236; Doyle, English Colonics in America, I, chaps, vi-ix; Beer, The Origins of the British Colonial System; Gardiner, History of England, III. Topics for Special Reports., i. James I and Parliament. 2. The Tobacco Monopoly. (The revenues derived from the sale of tobacco were a source of much contention between the crown and the Virginia Com- pany. The subject is discussed in all the larger treatises. Sec, es- pecially, Beer, Colonial System, chaps, iv-vi.) 4. Indian war in Virginia. 5. State of the Colony in 1624. 6. Enghsh Politics in 1624. CHAPTER V MASSACHUSETTS, THE GREAT SECTARIAN STATE 62. English America in 1625. The Council for New Eng- land did not prosper. The great aristocrats in its membership soon tired of the venture, and very few of them took any steps to get possession of their principalities in America. During the few years immediately following the defeat of the Liberals, the active men in the Council had hard work to persuade any one to take an interest in New England. It was during this period that the Council issued a number of smaller grants which were not intended to develop principalities. Sometimes these grants contradicted each other; they were the source of much confusion in after time. At the moment, however, only one of them had important results. This was in the hands of some gentlemen of Dorchester, England, whose agents had established a fishing village out of which eventually grew the present city of Salem, in Massachusetts.^ 63. The Massachusetts Bay Company. It was in 1628 that the Dorchester people got their grant from the Council, and the next year the king gave them a royal charter. Thus was organized the Massachusetts Bay Company.- The new 1 Their fishing village on Cape Ann was founded in 1623. "For some years the Dorchester adventurers — a small company of merchants in the shire town of Dorset — had been sending vessels to catch fish off the New England coast. In 1623 these men conceived the idea of planting a small village as a fishing station, and setting up a church and a preacher therein for the spiritual consola- tion of the fishermen and sailors." Fiske, "Beginnings of New England," 92. 2 This Company was formed upon the same model as the Virginia Company. The control of it was vested in stockholders. The new Company was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Council for New England and became directly subject to the king. Like the Virginia Company it received both the title to the land and authority to govern the in- habitants. Its territory extended from a line three miles south of the Charles River to a line three miles north of the Merrimac, and westward to the Pacific. 45 46 AMERICAN HISTORY Company immediately sent over John Endicott to take command at Salem and begin the work of building up a colony. 64. The New Party in England. By this time the Liberals in England were beginning to break up into several distinct groups, and sharp disagreements were arising among them. No one term is adequate to cover all the groups subsequent to 1629. Therefore, we shall not again speak of them as a political party. Instead we shall observe what happened to a new poUtical party of which one division of the old Liberals formed the core. It must always be borne in mind that the great Liberal movement of 161 9 (section 48) and 162 1 (section 56) was inspired by two revolutionary ideas: (i) the belief that all political power should come from the people ; (2) the faith that the mind should be free, and hence that government should not meddle with religion. But as time passed these two ideas began to part company in the thoughts of many men. Large numbers of the former allies of Sandys defi- nitely abandoned, if they ever held — which is doubtful — his belief in religious toleration as the fixed policy of the State. Many other men, who had not previously sided with him, came over to the revolutionary side on the first of the two principles, but on that only. On the second of the principles, they were as unwavering as his bitterest oppo- nents. Thus arose a party which was revolutionary in one way, and conservative and reactionary in another. As com- pared with King James, they were revolutionaries ; as com- pared with Sir Edwin Sandys, they were reactionaries. In 1629 this party had no accepted name. In membership it was almost wholly, if not quite, Protestant. The bulk of its members were '' Puritans," who favored certain radical changes in the constitution of the Church of England. A considerable portion went still further and wished to separate from the Church altogether, although, as late as 1629, very few had actually done so. Within the party were the seeds of many : 'W i > » > i W i > i «n i»lil», ii< « ny « H iiw n i^Mito«^'''*^' H'lWIttrifiw i iniiiM i Ti l ii 'fl « i fmi f ft i wfrlii i l l 1i" i il i »ii»wt» THE PURITAN By Augustus St. Gaudens. The statue is in Springfield, Mass, 48 AMERICAN HISTORY future differences, and its later history is practically the same as the history of England. One wing of it subsequently returned, practically, to the position of Sandys, and came very near putting into practice some of his best ideas. With its later fortunes, however, American history is concerned only indirectly. But with its activities in the years 1629 and 1630 Americans are most intimately concerned. 65. The European Situation of 1629. The year 1629 is one of the dark years of history. The bitter disagreement among the nations on the subject of religion had flamed into war. What we have seen of the readiness of Englishmen to take sides against toleration as advocated by Sandys was typical of the whole world. The time had not come when the religion of peace and good will could be much more than a beautiful hope. Even the great reform movements in religion had not as yet become movements for general religious freedom. Though these movements corrected many abuses and did much good, the bitterness aroused against the things aboHshed had stimu- lated that spirit of fanaticism which it was the dream of men Uke Sandys to get rid of forever. Everywhere through- out Europe a fierce reactionary spirit was sweeping both CathoHcs and Protestants into a passion of mutual hatred. As the natural culmination of all this uncharitableness came the dreadful Thirty Years' War, in which the champions of the two rehgions fought like wild beasts for the control of the world. It ended, fortunately, in neither getting control ; but meanwhile Europe was drenched in blood. 66. Significance to America. The significance of all this to Americans is as follows. In 1629 the Protestant cause appeared to be losing. Those men who composed the new party in England felt that their situation was desperate. ]Many of them had become bitterly anti-Catholic and now they began to fear that the Catholic party would become dominant over Europe. It happened that Endicott and the others to whom the Massachusetts charter had been granted were of this extreme anti-Catholic group. In this fact others MASSACHUSETTS, GREAT SECTARIAN STATE 49 of the party saw an opportunity. Why not arrange with their friends in the Massachusetts Company to people the colony only with members of their own party? Thus they might build up, in America, a state in which their own religion should be established by law. To this end a number of Puritans met at Cambridge, England, August 26, 1629, and formed the " Cambridge Agreement." They agreed that if the Massa- chusetts Company would remove its ofi&ces to the colony, they would all become members of the Company and would remove with it to America. Perhaps the chief man in this movement was John Win- throp. 67. The Company becomes a Commonwealth. Plere was a strange turn of affairs never dreamed of by the king when he chartered the Company. When the Company accepted the " Cambridge Agreement " and elected Winthrop as its head, with intention to carry out his program, there was a great stir among the king's advisers. It was even pro- posed to forbid the removal. But the charter was specific in its grant of authority to the Company, and there was no flaw to be discovered in the terms of the grant. The Company plainly had the right to remove its offices to New England if it chose. It did so. The system provided in the charter for managing the affairs of the Company was quietly expanded into a political system for managing a state. According to the charter the Company was to consist of " freemen " (whom we should now call " stockholders ") who were to have the ultimate management of its affairs. They were to assemble periodi- JOHN WINTHROP 50 AMERICAN HISTORY cally in a " General Court " ^ and elect a " governor " and a board of " assistants," or, to use the modern term, directors. The Company was to have title to all the land of Massa- chusetts and complete monopoly of all its trade. A few changes served to convert this system into a pohtical constitution. Chief of these was a change of point of view in the minds of the emigrants abolishing the recollection that the '' governor " was formerly only the head of a com- mercial company. Each year when the " freemen " chose a " governor," they thought of him as the political head of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Similarly, they put aside the thought that their right to elect him rested on the fact that they were, in the eyes of the English law, members of a company ; they substituted the thought that they were entitled to do so as citizens of the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts. They also gave up certain things which, in their new capacity as citizens of a commonwealth, it seemed undesirable for them to possess in common. For one thing, they abandoned the monopoly which the old company had in trade. Trade was thrown open to all members of the commonwealth, and only the regulation of it was kept in the hands of the government. Later changes converted the " assistants " into the upper house of the legislature of the commonwealth and made the General Court a representative assembly instead of a meeting of all the freemen. 68. The Religious Test. However, the heart of the matter has not yet been shown. This was the question : How shall a man become a freeman of Massachusetts and thus acquire the right to vote for governor and members of the General Court ? Here came in the great matter of the chief purpose of the colony. The emigrants had crossed the Atlantic to secure themselves in the practice of their own religion. To admit 'This old use of "Court" is approximately equivalent to "Assembly." In 1641 the General Court estabhshed a legal code known as the "Body of Liber- ties." MASSACHUSETTS, GREAT SECTARIAN STATE 51 to voting membership in the commonwealth any one who applied might end in getting a majority opposed to the re- Hgion of the founders. Just this was what happened later in the case of the Catholic colony of Maryland, — as we shall see in the next chapter. This danger the Massachusetts Puritans sought to forestall by requiring all freemen to profess themselves mem- bers of some congregation approved by the General Court. Thus Massachu- setts set up an established Puritan Church.^ 69. The Puritan Migra- tion. No sooner was it known in England that the Massachusetts experi- ment was measurably sure of success than great num- bers of Puritans prepared to emigrate. So large were the numbers that their movement westward is known as the " Puritan Mi- gration." Within ten years Massachusetts was a flour- ishing little state with fif- teen thousand inhabitants. 70. The Crown attacks Massachusetts. There was now, in England, an organized party of royalists opposing syste- matically republican ideas. At its head stood the king, Charles I, who had succeeded his father, James, in 1625. The formation of the state of Massachusetts aroused distrust and alarm in the minds of the royalists, and there was talk of invalidating the Massachusetts charter, through the same 1 Advanced students could investigate with profit the conditions of colonial suffrage. For full bibliography see Root and Ames, "Syllabus," 24-37. COTTON MATHER One of the great figures of early New England was the famous theologian, Cotton Mather, author of the "Ecclesiastical History of New England," or, " Magnalia Christi Americana." His son. Increase Mather, is only less famous than his father. 52 AMERICAN HISTORY legal process that had proved successful in the case of Vir- ginia (section 59). In 1634 the report came to America that the king intended to take over the government of Massa- chusetts and establish there the Church of England. There- upon Boston, now a thriving httle town and capital of the colony, was at once fortified, and the General Court created a military commission with authority to make war. When in 1638 the crown demanded the surrender of the Massachusetts charter, the colony refused to give it up. Thus the king and the colony stood squarely opposed. However, the king had waited too long before making his attack. The Puritan party was now too strong, on both sides of the ocean, to be overawed. With each day, opposition to the king at home was becoming more active and more outspoken. Presently (in 1640), the famous Long ParHament began its sittings and never again was Charles I in a position to molest Massachusetts. 71. Political Significance of the Settlement of Massa- chusetts. In its poUtical significance the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was a true descendant of the Liberal move- ment of 1 61 9 (section 48). It stands in history as a great victory for the first of the two principles of the earlier move- ment. It had bravely and successfully defied the ancient power of the crown. It had set up a repubhcan state in which the rulers had no title to power but the will of the men who put them into office. As the first successful assertion of the republican principle against the monarchial principle by men of English race, it is one of the great events in our constitu- tional history. 72. Roger Williams. Though a stronghold of liberalism poHtically, Massachusetts in rehgion continued to be rigidly conservative. Being determined to have a strictly Puritan state, the founders of the colony made no pretense of toleration. However, a bold and independent thinker was living in their midst — Roger Williams, a clergyman, of Salem. The doctrines which Williams taught were pronounced by the authorities heretical, and WiUiams was banished. But Roger MASSACHUSETTS, GREAT SECTARIAN STATE 53 Williams was the type of man that thrives upon persecution. He now resolved to put into practice the dream of his life, which was to establish a state that should abandon all rehgious control over its citizens. Having fled from Massachusetts and found refuge among the Indians (1636), he purchased from them a tract of land on Narragansett Bay, where he laid the foundations of Rhode Island. It is the boast of citizens of Rhode Island that theirs is the first community in the New World founded upon complete freedom of conscience.^ 73. The Antinomians. Another persecution occurred at Boston. Among the chief men of the colony was Colonel Hutchinson, whose wife, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, is described as "of a haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit and very voluble tongue." This probably means that she was a striking and handsome woman who said what she pleased. Mrs. Hutchinson became the center of what Professor Hart has playfully called " the first woman's club in America." That is to say, she used to gather her women friends at her house and discuss the sermons of their pastor. Presently the authorities learned that Mrs. Hutchin- son had formed views of her own which were at variance with theirs, and was boldly advocating them. The name " Anti- nomian " was applied to the lady and her followers. It signified to men of that day very much what " extreme radi- cal " or even " anarchist " does to us.^ Mrs. Hutchinson was tried for heresy, found guilty, and banished. With a number of persons who accepted her views, she withdrew to the free country of Rhode Island. 74. A Free Country. Thus early did Httle Rhode Island become a refuge for the oppressed of America. In this it had one great example. Holland had been a refuge for the op- 1 Williams denied that the State had the right to prescribe a form of religion. He advocated absolute freedom of worship. He also maintained that the king had no title to the soil of America and no right to grant it to others, that "honest patents could only be procured from the Indians by purchase." 2 For exact theological significance see Adams, " Three Episodes of Massa- chusetts History " ; Osgood, " American Colonies." 54 AMERICAN HISTORY pressed of Europe. What Holland had been to the Old World, Rhode Island became, in part, to the New. And it is interesting to note that the enemies of both states talked of them in the same way. In Europe, Holland had been de- rided as a nest of controversies where nothing had perma- nence, — a most unjust charge. In America, Rhode Island was described by its detractors as a state that could not be relied upon, a state that did not know its own mind. We shall see how curiously this charge figured in later events (see section 103, note). 75. General Intolerance in America. It would not be fair to Massachusetts to suppose that she stood alone in her principle of religious intolerance. Unfortunately, the bitter temper of the time permeated almost all communities. While Massachusetts, since the Agreement of 1629, had received only Puritans from England, Virginia had received few colonists who were not Anghcans. However, a small number of Puritans had settled in Virginia. To minister to these, three Puritan clergymen went to Virginia from Boston in 1643. Here was a crisis in the religious history of the southern colony. Had the Liberals of 161 9 still been in control, the Puritans would have been welcomed. But the day of the Liberals was gone. The Puritan clergymen were ordered to leave the colony and a law enacted forbidding any clergymen but those of the Church of England to live within its bound- aries. 76. The Execution of the Quakers. The sad story of religious persecution in America culminates in the sufferings inflicted on the Quakers. Massachusetts again showed her iron devotion to her own stern principles in the way she dealt with the Quakers. There was much in their tliinking and acting that peculiarly offended the Puritans. For one thing, the Quakers preached that war was a sin ; they also protested against all rehgious forms and ceremonies as unnecessary, if not wrong. They denied entirely the right of the state to control religion. Such people had no place in the severe MASSACHUSETTS, GREAT SECTARIAN STATE 55 system of Massachusetts. Quakers who attempted to preach in Massachusetts were banished with a warning not to return on pain of death. Several of the banished Quakers retreated to Rhode Island. Though Massachusetts threatened to prohibit trade with Rhode Island if it sheltered the Quakers, the bold little state refused to yield its principle of complete freedom of con- science. It was in Rhode Island in 1659 that a Quaker named Robinson received a call from God, as he believed, to go to Massachusetts and become a martyr. Threeothers — among them a woman, Mary Dyer, — had the same inspira- tion. The four, having gone to Boston, frankly declared why they had come. They were there to witness to the Lord, they said, and to defy the wicked laws of Massachusetts. On Boston Common all four were hanged. Mary Dyer was offered a pardon at the foot of the gallows, if she would promise to leave the colony. She refused life on those terms. It is but fair to add that there seems to have been a revul- sion of feeling following the executions, and though another Quaker was condemned to die, his life was spared. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Documentary Source Book, for the Massachusetts Charter; Winthrop, New England (Original Narrative Series); Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 105-115,137-140; Force, Tracts, Vols. II and III. Secondary Accounts. Channing, History, I, X, XII, XIII; Fiske, Beginning of New England, pp. 50-198 ; Osgood, Colonies, I, 141-287, 332-370, III, 54-70; Thwaite, Colonies, 124-140; Adams, Three Episodes in Massachusetts History; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation; National Dictionary of Biography, article on Roger Williams ; Straus, Roger Williams; Twitchell, John Winthrop; Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I, 74-112; Greene, Short History of Rhode Island; Gardi- ner, History of England, III. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Puritan Party in England. 2. England and the Thirty Years' War. 3. John Winthrop. 4. Con- stitution of Colonial Massachusetts. 5. Religious Persecution in New England. 6. The Formation of Rhode Island. 7. The King and the Puritans. CHAPTER VI MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 77. The Grant to the Calverts. We have seen how brave Httle Rhode Island became the Holland of the New World. But Rhode Island's example was not the sole foundation of religious toleration in America. That honor was shared at first with the Catholic colony of Maryland, and later with the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, and with South Carolina. The colony of Maryland was the work of a great Catholic noble, Cecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore. A faithful royalist, his colony was named Maryland after the queen, Henrietta Maria. Through the king's favor, the Calvert family was enabled to establish what so many men had dreamed of estabhshing — ^an American principality. By a grant drawn up in 1631, Lord Baltimore's father had become entitled to a large tract of land surrounding Chesapeake Bay.^ He died, however, too soon to improve it ; and all his rights descended to his son, the great Lord Baltimore,- who was made hereditary ruler of Maryland, with the title of " Proprietary." He was to stand to the king as did the great feudal barons of the Middle Ages. He was bound to assist the king in time of war and not to make laws in his colony * It was bounded on the north by the 40th degree, on the east by Dela- ware Bay and the ocean, on the south by the Potomac and a line across the peninsula, and on the west by a meridian line drawn through the sources of the Potomac. The first Lord Baltimore died before his charter took elTect (1632). ^ George, first Lord Baltimore, made his first attempt at colonization in Newfoundland. It was unsuccessful. Later he persuaded the king to give him a portion of Virginia to be made into a separate province. The work ac- complished by his son appears to have been planned by the father. S6 MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 57 repugnant to the laws of England; but otherwise he was practically an independent sovereign/ 78. Catholic Tolerance. The Maryland charter allowed a great deal of latitude in the matter of religion. This fact gives to Maryland its distinctive position in American history, for Lord Baltimore took advantage of it to open his colony to all forms of Christianity. Thus he sought to secure for Cathohcs a refuge from Protestant hostility. We have already seen that a reaction against the Catholics had taken place in England (section 64) and that the feehng between the two main branches of Christianity had become intensely bitter. The Enghsh laws bore heavily upon Catholics. The feehng against them had become so harsh that an out-and-out Catholic colony would have been promptly suppressed. Therefore it seems plain that Baltimore's first motive was a religious one, and that he tolerated all religions to get free play for his own.- 79. The Founding of Maryland. In 1634 Baltimore sent over his first expedition to Maryland. It was composed of both Protestants and Catholics. Probably most of the Catho- lics were gentlemen dissatisfied with conditions in England, and most of the Protestants were their servants and retainers. There were three priests. Baltimore's instructions to his brother Leonard, the commander of the expedition and first governor of the colony, strike the keynote of liis poHcy. Leonard Calvert was instructed to see to it that "no . . . offence be given to any of the Protestants ... all acts of the 1 The charter stated that the proprietary was to have, in his province, all the rights enjoyed in the county of Durham by the Bishop of Durham, who was feudal lord of his county with semi-independent authority. See Osgood, "Col- onies," II, 4-1 1. ^ Some -svriters argue against this interpretation of Baltimore's motive, hold- ing that his real aim was simply to make himself a great prince and that his policy of toleration was but far-sighted self-interest, an astute scheme to make his colony prosper. See Denis, "Lord Baltimore's Struggle with the Jesuits," American Historical Association's Report, 1900. For the Roman Catholic view, see R. H. Clarke, The Catholic World, December, 1875, and October, 1883; also "American Catholic Historical Researches," V, 173-176. 58 AMERICAN HISTORY Romaine Catholic Religion to be done as privately as may be . . . and that the Governor . . . treat the Protestants with as much mildness and favor as Justice will permit." In such a temper, on the west side of the Chesapeake Bay, just north of the mouth of the Potomac, was founded the town of St. Mary's. Mass was celebrated there, March 25, 1634. 80. The Proprietary Type of Colony. In the state thus founded the Proprietary had power to make war and conclude peace, to estabhsh courts, to appoint judges, to pardon crimi- nals, to coin money, and to grant titles. The chief officer of the colony was the Governor appointed by the Proprietary and serving as his representative. There was also a General Assembly of the free- men of the colony.^ 81. William Claiborne. Though ex- pressly dedicated to peace and good will, the colony of Maryland was destined to a stormy career. At the very beginning the authority of the Calverts was challenged by a strong man from Virginia, William Claiborne. Under a royal license to trade in Chesa- peake Bay he had bought from the Indians Kent Island and formed a settlement there, but this island lay within the boundaries of Maryland. Claiborne's attempt to hold it caused a long and bitter contention between himself and the Calverts, that would not have significance to-day except for two lamentable circumstances. In the spring of 1635 some of Claiborne's traders fought a small battle with the Mary- landers. This was the first military engagement between English-speaking people in America. The other bad result of this affair of Kent Island was the relentless enmity to Baltimore which it engendered in Claiborne. The case was ' At first the Proprietary was to enact laws and the Assembly was to accept or reject them. Soon this relation was reversed ; the Assembly enacted laws which were submitted to the Proprietary for approval. MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 59 finally decided in Baltimore's favor, and Claiborne lost his title to the island. He never forgave that loss. 82. Civil War in Maryland. The outbreak of the Civil War in England gave Claiborne an opportunity. Since many of the subjects of Baltimore sided with the Parliament, Claiborne deemed it possible to extend the Civil War from England to Maryland. In this he had the aid of a Parlia- mentary adventurer, Richard Ingle. Between them they raised sufficient force to compel the governor to flee to Vir- ginia, and themselves seized the government. There followed a sort of reign of terror. Before long, however, Marylanders of all parties were sick of the rule of Claiborne, and Governor Calvert saw his chance to recover the colony. With the aid of Governor Berkeley of Virginia he raised a small army, returned to Maryland, and carried everything before him. Both Claiborne and Ingle fled the colony (1646). 83. A Rebellious Temper. Though most of the Mary- landers appear to have consented to the restoration of the Calvert government, they were not in a good humor with the authorities. The Assembly which met the next year drew up a Hst of grievances. Governor Calvert had died earlier in the year (June, 1647), and the Assembly did not deal gently with his memory. He was charged with abuse of power. Payment for the soldiers he had employed was demanded from his estate. 84. A Great Colonial Dame. A fine touch of greatness illumines the dark record at this point. The governor had appointed as his executrix his kinswoman, Mrs. Margaret Brent.^ This brave lady took up the matter of satisfying the soldiers and succeeded in doing so after selling off the gover- nor's cattle. The Assembly afterward wrote to Lord Balti- ^ "This Mistress Margaret Brent . . . had come to the province in 1638 with her sister Mary, bringing over nine colonists, five men and four women. They took up manors, imported more settlers and managed their affairs with masculine ability. One of the two courts-baron of which the records have been discovered, was held at St. Gabriel's Manor, the estate of Mary Brent." Browne, "Maryland" (American Commonwealth Series), 64. CECILIUS C/VLVERT, SECOND LORD BALTIMORE MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 6i more that except for his kinswoman there would have been serious trouble, as the dissatisfied soldiers would listen to no one else. Still more interesting to us to-day is the demand of Mrs. Brent, as executrix of the late governor, for a seat in the Assembly. She was refused. We find from the records of the Assembly that " the said Mrs. Brent protested against all the proceedings of this Assembly unless she may be present and have a vote as aforesaid." This happened in 1648. Just ten years previous that other strong-minded lady, Mrs. Hutchinson, had been expelled from Massachusetts. 85. The Act of Toleration. The mutterings of discontent in Maryland, in the year 1648, were reenforced by partisan enmity toward Baltimore in England. His royalist sym- pathies and his Catholic faith were made much of by his enemies. Ingle was now in England and had acquired some measure of influence. Every attempt was being made to give the impression that in Maryland poor Protestants were persecuted by cruel Catholics. To meet all this misrepre- sentation Baltimore decided on a bold stroke. He appointed a Protestant, William Stone, governor of the colony. He also drew up and sent to the Assembly to be enacted as a law the now famous Act of Toleration of Maryland. To secure its passage by the Assembly, he wrote that if it were passed he would ", then and not otherwise ... be wilhng for the ease of the people there to allow the one half yearly of the tobacco customs due unto us to go to the common defense of the province." The next year, 1649, the famous act was passed by the freemen of Maryland. It provided that no one professing to believe in Jesus Christ should be " troubled, molested, discountenanced for or in the respect of his or her religion or in the free exercise thereof " ; the act further provided that none should be in " any way compelled to the behef or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent." 86. Puritans invited into Maryland. Perhaps it was to show the sincerity of the Maryland authorities that Governor 62 AMERICAN HISTORY Stone invited the Puritans of Virginia to settle in Maryland. As Virginia had forbidden them seven years earher (section 75) to have their own ministers, many of them now removed to Maryland. 87. Later History of the Act. Thus Maryland took her place beside Rhode Island as a champion of the freedom of the mind. Her action was not indeed all it might have been. The great act benefited Trinitarians only and threatened death to all who denied the divinity of Christ. As John Fiske says, " A statute that threatens Unitarians with death leaves something to be desired in the way of toleration," but he adds, and all men must agree with him, *' for the age when it was enacted this statute was eminently liberal, and it certainly reflects great credit upon Lord Baltimore." The pity is that it did not remain in force forever. The troubles of the times led to another civil war in Maryland, and for a time the Puritans had the upper hand.^ They repealed the Toleration Act and excluded Catholics from the protection of the law. Only through the interference of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England (section loi) was the authority of Baltimore restored and the Toleration Act again put in force (section 112). But even this was not the end. What the Puritans had failed to do, the Anglicans did. Through the quiet immigration of members of the Church of England, Maryland came at length to have an Anglican majority among the freemen. These were as hostile to the principle of toleration as were their Puritan neighbors. So soon as they were able to control legislation, they repealed the act and established the Church of England in Maryland (1692 — see section 152). 88. Toleration in Maryland. Because of the undoing of Maryland by immigrants who had found shelter under the ' The turning point was an engagement called the battle of the Severn (1655), in which the Puritans were victorious. They executed by court martial four lenders of their enemies. Throughout the period of the Commonwealth Maryland continued in an unsettled condition. MARYLAND AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 63 tolerant rule of the Calverts, it is incumbent on us, to-day, to remember how liberal that rule was. All lovers of fair play take comfort in the way the Catholic authorities of Maryland, in the old days, treated their Protestant fellow colonists. In 1638 a Catholic named Lewis came upon some Protestants reading a sectarian book. He burst out in angry denuncia- tions of their religion, but he lived to repent it. Summoned before the CathoKc governor and a Catholic court, he was punished because of his " speeches and unseasonable dis- putation on points of religion con- trary to the public proclamation forbidding all such disputes." There is but one other religious case in the early trials of Maryland. In 1642 an ardent Catholic got posses- sion of the key of the Protestant chapel of St. Mary's and refused to give it up. The Catholic ofhcialb showed him the full rigor of the law for annoying his Protestant neigh- bors. The tolerant spirit thus begun could not be wholly destroyed. The free principles of old-time Maryland lived on in spite of usurpation When, at last, the colonies became independent and Maryland had to en 1 1 draw up a constitution, there were incorporated in it all the guaranties of religious freedom con- tained in the Act of Toleration. When, still later, the Ameri- can states united and adopted our present federal constitu- tion, there was speedily incorporated in it the principle that " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 64 AMERICAN HISTORY Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Documentary Source Book, for Maryland Charter and the Act of Toleration ; Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 72-76; Force, Tracts, III, for the contemporary pamphlet, Leah and Rachel, discussing Maryland and Virginia, IV, for translation of Relatio Itineres of Father White, who came over in 1634; Merenes, Alsop's Maryland, a description of the province, published in 1666 ; Hall, Narratives of Early Maryland (Original Narrative Series). Secondary Accounts. Merenes, Maryland; Browne, Maryland (Am. Com. Series), chaps, i, v, x; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, 220-265; Fiske, Old Virginia, I, 255-318, II, 131-173; Channing, History, I, chap, ix; Osgood, Colonies, II, 1-93, III, 112-132 ; Tyler, England in America, 1 18-148; Browne, George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert; Catholic Encyclopcedia, article on Maryland. Topics for Special Reports, i. Avalon (the unsuccessful colony which was attempted in Newfoundland). 2. The Feudal State of Maryland. 3. The IVIaryland Civil Wars. 4. The Act of Toleration. 5. Mary- land under the Protectorate. 6. Relations between Maryland and Virginia. 7. The Society of Jesus in Maryland. CHAPTER VII THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY I. THE COLONIES AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT 89. Formation of the British Empire. Gradually during the first half of the seventeenth century an empire had come into existence. The first step was taken in 1603 when England and Scotland were united under one sovereign. Though London became at once the chief residence of the sovereign, who now styled himself " King of Great Britain," nevertheless Scotland retained her own parliament and made her own laws. We have seen how new states sprang up in America, and how the empire gradually enlarged its borders until it came to have both an eastern and a western group of states. But there was a great difference between the two groups, constitutionally. The relation of the states of the eastern group to each other and to the empire as a whole had been defined by law. Such was not the case m the West. In 1638, when Massachusetts defied the crown (section 70) , it had not yet been determined just what was her relation to the rest of the empire. Was the brave Httle colony a part of the kingdom of England, or was she, Hke Scotland, a separate state of the empire? The question was of vast importance because upon it turned this other question: who was legally entitled to rule over the colonies? In the previous reign James I had maintained, as we have seen (section 60), that the colonies were his personal dominions, that the Parliament of England had no more authority over Virginia than it had over Scotland. In this way arose the great imperial question of the relation to each other of the states of the empire. We shall see, hereafter, 65 66 AMERICAN HISTORY how that question widened slowly into a bitter enmity between East and West in the British empire. 90. Civil War forces an Issue. When, in 1642, news came to America that the king and the EngHsh Parliament were at war (section 82), the colonics faced a difficult problem. From the American point of view, which side was it best to take? If the king overcame the English ParUament and became the real master of the strongest state of the empire, he might easily prove a despot to all the rest. On the other hand, if England's Parliament crushed the king, it might claim to be the heir of all his former power and treat the outlying parts of the empire as mere fields of speculation for its partisans in England. A tyrant state is even a worse master than a tyrant person. Therefore the colonies had good reason to hesitate. 91. How the Colonies Acted. But action of some sort had to be taken. What was done differed greatly in dif- ferent colonies. In Virginia Sir William Berkeley and his partisans (section 82) were able to keep that colony pretty steadily on the king's side.^ Maryland, as we have seen (sections 82, 87), was more evenly divided. Rhode Island seems to have looked upon the parhamentary party as the champions of universal liberty and lightly passed over the constitutional questions which were looming upon the political horizon. Early in the war Rhode Island accepted a charter from the Long Parliament (1643) ^^^ thus appeared, at least, to commit itself to that side. The action taken by the remaining New England colonics struck a new note. To understand it, we must glance at the map of New England as it was when the war began. 92. The Political Map of New England. The political map of New England showed seven distinct regions. With three we are familiar — Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Rhode ' It was soon after the beginning of the war that Virginia expelled the Puritan ministers (section 75). As Puritans were generally parliamentarians, we must consider the fact in judging their expulsion. MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 67 Island. Two more lay to the northeast; two others to the southwest. Far to the northeast there was a feeble attempt at a pro- prietary colony. Sir Ferdinando Gorges^ had endeavored to establish a royalist colony in Maine with the Church of England as the predominant religion. The region between Maine and Massachusetts had already taken the name of New Hampshire. Who was entitled to it was a question.^ The Council for New England had given it to John Mason ; perhaps they had also given it to Massa- chusetts. This was one of the worst instances of those con- flicting grants (section 62) which made trouble for the colonists. However, the claimants of the region had done little to develop it. Meanwhile settlers had come in of their own accord and towns had sprung up. The Httle group of towns thus formed was coveted by their powerful neighbor, Massachusetts, that claimed the land on which they were located. One of them, Dover, had already been annexed. As to the re- mainder of New Hampshire, one of the problems of 1642 was, what should become of it. 93. Connecticut. Another EngHsh state had recently ap- peared upon the map. As early as 1633 the town of Windsor, in Connecticut, was founded by the men of Plymouth. Hearing what a promising region was the Connecticut Valley, emi- grants from Massachusetts had removed thither in 1635-1636. * The Plymouth Company and the Council for New England made several grants of land in the region now occupied by Maine. See Osgood, "Colonies," I, 1 19-127, 371-390. The royal province of Maine was created by Charles I, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges constituted Lord Proprietor, in 1639. He received the coast from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec and inland one hundred and twenty miles. In Thwaites, "Colonies," 151, is a brief summary of his sys- tem of government. 2 The north line of Massachusetts was described as running three miles north of the Merrimac River. Did this mean three miles north of the mouth or three miles north of the source ? If it meant the latter, a glance at the map will shov/ that all seaboard New Hampshire had been granted to Massachusetts. Liti- gation over the New Hampshire territory was long carried on by the heirs of Mason. By degrees their claims were all extinguished, partly by purchase. 6S AMERICAN HISTORY Their principal leader was the Reverend Thomas Hooker, a wise and far-sighted man of liberal views. In 1639 three little towns, Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, united to 1. Plymouth. 2. Region eventually occupied by Massachusetts under the later inter- pretation of her grant fixing the north boundary at a line three miles north of the east and west portion of the Merrimac. (The unshaded area between the Merri- mac and the Charles indicates approximately the first stage of the growth of the colony.) 3. Province of Maine. 4. Region granted to the Duke of York and subsequently added to Maine. 5. Original New Hampshire. 6. Connecticut. 7. New Haven. 8. Rhode Island. form the state of Connecticut. They adopted a constitution known as the " Foundamental Orders of Connecticut." ^ 1 Connecticut became conspicuous among the strictly Puritan colonies for liberality both in religion and in politics. ^Nluch of the credit for this is gener- ally accorded to Hooker. In temper the new colony resembled Plymouth rather than Massachusetts. See Walker, "Thomas Hooker," chaps, vi-vii. MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 69 94. Independent Towns. The region west of the Connecti- cut Valley was not occupied by any settled government, but emigrants had gone past Connecticut into what was then the Far West. They had organized towns, some on the main- land, some across the Sound on Long Island. Each of these, in 1642, was a tiny repubhc with no defined relation to any other government in the world. The chief of these was New Haven.^ 95. The Dutch Fort. Last, but of great significance, was a Dutch fort. In spite of the EngHsh claim to the whole of the Atlantic coast, the Dutch had estabHshed themselves in the valley of the Hudson and in 1633 had planted an outpost on the Connecticut. That fort of " Good Hope " was a stand- ing evidence of the desire of Holland to secure the Connecti- cut Valley and had an immense effect upon the imagination of the settlers. The fort was near neighbor to the town of Hartford. 96. Changes of 1643. The year 1643 saw marked changes in the map of New England. They were three in number. First, those more remote settlements were united into a state which took its name from its chief town. New Haven. Second, the annexation of New Hampshire to Massachusetts was com- pleted. Third, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a federal union styled the " United Colo- nies of New England." This union led to events of profound significance in American history. They will be discussed in the second section of this chapter. What concerns us here is the relation of- these states with the Long Parliament. 97. The Parliamentary Colonial Commission. In that same year, 1643, Parhament appointed on its own authority a " Governor in Chief " and named seventeen commissioners to assist him to " dispose all things " concerning the colonies. In other words, Parhament declared itself sovereign over the colonies in place of the king. From what we already know of colonial conditions (sections 90, 91) it should be plain that 1 See Levermore, "Republic of New Haven" (Johns Hopkins Studies). 7© AMERICAN HISTORY this assumption was bound to be resented in America. The southerly colonies with their royalist sympathies could not be expected to acquiesce in parliamentary rule. As events proved, the Northern colonies, though inhabited by Puritans, were equally opposed to having England's Parhament make their laws. A flood of light is thrown upon the American situa- tion by a letter from VVinthrop to friends in England who had offered to secure from Parliament any legislation Massa- chusetts desired. Winthrop declined their offer, " lest in . . . after times . . . hostile forces might be in control and mean- time a precedent would have been established." Thus things stood as late as 1649. I^"^ that year Charles I was executed and the successful parliamentarians proclaimed England a commonwealth with themselves as its rulers.' The relation of East and West in the empire was now squarely at issue. Would the Americans accept the rule of the English Parlia- ment, or would they not ? 98. The Southern Colonies Yield. Virginia promptly answered, No.^ The eldest son of the dead king was there acclaimed as Charles II. In Maryland also, against the will of Lord Baltimore, there was a demonstration in favor of Charles II. To check this royalist movement in the South Parliament sent out a commission with a military force that speedily reduced the Southern colonies to submission. - 99. The Situation in the North. Among the northern colonies a dift'erent situation developed. Though the English Puritans did not want to use force against their American brethren, the Long Parhament in 1651 commanded Massa- * It should be borne in mind that Scotland and Ireland also refused to admit the authority of the one great state, England, to administer the empire as it saw fit. Scotland promptly resumed its independence, and crowned Charles II king. It was brought back into the empire by the "push of pike." The empire was held together, during the commonwealth and the protectorate, in Europe by force, in America by diplomacy. 2 Subsequently the commissioners allowed the Virginia Burgesses to elect a governor. Virginia was practically a free republic during this period. See section 1 1 2 of this chapter. Courtesy of the Century Piiblishuig Co. THE LONG PARLIAMENT IN SESSION Reception of an Ambassador from the King of Spain. The costumes of Puritans and Cavaliers are well represented in this picture MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 71 chusetts to surrender its charter and take out a new one granted by Parliament. But Massachusetts had no mind to admit that the EngHsh Parhament was supreme in the empire. During more than a year the colony evaded answering. At last, a memorial was sent to Parliament setting forth that the people of Massachusetts were satisfied with their present form of government and hoped it would not be changed. It is worth noting that at this time, in 1652, Massachusetts issued a coinage of its own. On one side of the coins were " Massachusetts " and a pine tree, and on the other, " New England " and the date. There is nothing on the coins to suggest that the colony was subject to England. 100. Intentions of Massachusetts. There is no reason to suppose that Massachusetts had any thought at this time of secession from the empire. Her aim apparently was to secure to herself the position of a free state in a group ^ of political equals. Constitutionally, the question of that day was : Are all the states of the empire equally free and self- governing, or is one state, because of her greater power, to be permitted to dominate the rest ? ^ PINE-TREE SHILLING OF MASSACHUSETTS 1 The constitutional issue of that day cannot be emphasized too much. At the moment of the execution of Charles, the empire consisted of fourteen states. In Europe, besides the petty states of Cornwall, Wales, and the Isle of Man, there were the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland. In America were the eight colonies. Several of the states, including( Scotland and most of the American ones, denied that they had ever had any sovereign except the king, and refused to admit the authority over them of any legislature except their own. From the moment of the king's death -^ in fact", for some time previous — one of the states of the empire, powerful England, claimed the right to a dominating position with regard to the rest. 2 The men of that day did not clearly phrase the question. None the less it underlay their thought, and may truly be said to have been the basal issue of 72 AMERICAN HISTORY Though the men of Massachusetts had no plan of campaign, no definite scheme for reorganizing the empire, they were determined not to yield to any one state, even mighty England, the position of dictator. 101. The Constitutional Issue Sidetracked. Whether they would have been able to hold their own except for the dissen- sions which now arose in England is doubtful, but fortune favored them. The spHt in the parliamentary party which led to the seizure of supreme power in England by Cromwell was their salvation. He was proclaimed Lord Protector in December, 1653. This was virtually a restoration of the kingship under a new name in a new line of descent. All the old questions of the authority of the sovereign over his subjects now revived.^ But this new question of the right of one parlia- ment to control the other parliaments temporarily disappeared. II. TIIE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION 102. The First Political Issue Strictly American. The issues which give significance to American history previous to the outbreak of the war between king and Parliament are of world-wide significance. Free government and religious toleration were European questions before they were American ones. But with the outbreak of the English civil war, other issues appear of a different sort. One of these we have examined in the preceding section of this chapter. We turn now to another. It is the first issue which we may, in a strict sense, call " American," — that is to say, it is the first issue growing directly out of American conditions and out of nothing else. It is the question how American states may be related one with another by their voluntary action. It arose the time in America. Winthrop boldly asserted "our allegiance binds us not to the laws of England any longer than while we live in England, for the laws of the Parliament of England reach no further." . . . For a full discussion, sec Beer, "Origins of the British Colonial System." ' For a glimpse of the tact of Cromwell with regard to America, see this chapter, section 112, MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 73 through the relations of Massachusetts to the other three states which formed with it the " United Colonies." 103. The First Confederation in America. We have seen that the confederation of the " United Colonies " was effected in 1643 (section 96). Fear of the Dutch and fear of the Indians were the chief causes that led the four colonies to unite. This earliest American confederation was formed for the purpose of creating out of four^ distinct states a combined power that might provide for each a degree of protection it could not provide for itself. 104. The Dutch Peril. There was good reason for the colonies to fear the Dutch. Though the crown of England still claimed all the Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida, that claim had not been made good. Dutchmen, led by Henry Hudson, in 1609, had explored the Hudson River. The Dutch had later occupied Manhattan Island and settled the town of New Amsterdam. Going up the Hudson, they had settled Fort Orange, which is now Albany. Between these two points along the great river they had established feudal estates under hereditary lords called " patroons." Turning eastward from Manhattan, they formed settlements on Long Island, and, in 1633, built the Fort of Good Hope on the Connecticut River (section 95). Holland had lately be- come a great commercial power, and the relations of England and Holland under the Stuart kings were seldom friendly. From the moment the New Englanders knew of that Dutch fort on the Connecticut they began to dread a Dutch in- vasion. The grounds for alarm increased as the New England- ers moved down into the lower valley of the river (section 93) . That movement also brought them into hostile contact with the Indians. ^ Rhode Island and Maine were not admitted to the Union, for religious reasons. Maine was Anglican, Rhode Island was accused of being unreliable (section 74). It was offered membership in the Union, if it would consent to be annexed to an orthodox and "stable" colony, — either Massachusetts or Plymouth. Needless to say, Rhode Island declined. 74 AMERICAN HISTORY 105. The Pequot War. The western movement into the valley of the Connecticut was interrupted in 1637 by a brief but bloody war with the Pequot tribe. Whether the Dutch had any hand in stirring up the Pequots to resist the advance of the English, we cannot say. But certain it is that the Pequots made a stand against the newcomers. The EngUsh, however, were able to persuade the Narragansett tribe to take sides with them. Together, a force of English and Narra- gansetts attacked the Pequots, who occupied an entrenched camp not far from the present site of Stonington. The camp was carried by storm, and its occupants were massacred. This one bold stroke ended the war. 106. The Problem of Confederation. From this time forward New England was constantly on the lookout for signs of an alliance between the Dutch and the Indians. Thus there was good reason for the four colonies to unite in a league of mutual protection. But how the league was to be made satisfactory to all concerned was a knotty problem. To illustrate : Massachusetts had fifteen thousand inhabitants ; Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven together had only nine thousand. If war broke out, what part of the army of the United Colonies should be raised by Massachusetts? The natural answer would seem to be that the number of men furnished by Massachusetts should be to the number furnished by the other colonies in the ratio of 15 to 9. But was such a plan to be followed throughout? In a council of war, should Massachusetts have fifteen votes and only nine be allowed to the rest of the colonies? This would appear to be logical, but it would amount to giving Massachusetts control of the league. Much as the three smaller colonies desired union, they were resolved not to become the play- things of their stronger neighbor. 107. Constitution of the United Colonies. This attitude of the lesser members determined the main feature of the gov- ernment of the United Colonies. Each member was allowed an equal share in it. A board of federal commissioners was MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 75 established, two from each colony, and these eight men formed the miniature congress of the little confederacy. Any measure approved by six of the eight was binding on all the United Colonies. The commissioners had general supervision of all matters in which the whole group of colonies had a common interest : such as their relations with the Dutch and the Indians, and the recapture of criminals or indentured servants^ who had fled from one colony to another. In case of war, the expenses were to be divided among the colonies in propor- tion to the number of their male inhabitants between the ages of sixteen and sixty. 108. First Instance of Nullification. For some twenty years the government of the United Colonies was a real power in America. Later it lost influence and in time was abolished.^ Only one episode in its history is here worth mention. This occurred in 1653 when the dread of a Dutch invasion reached its height. England and Holland had gone to war and in New England a rumor got abroad that the Dutch and Indians together were planning a general massacre of the settlers on the Connecticut. Many people, especially in the western settlements, began clamoring for an attack upon the Dutch. They wanted to strike before their enemies were prepared. Even the federal commissioners caught the alarm and voted to attack the Dutch. But the Massachusetts General Court flatly refused to concur. Says one of the chief authorities on those times : "It declared that under the Articles of Confederation (which were the constitution of the union) the general courts were ... at liberty to act in every case according to their consciences " which, Professor Channing continues, " was a Seventeenth Century way of ^ The legislation on the return of servants anticipates the fugitive slave laws of a later age. An "indentured" servant was one bound by contract to serve a specified number of years. ^ It lost influence from the moment of the Restoration. The power of the crown was used whenever possible to discredit it. But the Union did not entirely collapse until the Massachusetts charter was suppressed in 1684. 76 AMERICAN HISTORY asserting what came to be called later the doctrine of nulli- fication." ^ A sharp contention followed between Massachusetts on the one hand and the federal commissioners on the other. But the men of Massachusetts would not give way. They insisted that the war scare was unnecessary, and they stub- bornly refused to equip their two thirds of the confederate army. The question at last went over, undecided, to the next meeting of the commissioners. Before that meeting took place, England and Holland signed a treaty of friendship, (1654), and the fear of a Dutch invasion of New England passed away, III. THE COLONIES UNDER CROMWELL 109. First Period of Pause. The colonies mentioned hitherto were the outcome of the interest felt by Englishmen in America during the first half of the seventeenth century. That interest was very great between 1620 and 1640. After 1640 Englishmen became engrossed in their home affairs and America was neglected. Subsequent to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy (1660), interest in America revived. But for some twenty-five years following 1640 the connection between East and West in the British empire was slight. This period forms the first breathing space, so to speak, in American history. 110. Characteristics of the Colonies. The settled parts of the colonics were mere fringes bordering the sea and the larger rivers. Except for the hardships inevitable in frontier coun- tries, the settlers lived as they had been accustomed to live in England. The new conditions of life in America had not as yet had any marked effect upon their characters. The great differences among them were due to peculiarities of religion, or of feeling, which had been formed in England. However, * "History," I, 420. Professor Hart calls the action of the General Court, "the first nullification of a federal act." "Contemporaries," I, 452. See Osgood, "Colonics," I, 404-406. MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 77 their new country, with its new conditions, was destined to develop those original peculiarities into new characteristics not always to be recognized as expansions of the old. Already the colonists tended to draw together in groups that were, to an exceptional degree, of the same way of thinking. To illustrate : a member of the Church of England would natu- EASTERN NORTH AMERICA IN 1650 rally avoid setthng in Massachusetts. For such an emigrant there was a choice of four colonies : Maine and Virginia, where his rehgion was predominant ; Rhode Island and Maryland, where it was tolerated. As the rehgious temper of the time was so generally exclusive, the Anglican as a rule chose one of the colonies where his own faith prevailed. Maine being a failure, Virginia became his natural goal. Similarly the 78 AMERICAN HISTORY Puritan who wanted a state church of his own persuasion went to Massachusetts, or New Haven ; ^ if somewhat more hberal, to Cormecticut; if very Hberal, to Plymouth. To Rhode Island went the extremists of all parties. Some Puritans, who felt that even stern Massachusetts was too lenient upon " heresy," turned bitterly away and made Rhode Island their home.- Side by side with them dwelt visionaries who advocated the abolition of all social restraints — • " nihi- lists," wc should call some of them to-day. But so long as they did not break the civil law, Rhode Island let them theo- rize to their hearts' content. 111. The Rights of Englishmen in America. None of the colonists thought of themselves as Americans. They were still Englishmen. They felt that in crossing the Atlantic they had not parted with any of the rights they had enjoyed at home. Chief among these was the right to have a legisla- ture of their own choice. This was the great principle of representative government which the English had slowly worked out during many centuries. Their devotion to this idea was what inspired in the people of Massachusetts their refusal to acknowledge the Long Parhament. They had no representatives in that Parliament. Under the sovereign, they would have no ruler but their own elected, represen- tative General Court. The people of Virginia differed from the New Englanders in being ardent royaHsts,^ but were probably ' New Haven was the most severely Puritanical of all the colonies. The Bible was the basis of New Haven law. - It was a scornful sneer of the Puritans that any one who had lost his rcliRion would find it somewhere in Rhode Island. 'Subsequent to 1649, many English ro_valists removed to \'irginia, thus enabling later times to think of it as " the Cavalier colony." The olTicial agents of the colony, in 1675, made the declaration that "the Virginians are and have ever been heartily affectionate and loyal to the monarchy of England, and under that to their present government of Virginia, constituted, they humbly conceive, in imitation of it. The New Englanders have obtained the power of choosing their Governor, but the Virginians would not have that power, but desire that their governor may from time to time be appointed by the King." Randolph Ms,, III, 331, quoted in "Institutional History of Virginia," P. A. Bruce, II, MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 79 quite as resolute to have their own legislature, not England's legislature, for their governing body. 112. Cromwell and America. Curiously enough, it was under the reign of a military dictator that the colonies were allowed the largest measure of freedom they ever had until they left the empire. It followed upon the assumption by Cromwell of sovereign power (section loi). Cromwell's difhculties at home were great. Except his army, which was devoted to him, he had but a doubtful following. Therefore, though he crushed opposition in England with a heavy hand, he was most adroit in dealing with the colonies. The last thing he wished to do was to draw off any part of his army to conquer America. In Virginia the government established by the Parlia- mentary commissioners (section 98) was allowed to continue uninterrupted during the Protectorate.^ Maryland was recovered by Lord Baltimore, and the civil war there (section 87) was brought to an end through Cromwell's interference. Baltimore acknowledged the Protector as his sovereign and promised not to punish the Puritans for their revolt.^ New England was treated with even greater kindness, for Cromwell wished to recruit his party among the American Puritans. With that end in view, he tried to bring about emigration from New England to Ireland and Jamaica. His efforts were not successful. But throughout his reign he refrained from interfering in the affairs of the Puritan colonies. 113. The Navigation Act. So it came about that during the Protectorate, the Americans were left pretty much to themselves. In one respect, indeed, Cromwell legislated for them. He maintained a navigation act, which had been passed by ParHament, during the Commonwealth (1651). 281. Manj' of the famous families of Virginia were founded by royalist refugees who came over subsequent to 1649. 1 We should distinguish between the Commonwealth and the Protectorate as sharply as between the French Revolution and the Empire of Napoleon. ^ See section 87. 8o AMERICAN HISTORY This act provided that certain goods should not be imported into the colonies or exported from them, except in ships belonging ^' to the people of this Commonwealth or the plantations (colonics) thereof." ^ Here was a plain assertion that England controlled the great imperial matter of com- merce. As yet, however, the colonies were glad enough to let England foster trade in any way she might, and the far- reaching implications of the act were not contested. 114. The Empire under Cromwell. Had Cromwell succeeded in making his power secure, there is reason for thinking that he would have shared the government of England with a free Parliament. How, in that event, the all-powerful Pro- tector would have treated the colonies we do not know. The actual composition of the empire, while Cromwell reigned, is the thing to re- member. A mighty sover- eign at London allowed the American states practically to rule themselves. Though he kept in his own hands the imperial control of commerce, he entirely swept aside the claim of the British Parliament to have authority, independent of the sovereign, over the English in America. Note. In spite of the claims of the English kings, only a small part of the Atlantic seaboard was occupied, in 1650, by their subjects. Two other nations attempted to compete with the English. In the valley of the Hudson, the Dutch established their colony of New Netherland, to 1 There were various other provisions. The act is summarized in Mac- donald, " Documentary Source Book," 55, as introduction to what is usually known as the " First Navigation Act," which was estabUshcd in 16C0. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 8i which reference has been made. The Swedes also wished to plant a colony in America, and their great king, Gustaviis Adolphus, encouraged the project. What is known as the South Company of Sweden, modeled on the Dutch West India Company, undertook to create a Swedish colony. In 1638 Peter Minuit built Fort Christina (named for Christina, Queen of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus) where now stands Wilming- ton, Delaware. The surrounding country was named New Sweden. But the colony never prospered and its life was brief. In 1655 it was conquered by the Dutch and annexed to New Netherland. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Documentary Source Book, Nos. 7 (Charter to Patroons), 9 (Fundamental Orders), 10 (Articles of New Haven), 13 (Government of New Haven), 11 (Patent of Providence Plantation, or Rhode Island), 12 (New England Confederacy) ; Charters and Constitutions, 774 (Grant of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges), 1270 (Grant of New Hampshire) ; Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 1 13-13 1, 150-159; American History Leaflets, No. 7, for brief extracts from records of the Confederation ; Cromwell, Letters, IV, 74, 133 (Carlyle's edition), for Cromwell's interference in Maryland ; Winthrop, New England. Secondary Accounts. Fiske, Beginnings of New England, chap, iv ; Dutch and Quaker Colonies, I ; Channing, History, I, XV-XIII ; Beer, British Colonial System, chaps, xi-xiii ; Osgood, Colonies, I, 301-331, 371-422, II, 95-116, 141-157, III, 105-141 ; Doyle, Puritan Colonies, I, 149-178, 190-319,11, 116-125, 155; WiNSOR, Narrative and Critical History, IV, 443-448; Johnson, Swedish Settlement on the Delaware; Thwaites, Colonics, 51, 201, 202, 208-211, 217, 221, 222. Topics for Special Reports. 1. Geography of English America in 1650. 2. The Formation of Connecticut. 3. The Colony of New Haven. 4. The New England Confederacy. 5. The Dutch on the Hudson. 6. New Sweden. 7. The Colonies and the Long Parlia- ment. 8. The Colonies and Cromwell. SECOND PERIOD (1658-1766) EAST AND WEST IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE CHAPTER VIII THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH I. ROYAL EXPLOITATION OF AlVIERICA 115. The American Policy of Charles 11. Every king of the Stuart dynasty, sometime during his reign, tried to set up despotic government in the colonies. The most astute of these treacherous monarchs was Charles 11.^ Not only with a view to strengthening his own power but also for the purpose of enriching his friends, Charles stealthily schemed to make the crown irresistible in America. Among the various measures through which Charles sought his end, stands conspicuous his treatment of New Haven. It was in that stronghold of Puritanism that two of the judges- who had condemned Charles I to death had lately found a refuge. Charles demanded their heads. As the collapse of the English Commonwealth had been followed by a violent reaction in favor of the Stuarts, Charles, in his demand for vengeance on the judges of his father, had, for the moment, the support of the nation. When New Haven came between ' The great Protector died in 165S. His weak son, Richard, who succeeded him, abdicated in 1659. Moderate men of all parties then came together in a plan to restore kingship, shorn of much of its old power. The son of Charles I assented to their scheme of a constitutional monarchy. On that understanding he was crowned in 1660. * Edward Whallcy and William Gofife. They successfully eluded their pursuers. 82 THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 83 him and his prey, it invited destruction. In an adroit fashion, characteristic of Charles, than whom there never was a wilier poHtician, the destruction of New Haven was swiftly accomplished. 116. The Connecticut Charter. The king found his in- strument in the ambitions of Connecticut. In contrast with New Haven, Connecticut had spared no pains to win his favor. Neither of these colonies, it should be remembered, had as yet any official warrant for its existence. Hoping to secure a royal charter, Connecticut had sent John Winthrop, Jr., to London. In Winthrop's mission the revengeful but sly Charles saw his opportunity. Connecticut received a charter extending her boundaries from " Narrogancett River ... to the South Sea." That is. New Haven was to be wiped off the map and all its territory added to Connecticut. Naturally, the men of New Haven bitterly resented the king's action. For a moment there was danger of civil war in New England, but Connecticut's generous use of her success in time restored good feeling. 117. Rhode Island Befriended by the King. Rhode Island also was befriended by the king. His motive, in this case, is not entirely plain. Perhaps, because of the enmity felt by all his dynasty toward Massachusetts, he aimed to strengthen its enemies. Be that as it may, Rhode Island, in 1663, received a royal charter which defined its area and bestowed upon it the right to elect its governor.^ 118. The Carolina Grant. From punishing his enemies, Charles turned to rewarding his friends. That great extent of lowland, where are now the states of North and South Carolina,^ ^ The same privilege was granted to Connecticut. Thus royal sanction was given to the type of colony contrasting both with the proprietary type and with the type of the royal province whose governor was appointed by the king. Those colonies which had appropriated the right to elect their governors were, before the end of the century, deprived of it (see section 158). ^ There had been several attempts to settle this region previous to the Res- toration. Ribault visited it in the sixteenth century. Raleigh's settlers came next Charles I granted " the province of Carolana " to Sir Robert Heath, 84 AMERICAN HISTORY was made over, in 1663, to eight lords and gentlemen as Joint proprietaries. Conspicuous among them was Charles' prime minister, the Earl of Clarendon ; another was the Duke of Albemarle who had done more than any other man to make Charles king ; Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper, better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury, another leading royalist, was also among the eight. A second charter, in 1665, defined their vast domain as extending from 29° to 36° 30', north lati- tude, — covering the whole of the present Carolinas, with much of Florida, — and east and west from the sea to sea. 119. Locke's Constitu- tion. The great philoso- pher, John Locke, was called in by the proprietors of Carolina to devise a sys- tem of government. They wanted a model aristocracy which should be ''agreeable to the monarchy." Locke's " Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina " attempted to meet their demands. It provided for a social system based on feudal principles. At the top was to be a colonial nobility with hereditary titles and seats in the colonial parHament ; but the grant lapsed. From Virginia probably came the first permanent set- tlers in the Carolinas. They took up land along the Chowan River. These settlements were formed previous to 1663 ; they extended gradually along the north shore of Albemarle Sound, forming the germ of present North Carolina. There was also an early but unsuccessful attempt to establish a settlement on Cape Fear River. An expedition from New England prospected there, but abandoned the country previous to the grant of 1663. Other unsuccessful attempts were made by colonists from the Barbadoes. Sir John Yeamans is the chief figure connecting South Carolina with the Barbadoes. He was the first governor of Carolina. In 1669 a fleet left England having aboard emi- grants to Carolina; it touched at the Barbadoes and at Bermuda. The first permanent settlement in South Carolina was made in April, 1670, on the Ashley River. From this settlement developed the present city of Charleston. THE CAROLINA GRANT OF 1663 THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 85 at the bottom were to be " leetmen," bound to the soil like the serfs of the Middle Ages. But all this was too reactionary for the end of the seventeenth century. The philosopher's scheme gave way to a more democratic system in which a colonial legislature en- acted laws subject to the veto of the pro- prietaries. 120. The Creation of New York. An oppor- tunity to create an- other great proprietary colony arose in 1664 when commercial rival- ries had brought Eng- land and Holland to the verge of war. With his usual adroitness, Charles II turned the English war feeling to his own account. Dis- patching a fleet and army to conquer the Dutch colonies in America, he granted all those lands to his brother the Duke of York. It was in 1664 that the English appeared before New Amsterdam. The town was ill-prepared to resist and the townspeople forced the commandant, Peter Stuyvesant, to surrender. It was renamed New. York. 121. New Jersey. The Duke of York began subdividing his great domain^ even before he was in possession of it. The 1 His possessions extended from the Delaware to the Connecticut rivers. In spite of the charter of Connecticut, it was held that all the country which the Dutch had occupied belonged to the Duke. He also acquired all that part of Maine east of the Kennebec. The western part of Maine had previously been annexed to Massachusetts, though claimed by the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges (section 92). Massachusetts finally purchased their claim in 1677. See Acts of the Privy Council relative to America, I. 00 100 150 LANDS OF THE DUKE OF YORK Dates of scparaUon of outlying portions from the government of New York. 86 AMERICAN HISTORY region between the lower Hudson and the Delaware was given to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley. This grant was the foundation of the present state of New Jersey.^ 122. The King's Attention Withdrawn from America. Though Charles never lost his desire to make gain in America, there was a period in his reign during which he was compelled by circumstances to confine his attention to Europe. It was a period of terrible catastrophes. The Dutch war, though it ended with the formal cession of Dutch America (1667), in- cluded some deep humiliations to Eng- lish pride. In the midst of disaster the Plague appeared at London and made the capital of the empire a vast pest- house. It was followed by the lire of London which laid the capital in ashes. While patriotic Englishmen were strug- gling to save their country from ruin, the unscrupulous king saw a new chance to advance his own interests. By the secret Treaty of Dover (1670) he be- came the paid servant of the king of France. Louis XIV agreed to pay him a large sum yearly, and in return Charles promised to make every effort to control ParHament in the interests of France. It is doubtful if one king ever made a more shameful bargain with another. But it had an immediate effect on England, and indirectly an effect upon America. For several years Charles was busy playing a deep game of political trickery. During this period he did little by way of advancing his American schemes. For a few years before and after 1670 he practically ceased to meddle with the colonies. ' In 1674 it was divided into East and West New Jersey, each with a pro- prietary government of its own. West New Jersey came under the control of the Quakers. Subsequently both Jersies were controlled by a Quaker syndicate. They were united in 1702 and became the royal province of New Jersey. THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 87 n. THE STRUGGLE TO POSSESS THE LAND 123. The Indian Danger. The colonies were not permitted to spend this interval in peace. By the irony of fate one cause of anxiety was replaced by another. While the king was occupied in Europe, the Indians for the first time became aggressive on a great scale in America. Most of the seaboard was now occupied. During the first fifteen years of Charles' reign emigration to the colonies had been constant. To Virginia went many gallant gentlemen who had lost all in the service of the kings and saw no way to retrieve their fortunes at home. To New England went many Puritans dissatisfied with the restored jnonarchy. Quakers and Presbyterians found refuge in New Jersey. French Huguenots and English dissenters, as well as loyal Anglicans, turned their eyes toward the Carohnas. The settlements along Albemarle Sound appealed to bold adven- turers of all sorts. All along the coast the population was fast increasing. Steadily the west border of every settlement moved inward. By the end of the third quarter of the century there were perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand British subjects in America. Hitherto they had been too busy with their own affairs to think much about the natives. Except for a few fierce clashes like the Virginia massacre (section 57) and the Pequot War (section 105) the relations of the two races had been friendly. In the main the white men had dealt fairly — according to the ideas of that time — with the red men. That is to say, they had paid them what they asked for their land. But the simple Indians were content with very little. They accepted trifling things which caught their fancy, — beads, copper kettles, knives, arms, trinkets,^ — retired into the forest, and left the strangers in possession of their hunting grounds along the coast. ^ In 1626 the Dutch, in exchange for Manhattan Island, gave the Indians a supply of beads and ribbons worth about twenty-four dollars. 88 AMERICAN HISTORY '§2J M A M V S S B WUNNEETL'1'ANATaMWE UP-BIBLUM GOD pNLIKKON£ TESTAMENT r^ K A H W O N K ?5 WLISKU TESTAMENT. B, Ne qiuIhiiDiain>iJ[ mlhjie Wuninnnungb ^H RlSt JOHN ELIOT- Seventy years had passed during which the great wilderness at the back of the settlements gave ample hunting ground to all the Indian tribes. While the settlers along the coast plowed their fields or sat around their firesides, painted warriors, decked in furs and feathers, roamed the western \m}m mnmmmim ^^mm.g horizon through the silences ^ of the forest. The men of the coast went their own way politically, never giving a thought to the politics of the wilderness. But all that while a momentous political change was slowly taking place in the depths of the savage land. A great Indian power had been formed. The rise of this power contained for those unsuspecting colonists a dreadful danger. 124. The Five Nations. The greatest of the Indian races were the Iroquois, who were also known as the Five Nations.^ They had formed a confederacy with its headquarters in what is now central New York, and had extended their rule from the Green Mountains to the Ohio River. This powerful alliance blocked the path of the coast Indians as they retreated westward. Furthermore, the Iroquois were following a policy of expansion. All along their borders they were con- quering their neighbors or driving them before them. Presently the retreating Indians of the coast began to feel the ' Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Senecas. C A At B R I D a e ■ Ptinlcuoopnaftpc Sjifmti Crttn kjh M»Tm*ii*is J^hnfm 16 6 1. I 3<» o«» ^ iij4 ,,.;,.,. ..\A'i'iiiM'MM TITLE-PAGE OF ELIOT'S Ii\DL\N BIBLE Translation : "The whole Holy Bible of God, both Old Testament and also New Tes- tament. This translated by the Servant of Christ who is called John Eliot. Cam- bridge : Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson, 1663." THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 89 might of the Iroquois. Those grim masters of the interior began to press them back toward the sea. But all along the sea were the English pressing steadily inward. Some time about 1670 the coast Indians, north and south, perceived that they were caught in a trap. Between the English and the Iroquois they would be crushed to death. 125. King Philip's War. Such appears to be the explana- tion of the sudden and terrible rush of the coast Indians back toward the sea. In 1675 settlers were murdered by Indians both in Virginia and New England. There followed the horrors of King Philip's War. Metacom, chief of the Pokano- kets, — better known by his English name of Philip, — sud- denly attacked the town of Swanzey on the frontier of Plym- outh. Frightful scenes of pillage, massacre, and the burning of whites alive over slow fires occurred at many places in New England during the next two years. That the Indians were fiendishly cruel cannot be denied. Neither can it be denied that the whites were moved to transports of fury and that they retaliated without mercy. The chief event of the war was the storming of the stronghold of the Narragansett tribe, amid December snows, in 1675. The Narragansetts were practically annihilated that day. The death of Philip, the next year, put an end to the hopes of the Indians. Before long they had been beaten at all points. Indians taken alive were sent to the West Indies and sold as slaves. But New England had paid a great price for her victory. It is estimated that one in every ten of the men of New England had been killed or captured by the Indians. A dozen towns had been burnt to the ground. 126. The Virginian Misery. Fortunately the southern Indians had no such leader as Philip. Nevertheless, Virginia suffered more than in any Indian trouble since the great massacre. Some three hundred whites are said to have been killed. All the while terrible repol-ts from New England served as ghastly warnings of what might, at any moment, take place in Virginia. A fever of alarm and discontent took 90 AMERICAN HISTORY possession of the colony. There were other causes of it besides the Indian danger.^ During several years the harvests had been bad, and many people were feeling the pinch of want. The severe winter of 1672-1673 had killed off half the live stock in Virginia. In 1676 wheat and corn had grown so scarce that Governor Berkeley forbade the exportation of food to the Indian fighters of New England whose fields had been ruined. Strange to say, in spite of the greatness of the Indian danger, Berkeley refused to equip an adequate force to protect the colony. His motives are a prob- lem to this day. Per- haps he feared that any force he raised would turn against him. He had outlived his popularity and his rule was harsh and ex- travagant. The Vir- ginians accused him of the basest motives for holding back. They declared that his inter- est in the fur trade carried on by the Indians was what kept him from vigorous action. Finally a young planter, Nathaniel Bacon, defied the governor and took the lead in an unofficial expedition which won a victory over the Indians. Berkeley pronounced him a rebel for acting without authority and ordered his arrest. 127. Bacon's Rebellion. Many people, however, sided with Bacon and the Indian war was converted into a civil war, during which Bacon and his partisans marched against James- town. Berkeley retreated, and the Virginia capital was burnt * For a full discussion of the various sources of discontent, in addition to the Indian danger, see Osgood, " Colonies," III, 244-258 ; also Channing, " History," n, 80-84. -,A.J£.; >? PIONEER HOME OF THE WASHINGTONS THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 91 by the rebels. For a brief space Bacon was master of Vir- ginia. Then, suddenly, he died. His following melted away. Berkeley resumed control and set to work to stamp out discontent. He hanged thirty-seven ^ of the partisans of Bacon. 128. The Culpepper Rebellion. This was not the end of the troubles in the South. There is an old tradition that Bacon hoped to persuade Maryland and the Carolinas to join Virginia in seceding from the empire and establishing a republic.^ Whether that was his purpose or not, it appears certain that he had friends in North Carolina and more than likely that some of his partisans found refuge in Albemarle (section 118, note 2). Very likely they took part in stirring up the discontent which broke out in what is known as the Culpepper Rebellion. The immediate cause was the arrest by the acting governor, Thomas Miller, of two men charged with the comparatively small offense of smuggling. At once there was a popular uprising in which John Culpepper took a leading part. Miller was deposed and thrown into prison. 129. The Freedom of Albemarle. During the next few years the North Carolinians^ managed their own affairs pretty much as they pleased. They had their own little assembly and, once more, they forced an unpopular governor out of office. This was Seth Sothel, one of the proprietors of Carohna, 1 The number is variously given. See Osgood, "Colonies," III, 278. ^ It is plain that Berkeley's use of the powers of the governor had roused in Virginia a spirit of antagonism to monarchial authority. How general was this revolutionary temper we cannot say. Scholars differ with regard to its signifi- cance. The most conspicuous authority takes an extreme view : "Bacon was . . . fascinated by the dream of Colonial revolt and its indefinite possibilities. The plans which were to take shape a century later were already floating dimly before his mind. ... As an illustration of the way in which abuses resulting from the monopolization of power, because they occurred in a royal province, might be followed by an effort to renounce allegiance to the king. Bacon's re- bellion is the most significant event in the history of the colonies prior to 1760." Osgood, "Colonies," III, 275-276. ^ Though the possessions of the proprietaries formed in theory one great province, North Carolina formed a division by itself, almost from the begin- ning. 92 AMERICAN HISTORY who had come over to set things straight at Albemarle. He was tried by the assembly and formally banished from the colony. However, the men of Albemarle did not renounce their allegiance to the proprietors of Carolina, and in time good feehng was restored. III. QUAKERS AND HUGUENOTS 130. The Province of New Hampshire. We now arrive at the close of that period in the reign of Charles II during which European affairs absorbed the king's attention. His stealthy use of the gold supplied to him by Louis (section 122) had so corrupted Parliament that Charles was very nearly, if not quite, master of the situation. Again he turned his eyes toward America to see what might there be done in the interests of the Stuart dynasty, and again his old enemy, Massachusetts, was made the object of attack. It will be remembered that the New Hampshire country had been appro- priated by Massachusetts (sections 92 and 96). This country Charles now seized, cut off from Massachusetts, and made into the royal province of New Hampshire with a governor ap- pointed by the king (1679). 131. A New Effort for Toleration. Charles was not alone in his revival of interest in America. Others, for utterly different reasons, also turned their eyes toward the west. While the king was mutilating Massachusetts to create New Hampshire, Carolina received a party of French Protestants who were seeking to escape the harshness of Louis XIV. These were the advance guard of another widespread movement of Protestants westward. A new fever of persecution was breaking out in Europe. It culminated a few years later in the famous revocation by the French king of the Edict of Nantes, " that gracious decree," which had formerly secured the French Protestants in the practice of their religion. However, this late persecution was more an expression of royahsm than of religion. It was grounded on the principle that the subject should accept the faith of the king. In Scotland it was THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 93 carried on by Anglicans almost if not quite as ruthlessly as in France by Catholics. Scotchmen followed Huguenots, seeking safety in the Carolinas. A band of Scotch exiles led by Lord Cardross founded Stuart Town, at Port Royal, South Carolina, a settlement destined to a tragic end. Other Scotch and other Huguenots added strong new elements to the population of America generally. With these were soon blended English and German Quakers. 132. The Fourth Movement for Toleration. We have traced hitherto three movements for the freedom of the mind — the Sandys government in Virginia, the Catholic colony of Maryland, and Roger Williams' state of Rhode Island. The fourth such movement wliich ennobles our history in the seventeenth century found expression in two places. Carolina was not alone in opening her doors to the exiles for conscience' sake. A Quaker syndicate in England secured control of West New Jersey (section 121), and established there com- plete religious toleration. The Quakers also set up a demo- cratic form of government. " We put the power in the people," they said truly. Among the proprietors of New Jersey was William Penn. He determined to carry on the good work begun in New Jersey and form a still more impor- tant state on the west side of the Delaware River. Fortunately the king owed him a great sum of money. Penn asked to be paid with a grant of land in America. Consequently, in 1681, Charles paid his debt by issuing to Penn a charter for the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania.^ ^ The grant to Penn involved him in a dispute with Maryland. Pennsyl- vania was described as extending westward 5° from the Delaware; its northern boundary was to be " the beginning of the three and fourtieth degree of Northern latitude"; its southern boundary "a circle drawn at twelve miles distant from New Castle northward and westward into the beginning of the fortieth degree of Northern Latitude and then by a straight line westward." The town of New Castle, on the west side of the Delaware, proved to be far south of the fortieth degree. The circle drawn around it did not at any point touch that degree. Thus the south boundary of Pennsylvania was an impossible line. Penn claimed that the "beginning of the fortieth degree" was on the line of the thirty-ninth parallel. The dispute was not settled in Penn's lifetime ; and was carried on 94 AMERICAN HISTORY BOUNDARY DISPUTE BETWEEN MARYLAND AND PENNSYLVANIA by his descendants. At last a compromise was made and the present Hne between Maryland and Pennsylvania was agreed upon. The straight part of it is latitude 39° 43' 26". It was run by two surveyors named Mason and Dixon in 1767. Hence it has been called ever since "Mason and Dixon's line." That region west of the lower Delaware which was once New Sweden was also given to Pcnn. It was known as "the Territories" and was plainly within the limits of the grant to Baltimore (section 77, note). But the claim of Maryland to this region was ignored. It forms the present state of Delaware, organized in 1 701, under a charter granted by Penn. The government set up under the charter was similar to that of Pennsylvania. .THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 95 Immediately Penn set about putting into practice what he called his " Holy Experiment." He dreamed of establishing an ideal republic, in which, as he said, " the will of one man " should not any longer be able to " hinder the good of a whole country" — as was the case too often in the monarchies of the old world. But Penn was a practical statesman as well as a political dreamer. Though he held that " obedience without liberty is slavery," he also held that " hberty without obedience is confusion." 133. The Beginning of Pennsylvania. Penn laid down the principle, so obvious to us to-day, that " governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them ; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend on men than men depend upon governments." Holding these views, he drew up a " Frame of Government " which became the con- stitution of Pennsylvania. It guaranteed complete religious toleration to all who acknowledged " one Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the World." It provided for a governor to be appointed by the Proprietor and a legislature elected by the people. Penn crossed the ocean and spent two years in his colony. He drew to him settlers from many lands. Besides the Eng- lish Quakers there were Welshmen and Scotchmen. German Quakers settled Germantown. Bethlehem and other villages were settled by Moravians. Penn himself laid out Philadel- phia in 1682. Before the end of the century Pennsylvania contained twenty thousand inhabitants. IV. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NORTHERN BOUNDARY 134. A Rival of England in America. We have now reached the last stage of this period of expansion which forms the second advance of the English in America. In order fully to understand it, we must turn aside and observe what had taken place in other parts of America. 96 AMERICAN HISTORY The French discovery of the St. Lawrence River (section 23) led to the formation of the French colony of Acadia. Henry IV of France granted it to the Sieur de Monts, in 1603, de- lining its boundaries as the fortieth and the forty-sixth de- grees of latitude. Several settlements were made along the coast of what is now Nova Scotia and Maine. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec, but unfortunately for France made enemies of the Iroquois. Almost at once the French and English came to blows. The first armed clash was in 1613, when a party from Virginia, NIAGARA FALLS Reduced facsimile of an old print. Based doubtless on the earliest known picture of Niagara, which was published in the narrative of Father Hennepin in the seven- teenth century. led by Samuel Argall, broke up a French settlement on Mount Desert Island. There were other conflicts between the races, including the capture of Quebec by an English expedi- tion. But in 1632 by the Treaty of St. Germains the matter was settled temporarily, and France was given Nova Scotia and the St Lawrence Valley. The French set to work to build a colonial empire which they called New France. A succession of brave explorers and devoted missionaries carried the influence of France far into the west. They would have liked, doubtless, to advance directly south from Quebec, take possession of the upper THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 97 Hudson, and come at once to close quarters with the EngHsh all along their western border. But this was rendered im- possible by the Iroquois. The Five Nations held all the south shore of Lake Ontario and resisted every attempt of the French to enter their territory. Unawares, they shielded the English during half a century. Turning westward along the north shore of Lake Ontario, the French became the first explorers of the Great Lakes. In 1665 Father Allouez, a Jesuit missionary, reached Lake Superior. Soon there were Jesuit missions as far to the northwest as Mackinac and Sault Ste. Marie and at Green Bay in Wisconsin 135. The Jesuit Missions. The efforts of these heroic French Jesuits to convert the Indians form one of the great chapters in the history of missionary daring. Many of them suffered martyrdom amid the cruellest tortures at the hands of the savages. The only effect was to rouse the survivors to greater zeal. Others pressed forward to take the places of the brave dead. Gradually the Jesuits took their captors captive and brought large numbers of the western Indians to accept Christianity and to acknowledge the king of France as their sovereign. But they never could convert the relentless Iroquois, never get a foothold on the south shore of Lake Ontario. 136. Marquette. Perhaps the most famous of the Jesuit explorers was Marquette. The Indians of Lake Huron had told him of a great river flowing south through the western wilder- ness. This river he resolved to find. Starting from Green Bay, his little expedition went up the Fox River to its head ; carried their canoes overland to the head of the Wisconsin River ; descended it ; and on June 17, 1673, paddled out upon the Mississippi. Marquette explored the Mississippi as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas. There, thinking he was on the borders of Spanish territory, he turned back. On his way home, he ascended the IlHnois River and crossed the site of Chicago. FRENCH EXPLORATIONS OF THE MISSISSIPPI 98 THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH 99 137. La Salle. Marquette's discovery made a great im- pression on a French nobleman who was commandant at Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. This was the famous La Salle, to whom Louis XIV had given a commission to establish forts in the interior of America. After three bold excursions into the Far West, La Salle, in 1681, set out on his final expedition to annex the Mississippi Valley to New France. He did not stop at the Arkansas as Marquette had done, but continued all the way to the gulf. Setting up the arms of France near the mouth of the river, he formally declared the whole country the property of the French king, and named it Louisiana (1682). 138. The Strategic Position of the French. In this way the French had drawn a vast crescent at the back of the EngUsh. One tip reached the Atlantic in the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; while the other touched the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi. The French king claimed as his all that immense area. If he made good his claim, English expansion westward would be checked forever. It might even be possible to drive the English into the sea and make France the chief power in North America. But, as the next step to that result, the French must secure the south shore of Lake Ontario with the upper valley of the Hudson. And there in the hollow of the crescent, between them and the English, were their bit- ter enemies, the Iroquois. 139. The Friendship of the Iroquois. Such was the situation in 1683 when Thomas Dongan became signature of dongan Governor of New York. He was a Roman Cathohc Irishman. He was also a brave friend of the English in America, and he knew how to deal with Indians. In 1684, at Albany, occurred a memorable conference between Dongan and the chiefs of the Five Nations. A treaty was made in which the Iroquois acknowledged themselves subjects of England; agreed not lOO AMERICAN HISTORY to attack the frontier settlements of Virginia and Maryland and to allow the arms of the Duke of York to be set up in their villages as signs of their new allegiance. Thus, for the moment, the English were protected along the west. 140. The War Cloud of 1686. But there was another menace to the peace of the colonies which at the time appeared even more serious. CaroHna was only two days' sail from St. Augustine. From St. Augustine a hundred years before (section 24) Menendez marched to destroy the Huguenots. The Spaniards still held the city. Beyond it to the south lay Cuba and all the vast extent of the Spanish American empire with its walled cities, its strong garrisons, and its great riches. There were no powerful Iroquois to protect the Southern Eng- lish, and the dread of Spanish invasion hung over the South hke a dark cloud. Suddenly, in 1686, the cloud burst. 141. The Destruction of Port Royal. A Spanish expedition appeared at sea off Edisto Island, to the south of Charleston, and a landing party burnt the country house of the governor of Carolina, an English dissenter, Joseph Morton. Thence they proceeded to Stuart Town (Port Royal), which they utterly destroyed. After that the Spaniards sailed away. 142. The French attack the Iroquois. About the same time the French attacked the Iroquois. A thousand French regulars marched into the country of the Five Nations. It was a crisis in the history of English America, but the governor of New Y^ork was equal to the emergency. He promptly suppHed the Iroquois with arms and ammunition. Thus supported, the Iroquois were able to hold their own. They even retaliated in a plundering raid into Canada. 143. The Achievement of Dongan. Though the colonies were menaced from both sides, the government at London was very slow in taking action. In the case of Spain it never acted at all.^ With regard to France, however, something was at last done. The French king was notified that the ' For the strange course of the CaroHna proprietors in the matter of Port Royal, see section 147. THE SECOND ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH loi Iroquois were English subjects and the other colonial governors were ordered to unite with Dongan in protecting them. The chief credit for this firm stand appears to be due to that one brave Irishman. The position which he induced England to take was never abandoned. Years afterward, by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 17 13, France acknowledged the Iroquois to be English subjects. Thus the second advance of the Eng- lish reached, in the North, at least, a safe halting place. With the south shore of Lake Ontario in their hands, with the moun- tains east and west of New York for their natural fortifications, they were measurably secure against French invasion. If, however, they had lost northern New York, a back door would have been opened into their very midst. That such a door was not opened, that, on the contrary, it was shut in the face of France, is due chiefly to the patriotism and ability of Thomas Dongan. Selections from the Sources. Colonial Records of North Carolina, I, 5 ; Macdonalv, Source Book, No. 21 (the Carolina Charter); Macdonald, Select Charters, 149 (Fundamental Constitutions) ; Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland; Macdonald, Source Book, No. 20 (Grant to Duke of York); Drake's Edition of Increase Mather's Brief History ; Hub- bard, Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians; Burk, Virginia, II, 247-250; Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1675- 1676; Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 70-71, 76, 77-81, 121,. 124-126, 132- 136, 135-157, 161-168, 171, 172, II, Nos. 109-112, 117 ; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations and allied Documents. Secondary Accounts. Osgood, Colonics, III, 143-191, 242-357; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies; Paekman, Pioneers of France, 229- 454; Jesuits in North America, La Salle, Old Regime, Frontenac, 1-183 ; WiNSOR, Cartier to Frontenac, 77-342 ; Fiske, Beginnings of New Eng- land, 199-241 ; McCrady, South Carolina, I, 39-222 ; Bassett, Constitu- tional Beginnings in North Carolina, 105-169 ; Fisher, True William Penn; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, III, chaps, x, xii, iv, chaps, iv-viii, V, chaps., i, v. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Younger Winthrop. 2. John Locke. 3. The Conquest of New Netherland. 4. The Seaboard Indi- ans. 5. Bacon's Rebellion. 6. The Culpepper Rebellion. 7. The Society of Friends. 8. Quaker Ideas of Government. 9. Champlain. ID. The Jesuit Missions. 11. French Explorers of the Mississippi. 12. Dongan. CHAPTER rX THE STUART TYRANNY 144. The Crown attacks America. During the last years of the " Second Advance," Charles felt strong enough to aim a direct blow at American liberties. In England his craft and political skill had given him temporary control of the government, and he judged the time was ripe to destroy the free institutions of the West. The means he used were the same which had been used by James I (section 59) in his attack upon the Virginia Company.^ An English court was induced to pronounce the charter of Massachusetts null and void. Massachusetts became a royal province in October, 1684. 145. The Duke of York becomes King. The following February Charles died and his brother, the Duke of York, became king, as James II. There were now four states in New England dependent on the royal will — Plymouth, which had no charter at all; New Hampshire, which had been a royal province since 1679 ; Massachusetts, which recently had been seized by the crown ; and Maine,- which had reverted to the crown along with Massachusetts. The new king was a born despot. As a step toward absolute power, he decided to unite all these provinces in one. In 1686 he sent over Sir Edmund Andros to govern the " Dominion of New England," ^ with his capital at Boston. The General Court of Massa- 1 Professor Andrews, in his admirable text on English History, sums up the situation by saying (p. 305) : "Aided by powerful allies and subsidized by gold from France," Charles controlled the situation "through a clever manipulation of parties together with the dissensions of his opponents." * Western Maine, that is; Eastern Maine, beyond the Kennebec, was already in the possession of James. See section 121, note. 'The "Dominion" was intended to embrace all the colonies northeast of the Delaware. As appears later, all that area submitted temporarily to .\ndros. THE STUART TYRANNY 103 chusetts was to be abolished and replaced by a Council appointed by the governor. Andros was also expected to destroy the free governments of Connecticut and Rhode Island. 146. The American Policy of James II. One December day in 1686 Andros landed at Boston. He was attended by a force of British infantry — the famous "redcoats" — which the Americans were to learn to hate. That day was one of GREAT SEAL OF ANDROS the most momentous in American History, for the despotic designs of James were not Kmited to New England. Already he had abolished a representative assembly ^ recently estab- lished in New York. In Virginia his governor, Lord Howard, used the power of his office to silence criticism of the king and benefit the king's friends. With Virginia, New York, and New England dominated by the king, there seemed to be strong likelihood that despotic government would be made the order of the day in America. ^ In New Netherland, just previous to the coming of the English, there was convened an assembly of delegates from all parts of the province. This landtdag was presided over by Jeremias van Rensselaer. But the English conquerors did not continue this institution. A code called "The Duke's Laws" was put into effect by Governor Nichols in 1665. Governor Dongan in 1683 convened the first general assembly of the province of New York. It drew up the famous "Charter of Liberties" of New York, which provided for triennial general as- semblies and gave freedom of worship to all Christians. The Charter of Liber- ties was set aside by authority of James in 1686. I04 AMERICAN HISTORY 147. James and the Proprietaries. How entirely James intended to dominate America may be judged from an event which took place at this time in connection with Carolina. The Carolina proprietors were headed in 1686 by William, Earl of Craven, one of James' most unhesitating followers. The least wish of the king had the force of law with the earl. This fact explained the course of the proprietors in forbidding the Carolinians to take revenge on Spain for the destruction of Stuart Town (section 141). An expedition had been or- ganized at Charleston, and was about to sail for St. Augustine late in 1686, when a new governor, James Colleton, arrived from England with orders to permit no attempt at retaliation. He threatened to hang any one who lifted a hand against the Spaniards. The Carolinians were not ready for rebellion and the expedition was abandoned. Shortly after this the proprietors wrote to Colleton : " We are glad you have stopped the expedition against St. Augustine. If it had proceeded, Mr. Morton,^ Colonel Godfrey, and others might have an- swered it with their lives." The servility of the Carolina proprietors was but one more evidence of the momentary triumph of the principle of absolutism in English politics. James was friendly to Spain and the wishes of his American subjects counted for nothing. 148. The Administration of Andros. The Stuart tyranny in America centers around the strong figure of Sir Edmund Andros. He was a brave soldier and a resolute man. He had been sent over to destroy free institutions and he meant to do so. Massachusetts was his first victim. There he made laws, levied taxes, held courts, without the least regard to the people's will. A notorious instance of his tyranny took place at Ipswich. The citizens having resolved that a tax levied by Andros " did infringe their hberties as free-born EngHsh sub- jects," refused to pay. For this resistance prominent men of Ipswich were brought to trial before a court specially con- ' The former governor who had been removed by the proprietors to make room for Colleton. THE STUART TYRANNY 105 stituted by Andros. Some were fined, others were imprisoned. In the course of tlie trial, Joseph Dudley, chief justice under Andros, made the startling assertion that the colonists were outside the protection of the laws of England. He added " that the King's subjects in New England did not differ much from slaves and that the only difference was that they were not bought and sold." This summed up the Stuart policy. 149. Andros in Rhode Island and Connecticut. If strong Massachusetts could not cope with Andros, what could weak little Rhode Island do ? Nothing. An- dros extended his tyranny over Rhode Island without op- position. Connecti- cut gave him more trouble. When he commanded the Connecticut author- ities to surrender their charter, they evaded doing so and Andros went to Hartford to compel the surrender. There is a tradition that he met the colonial officials in a conference by candle light with the charter in a strong box on a table between them; suddenly the candles were blown out, and when they were relit, the box with the charter had disappeared; the precious document had been carried off and liidden in a hollow tree known ever after as the charter oak. However, this did not keep Andros from becoming master of Connecticut. 150. The Great Province. The power of the king's rep- resentative was now very great. James increased it by adding to the " Dominion " two colonies outside New England. In 1688 New York was added to the jurisdiction THE CHARTER OAK io6 AMERICAN HISTORY of Andros. New Jersey was also annexed by royal warrant. Thus the territory ruled despotically extended from the lower Delaware to Nova Scotia. James seemed to be in a fair way to accomplish his end and combine all his American dominions into one great province with a single despotic governor. 151. James defeats his own End. The king, in his devo- tion to absolutism, was determined to thrust upon his subjects his own religion, which happened to be the Roman Catholic. In this he had the example of his cousin the king of France, who was the very embodiment of absolutism. But England was in a situation far different from that of France. Though many of her people believed in absolutism, almost none believed in Roman Catholicism. It has been estimated that only three per cent of the population be- longed to the Church of Rome. The nonconformists were also weak. As we have seen, great numbers of them had emigrated to America. It is doubtful if England was ever more soUdly Anglican than in 1688, and yet, as if to defy fate, James chose that moment to attempt the destruction of the English Church. What is known as " the trial of the Seven Bishops" took place in 1688. The bishops had petitioned the king to excuse the clergy from reading in their pulpits a royal proclamation considered by them a blow at the liberties of the Church of England. James ordered them tried on the charge that their petition was a " seditious libel." Their acquittal, and the rejoicings which followed it all over England — even among the king's soldiers who lay encamped near London — was the beginning of the end. Seven great personages signed a letter to William, Prince of Orange, James' son-in-law, asking him to come to England and take control of the government. Before the end of the year William landed in England and the revolution of 1688 began. Shortly afterward James fled to France. His daughter Mary and her husband, the Prince of Orange, were proclaimed joint sovereigns of England. THE STUART TYRANNY 107 152. End of the Stuart Power. The landing of WiUiam had been the signal for war. James was supported by the French and by the extreme royalists of England and Ireland. Three years passed before William was securely in possession of the throne, and could turn his attention to the colonies. Mean- while, great things took place in America. At Boston, the people rose and threw Andros into prison. A brave German, Jacob Leisler, headed a revolt in New York which forced Deputy Governor Nicholson to flee the country. A third rebellion broke out in Maryland. There, as everywhere throughout the colonies, the religion of the late king was used as a war cry to arouse popular indignation. A rage against the Roman Church was sweeping over America and, unfortunately, the Protestants of Maryland caught the pitiless infection. Once more there was a flurry of civil strife. Now, however, the Protestants outnumbered the Catholics ten to one. They seized the government, abolished the Act of Toleration, and proclaimed WilHam and Mary king and queen in Maryland.^ 153. The French Attack. War began between England and France early in 1689. June 27, 1689, was an ominous day in American History, for on that day a party of French and Indians attacked an outlying village near Dover, New Hamp- shire. Some of the villagers were killed ; the others were carried off to Canada. The following February witnessed an event still more dreadful. In the dead of the night a party of French and Indians attacked the frontier village of Schenec- tady. Sixty of its people were killed ; some thirty were taken prisoners ; only about twenty escaped and fled across the snow to Albany. This brutal massacre increased the fury against everything associated with James II — his poHcy, his rehgion, his French alUes. 154. The Congress of 1690. It also led to the first attempt of the American States to act in concert on a large scale. Leisler, who was temporary ruler of New York, called a ^ For the effect on the government of Maryland, see section 158. io8 AMERICAN HISTORY congress. Delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut met with the men of New York in May and decided upon two expeditions against Canada. This was the beginning of what Americans have always called King William's War. Selections from the Sources. Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 122, 135, 136, 156, 157 ; Whitmore, Andros Tracts; Force, Tracts, Vol. IV. Secondary Accounts. Doyle, Puritan Colonics, II, 230-276; Chan- NixG, History, II, 31-43, 52-60, 165-213; Osgood, Colonics, III, 302- 333, 378-469, 477-500 ; FiSKE, Beginnings of New England, chap, vi ; Kimball, Public Life of Joseph Dudley, chaps, ii and iii , McCrady, South Carolina, I, 217-234 ; Steiner, The Protestant Revolution in Mary- land (in Report of American Historical Association for 1897). The ac- count of the Revolution of 168S in Macaulay's History, partisan though it be, is justly a classic. For the Catholic view see Lingard, History, VII, chap. X, \TII. Bourgeaud, Rise of Democracy in Old and New England; And'R.ews, History of England, 391-412; Colonial Self Govern- ment, 252-287. Topics for Special Reports, i. Sir Edmund Andros. 2. Joseph Dudley. 3. Jacob Leisler. 4. The Dominion of New England. 5. The American Rebellion against James II. 6. William of Orange. CHAPTER X OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT I. THE REORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE 155. William's Policy. The able king who now ruled England knew little about America. Neither had he much interest in popular government. His chief aim in life was to curb the rising power of France and he had consented to be king of England with scarcely another thought than to bring the English into a league against Louis XIV. For eight years the War of the Grand Alliance raged on both sides of the Atlantic. As we have seen, the Americans called it King William's War. 156. Events of King William's War. As William suc- ceeded in bringing Spain into the grand alliance against France, the Carolinas, for a time, were free from their natural dread of the Spaniards. In America the war became a North- ern event. One of the chief incidents of the war was the capture of Port Royal ^ by an expedition from Massachusetts led by Sir William Phips. This achievement was followed by the appointment of Phips as commander of one of the two expeditions planned by the congress of 1690. He sailed from Boston with some two thousand militiamen to attack Quebec. Up to this time Phips had seemed a bold and able man. But he bungled the Quebec expedition and at last ingloriously sailed home, having accomplished nothing. The other expedition of the congress was conducted better. John Schuyler, of New York, was the commander. He marched to the shore of the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal, 1 Now Annapolis, Nova Scotia, not to be confus^ with Port Royal, South Carolina. 109 no AMERICAN HISTORY destroyed the crops of that region, and returned home without any serious loss to the Americans. No great events took place in America during the latter part of the war. By the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, each power restored to the other whatever territory it had con- quered and thus Port Royal was given back to France. 157. William's Attitude to America. In the course of the war William found time to reorganize the government of the colonies. He had already reorganized the government of WILLIAM AND MARY England. The contrast between what was done in England and what was done in America reveals the lack of sympathy, possibly the contempt, which WiUiam felt for the colonies. In England the revolution of 1688 was the end of despotic king- ship. The famous Bill of Rights, passed by Parliament and accepted by William, gave the people of England control of their own government. It established for England the principle that there should be no taxation without represen- tation. Had the Bill of Rights extended to America, each colonial legislature would have been recognized as supreme in its own territory, and each American state would have had OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT in the same footing in the empire as Scotland and Ireland. But the Bill of Rights was not allowed to extend to America.^ As we shall now see, William estabhshed the principle that the colonies were not separate states of the empire like Scotland and Ireland, but mere dependencies of the premier state of England. 158. William's Governors. William sent out royal govern- ors of his own choice to replace the officials set up by the popular movements that had deposed Andros. In the main, the old governments of the colonies were restored, but im- portant changes were made. For example, though Massa- chusetts got back her General Court, she lost the right to elect her governor. Henceforth Massachusetts was a royal province with a governor appointed by the king. Gallant little Plym- outh fared still worse. That ea.rliest democracy of the Eng- lish world was wiped off the map and its territory was annexed to Massachusetts. So was all of Maine, both east and west of the Kennebec. New Hampshire became again a royal province under an appointed governor as it was when Andros came. Connecticut and Rhode Island, however, were per- mitted to resume the election of governors. From that time till the revolution of 1776 they were the only American states that elected their governors. William and his advisers desired as many royal provinces as possible, and therefore took advantage of the anti-Cathohc fury to deprive the Calverts of Maryland.^ Penn, because of 1 Professor Charming aptly says of the Bill of Rights : "Its genesis shows a persistent disregard of the rights of the colonists" (" History," II, 192). In the whole matter of determining the succession of the Crown, the colonies were ignored. It was assumed that they had no voice whatever. This feeling went so far that, subsequently, a Maryland law recognizing Queen Anne was frowned upon in England as impertinent. See Chalmers, "Opinions," I, 343 (quoted in Channing). ^ The proprietaryship was restored to the Calvert family in the person of the fourth Lord Baltimore, following his conversion to the Anglican church early in the eighteenth century. In their later period of control, however, the proprietaries were deprived of some of their former power. For example, their appointments of governors had to receive the sanction of the Crown. 112 AMERICAN HISTORY his friendship with the Stuart kings, was under suspicion and narrowly escaped the same treatment. The Carolina pro- prietaries saved themselves from a like fate by promptly acknowledging the new sovereigns. The Virginians trans- ferred their loyalty from the old king to the new with a sense of relief. Being both monarchial and Protestant, Virginians had every reason to expect well of the change. We shall see what came of their expec^tations. 159. Execution of Leisler. The new order of things was stained at the outset by a judicial murder. In New York, there had always been a party opposed to Leisler (section 152) and now the leaders of this opposition, having won the con- fidence of the new royal governor, Henry Sloughtcr, trumped up a charge of treason against the popular leader. He was tried before a court of his enemies and hastily put to death. 160. A New Phase of Despotism. All these changes were authorized by William not as king of the various American states, but altogether as king of the one premier state of the empire, England. His treatment of the colonies was based on the assumption that England was entitled to do with them what she pleased. They were her property. Therefore he set about overhauling the whole matter of the relations between East and West in the empire. 161. The Navigation Laws. When William look the matter in hand, he found on the English statute book certain acts^ of Parliament for the regulation of trade with the colonies. These acts were designed to advance the interests of English merchants trading with America. They enumerated such American products as could be handled profitably in England and these " enumerated goods " Americans were forbidden to ship to any other country. The Americans were also forbidden to buy from any foreign country direct. All importations had to pass through the hands of British merchants whose profits ' These were the Navigation Acts. The act passed by the Long Parliament (section 113) was expanded by later ones. The important Navigation Acts previous to the reign of William were enacted in 1660, 1663, and 1672. OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT 113 were, of course, paid by the colonists. Trade at sea had to be in ships built and owned in England or in the colonies.^ Finally goods sent from one colony to another were subjected to a customs duty. This was the first tax laid by England on the Americans.^ Its purpose was to force them to trade direct with England and to break up their trade with each other. 162. Lax Enforcement of the Laws. Such were the laws found by William III on the statute book of England. He also found that these laws had never been really enforced. Edward Randolph, whom he appointed " surveyor general '' to oversee the entire business of colonial trade, made reports which left no doubt as to the general disregard of the Naviga- tion Acts in America. All along the coast, Randolph arrested men for violating the acts. But when they were brought into the colonial courts, the local juries would not find them guilty. 163. Colonial Measures of William III. William was not the man to put up with lax enforcement of law. In 1696 another Navigation Act was passed. To the provisions of the earher acts it added some startling new ones. Notably, it provided that hereafter offenders against the trade restrictions might be tried either in local courts, or in special " admiralty " courts,^ as the king's officials should see fit. It further de- clared that all colonial laws repugnant to the act were im- mediately null and void. William also created a new colonial council. This was the Board of Trade and Plantations often spoken of as the " Lords of Trade." It was to have constant and general supervision of all colonial affairs. Its aim was in part to make the colonies subservient to the crown. ^ ^ This provision benefited America. It led to the building of ships which, in time, became a great colonial industry. For the general aim of the Navigation Acts, see text of act of 1663, Macdonald, " Source Book," 73. 2 It was levied under the act of 1672. ? Offenses committed on the open sea do not properly come under the juris- diction of the courts on land. To deal with them we have "admiralty courts " and a system of "admiralty law." * Advanced students will find in the activities of the Board of Trade, the chief unifying factor of all subsequent history of the English colonies. Only recently 114 AMERICAN HISTORY 164. Why the Americans Submitted. For the time being there was an end of the idea that the colonies were free states of the empire.^ The question inevitably arises, Why did the Americans submit ? Forty years before they had made a stand against the Long Parliament, and even Cromwell had thought it best not to push them to the wall. Why were they easily browbeaten by William III ? There are various explanations. For one thing, England in 1696 was a very different foe from the England of forty years earlier. The earlier England was divided against itself. The England of 1696 was very nearly a unit, — King, Parliament, People, pretty much of one mind. To have defied that later England would have been to court destruction. Furthermore, at the end of the century Americans were almost all in a spasm of anti-Catholic dread. It is probable that most of the colonists outside Maryland believed that James II, Louis XIV, and the Pope were in league to destroy their Hberties. However lightly we may dismiss that notion to-day, we cannot doubt that the colonists accepted it. The Americans dreamed of conquering armies pouring southward from Canada, burning and slaying. If they broke with the power of England, what was to keep them out of the hands of the French? 165. England's Great Mistake. However, England had made a great mistake — the greatest colonial mistake she ever has this fact been appreciated. One of the ablest reformers of our conception of our own past, Professor C. M. Andrews, says, "As lon-^ as the career and in- fluence of the one directing agency in England (the Board of Trade) ... re- mained little more than a name, American history in its earlier phases " possessed " no proper point of view . . . whence colonial events could be seen as identical phenomena grouped by their connection with a common governing author- ity." . . . Recent writers on the Board of Trade are — Dickcrson, "American Colonial Government"; Root, "Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government"; Kellogg, "The American Colonial Charter." 'To quote Miss Kellogg ("The American Colonial Charter"), the policy of the Board, "stated in brief . . . was . . . that the colonies 'must hereafter be brought to understand that they are to be looked upon as united and em- bodied and that their head and center is heere !'" OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT 115 made. The years between 1689 and 1696 form a turning point not only in the history of the Americans, but in that of the empire. Had WilHam and his advisers recognized the Americans as on the same footing in the empire with his European subjects, it is quite likely there never would have been an American revolution. The empire had reached a crisis. To keep her empire during many generations England had but to acknowledge the Western states as co-partners with the Eastern states in imperial concerns.^ She chose to treat them as her servants. Circumstances had given her an imperial opportunity in America. She threw it away. It never came again. II. LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 166. A Point of Pause. With the opening of the eighteenth century, the Americans entered upon a new chapter in their development. The close of the century we have been studying forms a natural point of pause. We should have a general impression of American life at the close of the seventeenth century. 167. Inhabitants. The extent of the country occupied by the Enghsh we know." The inhabitants numbered about a quarter of a million. The manners and customs of these people differed greatly in different regions. In the southern colonies most of the people lived outside of towns. The " planter " living on his estate was already the typical figure of those parts. In the middle colonies — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York — town Hfe was found in combination with country life. Along the Hudson River, the descendants 1 Two hundred years later, after having lost one colonial empire and valiantly built up another, England confronted a situation strikingly similar to that of 1696. That nations sometimes learn by experience is proved by England's present attitude toward "imperial federation." ' Roughly speaking, the settlements were all on the shores of tidewater or extended inland along the banks of streams. See sections 57, 77, note, 92-94, 104, 105, iiS, 123, 131, 132, 138, 178. ii6 AMERICAN HISTORY of the patroons still held their feudal estates, while the little city at the mouth of the river was already becoming a center of influence. To the eastward there were scarcely any large landed estates. The severe climate and the poor soil united to make the open country of comparatively little value. People gathered in towns to be together during the long winters and to find profitable employment. THE BATTERY, NEW YORK, IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 168. City Population of the Colonies. It is a question which was the largest American " city." In 1700 Penn estimated the population of Philadelphia at twelve thousand, but this was probably an exaggeration. Boston in 1700 had some seven thousand people ; New York about five thousand. Charleston was somewhat smaller than New York. In Mary- land and Virginia the capitals were meeting places rather than cities. At certain times they were filled with the great folk of the colony. At other times they came near to being deserted. Thus their permanent population was small. In both cases, toward the end of the century the capital was changed. In OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT 117 Virginia it was removed from Jamestown to Williamsburg; in Maryland, from St. Mary's to AnnapoUs. 169. The Descent of the Americans. The vast majority of these people scattered over America were of Enghsh descent, but other races were represented. In New York, of course, many people had Dutch ancestors. However, intermarriage was rapidly making these people partly English in blood, and they soon became wholly Enghsh in feeling. French Huguenots had also come into the colonies in considerable numbers HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA BUILT BY PENN (section 131). Carohna had received most of them. We have seen that there were Germans in Pennsylvania (section 133). There were also in America, previous to 1700, people from the north of Ireland, the so-called Scotch-Irish, but as yet they were few. 170. Domestic Life. The Hfe led by the Americans when William III was king was seldom luxurious. As yet there were no great houses in America, no stately churches, no imposing public buildings, but there was a great deal of comfort. The owners of large plantations in the South, the New York patroons, prosperous merchants of Boston, all had houses, furniture, servants, sufficient for their wants. ii8 AMERICAN HISTORY The new houses built about that time were generally plain and without artistic charm, but often large and commodious. Within those houses was an abundance of European articles. There were such imported luxuries as spice, teas, wines, and liquors ; the finer clothing of the family — lace, silks, and everything of the sort — was European. The everyday clothing was generally made of homespun, woven on this side the water. Sometimes such cloth was made inside the house itself by the servants of the owner under the supervision of their mistress. On the great plantations in the South this work was done by slaves. In the homes of the poorer people the whole family spent the winter evenings spinning, sewing, or making candles and other articles of household use. 171. Slavery. Among the servants in the houses of the rich might generally be found negro slaves.^ The Southern colonies with their mild climate and country life were well suited to negro labor, and in the South, already, black slaves were numerous. Farther north cHmatic conditions and town life made slavery less profitable. In the main, the number of slaves decreased as one traveled northward, but there was an exception to the rule. In 1700 Virginia and New York each had about six thousand slaves. The proportion, however, of slaves to the whole population was greater in New York than in Virginia. They were used in large numbers on the estates of the patroons. In New England slaves were, as a rule, merely an affectation of the well-to-do, much as liveried servants are to-day. Slavery always needed agriculture to be profitable and in no New England colony unless, possibly, Rhode Island, was life predominantly agricultural. On the large farms of Rhode Island many slaves were employed.^ ^ The first slaves in English America are said to have been brought to Vir- ginia by the Dutch in 1619. ^ Some faint opposition to slavery can be observed even in the seventeenth century. An argument against it was published by German Quakers in 1688. In the last decade of the century oflicial action was taken by the Quaker Church, in meetings held at Philadelphia, adverse to slavery. A famous anti-slavery tract, "The Selling of Joseph," was printed in Boston in 1701. OUR FIRST GREAT TURNING POINT 119 172. Books and Printing. As late as 1700 there was not a newspaper in English America.^ But there were printing presses, both at Boston and Philadelphia, and a few books were pubhshed. Nevertheless the Americans did not lack books brought over from England. Every planter of Virginia had his " library," and though the collections were small, they were generally well chosen. In 1693 the Hbrary of a clergyman was catalogued and offered for sale in Boston. It contained The Bofton News-Letter. From i^onDap April 17. to SJ^OIlDap April 24. 1704. londat flpng-PoJl from Ditemb. iJ. to 4/b. 170;. 1 From all this he infers, That they have hopes of Affilttncc from Fr/imc, otherwife ihey would rever LEners from Scotlmd bring us the Copy of I be fo impudent , nnd he gives Reafons for his Ap- aSheet lately Primed there, Intituled, A 1 prehcnfions that the Fnnch King may fend Troops finfonMt Alarm for SzotlinA. In n Letter- thither this Winter, I. Bccaufe the Cn^/jy'j 6C/Dwcft , fnm dCmtlcman in the Cit;i,to hit Fritnd in- will not then be ;it Sea to oppofe thci'n. z. He Can the Cemtry, concerning the prefent Dangtr then bcft fpare them, the Seafon of Adlion beyond ta il:c Kjngdem and'cf ilx Proiejlmt Helig^ion. Sea being over. ;. The Expctlation given him of a This Letter tales Notice, ThatPapifts fvrarm in conliderable number to joyn.them, may inrourage thht i^ation, that they traffick more avowedly than him to the undertaking with fewer Men,if he cart formerly, and tiiai oflate many Scores of Pncfts & but (end over a fufficicnt number of Ofticers with Jefuites arc come thither from France, and gone to Arms and Ammunition. the North, to the Highlands & other places of the He endeavours in the reft of his Letters to an» Country. That the Minifters of the Highlands and fwcr the foolidi Pretences of the Pretender's being Morth gave in large Lifts of them to the Commit- a Prottlbnt and that he \vill govern Us according tee of the General Aflembly, to be laid before the to Law. He fays, that being bred up in the Rtli- PrivyCouncil. gion and Politicks o( France _ he is by Education a FACSIMILE OF THE EARLIEST SUCCESSFUL NEWSPAPER IN AMERICA about a thousand works, of which only eight had been printed in America. A public library was founded at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1698. 173. Education. The American in Wilham's day could not get much of what we now call " higher education " in his own country. For that he had to cross the Atlantic. How- ever, two small colleges were in existence at the end of the century. Harvard College had been founded in 1636 by the General Court of Massachusetts, and William and 1 There was an attempt to set up a newspaper at Boston in 1690, but the first regular newspaper in America was the Bosion News-Letter, which began in 1 704. I20 AMERICAN HISTORY Mary College at Williamsburg in 1693, partly by royal grant, partly through colonial aid. On the other hand, the colonies were well provided with schools. In Massachusetts every town of fifty famihes was required to maintain a school. The Collegiate School of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York was founded as THE 8 NEfF^Etf GLAND IPRIMERI ^ O , an esfy and pteifant ^ ^ GuicietotheArtofKeadlng:. f* ^ Adorn'd with Cuts, A% Nor' To Ti'V/Vfi art addtdt q far back as 1633. The Penn Charter School was founded at Philadelphia to- ward the end of the century. 174. Religion. As we have seen, a vari- ety of circumstances had conspired to make the colonies ^ The Afl^mblv of Divln-S f Pretty solidly Protes " T\T X , ' ^ tant. If the grea great liberal movement of the early part of the century had suc- ceeded (section 64), there might have been universal toler- ation in America in 1690. But it had partially failed, and the tyranny of James II had united all the Protestants in a cruel opposition to all Catholics (section 164). However, there were still a few mem- bers of the Roman Church in Enghsh America. Most of them were in Maryland, though New York contained a small num- ber. Jews were also to be found here and there. Once in a while an avowed freethinker might be discovered. But the greater part of the population was distributed among the vari- and Mr. Cotton's I CATECHISM, 8Jd Coin, per Ountt ... 6 French Sihrer Crowns o Spanifli milled Pieces of 8. - -« - - o 7 6| 17 6 OthergoodcoinedSpan. Silver^ ftr Ounce o S 6 The Pixtportion of Gold to Silvetf !o £H^atid'ntZ% d : 1 : : O : 15 I Ounce Troy of Gold (2» Car.') is worth Sterling ^, ^ 178' r 'Ounce Sterling Silver, 05a S o 7 6,>7 PAGE FROM POOR RICHARD'S AL- MANAC Showing money in use in eighteenth century. 144 AMERICAN HISTORY used in whatever way might profit Englishmen. After fifty years of this pohcy it is not strange that the Americans were beginning to resent it. In 1750 there were not yet many open signs of discontent. Nevertheless, all through the century there had been frequent bickerings between the colonial legislatures and the royal governors. In spite of Parliament the Americans insisted that they were entitled to all the rights of Englishmen and that if the Bill of Rights did not apply to the colonies (section 157) it ought to. 217. American Politicians. In a word, all this resolute and prosperous America had " a chip on its shoulder." It was 1 r r i^* ^ Ci til ^ 4!«^i^^£a| THE "PALACE" AT NEW BERNE Residence of the Royal Governor of North Carolina. tired of being treated as the mere ward of England. Americans in 1750 were thinking again of their grandfathers and great- grandfathers and of the old idea that they were subjects of the king of England but not of a Parliament to which they sent no representatives. And most of them were eager politi- cians. Having no opportunity to take part in the government of the empire, they made up for that deprivation by taking a great interest in local affairs. In every colony there was one house of the legislature to which Americans could be elected. Everywhere, except in Connecticut, and Rhode Island,^ this popular house was opposed by a governor sent out from ' In 1776 these two still elected their Kovernors. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were proprietary colonies. The rest were royal provinces. Georgia had been transformed into a province in 1752. MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145 England. Between the two stood the council, appointed either by the governor or the king, which played the part almost of what we know to-day as an " upper chamber." It also served as the highest court of the colony. Roughly speaking, these two — the Assembly and the Council — were related to each other about as were the House of Commons and the House of Lords in England. The " lower house," as the popular body was called, paid the governor's salary, PHILADELPHIA ABOUT 1740 From an old print. often with such bad grace that the governors besought the crown to find some way to pay their salaries without asking leave of the Assemblies. 218. Other Political Activities. The political restlessness of the Americans found other means of expression. Every- where the method of conducting local matters gave scope for the political instinct. The South generally had the Enghsh county system : in each county a board of " quarter ses- sions," also known as the County Court, was appointed by the governor, and this board looked after the taxation of the county and the administration of justice. Pennsylvania had the same system except that the county officials were chosen by the people of the county. Towns, which were smaller than counties, were the political units of New England. 146 AMERICAN HISTORY In a New England town all the voters met periodically in the town meeting, which formed a complete democracy almost like the miniature democracies of remote ancient times. That is to say, the taxes were laid, the local officers were elected, the business of the town transacted, all by the same body of men in the same assembly. There were also towns in New York where the county board was made up of their represen- tatives. 219. The Colonial Agents. In all the colonies except Rhode Island and Connecticut, the governor could veto acts of the Assembly, and any colonial legislation might be vetoed by the king. Consequently on many occasions the Americans had need of some one to look after their interests in London. Thus each colony got in the way of employing an agent. The agent, in some cases, ap- peared before the Privy Coun- cil, or at the bar of the House of Commons, and presented the colonial side of some question in which the Americans were interested. Whenever the Americans felt themselves wronged, they could appeal to the king in council. 220. Freedom of Speech. One new principle had been added by the Americans to the body of Enghsh law. In 1735 a poor printer in New York, Peter Zenger, was publisher of a newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal. The governor had removed the chief justice because the latter had refused ST. MICHAEL'S, CHARLESTON, Typical colonial church. S.C. MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 147 to acknowledge the right of the governor to order certain cases to be tried without a jury, and the governor's action was severely criticized in the Weekly Journal. As a consequence Zenger found himself in court on a charge of libel. Public- spirited men of New York felt that the trial was an attack on the freedom of the press and secured the first lawyer in America, Andrew Hamilton from Philadelphia, to defend Zenger. This famous trial ended in estabhshing the principle that the truth can be spoken no matter whom it injures with- L m. Ill it) Sti ^1 ti Jf sH II ^i| 8 1! fi IM HARVARD COLLEGE IN 1726 out fear of the accusation of libel. Gouverneur Morris after- ward spoke of the Zenger trial as " the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America." 221. General Ferment in America. A general increase of interest in things of the mind took place between the years 1740 and 1760. The first great metaphysician of America, Jonathan Edwards, appeared in New England and inspired a fresh zeal for religion. About the same time Whitefield (section 202) made a tour of the colonies, preaching in many places with immense effect. In 1740 he was invited to come from Savannah to Boston, which he did, and later preached before Harvard College. The work of these remarkable 148 AMERICAN HISTORY men culminated in what is known as the Great Awakening, a rehgious revival which was felt throughout the colonies. One result of the revival was the appearance of the Methodist Church in America.^ About the same time Henry Melchoir iMuhlenburg roused and organized the American Lutherans. The establishment of the first Lutheran synod in America, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, was due to Muhlcnburg.- 222. Increase of Col- leges. It is to be noted that a great increase in the number of American col- leges occurred at this same time. The two little col- leges which dated from the seventeenth century, Har- vard and William and jNIary (section 173), had been joined by Yale early in the eighteenth century. Five more were founded between 1746 and 1769. Four of these are now known as Princeton Uni- versity, Columbia Univer- sity, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. The fifth is still called Dartmouth College. 223. The Man of the Hour. Perhaps the most characteristic American of this time was Benjamin Franklin. Born at Boston in 1706, he went to Philadelphia as a poor lad to seek his fortune. He began as a prmter and rose to be owner and > Wesley, the founder of ^Methodism, was a friend of Whitefield, and had spent several years in Georgia (section 202). His first hymn book was pub- lished at Charleston, 1737. 2 There were Lutherans in New Sweden as early as 1638; others settled in New Amsterdam; still others in Georgia and Pennsylvania. But they had no general organization until Muhlcnburg drew them into union. Li.iUL VALE The founder of Yale College. Frum the painting by D. Martin. Courtesy of U. W. Biddle. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 149 editor of a paper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. He was the first American who won fame in Europe as a writer and scientist. It was Franklin who made the discovery that Kghtning and frictional electricity are the same force. The Royal Academy, the most distinguished scientific body in England, elected Frankhn one of its members. In America he had wide influence through his poKtical and satirical writings such as " How a Great Empire may become Small " and " Poor Richard's Almanac." He was shrewd, witty, practical, with a wonderful knowledge of men and a deep understanding of affairs. In 1753 he was deputy postmaster for the colonies^ and later was the prin- cipal American agent in London. Frankhn, more than any other one man, roused the Americans to claim again all the political rights which had been claimed by their ancestors a hundred years before, and which had been taken from them by WilHam III. Selections from the Sources. Hart, Contemporaries, I, Nos. 104, 126, 306; II, Nos. 19-24, 26, 28-31, 35-38, 47-108, 113- 116, 122; William Byrd, History of the Dividing Line (see Bassett, Writings of Colonel William Byrd) ; Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family ; Franklin, Autobiography ; Poor Richard's Almanac; Force, Tracts, II ; Macdonald, Source Book, No. 28. Secondary Accounts. Lecky, History of England, III, 290-330; Egerton, British Colonial Policy, 145-146; Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 39-57, 195-209, 315-323, 336-356; Beer, British Colonial Policy, 16-30, 52-131, 188-192, 252-273; Thwaites, Colonies, electrical machine de- signed BY franklin ^He held the office until 1774. I50 AMERICAN HISTORY 24-26, 46, 81, 97, 116-130; Fisher, Colonial Era, 216-236, 241-286, 292-312; Lodge, English Colonies, chaps, i, iii, v, vii, xiv, xviii, xxi, passim; Greene, Provincial America, Colonial Governor; Fiske, Old Virginia, II, 30-44, 162-173, 289-308, 333-337, 37o-4oo; Duicli and Quaker Colonies, II, 209-257, 294-317; New France and New England, 197-232; Doyle, English in America, I, 266-274, 323-327, 343-350, 363-380; III, 8-14, 273-376, 395-404; Weeden, New England, I, 314- 330, 379-387 ; II, 473-492, 607-713 ; Channing, Town and County Government ; Dewky, Financial History, sees. 3-11 ; Mereness, Mar3'/a«(/. Topics for Special Reports, i. Changes in America between 1697 and 1748. 2. Sir William Johnson. 3. Domestic Life about 1750. 4. Restrictions laid on the Colonies by the Crown. 5. The Zenger Case. 6. Franklin. 7. Character of the Empire in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century. CHAPTER XIII WILLIAM PITT 224. A World-wide Issue. At this critical moment, the Americans became involved in one of the greatest events of history. Among the countless wars that make history such tragic reading, few have had a permanent effect upon man- kind. They have come and gone like thunderstorms, and their effects have gradually disappeared. Now and then, however, a war has changed the line upon which civilization was de- veloping. This has happened only when two powerful races have become the incarnations of ideas that are incapable of compromise. Such was the war between the Persians and the Greeks ; such also was the civil war in the Roman world between Caesar and Pompey ; and such, in the eighteenth century, was the world-wide duel between the English and the French. 225. France, the Incarnation of Absolutism. France had become the very incarnation of the principle of absolutism. Louis XIV summed up the French theory of government when he said, " I am the state." His reign marks the highest point ever reached in western Europe by the power of kings. All the monarchs of Europe were his imitators and outside the British empire, his influence was unbounded. The French language was the diplomatic language of the whole world and to a large extent it was the language of the upper classes everywhere. The one obstacle in the way of universal French influence was the stubborn empire which spoke English. 226. The Democratic Principle. With all her faults, England was the champion of the opposite principle. In deal- ing with her relations to the colonies we must learn to sepa- 152 AMERICAN HISTORY • rate abstract questions from practical ones. In the political thinking of the English, on both sides of the water, had been slowly worked out those great principles of free government upon which to-day every country in the world has founded its system of authority. So far as political theories went, both Americans and Britons agreed. But circumstances, as we have seen, had quietly drawn them apart in feehng, with the result that unaware to themselves they had already become separate peoples. When England was opposed on any point by her colonies, there flashed up in Englishmen pretty much the same feehng that they had when opposed by foreigners. Principles were made to yield to pride. Arrogance took the place of reason. But even then, England treated her colonies immeasurably better than did the absolutist nations of the Continent. The effect of free institutions was gradually chang- ing even the poHtical temper of Englishmen. From England, and from her American colonies, a new set of institutions, a new pohtical temper, was destined to be distributed to all the nations of the earth. The question in 1750, on which all the future depended, was this : Shall France, the incarnation of absolutism, remove from her path the only people that have free institutions ? The advance of the French over the world, as has been well said, was not unUke the advance of the Persians more than two thousand years before. 227. The Advance of the French. America had the honor of bearing the brunt of the French attack. Hardly had the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle been signed than France began to prepare for the final struggle. In 1749 Celoron de Bienville took possession of the Ohio valley in the name of France. That same year several gentlemen of Virginia, among whom were Lawrence and Augustine Washington, organized the Ohio Company and sent out an expedition to explore the region which is now the state of Ohio. The Canadians promptly began establishing forts in the upper valley of the Ohio River. Thereupon, the governor of Virginia picked out a bold and capable young man and commissioned him to WILLIAM PITT 153 carry word to the French that the Ohio country belonged to Virginia by reason of the old grants from James I which gave Virginia all the western land to the Pacific. This messenger was George Washington. But in spite of the defiance from Virginia, the French continued to advance. They seized the " forks of the Ohio " where Pittsburgh now stands, and built there Fort Duquesne. Meanwhile a small Virginian- force was moving westward to protect the frontier. Young Wash- ington commanded it. On May 28, 1754, at a place called Great Meadows, the French and Virginians met. There was a short, sharp engagement ; the French commander was killed and his men forced to retreat. But soon they returned, and Washington was compelled to surrender a small fortifica- tion he had raised and named Fort Necessity. He was per- mitted, however, to retreat to Virginia. In this humble way began the mighty struggle that was to affect all succeeding history.^ 228. The Newcastle Administration. The prime minister of England, Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, was perhaps the most incompetent England has ever had. He could not make up his mind what to do. The Lords of Trade however took action. They called a congress of colonial representatives to meet at Albany to make sure of the friendship of the Six Nations. In June, 1754, the Congress met, but it did little except discuss plans for a union of all the colonies. One plan was proposed by Franklin. Nothing came of it at the time. Meanwhile, Newcastle was forced into action, and although he still refused to declare war, General Edward Braddock was sent over from England with two regiments of regular soldiers to capture Fort Duquesne, while Admiral Boscawen was ordered to intercept a French fleet carrying supplies to Canada. Both made failures. Braddock was attacked by the French in the summer of 1755 near the mouth of the Monongahela 1 These events inspired Macaulay's striking remark, "The firing of a gun in the backwoods of North America brought on a conflict which drenched Europe in blood." 154 AMERICAN HISTORY River. He died fighting gallantly, and the wreck of his army retreated, the retreat being covered skillfully by Virginia troops under Washington. Boscawen did no more than cap- ture a ship or two and rouse the French to fury. They now prepared for war on a large scale. It was by Americans how- ever that the next great blow was struck. The Americans naturally expected fresh invasions from Canada, and feared, also, that the French population of Nova Scotia would seize the first opportunity to take sides with their French kinsman. To forestall any such action. Admiral Boscawen and the authorities of Massachusetts decided upon a swift and cruel stroke. An army which included two thousand Massachu- setts troops was dispatched to Nova Scotia where some six thousand people of French descent were forced to go aboard ship and suffer removal to distant colonies far from the seat of war. This unhappy " deportation of the Acadians," as they were still called (section 134), is one of the most deplored among the many deplorable cruelties in the dark history of war.^ 229. The Seven Years' War. Newcastle was forced to declare war upon France, May 18, 1756, but the timidity and incapacity of the prime minister were punished by disasters in all parts of the world. English possessions were invaded by the French and the English nayy humiliated. In the face of such wide failure the Newcastle administration collapsed. A revolution in the British policy took place and Wilham Pitt in 1757 was given full control of military affairs. Almost instantly the aspect of things changed. It is due to Pitt that this Seven Years' War was made a splendid success. France had formed alHances with the other great despotic monarchies, Austria and Russia. Sweden and Saxony had also joined her. England was alHed with Prussia- and it was Pitt * See Longfellow's account of it in "Evangeline." ' Before the middle of the eighteenth century Austria had been the chief power in Germany with France for her steadfast enemy. Frederick the Great, however, had suddenly raised Prussia to a commanding position. Wishing WILLIAM PITT 155 who saw the importance of the Prussian alliance more clearly than any one else. The shadow of France was over the whole world. If only France and her allies were beaten back, it mat- tered not where the fighting was done. Pitt told his country- men, " I will conquer America for you in Germany." To that end, he poured money into Prussia, while Frederick — the greatest captain then Uving — suppHed the armies and the generalship. 230. British-Prussian Success. In fiercely contested battles Frederick served splendidly the cause both of England and America. His famous victories, such as Rossbach and Zorn- dorf, are steps toward the dehverance of America from the shadow of French conquest. Pitt aided him not only with money but with men. Mixed armies of EngHsh and Germans defeated the French at Crefeld in 1758, and still more bril- hantly in the celebrated battle of Minden in 1759. In all parts of the world, the fiery spirit of England's great war minister filled his subordinates like an inspiration. In distant India, Chve won the battle of Plassy and shattered a native empire on which France had relied as a counter check to England in the East. At sea the audacity of Pitt's admirals knew no bounds. Sir Edward Hawke broke the strength of the French navy in the terrible battle of Quiberon, fought under conditions of wind and sea which had led his sailing master to protest that Hawke's scheme was madness. In America success followed success. Louisburg surren- dered to General Amherst and Admiral Boscawen, July 26, to nip Prussia's greatness in the bud, Austria had made up her ancient quarrel with France and set about forming a league against Frederick. This shifting of international relations is admirably summed up by Professor Ferdinand Schwill : "England and France . . . were looking for continental allies; and as Prussia . . . was induced at last to sign a convention with England, France . . . accepted the proffered haxid of Prussia's rival, Austria. In the spring of 1756, this diplomatic revolution was an accomplished fact. The two great political questions of the day, the rivalry between England and France involving the supremacy of the seas, and between Prussia and Austria touching the control of Germany, were to be fought out in the great Seven Years' War. . . ." "Politi- cal History of Modern Europe," 317. 156 AMERICAN HISTORY 1758. In November of the same year General Forbes occupied Fort Duquesne. 231. The Conquest of Canada. Pitt had formed the daring resolve to drive the French completely out of America, and to that end sent James Wolfe, supported by a fleet, to take Quebec. There the gallant Montcalm, viceroy of Canada, made his last stand to save French power in the West. Wolfe, however, by means of a daring night attack, got possession of the Heights of Abraham which overlook the city. Mont- calm's attempt to dislodge him, September 13, 1759, brought on the battle that decided the future of the western world. It was short but furious, ending in the rout of the French. Both commanders fell mortally wounded. 232. The Rebellion against Pitt. At this juncture, when Pitt had the game in his hands, a startHng change took place in English politics; there was a rebellion against Pitt's leadership. We must pause here and review a train of events that came near making the great war a disaster to the cause of liberty throughout the world, instead of its chief salvation. In a previous chapter we had a ghmpse of the Tories of 1704 and their unsuccessful attempt to destroy religious freedom in South Carolina. In 17 10 they got control of the govern- ment of England and proceeded to enact some of the most despotic legislation that has disgraced the English statute books. In the reaction which soon followed, they were driven from power and were unable to revive their political importance for nearly fifty years. During all that time the Whigs controlled the government. As always happens under such conditions, the ruling party, in spite of its high ideas, became arbitrary and at last selfish and corrupt. By degrees it lost its principles. In the middle of the eighteenth century there was little to choose between the two parties and English political Hfe was characterized by a general stagnation. From that condition Pitt had roused his country. He had breathed new life into the Whig party. Once more its high principles became real things, genuine mo- WILLIAM PITT 157 tives for action. But by so doing Pitt broke his party in two. Many Whigs had lost their love of freedom and were now quite willing to unite with the Tories in a revival of despotic government, if only they could make it profitable to themselves. Here was a great opportunity for a king who should attempt to seize it. Just at this moment, by fateful coincidence, a new king mounted the throne (October 25, 1760). This was George the Third. He had been brought up by a high-spirited mother who despised democracy. " George, be a King," was her constant admonition to her son whose education she had intrusted to an out-and-out Tory, the Scotch Earl of Bute. It was Bute who framed the speech made by the king on his accession.^ A few days later the king commanded his ministers to make room for Bute in the cabinet. Presently Bute and Pitt disagreed over the conduct of the war, and Bute carried his point. Pitt resigned. Thus, for the first time in half a century, the believers in absolutism again had control of the government of England. 233. Frederick Deserted. The course pursued by the Tories was deeply dishonorable. Frederick, who had served England so splendidly, had lately suffered terrible reverses. He had been defeated by the Russians in " a battle of unex- ampled carnage at Kunersdorf," and Berhn had been sacked by the invaders. At this terrible crisis the EngHsh absolu- tists abandoned England's friend. They broke off Pitt's alliance with Prussia,^ knowing France was now but too glad ^ The "King's speech" is a paper reviewing the condition of the kingdom, which is prepared in advance with the aid of the ministers, to be read at the opening of ParUament. -To profit again by the succinctness of Professor Schwill : "For a moment now (after Kunersdorf) it looked as if he (Frederick) were lost but he somehow raised another force about him and the end of the campaign found him not much worse off than the beginning. However . . . when on the death of George II, the new English monarch, George III, refused (1761) to pay the annual subsidy by which alone Frederick was enabled to fill the thinned ranks of the army each year and equip the men, the proud king himself could hardly keep up his hopes. . . ." 158 AMERICAN HISTORY to make peace with England on almost any terms so as to be able to turn all her attention to her other enemies. By a treaty signed at Paris February 10, 1763, the French gave up all their possessions in North America except two small islands just south of Newfoundland. All French America, east of the Mississippi, except the city of New Orleans and its immediate vicinity, was ceded to England ; the remainder was trans- ferred from France to Spain, which in turn ceded Florida to England. 234. George Grenville. Bute who was utterly unfit for leadership soon tired of being prime minister and in April, 1763, resigned. He was succeeded by his chief supporter, George Grenville, one of those reactionary Whigs who had taken sides with the Tories against Pitt. Grenville had gone over, prac- tically, to the principle of absolutism. With regard to America he held in all their offensiveness the vicious doctrines made current by WilHam III. It was England's prerogative, Grenville reasoned, to decide what was best for the colonies, and impose it upon them whether they liked or not. In his stubborn way he honestly desired the safety of America and was genuinely troubled over a great Indian outbreak which took place in 1763, when the Indians of the Northwest, headed by the daring Pontiac, attacked the frontier posts and were with difficulty subdued.^ Grenville argued that the safety of America demanded the presence there of a considerable part of the British regular army. He proposed to compel the colonies to contribute to the cost of maintaining this army of defense. 235. The Temper of America in 1763. However, it was a most unfortunate moment at which to attempt to dictate to the Americans. They were enthusiastic believers in Pitt. He had made them feel that they were to be recognized at last as copartners with England in the management of the empire. Now came this stupid and arbitrary Grenville, ' For this greatest of Indian wars, see Parkman's fine account, "The Con- spiracy of Pontiac." WILLIAM PITT 159 rudely thrusting them back into the position of dependents of the premier state. ^ 236. Writs of Assistance. Several recent events had shown that they were not to be trifled with. At Boston (1761) there had been significant opposition to the issue of what were known as " writs of assistance," which gave revenue ofhcers general authority to search any premises supposed to contain smuggled goods. Though the movement to abolish such writs was not successful, it generated intense and widespread indignation. In the course of the opposition James Otis - described the Navigation Acts, which made necessary these writs, as " a taxation law made by a foreign legislature without our consent." 237. The Parson's Cause. Another significant event was a law case in Virginia known as the " Parson's Cause " (1763). The British government had vetoed a Virginia act reducing the salaries of the established clergy. Speaking upon this point, a young lawyer, Patrick Henry ,^ made the bold declara- ^ The British side of the question is ably presented by Lecky, "History of England," III, 333-358. The advanced student should pursue at some length topics 5 and 6 in the list of reports following this chapter. He will find especially helpful Beer, "British Colonial Policy," 31-131, 252-273; Dickerson, "Ameri- can Colonial Government," 320-356; Pitt's "Correspondence." See further Root and Ames, " Syllabus of American Colonial History," 87-89. The British apologists argue that Grenville's scheme was reasonable and that something of the sort had become absolutely necessary. Such appears to have been the case. Nevertheless, the great English historian Gardiner probably anticipates the final judgment of history when he says: "The British Parliament in fact had put itself in the position of Charles I when he levied ship-money. It was as desirable in the eighteenth century that Americans should pay for the army necessary for their protection as it had been desirable in the seventeenth that Englishmen should pay for the fleet then needed to defend their coasts. Ameri- cans in the eighteenth century, however, like Englishmen in the seventeenth, thought that the first point to consider was the authority by which the tax was imposed. ... If the British Parliament could levy a stamp duty in America, it could levy other duties, and the Americans would thus be entirely at its mercy." "Students' History of England," 771. 2 He resigned his position of advocate-general of the colony rather than serve the government in issuing such writs. See Hosmer, " Life of Hutchinson," chaps, iii-v. * See Tyler, "Patrick Henry," chap. v. i6o AMERICAN HISTORY tion, *' A king ... by disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being the Father of his people degenerates into a Tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience." 238. The Proclamation Line. However, Grenville had made up his mind that the time had come to tighten the hold of the imperial government upon North America. With that end in view he caused the issue of a royal proclamation (1763) laying off the new territory ceded by France. Three new provinces were established — Quebec, East Florida, and West Florida.^ The southern boundary of Georgia was moved down to the St. Marys River. But the really important part of the proclamation concerned what has since been known as " the proclamation line." A line was drawn on the map along the watershed of the coast plain, and all territory west of it was reserved to the crown to be dealt with in the future as it might deem fit. Thus the old colo- nies whose charters ran from " sea to sea " were shut out from the IMissis- sippi valley. 239. The Later Acts of Grenville. The next year (1764) Grenville got the Sugar Act passed.- It imposed on the Americans a system of duties designed to raise a revenue for the crown. Two other acts bearing on America, the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act, were passed in 1765. The latter em- powered officers of the crown to call on colonial governors to provide quarters for whatever troops the king might send to America. The Stamp Act was the most important of all. It required the Americans to pay a stamp duty on every legal document, will, license, land patent, commission, and bill REVENUE STAMP USED IN THE COLONIES 1 The Floridas were ceded by Spain as part of the agreement under the Treaty of Paris (section 233). * This was a reassertion of the earlier Sugar Act, or Molasses Act, of 1733 (section 215). WILLIAM PITT i6i of sale ; also on playing cards, newspapers, pamphlets, and almanacs. 240. The American Theory of the Empire. Grenville had failed to allow for the American theory of the empire. The Americans made a sharp distinction between what they called " internal " legislation and " external " legislation. They had submitted to the Navigation Laws and the restric- tions laid upon commerce on the ground that general imperial business should be left in the hands of the imperial govern- ment. Their sense of practicality admitted that, under the circumstances of the time, such a concession was necessary to preserve the empire. This was what they meant by " ex- ternal " legislation, which, they held, ParHament had a right to enact. But all taxes levied within a colony, all enactments that interfered with the everyday hfe of its people, were held by the Americans to be " internal " legislation. In these matters they doggedly insisted that each state of the empire was related to the crown in the same way, that everywhere these were local issues between the king and the local assembly, and that the smallest American colony was as completely its own mistress, in home affairs, as was mighty England her- self. To sum up their position in modern phraseology : they conceded to the premier state, because of the imperial burdens it bore, the whole enormous matter of the control and taxation of commerce, with all the profits arising therefrom, but they refused to admit the right of the premier state to have a voice in their local affairs.^ 241. Opposition to the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act, being a violation of the latter principle, provoked instant and bitter opposition. John Hancock expressed the general feeling when he said, " I will never carry on business under such great dis- ^ Whether this argument of the Americans was good law has been a subject of debate ever since. See a discussion of both sides in the "Cambridge Modern History," VII, 175-208 ; also, Channing, "History," III, 46-79; Beer, "British Colonial Policy," 308-316; Snow, "Administration of Dependencies," 128- 168; Lecky, "History of England," III, 333-356; Hart, "Contemporaries," II, No. 142. 1 62 AMERICAN HISTORY advantages and Burthen. I will not be a slave, I have a right to the libertys & Privleges of the English Constitution and I as an Englishman will enjoy them." The American feehng crystalHzcd in a resolution introduced into the Virginia legis- lature by Patrick Henry, which declared, " That every attempt to vest such power in any other person or persons whatever than the General Assembly ... is illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American Liberty." Associations were formed to resist the enforcement of the act. The attempt of Thomas Hutchinson, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, to put it into force caused a riot during which his house was sacked by a mob and for a time his life was in danger. 242. The Stamp Act Congress. Massachusetts invited the other colonies to send delegates to a convention to con- sider the situation. Nine colonies responded.^ On October 7, 1765, the so-called Stamp Act Congress met in New York. Petitions were drawn up and sent to the king, the House of Commons, and the House of Lords. The Congress also drew up a " Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colo- nists in America." This document is one of the most note- worthy ever composed in our country. It embraces fourteen sections, some of which state grievances and others formulate principles. The most important sections are the first, second, third, and fifth, which read as follows : " I. That his Majesty's subjects, in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due sub- ordination to that august body the parliament of Great Britain. " II. That his Majesty's liege subjects in these Colo- nies are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects witliin the kingdom of Great Britain. * Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. WILLIAM PITT • 163 " in. That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons of Great Britain. " V. That the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen therein by themselves and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures." 243. The New Whigs. The friends of despotism had gone too far. Though one wing of the old Whig party was quietly merging with the Tories, the other wing, the new Whigs, was steadily gaining ground. Led by Pitt, the Marquis of Rock- ingham, and Edmund Burke, these genuine Whigs roused all the political conscience of England to take sides with America. *' I rejoice," said Pitt, " that the Americans have resisted." Grenville, meanwhile, had been forced out of office on a purely British issue and Lord Rockingham had succeeded him. During his brief administration the Stamp Act was repealed (March 18, 1766). Though Rockingham was prime minister, Pitt was the man of the hour. In America enthusiasm for him was unbounded. The city of Pittsburg is a memorial of his popularity. In the old city of Charleston still stands a statue of Pitt set up in his honor by the grateful Assembly of South Carolina. No other statesman rivaled Pitt in his personal hold upon the mass of Englishmen. Without him the new Whig party — the patriotic branch of the old Whigs — was not yet strong enough to control England. In July, 1766, Pitt became prime minister. 244. The Great Opportunity. It was a moment of crisis. No other English minister ever had so great an opportunity. The man who had made successful the great war had now the opportunity to reestablish in England those principles of free government which the war had saved to the world. At the same time he had an opportunity to unite all the parts of a vast empire in some perm^anent scheme of government which 164 WILLIAM PITT 165 should put those principles into operation on a world-wide scale. Only once before had any statesman been confronted by so great an opportunity. Caesar became chief of the Roman world at a time when the relation between the capital and the provinces was not unlike the condition of the British em- pire in 1766. An essentially Tory policy had made the capital the tyrant of the provinces and had brought them to the verge of revolt. Cassar, alone among Roman statesmen, saw that there was but one way to save the empire. Rome had to reverse her despotic course ; she had to cease to exploit the provinces for her own gain ; she and they had to become mutual friends and equals. In respect to their opportunities, Pitt and Cassar are thus strikingly alike. Unfortunately the similarity does not extend to their achievements. Caesar lived to carry out his plan. He saved the Roman state from disruption and secured for it centuries of usefulness to man- kind. By one of the most lamentable ironies of fate, Pitt was struck down in dreadful illness, within six months after he became prime minister. ' 245. The Defeat of the New Whigs. Though Pitt's name was allowed to stand as that of the prime minister for some time longer, he had no further relation with the government. He had suffered a complete physical collapse, and his mind was temporarily affected. The next few years he passed in seclusion, and though his health was at last restored and he returned to pubHc hfe (as the Earl of Chatham), he never again had a controHing voice in public affairs. On Pitt's breakdown, in the autumn of 1766, King George himself became the real master in Enghsh politics, and the reign of genuine Toryism began. 246. The Turning Point of the Empire. To Americans, 1766 must always be one of the great years of history. It was the last turning point in our relation with that ancient Enghsh monarchy in which all the roots of our distinctive institutions were planted. Furthermore, Wilham Pitt was the i66 AMERICAN HISTORY first leader beloved and followed by the whole body of Ameri- cans. He was our first national hero. His place in our his- tory is best described by the inscription on the pedestal of that statue set up in his honor at Charleston : In grateful memory of his services to his countrymen in general and to Americans in particular the Commons House of Assembly of South Carolina unanimously voted this statue of the Right Honorable William Pitt, Esquire who gloriously exerted himself in defending the freedom of Americans the true sons of England by promoting a repeal of the Stamp Act in the year 1766 time shall sooner destroy this mark of their esteem than erase from their minds their just sense of his patriotic virtues Selections from the Sources. Hart, Contemporaries, II, Nos. 49, 122-129, 133, 138-144; Macdonald, Source Book, Nos. 29-36; Select Charters, Nos. 51, 52, 54, 55; Adams, British Orations, I, 98, 150; Kim- ball, Correspondence of William Pitt, I, 36-50. 74-79, 121-123, 235-237, 242-247; II, 88-90, 130-134, 276, 320, 348-354, 357-360, 373, 382, 432-434- Maps. Thwaites, France in America, 36, 106, 204, 256, 268 ; Avery, History of the United States, IV, 60-61, 67, 78, 85, 89, 162, 199, 252, 276, 277,352. Secondary Accounts. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I, chaps. 1, ii, vi, vii, x, xiii ; H, chaps, xviii-xxx; Conspiracy of Pontiac, I, chaps, v-viii; II, xviii-xxii; Bancroft, History (last revision), II, 333- 338, 419-533, 554-565; in, 3-49, 244. Lecky, History of Eng- WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM WILLIAM PITT 167 land, I, 184-234, 470-515; 11, 477-565; in, 26-67, 333-358, 361-378; American Revolution (Woodburn edition), 42-49, 52-105; Beer, British Colonial Policy, 16-131, 179-192, 210-316; Fisher, Struggle for Inde- pendence, I, 49-69, 82-112; Channing, History, II, 527-579, 602-603; Root, Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government, 84-90, 124-127, 328-334, 390-396; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 158- 199, 201-212; Tyler, Patrick Henry, chap, iv; Literary History of the American Revolution, 44-120, 293-315 ; Tudor, Life of James Otis (Cam- bridge Modern History, VII), 175-208. Bibliography. Root and Ames, Syllabus of American Colonial His- tory, 87-96. Topics for Special Reports, i. The French Colonial Policy. 2. The EngHsh in the Ohio Country. 3. Frederick the Great. 4. England in the Seven Years' War. 5. Attitudes of the Colonies toward the War. 6. Colonial Trade during the War. 7. Wolfe. 8. The Whig Party in the Eighteenth Century. 9. The Opposition to the Writs of Assistance. 10. The Opposition to the Stamp Act in America. 11. British Opposi- tion to the Stamp Act. 12. The Climax of the Empire : Pitt's Ministry. THIRD PERIOD (1766-1815) THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A WESTERN POWER ' CHAPTER XIV THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 247. The Townshend Duties. The politician who now took charge of American affairs was Charles Townshend. Under his lead, in 1767 the " Townshend duties," as we now call them, were imposed upon America. They taxed glass, paper, ^ It is frequently asked : at what date did the American Revolution begin ? Many people will fix the date at the peace of Paris ; others, at the assumption of power by Grenville. One of the ablest of recent books on the subject, the "Syllabus of Colonial History," by Root and Ames, begins the Revolutionary period with 1748 and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. But there are strong ob- jections to all these dates. In a sense no one date can be taken to mark the beginning of the movement. Truly considered it began as soon as the English in America raised the question of their right to govern themselves. The clash between Massachusetts and the king, in 1634, might thus be taken as the initial event quite as plausibly as any of these others. Great harm has been done in the past through conceiving the mov-ement as the fruit of a few years of agita- tion shortly preceding the actual breach. Especially harmful has been the failure to allow for the part played by William III and his despotic reorganiza- tion of the empire in 1696. Following that catastrophe there ensued the slow but irresistibly fateful accumulation of differences that paved the way for dis- ruption. Except for the whole history of the first half of the eighteenth century, both in England and the colonies, the Seven Years' War should have cemented the empire; and had the genius of Pitt been given full scope such reunion, in spite of all that had gone before, might have been accomplished. Until Pitt's breakdown it was not possible to say whether the results of the war were to be conservative of the empire or destructive. Therefore, it is not fanciful to hold that the line between the wholly imperial part of our history and the part which is distinctly Revolutionary, once we leave 1634 behind us, cannot log- ically be laid down until we reach 1766. 168 THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 169 painter's colors, lead, and tea. But this was not the worst. Another act of Parhament rudely asserted the supremacy of England over the colonies. The New York Assembly had refused to meet the demands of British officers who sought to put into effect Grenville's Quartering Act (section 239). Parliament now declared the action of the Assembly to be null. 248. Lord North. On the death of Townshend, his work was taken up by Lord North who served George III as chan- cellor of the exchequer. Dviring all the troublous times that followed, until 1781, North was the chief man in England under the king. Personally he was good and kind. He disapproved of much, perhaps most, of the king's action, but his Tory principles compelled him to side with his sovereign even when he believed him to be in the wrong. To-day Americans can afford to see the pathos of his situation and forget his weakness. The blame for all that follows should be placed upon the ob- stinate tyrant who stood behind his minister and strove for the restoration of absolutism. 249. Beginnings of Resistance. Colonial protests against the Townshend duties made no impression on the king, although the " Letters of a Farmer," written by John Dickin- son of Pennsylvania, contained this significant sentence, "English history affords examples of resistance by force." There were other signs that a revolution was on the way. Massachusetts sent out a circular letter urging all the colonies to protest against the duties as unconstitutional. Leading Virginians formed an association and pledged themselves not to import British goods until the duties were repealed. The king retaliated by ordering the colonial governors, in 1768, to dissolve their Assemblies if the latter showed signs of pro- testing. Troops were sent over to Boston.^ It was even proposed in England to have American agitators arrested and taken across the ocean for trial. 1 They arrived in 1768, and remained until driven out by Washington, nine years later. I70 AMERICAN HISTORY 250. Turmoil in America. Riots took place in the discon- tented colonies. At Boston revenue officers were mobbed while attempting to seize a sloop, the Liberty, belonging to John Hancock (1768). A much worse affair was the so-called " Boston Massacre," a street fight, March 5, 1770, between a squad of soldiers and the Boston populace. The soldiers fired without orders, killing several citizens. It had really no pohtical significance, but in the excited state of the popular imagination it became a battle against the tyrants. That the Americans were in a state of general unrest was evinced by an insurrection in North Carolina. The royal governor, WiUiam Tryon, had trouble with bands of men known as " regulators," who were dissatisfied with his method of administering justice, and who charged him with extortion and inefficiency. In 1 77 1, in the battle of the Alamance, they resisted the royal forces, but were defeated. Seven prisoners, taken by the troops, were hanged. Like the Boston Massacre, the battle of the Alamance was significant only indirectly. Both events contributed to make royal authority hateful. 251. The Tea Duty. However, the Townshend Act failed financially. The duties collected amounted only to some sixteen thousand pounds and the cost of collection to two hundred thousand pounds. Even the British Tories saw that this would not do. In 1 770 most of the duties were given up. But the king and his friends had no mind to give up the Tory principle of arbitrary taxation, and in order to maintain it, they kept in force a trifling duty on tea. 252. Committees of Correspondence. The Americans were now in a dangerous mood, as was shown in 1772, when a rev- enue vessel, the Gas pee, was burned by a Rhode Island mob, and the lawyers of the crown could find no witnesses who would admit having seen the burning. In the Boston town meeting Samuel Adams moved to appoint a " Committee of Correspondence " to inform other places what was being done in Boston and to receive similar reports of what was being done elsewhere. This action has sometimes been considered THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 171 the first step in the disruption of the empire, and Samuel Adams has been called " the Father of the American Revolu- tion." Although liis action was, perhaps, not quite so im- portant as these terms would imply, it was far-reaching. Virginia soon afterward took the lead in establishing an " Intercolonial Committee of Correspondence." By means of these committees news of whatever was done anywhere was quickly circulated everywhere. Thus, all the agitators throughout all the colonies were brought into a political organ- ization. These men, with good reason, called themselves Whigs. Their opponents — all those who for any reason upheld the views of the king's friends in England — were properly named Tories. Thus the two historic parties of England were extended across the Atlantic. 253. Boston Tea Party. Just as the American Whigs be- came organized, the British Tories made a great blunder. To assist the British East India Company, which was in financial straits, Parliament gave the company special privileges with regard to tea. Up to this time tea had been supplied to the Americans chiefly by smugglers. Now, with the help of the home government, the East India Company would be able to sell tea so cheap that the smugglers would be undersold. In 1773, counting on a great profit, the India Company sent ships laden with tea to American ports. But they had not reckoned with the principles of the Americans. If the tea were landed and the duty paid (section 251), the principle of arbitrary taxation would be admitted. The American Whigs were interested in a principle, not in the price of the tea.^ At some American cities, the tea ships were forbidden to dock and forced to sail away without unloading. In South Caro- lina the tea was seized by the local authorities and eventually confiscated. The course followed at Boston was more pictur- esque. While a meeting of protest was in session at the Old South Church (December 16, 1773), a war whoop sounded ^ Compare the issue of the tea duty with the issue of ship money. See section 235, note. .TERR I T HDD SO EASTERN NORTH AMERICA JUST PREVIOUS TO THE RE\OLUTION 172 THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 173 from the street without. What appeared to be a band of Indians rushed past. The tea ships, lying at the town wharves, were boarded a few moments later by two hundred of these " Indians." Needless to say the pretended Indians were citizens in disguise, who rifled the ships and threw into the harbor a quantity of tea valued at eighteen thousand pounds. 254. The Intolerable Acts. To the king's friends ^ the " Boston Tea Party," as it was jocularly called, appeared rank treason. They passed through Parliament certain measures known in America ever since as the " Intolerable Acts." The introduction of these acts was the signal for a great revival of Whig spirit in Parliament. All the op- ponents of absolutism rallied against the government, but the king's friends were too strong for them. Partly by skillful pohtical management, partly by appeahng to British pride not to yield to " rebels," partly by downright bribery, George III for the moment had Parliament under his thumb. The most important provisions of the Intolerable Acts were these : 1. The port of Boston was closed and Salem was designated as the temporary seat of government. 2. The charter of Massachusetts was altered so as to reduce the power of the people and to restrict town meetings. 3. All persons accused of unlawful acts in executing the king's will might be tried outside the colony where the ofTense was supposed to have been committed. (This was intended, of course, to prevent local courts from interfering with the course of despotism by bringing its agents to trial for violating local laws.) 4. To prevent a union between the EngHsh Protestants of 1 The new Toryism of that day centered about a group of poUticians known as "the king's friends." The description of this group by Macaulay has be- come classic: "Thus sprang into existence and into note a reptile species of politicians never before and never since known in this country. These men dis- claimed all political ties except those which bound them to the throne. They were willing to coalesce with any party, to abandon any party, to undermine any party, to assault any party, at a moment's notice. . . . They were the King's friends." 174 AMERICAN HISTORY America and the French CathoHcs, the province of Quebec was extended southward to the Ohio River, and the Roman CathoHc Church practically estabUshed throughout that vast area. 255. First Continental Congress. When the king ap- pealed to force he did the one thing needful to consolidate the American Whig party and enable it to control the colonics. From Virginia through all the colonies was passed the sugges- tion to repeat the Stamp Act Congress on a larger scale. The House of Representa- tives of Massachusetts in- dorsed the scheme. That was its last official act (June 17, 1774), for Gen- eral Gage, the British mili- tary commander at Boston, immediately overturned the colonial government and set up arbitrary rule. But he could not head off the movement for a con- gress. Other colonies fol- lowed the lead of Virginia itot iJL^j, INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA and Massachusetts. On September 5, 1774, the First Conti- nental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia.^ 256. American Rights. This Congress was the organiza- tion of a party, not of a nation. Perhaps it can best be under- stood by comparing it to a modern poHtical convention framing a platform. No action of the Congress showed dis- respect to the king. In loyal and dignified addresses, the grievances of the Americans were set forth, and the king was besought to remove their cause. At the same time, a Declara- tion of Rights was made. The Congress claimed for Ameri- cans all the rights of free-born British subjects, including the " Right of Representation ... in all cases of Taxation 1 The Second Congress met in the State House, now called Independence Ilall. THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 175 and Internal Policy subject only to the negative of their sovereign." Here was the old contention which Americans had advanced more than a hundred years before. Each colony must be regarded as a free state of the empire ; it must not be treated any longer as a dependent of the premier state England. As to the acts of the Parliament of the premier state by which this present trouble had been caused, the Con- gress pronounced them ''infringements and violations of the rights of the colonies." Finally, Congress organized an association pledged not to buy or sell any British goods. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON From a drawing by an eyewitness. 257. Parties in America. The winter of 17 74-1 7 75 was a dark time in America. Everywhere the feeling between the two parties had become intense, and the Whigs, unfortunately, did not always behave with moderation. Prominent Tories were mobbed ; Whig politicians formed themselves into " Com- mittees of Safety" ; militia companies, known as " minute- men," declared themselves ready to fight at a minute's notice; their political enemies were terrorized into silence and inaction. 258. Battle of Lexington. A crisis was reached in the spring of 1775. The Boston Whigs, watching closely every movement of General Gage, discovered that he had ordered 176 AMERICAN HISTORY a detachment of troops to march to Lexington, where were John Hancock and Samuel Adams, the chief organizers of discontent. On the night of April 18, Paul Revere galloped across country rousing the minutemen. Adams and Han- cock, being warned in time, made their escape. On the morning of the nineteenth, when six companies of British soldiers entered Lexington, they found the place swarming with minutemen. It is not known which side fired first, but the soldiers charged the minutemen and drove them from the field after killing eight and wounding ten. Such was the " battle " of Lexington, a small thing in itself, but immeasur- ably great in its consequences. 259. Concord. Not finding the men they wanted, the sol- diers marched seven miles to Concord. They meant to de- stroy a supply of powder and arms collected there. But the minutemen, now assembled in force, held a small bridge across which the British strove in vain to advance. The lire of the minutemen was too deadly. At length the attempt was abandoned a,nd the retreat to Boston begun. This was the worst part of the action for the invaders. All along the roads, from be- hind fences and walls, minutemen riddled the column with destructive fire. It was a sadly demoralized force that returned exhausted to take refuge in Boston at the day's end. The British had lost two hundred and seventy-three of their number ; the Americans, ninety-three. 260. The Rising of the Whigs. The month of May, 1775, is as momentous as any single month in American history. THE SIEGE OF BOSTON THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 177 Ever3rwhere the news of Lexington and Concord roused the Whigs to fury. Popular tumults occurred. Tories were abused with bitterness that knew no bounds. New militia companies were- organized and numbers of them set out for Boston, which was soon encompassed by militia camps. On the tenth of the month Ethan Allen led a small force against the great British fortress of Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. It was taken by surprise and surrendered. The same day a second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia. 261. Second Continental Congress. This Congress was even more completely a Whig convention than its predecessor. The members were burning with indignation because of Lexington. But still there was no talk of disruption of the empire. Civil war — the sort of struggle undertaken by England's Parliament against Charles I — was what the American Whigs proposed.^ The Congress at once set about organizing an army and appointed as commander in chief, George Washington. 262. Civil War in the British Empire. We must bear in mind that what immediately followed was a civil war between Whigs and Tories. From May, 1775, to July, 1776, the British empire was distracted by a fierce contention between two great parties holding different principles of government. In the eastern states of the empire, the contention did not produce actual fighting, but there, the British Whigs vehe- mently supported the American wing of their party.^ They maintained that the principle of free government was what made the British empire worth while. Without that prin- ciple there was no good in being an Englishman. They would go any length — break up the empire, if necessary — before ^ See section 235, note. 2 It was to avert such a war that Burke made his great speech on conciliation with the colonies, March 22, 1775. The American party in Parliament is fully discussed by Trevelyan "The American Revolution" (see index). Lecky forms a tonic counterweight to Trevelyan because, though perfectly candid, he is no flatterer and puts the case against us as effectively as justice will permit. See "History of England," III. 178 AMERICAN HISTORY they would give up that principle. They had no fear for the future of England so long as she was free. They felt that all was lost, no matter how extensive her empire, if freedom was destroyed. Consequently, while American Whigs organized an army and made war on the king's troops, British Whigs enthusiastically applauded. On both sides of the water the Tories gave their hearty support to a last stand in favor of despotic government. 263. Bunker Hill. Before the Whig commander in chief could reach Boston, the mihtia surrounding the city deter- mined to concentrate on high ground back of Charlestown. This resulted in the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17. To drive the militia from their entrenchments, Gage sent against them three thousand regulars. Though the Americans, commanded by Israel Putnam, Wilham Prescott, and Joseph Warren, twice repulsed the regulars, a third assault, when the Ameri- can ammunition was beginning to run short, was successful. Warren was killed and the Americans were driven from their position. The victory cost the regulars a third of their number. 264. Washington in Command. On July 3 the Whig army paraded on the common in Cambridge, where Washington reviewed them and took formal command. Tradition points out a great elm on the edge of the common as the general's station during the review. The Whig Hues were now drawn close around Boston and a regular siege was begun. 265. The American Petition. Still the Whigs, east and west, clung to the idea that the king would yield, reforms would be granted, and the empire saved from disruption. On July 8, 1775, Congress sent a petition to the king. It was the last attempt of the American Whigs to keep from being forced into separation from England. The attempt was futile. After reaching London, the bearers of the petition were kept waiting a week before the secretary for the colonies would con- sent to examine it, and while they begged in vain for a hearing, the king issued a royal proclamation of rebclhon, August 22,, THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY 179 branding all Americans then in arms as traitors. Early in September the king formally refused to consider the American petition. 266. First Step toward Separation. Even before the king's refusal some Americans had begun to think of separation, but until the autumn of 1775 they had very little influence. Even then, in spite of the resentment felt over the king's action, these men had still to labor to make converts. Patrick Henry of Virginia, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, were the leaders of the Separatists. They now found a powerful ally in Thomas Paine, an English reformer, who had recently come over to America. In January, 1776, appeared Paine's pamphlet entitled " Common Sense." It was a fiery argument for separation. A hundred thousand copies are said to have been sold. 267. Shortsighted Toryism. Events which occurred in the early part of 1776 greatly stimulated the feeling for separation. One of these was the burning of Norfolk, Virginia, by the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, in revenge for a Whig uprising. No words can measure the rage inspired by his action through- out America. About the same time the king informed Parlia- ment that he had hired Hessian troops for service in subduing the American " rebels." Few communications have ever made such a commotion in Parliament. In the House of Lords the Duke of Richmond moved to countermand the order for Hessian troops and to suspend hostilities in America. The Duke of Grafton assured the House he had always been opposed to the coercion of the Americans. " I perceive in it," said he, " nothing but inevitable ruin." Great lords and noted members of the Commons protested in vain. With the solid Tory majority nothing counted but the king's will. The employment of Hessians was approved in the House of Lords by a vote of 79 to 29 ; in the House of Commons, by 242 to 88. 268. Progress of the War. Meanwhile in America the war went forward with varying fortunes. The Whigs con- ceived a plan for conquering Canada. Benedict Arnold and l8o AMERICAN HISTORY Richard Montgomery led forth small but eager armies that bore great hardships and made unsuccessful attacks upon the forces at Quebec. The Canadians, then and throughout the war, refused to take part in the revolutionary movement. In North Carolina, on the other hand, a battle between the Whigs and Tories at Moore's Creek, February 27, 1776, was a Whig victory. It was soon followed by a brilliant exploit at Boston. Washington seized Dorchester Heights and had the British general, Howe,^ at his mercy. On March 17 Howe, with his army of ten thousand men, and more than a thousand Tories, went aboard his ships and sailed for Halifax. 269. Naval Demonstration in the South. By means of his great navy, the king was able to strike the Americans at far- distant points, and the royal commanders now attempted to make use of this great advantage they had at sea. While the Whig army was still concentrated in New England, the British made a naval attack far to the south. A royal squadron advanced against Charleston, June 28, 1776. However, the channel into Charleston harbor was swept by the guns of Fort Sullivan, which Colonel Moultrie commanded. The lire of the fort was so destructive that at length the British gave up the attempt to run past it and sailed away. It was in this action that Sergeant Jasper leapt over the parapet of Fort Sullivan, in the face of the English fire, and recovered the flag of South Carolina, which had fallen outward, the flag- staff having been shot in two. 270. Separation. By this time the American Whigs had pretty generally accepted the extreme views of the Separatists. On May 15 John Adams, a cousin of Samuel Adams, had moved in Congress that all British authority in the colonies should be abolished. The motion was carried. Virginia had sent instructions to Richard Henry Lee, under which on June 7 he had introduced a resolution for independence. The question was postponed until the various delegates could write home for instructions as to how to vote, and the wisdom of this ' He succeeded Gage in October, 1775. THE GEORGIAN TYRANNY i8i delay was expressed by Franklin in his witty remark, " We must all hang together or we shall all hang separately." 271. New Attitude of the Whigs. In this dry laughter of Franklin we see what American Whigs had come to believe with regard to the king. They had all practically accepted the views of Patrick Henry, expressed some time before in a famous speech that closed thus, " I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death." The greatest British Whig, Chatham, did justice to the situation when he said, protesting against the prosecu- tion of the war, " Were I an American, as I am an English- man, while a foreign troop landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms — • never, never." 272. The Declaration of Independence. While the dele- gates to the Congress were securing their instructions, a com- mittee of five drew up a declaration of independence.^ The five were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. To Jefferson, then a brilliant young lawyer, was assigned the difficlilt task of phrasing the document. As a student of English law and English history, Jefferson sought to state broadly those basal principles of English freedom on which the Whigs grounded their case. To these he added several speculative doctrines generally accepted in America. The result of this blending of philosophy with Enghsh political tradition was the famous document which we know. Incorporated in it was a list of twenty-seven grievances which led up to the bold words, " these united colonies are, and of right ought to be. Free and Independent States." On June 28, Jefferson's draft of the Declaration was sub- 1 Declarations had previously been drawn up in various places. The most noted is a set of resolutions passed by the citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, declaring that all commissions "heretofore granted by the Crown, to be exercised in these colonies, are null and void and the constitution of each particular colony wholly suspended" (May 31, 1775). The tradition of a still earlier "Mecklenburg declaration" (May 20, 1775) has caused long and heated debate. 1 82 AMERICAN HISTORY mitted to Congress. Its phraseology was debated for several days and slight changes were made. On July 2, the delegates generally having received their instructions, debate on Lee's resolution was resumed. The Declaration was adopted, and the independence of the United States proclaimed, July 4, 1776. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Source Book, Nos. 37-50, Charters, 317-391; Ford, Journals of the Continental Congress, I; II, 13-23, 128-157, 224-234; IV, 142-143; V, 491-516; VI, 1087-1098; Burke, Speeches on America (Everyman's Library), 76-144, 259-262; Hart, Contemporaries, II, Nos. 24, 145-169, 184-192; Hansard, Parlia- mentary History, XV, XVI; Ford, Writings of John Dickinson; HuTCraNSON, Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson. Secondary Accounts. Lecky, History of England, III, 1-25, 290- 499; American Revolution (Woodburn edition) , 105-179, 194-244; Fiske, The American Revolution, I, 28-197; Bancroft, History (last revision), III, 245-295, 319-337, 368-378, 404-416, 443-458, 466-482; IV, 55-92, 167-184, 265-279, 310-346, 382-391, 412-452; Trevelyan, The Ameri- can Revolution, Pt. i, 100-209, 274-311; Pt. 2, I, 105-171 ; II, chap, xvi; Channing, History, III; Fisher, Struggle for Independence, I, 18-36, 112-145, 164-190, 206-214, 221-333, 372-387, 463-456; Sabine, Loyalists of the American Revolution, I, 58-87; Tyler, Literary History of the American Revolution, I, 229-245, 267-279, 316-384, 475-519 ; Bas- SETT, Regulators in North Carolina; Becker, Political Parties in New York, lydo-iy^d, chap, i ; Collins, Committees of Correspondence, Cambridge Modern History, VII, 175-208; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 158-358. Topics for Special Reports, i. George III and the New Toryism. 2. John Dickinson. 3. The Regulators. 4. Resistance in New England. 5. Composition of the First Continental Congress. 6. The American Theory of the Empire. 7. The British Theory of the Empire. 8. Beginnings of the Movement for Separation. 9. The King's Friends and their Policy. 10. The American Party in Parliament. 11. Thomas Paine. CHAPTER XV THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION I. THE BRITISH INVASION 273. The Battle of Long Island. While the Continental Congress was reluctantly deciding upon separation from the empire, Howe, at Halifax (section 268), was preparing to re- sume the war. In August, 1776, with a fleet and army, he proceeded against New York, and a landing on Long Island was speedily effected by no less than twenty thousand British troops. To meet this strong force, Washington, who had moved his headquarters from Boston to New York, also led his army into Long Island. Thus was brought on the first pitched battle of the Revolutionary War. The Americans, who as yet were little more than a crowd of militia, opposed superior numbers and were badly beaten. Washington retreated to the mainland, and drew back his army toward Harlem. Howe followed him, crossing the East River and landing at Kips Bay (34th Street), where he routed an American force under General Putnam who, having been unable to check the British, retreated toward Harlem to join Washington. Though the main body of the British encamped on Murray Hill,^ then in the northern outskirts of the city, a portion of their army turned southward into the city proper, which was occu- pied September 15, 1776. Very soon a line of British entrench- ' While Howe, in pursuit of Putnam, was marching across Manhattan Island, he passed near the mansion of Mrs. Lindley Murray on Murray Hill. Mrs. Murray sent a servant to the general with an invitation to take luncheon with her. Together with several of his officers, Howe accepted. The charming hostess and her fine old Madeira wine delayed the officers two hours. In that time Putnam and his army escaped. 183 1 84 AMERICAN HISTORY ments extended across the island from Haven's Hook on East River to Bloomingdale on the Hudson.^ 274. The Battles about New York. The struggle to possess New York was a dreary one for the Americans, but it had a single moment of brilliant promise. Thinking to make short work of the campaign, Howe pushed northward a column which Washington met and repulsed in the battle of Harlem Heights near where Columbia University now stands. How- ever, Washington's next move was a mistake. He had not yet learned his own capacity, and he listened to bad advice. Congress urged him to hold his ground, and General Greene insisted that a fortification at the north end of Manhattan Island, Fort Washington, should be held at all costs. Though Washington thought it should be abandoned and a new line of defense formed farther north, he let Greene have his way, and some three thousand men were left in Fort Washington, while the remainder of the force was withdrawn north of the Bronx and concentrated at White Plains. Howe promptly interposed his army between Fort Washington and White Plains. At the latter place he attacked Washington with sufficient success to force him to retreat still farther north- ward from Fort Washington. Then, wheeling southward, Howe attacked the fort, took it by storm, and captured the entire garrison on November i6. The loss of Fort Washington was a salutary lesson to the commander in chief. From that time forward he trusted his own judgment. Lord Cornwallis was now sent across the Hudson to take Fort Lee, which was opposite the captured Fort Washington. On November 20 he made a brilliant success of the attempt. 275. The Retreat through New Jersey. Between death and ' Washington called for volunteers to spy out the British camp, and Nathan Hale of Connecticut undertook the perilous mission. He was detected inside the British lines by a Tory kinsman, arrested, and condemned to death. His execution took place in the orchard of Colonel Henry Rutgers near the present junction of Market Street and East Broadway. His last words were "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 185 capture, followed up, alas ! by desertion, Washington's army had now shrunk to ten or twelve thousand men. Opposed to him were well-organized soldiers flushed with success and numbering between twenty and thirty thousand. And at that very moment one of Washington's leading generals was intriguing against him. This was Charles Lee. A few days later he put his commander in a still more desperate position by disobeying orders. A part of the American army had been moved across the Hudson and was encamped at the village of Hackensack under the immediate command of Washington. The larger part of the army — some seven thousand men — under Lee was still east of the river. Cornwallis at Fort Lee was already across the river. The day following the capture of Fort Lee, Washington ordered General Lee to cross the Hudson and come at once to his assistance. Lee, however, acted as if no such orders had been received. He remained in liis camp, east of the river, doing nothing. Washington with but a few thou- sand men fell back before Cornwallis and waited for Lee at Newark. A week passed. Then came to Washington the startling news that Howe had moved a strong force by water to South Amboy in New Jersey. If Washington remained where he was, Cornwallis might attack him from Fort Lee in the front, while Howe; from South Amboy, might assault his lines in the rear. And their combined forces would enor- mously outnumber his own. Sending fresh orders to Lee to hurry to his assistance, Washington evacuated Newark. As his rear guard left the town on the west, the advance guard of Cornwallis entered it on the east. On December i Washington wrote to Lee saying that he had no doubt that Howe intended to march to Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session. " The force I have with me," wrote Washington, " is infinitely inferior in numbers and such as cannot give, or promise, the least successful opposition. I must entreat you to hasten your march as much as possible, or your arrival may be too late to answer any valuable purpose." Lee did not dare to 1 86 AMERICAN HISTORY remain longer in his camp. He crossed the Hudson and began moving westward, but he made his advance as slow as possible. While Washington, with Cornwallis at his heels, marched twenty miles a day, Lee marched live or six. Plainly he meant to let the commander in chief be destroyed. Washington had a narrow escape. On the eighth of Decem- ber, the rear guard of the American army looked back at the advance guard of the British army with only the Delaware River between. The Americans had just then crossed the river and had taken or sunk every boat to be had. Wash- ington had with him that day less than three thousand men. 276. Sullivan to the Rescue. Meanwhile, far away on the borders of Canada, a British army had been repulsed. A considerable body of American troops, which hitherto had been compelled to remain in the vicinity of Lake Champlain and Albany, were thus set at liberty. To them, as well as to Lee, Washington had sent urgent appeals for immediate assistance, and General Schuyler, commanding at Albany, had sent off reenforcements under General Sullivan within an hour after receiving Washington's dispatch. But as Sullivan was hurrying south, he came in contact with the army of Lee, who was his superior i-n command. Lee immediately ordered Sullivan to join his own column and move forward only as he directed. Sullivan had no choice but to obey. Lee con- tinued to creep along at a snail's pace. Suddenly, on the thirteenth of December, in the twinkling of an eye, every- thing changed. Lee, lagging apart from his army, had passed the night at a tavern some three miles from the main column. There, early in the morning, he was surprised by a small party of British scouts, captured, and carried off. To the Americans it was almost like an interposition from heaven, for through this accident the command of the entire column devolved upon Sullivan. Instantly he began a forced march for the Delaware, which he crossed in the midst of a blinding snow- storm only two days later. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 187 277. Washington as Dictator. The desperate nature of the situation was appreciated by Thomas Paine, who was then serving as a soldier in Washington's army. During the brief halts on the retreat across New Jersey, Paine wrote a patriotic pamphlet which he aptly called "The Crisis," " These are the times," he wrote, " that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country, but," he continued, speaking of Washington, " there is a natural firmness in some minds that cannot be unlocked by trifles. I reckon it among pubHc TIN DOLLAR OF 1776 blessings that God hath . . . given him a mind that can flourish upon care." The words were well deserved, and they were destined, immediately and splendidly, to be justified. Congress at this moment of crisis threw upon Washington the whole responsibility for the war by investing him with authority to conduct it as he saw fit. For itself, it sought safety in flight and withdrew from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Though (^^ongress gave Washington absolute power, it could give him at that moment no actual aid, and in his desperate situation there was imperative necessity to contrive in some way to shame " the summer soldier and the sun- shine patriot." Almost all the soldiers had enhsted for but short periods, and practically all of them proposed to leave the army the instant their terms expired. They were deeply disheartened by the retreat. They had not yet learned to 1 88 AMERICAN HISTORY trust their great leader, and were bitter against Congress for not having paid them. But Congress had no money. Though it had issued miUions of paper dollars, people refused to accept them. Except for a loan of a million francs, secretly obtained in France by Silas Deane, there was scarcely any good money at the disposal of Congress during 1776. The winter had set in with extreme severity, and the American troops were ragged, ill-fed, and overworked. Their nerves were giving way. And Howe was shrewd enough, at this moment of demoralization, to issue a proclamation offering full pardon to all who would lay down their arms within sixty days and take an oath of allegiance to the king. No wonder Washing- ton wrote to the president of Congress that unless something was done at once to change the mood of the soldiers, he had " not the most distant prospect of retaining them a moment longer than the last of this month " (December, 1776). At that supreme moment everything hung upon the courage and the genius of the mihtary dictator, George Washington. He was equal to the situation. He saw that whatever else he did, he must capture the imagination of his men. They must somehow be given confidence in themselves, confidence in their cause. In spite of the feebleness of his army, he re- solved to turn about and recross the Delaware. As he him- self put it, " Necessity, dire necessity, will, nay must, justify an attack." At the same time he wrote to one of the ablest of the Whig leaders, Robert Morris, imploring him to make every effort to raise money. The Christmas Day of 1776 was perhaps the darkest day of the war. 278. The Battle of Trenton. But it was the darkness that comes before dawn. Howe had made the fatal mistake of supposing that the Revolution was crushed. He resolved to rest his army, wait for the American forces to melt away, and finish the business at his leisure. Disposing his army in a chain of posts extending from Trenton to the sea, Howe himself, with Cornwallis, returned to New York, leaving a Hessian, Colonel Rahl, in command at Trenton. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 189 On Christmas night, with only two thousand four hundred men and eighteen cannon, Washington recrossed the Delaware, nine miles above Trenton. In the early morning of the twenty-sixth, Rahl and his Hessians were attacked. Washing- ton gained a brilliant victory. Practically the entire force of the enemy was either killed or taken prisoner. 279. The Results of Trenton. The effect of the battle was magical. It opened the eyes of the Americans to the greatness of the man who led them. In all parts of America new hope 1: Jr^ > ^M^Pg % 1 <4 A- '•,^' I w 'iM ¥ —-&■ *1^ Wf^ "!' '^'^vl^HH '^9^1 ^ " • •j-^i/is^m.".s^i^ ^*^ ^ WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE • sprang up. The soldiers at the front, the Assemblies at home, promised to keep up the fight. Robert Morris raised funds by sheer begging, and together with Washington and other Whig leaders borrowed money, pledging their estates as security, in case Congress could not pay. 280. Washington cuts the British Line. Cornwallis, the real fighter on the British side, now hurried to the front. On the second of January he was on the march with eight thousand men from Princeton for Trenton. The situation of the two armies at nightfall on the second must be understood in order to appreciate Washington's next great stroke, the battle of Princeton. I90 AMERICAN HISTORY The British, stretched along Howe's chain of posts, still extended across New Jersey. There were strong detachments at various places along this line, notably at Brunswick, where great quantities of stores were collected, and at Princeton. Cornwallis with his eight thousand men had entered Trenton. Washington had posted his whole force, numbering about five thousand men, with forty cannon, behind a little stream on the south edge of Trenton. These lay south of the line of British posts, but they were not the only Americans under arms. Away to the northeast a considerable American force under General Heath lay in southern New York. There were other American forces in northern New York and in New England. We should observe that these lay north of the British line. Cornwallis thought he had Washington trapped. Another British column, some two thousand strong, encamped that night at Princeton, would reach Trenton the next day. Ten thousand British would then attack the five thousand Ameri- cans. But Cornwallis had not yet learned what sort of man he had to deal with. In the dead of night, with all the cannon wheels wrapped in strips of cloth, while every command was given in a whisper, the American army literally crept away to the east. Presently it wheeled northward. The intention of Washington was to cut his way through the British line and connect with the American forces north of it. Early in the morning he struck Princeton, where the British were as much surprised, wrote the American general, Knox, as if an army had fallen on them perpendicularly out of the clouds. Though they fought against great odds with fine courage, this brilliant action ended in their complete discomfiture. Washington kept on to Morristown (see map, p. 199). 281. The Tables Turned. Never has the courage of one man been more swiftly and splendidly rewarded. The Rev- olutionary movement, which appeared in December to be at its last gasp, was in January again in a fair way to succeed. Cornwallis had retreated upon New York. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 191 II. ENGLAND AND HER ENEMIES 282. The Strength of the Combatants. The " great campaign," as it well deserves to be called, besides showing Europe that America had a master soldier, showed the Ameri- can Whigs that the difficulties of their cause were enormous. The United States contained about three million people, in- cluding slaves, and of these, at least twelve hundred thousand were outside the Whig party. How many of the remainder were genuine Whigs it was impossible to say.^ " I find no dis- position in the inhabitants to afford the least aid," Washington reported to Congress after his retreat across New Jersey. At New York the Tories were buoyant and eager. Even at Philadelphia, under the very nose of Congress, Tory influence was so strong that a garrison had to be maintained. In spite of all the efforts of Washington, Congress, and the state assemblies, it seemed impossible to get together fifteen thou- sand good troops. Opposed to the Whigs was the military establishment of a powerful empire. The population of Great Britain and Ire- land amounted to eleven millions, and though many of those people were bitterly opposed to George III, a class of great landowners dominated the country and controlled the elections to Parliament. In this class the king's supporters formed a majority. Through the support of this Tory - majority in ^ At the time, John Adams said that a good third of the Americans were Tories. Some later students think he underestimated the Tory strength and believe that the Whigs were nev'er in a majority, that they carried their point not through numbers but because of the perfection of their political organization and because the Tories lacked good leaders. Perhaps the truth of the matter is between these two extremes. As the war went forward, the Tory party seems to have grown in strength. In 1775, out of thirty-seven newspapers in America, seven or eight were Tory organs. It is asserted that at least five went over to the Tory side after war was declared. A number of Tory regiments were raised and several thousand Tories took service under the king's colors. See Van Tyne, "Loyalists," 1-164; Sabine, "LoyaUsts," I, 55-87. 2 Tory should be understood here to cover all groups in the political alliance that had revived absolutism. 192 AMERICAN HISTORY Parliament the king had at his command two hundred ships of war and three hundred thousand soldiers. 283. Foreign Affairs. The logic of circumstances was unmistakable. The Americans must find alliances abroad. Such, indeed, had been the intention of their coolest heads all along. Deane, as we have seen (section 277), was already in France, and the French government had given aid in secret,^ but it still refused to recognize the United States as a nation. With Deane were now associated Franklin and Arthur Lee as commissioners to obtain a French alliance. Various forces powerfully aided them. The Whig influence had crossed the British Channel, and made converts for the principle of free government in despotic France. The influence of the great skeptical philosopher, Voltaire, and of a brilliant group of scientists, the authors of the French En- cyclopedia, told in the same direction. Furthermore, that fiery Democrat, Rousseau, boldly attacked all absolutist ideas. When the American Declaration appeared these various re- formers hailed it with delight, and when Frankhn arrived in France he was given an ovation. The greatest French ad- ministrator, Turgot, wrote a panegyric upon the great Ameri- can who had " torn the Hghtning from heaven, and the scepter from the tyrant's hand." Even the king and queen caught the republican infection. They posed as friends of America, disregarding the warnings of their shrewdest advisers, who saw that if the Americans succeeded there would be an end of absolutism throughout the world. There was a powerful force of a totally difi"erent sort also working for America and against Great Britain. It ema- nated from Berhn. Frederick the Great, who never for- gave the British Tories for their shameful desertion of him in 1 761 (section 233), was bent on bringing about another general war through which he should get his revenge. Two other determined enemies of England, also watching for an oppor- ' See Channing, "History," III, 282-284, for a compact but very interesting account of the secret aid given the Americans by France and Spain. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 193 tunity to take revenge, were the Count of Vergennes, chief minister to Louis XVI, and Charles III, king of Spain. However, none of these were in a hurry to begin. Frederick wanted France to take the lead. Spain waited for France to decide. France hesitated ; even Vergennes moved cautiously, wishing to make sure of the strength of the Americans before committing himself. Unless the United States should prove a strong ally, he would not risk it. 284. Secret Aid. All that Franklin could get during 1777 was a continuance of secret aid. This was given rather freely both by France and Spain. Money, arms, even ships were placed at Franklin's disposal, but still there was no recognition of American independence. Vergennes, who was the center of the intrigue, refused to act until the Americans had struck some great blow without aid from Europe. 285. The Turning Point. Through the summer of 1777 Franklin watched America with anxious eyes, for it had become known that the British were designing a great movement southward from Canada. Plainly they meant to cut the states in two along the line of the Hudson River. General John Burgoyne was to advance south along Lake Champlain ; Colonel St. Leger, east along the valley of the Mohawk. Their junction point would be Albany. If they succeeded in meeting, they would, in connection with Howe, take control of the Hudson valley. On the success or failure of this movement the French alliance and the fate of America depended. Owing to the peculiar plans adopted by the British generals, two campaigns were now fought in America almost simul- taneously. Howe, instead of marching north to unite with Burgoyne, attempted a great flanking movement with a view to paralyzing the American defense by an attack on their capital. The fleet lying at New York enabled him to transport his army by sea to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and as Howe had foreseen, this movement of his made it out of the question for Washington to join the forces in front of Burgoyne. 194 AMERICAN HISTORY When the British came to land, Washington, having swiftly- crossed New Jersey, was already in position to contest their advance upon Philadelphia. However, though Howe had accompHshed his purpose, it is doubtful whether he had shown good generalship. At any rate, Burgoyne and St. Leger left to themselves did not prove equal to their under- taking. In central New York, St. Leger, whose ad- vance had been checked by Fort Stanwix,^ was defeated by General Herkimer in the furious battle of Oriskany, and soon after (August, 1777) retreated to Canada. ]\Ieanwhile a part of Bur- goyne 's forces had been de- feated by Vermont miHtia imdcr Stark at Bennington. Nevertheless, on the first of September, Burgoyne was still pushing forward. The forces in front of him now outnumbered his own, and though their commander. General Gates, was of small ability, he was supported by the genius of Benedict Ar- nold. That strange man, though lacking in principle, was an excellent general. He compelled Burgoyne to fight his way mile by mile. Presently Burgoyne came to a standstill. THE WAR IN NORTHERN NEW YORK ' Here a new flag was displayed by the Americans. The flag hoisted by Washington at Boston, in 1775, was the "red ensign" of the British empire with its red field diversified by while stripes. The blue canton in the upper left corner still contained the double cross of St. George and St. Andrew. This later flag was removed a point farther from the red ensign. The white crosses were taken from the canton, and replaced by a circle of thirteen white stars. The " Red Ensign," which was the com- mercial flag of the British Empire in 1775, consisted of a red field, a blue canton, the red cross of St. George, and the white cross of St. Andrew. From this flag was derived the phrase " the red, white, and blue." The American Whigs, in 1775, laid six white stripes on the red field of the ensign, thus producing the thirteen stripes that repre- sent the colonies. The canton was re- tained to represent the empire. On June 14, 1777, Congress removed the crosses from the canton and replaced them by a circle of thirteen white stars. The addition of new states to the Union led to the present arrangement of stars, one for every state. DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN FLAG 196 AMERICAN HISTORY Two desperate battles in the neighborhood of Freeman's Farm were favorable to the Americans, and Burgoyne was cooped up in Saratoga. There he surrendered his whole army, October 17, 1777. 286. The French Alliance. The autumn of 1777 may be considered the second crisis of the war. It was the good news of the triumph of Saratoga, received by Franklin early in December, that saved the day. The French ministry at once began negotiating an alliance with the Americans. 287. Capture of Philadelphia. At the very moment, how- ever, when Franklin in Paris saw that the worst was over, his colleagues in America were plunged in misery. Howe's move upon Philadelphia had been wholly successful. In two severe battles, Brandywine (September 1 1) and German- town (October 4), he had shattered the forces under Washing- ton. Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York. " The rebel capital," as Howe called it, was occupied by the British, who went into winter quarters there, while Washington placed the wreck of his army at Valley Forge, only twenty-five miles distant. 288. Valley Forge. While Franklin across the sea was nego- tiating the treaty of alliance, during December, 1777, and January, 1778, the soldiers of Washington were starving and freezing at Valley Forge. The lack of food and shelter during the bitterest part of the winter caused such intense suffering that Valley Forge is a synonym for hardship to this day. In this trying time all the half-hearted patriots deserted. Some three thousand are said to have slipped away and gone inside the British lines.^ The remainder, however, were hardened into veterans. Washington's genius saved his cause at Trenton ; his character saved it at Valley Forge. Steadfast against mis- fortune, he inspired his men with his own unconquerableness. 1 Washington was also more than once embarrassed by the intrigues of generals with political ambitions. We have seen that Charles Lee had tried to foil his plans and so ruin his prestige (section 275). The so-called "Conway cabal" in 1778 was a contemptible plot to supplant Washington by Gates. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 197 His influence was thus summed up by one of his officers : " See the poor soldier, if barefoot ... he labors through the cold and mud with a song in his mouth, extolling War and Washington. If his food be bad — he eats it notwithstanding with seeming content." 289. Foreign Volunteers. Two distinguished Europeans shared the sufferings of the army at Valley Forge. These were the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Baron von Steuben. Lafayette, one of the most charming of Frenchmen, was a member of that group of liberal nobles who had gone over to republicanism. He had joined Washington's army as a volunteer shortly before the battle of Brandywine. A very different man was grim old Baron von Steuben, once a member of the staff of Frederick the Great. To him Washington en- trusted the severe task of instilling into the Americans a sense of discipline. All that dreary winter Steuben labored at his arduous, but at last successful, undertaking. In a way he was Washington's right-hand man. 290. The Tory Folly. While the Americans were freezing at Valley Forge, the British officers in Philadelphia gave an entertainment that was probably one of the most brilliant ever given in America. At London the Tory majority showed an equal disdain of the seriousness of the moment. They adjourned Parliament and went home to enjoy Christmas on their estates. Chatham, who guessed what Franklin was doing at Paris and thought it was still possible to heal the breach with America, begged them to remain in session. But the Tories would have their Christmas gayeties come what might. Their selfish action, in the words of the historian Lecky, " left the country without a Parliament in the six critical weeks that followed the arrival of the news of the capitulation of Saratoga." In those six weeks the last hope of preserving the empire intact passed away. The negotiations at Paris brought the strictly American part of the war to an end. When Parliament reassembled, and Lord North, February 17, 1778, moved to make concessions to America, 198 AMERICAN HISTORY it was too late.^ Ten days previous, France had recognized the " Republic of the United States." On March 13, 1778, the French ambassador at London formally notified the king of England that France was an ally of the Americans.^ The British ambassador was at once recalled from Paris, and Eng- land and France were at war. III. THE WORLD-WIDE WAR 291. Paris becomes the Center. The war now became world-wide. The best way to understand it is to station oneself in imagination at Paris. There, in consultation, the American envoys and the French ministers watched and schemed while the conflict raged from America over all the seas, as far as distant India. 292. Monmouth. A French fleet with an army commanded by the Count of Rochambcau was sent to America immedi- ately after the treaty was signed. Hearing of their approagh, Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, withdrew from Philadelphia and started across New Jersey toward New York. Thereupon, Washington with his small but now thoroughly seasoned force, planned to strike the British column at Mon- mouth, but there for the second time Charles Lee (section 275) played him false. That secret traitor had been exchanged for a captured British ofificer and restored to his command. At Monmouth, June 28, 1778, he led the American advance, but in disobedience to Washington's orders halted his force at a critical moment and threw the whole army into confusion. Just in the nick of time Washington galloped forward, and in a terrible burst of rage ordered Lee to the rear. Then it was that Steuben's training told. For the first time Americans answered to command like European veterans. Swiftly re- ^ A conciliatory commission was sent over by Lord North offering to grant almost anything the Americans asked if only they would abandon France and return into the empire. But Congress refused to consider his proposition. * The treaty of alliance had been signed February 6. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 199 organized by Washington, they attacked Clinton with great spirit, but the right moment had passed. Washington's plan of battle could not now be carried out ; and Clinton escaped to New York. Shortly afterward, for the second time, Washington fixed his headquarters at White Plains, and began WASHINGTON'S CAMPAIGNS, 1776-1778 the long siege of New York. Monmouth was the last important battle of the Revolutionary War fought in the Northern states. 293. The Year 1778. In that year, 1778, there were large enterprises in every quarter of the globe. The French and British navies entered upon a brilliant rivalry to control the seas. In American waters at first the French were masters of the situation. Nevertheless, a joint attack of French and 200 AMERICAN HISTORY Americans on Newport/ where was a British garrison, was not successful and the arrival of naval reenforcements from Eng- land forced the French fleet to take shelter at Boston. The Americans had better success in the West. George Rogers Clark, with a force of Virginians, invaded the Ohio country and took the British fort of Kaskaskia on the Mississippi. On the other hand, Wyoming valley, in northeastern Pennsyl- vania, was raided by a mixed force of Tories and Indians from Canada, and its inhabitants massacred. Battles in the West Indies produced no substantial advantage either for France or for England. On the whole, this first year of the general war ended somewhat in England's favor. Her most brilhant success was in far-off Hindustan. There the French had had a long struggle to build up a subject empire as a rival to British India. In the autumn of 1778 almost all of it was conquered by the British. 294. The Year 1779. The next year saw a change. Spain joined the league. The odds were now distinctly against England. In America, however, her troops gained one brilliant success. For the second time the British, arriving by sea, invaded the South, and a mixed French and American army which met them near Savannah^ was totally routed (October 9, 1779). But this victory was more than counter- balanced by a number of American successes. The British garrison at Newport was forced to withdraw and seek safety in New York. Anthony Wayne captured the important Brit- ish station of Stony Point on the Hudson. By the capture of Vinccnnes (see map, p. 201) Clark made an end of British power in the West. The Six Nations, which had sided steadily ' Occupied by a British force carl}' in the war. 'The British occupied Savannah in 1778 and early in 1779 advanced their outposts as far as AuRusta. Their further attempts to occupy upper Georgia were foiled by an American victory at Kettle Creek. Later the Americans suffered a defeat in the desperate battle of Brier Creek (March 3, 1779). Following up their success the British moved northward and threatened Charleston but were forced back upon Savannah, where they turned the tables and gained a great victory. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 20I with the crown, were all but annihilated by General Sullivan. But the greatest achievement of this year occurred outside of America. A great French and Spanish fleet of sixty ships of war sailed along the southern coast of England and offered battle to Sir Charles Hardy, who had not a sufficient force to engage them. For the first time in ninety years the British CLARK'S CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST Channel was commanded by a fleet that did not fly the British flag. England's naval supremacy was for the moment lost. Under the American flag, John Paul Jones, in the Bon- homme Richard,^ sailed up the east coast of Great Britain. Near the mouth of the Humber he fought a celebrated battle with the British man-of-war Serapis. For some time the two 1 Congress had provided for the equipment of thirteen frigates in 1775. By the end of 1778 nine had been captured by the British. Though other ships were bought, the losses exceeded the additions. At the end of the war the American navy had shrunk to six vessels. 202 AMERICAN HISTORY ships lay so close that the muzzles of their guns touched. At length the captain of the Serapis struck his flag. Ranging far afield, the French navy conquered the English settlements on the west coast of Africa. In the West Indies they took the British islands of Grenada and St. Vincent. One great Spanish force besieged Gibraltar; another took possession of West Florida. To complete the distress of England, France raised up against her a terrible enemy in the East. This was Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore. For some time French agents had swarmed at his court. What they had been about was made plain when at the head of ninety thousand men, directed by French officers, Hyder Ali burst into British India, spread- ing ruin and death before him. Thus France contrived to keep the British forces in India desperately at bay. Only the genius of Warren Hastings saved British India from destruction. 295. The Northern Neutrality. In Europe also misfortune dogged the government of George III. Holland joined the circle of his enemies. Four nations were now leagued in the war against him. Furthermore, through the wiles of Frederick of Prussia, it was now made possible for neutral nations to trade in safety with America. Hitherto England had maintained that goods intended for America were subject to capture and confiscation, no matter under what flag they were carried. A proclamation of the Empress Catherine of Russia in March, 1780, instigated by Frederick, announced that Russia would no longer consent to the British practice. Sweden and Denmark, as well as Prussia, endorsed the position taken by the empress. This agreement, known as " The Northern Neutrality," was a great diplomatic victory for the enemies of England. The year 1780 was one of the very darkest in the whole of England's history. Attacked on every side, she was without a friend in the world. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 203 IV. THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE 296. Camden. Strangely enough, the only news that in any way comforted George III, in 1780, came from America. Charleston, after a siege of six weeks, surrendered in May. In August the faithful Cornwallis, with some two thousand troops, met an American army, three thousand strong, under Gates and routed it at Camden. That was the last great success of the British arms in America. 297. Arnold's Treason. More demoralizing to the Ameri- cans than the defeat at Camden was an event which took place the following month. Benedict Arnold is one of the problems of the Revolution. We have seen how capable he was. His talent no one questions ; his character is the problem. Because he fancied himself slighted by Congress, he planned to surrender West Point to Sir Henry Clinton, in return for a general's commission and thirty thousand dollars. Major John Andre visited him in disguise to conduct the negotiation. By mere chance, however, on September 23, 1780, Andre was detected while on his way back to the British lines, and the plot discovered. So deeply was Wash- ington affected by the discovery of Arnold's treason that he broke down and wept, exclaiming to Lafayette, " Whom can we trust now? " Arnold was warned in time to escape to the British lines, but Andre was hanged as a spy. 298. The Southern Campaign. The war in the Carolinas was carried on chiefly by small bands of irregular soldiers who swept across the country, cut off the British scouting parties, destroyed stores, and acted generally like a swarm of hornets. The most noted leaders of these heroic bandits were Francis Marion and Thomas Sumter. They were hampered con- stantly by the Tory population, which was considerable and everywhere gave priceless aid to thp British. The Tory leader, Sir Banastre Tarleton, distinguished himself in this furtive warfare both for ruthlessness and ability. Suddenly out of the West, when things looked darkest for the patriots. 204 AMERICAN HISTORY came unexpected aid. In the mountains of the CaroHnas, and in new settlements which were soon to be known as Tennessee, was a population of hardy backwoodsmen. From these was recruited a mountain force led by John Sevier, which attacked an important British force commanded by Major Ferguson, at Kings Mountain, October 7, 1780.1 The entire British British Movements . American ** THE WAR IN THE SOUTH force of eleven hundred men was either killed or captured. The vic- tory put new spirit into the Whigs. Jefferson called it the " joyful turn of the tide." 299. Greene in the South. A great effort was now made to recover the Carolinas from Cornwallis, who, at the opening of 1 78 1, held the central portion of South Carolina and part of Georgia. General Nathanael Greene took command of 1 The battle of Kings Mountain was won by an assemblage of volunteers that had little formal organization. Besides the Tennessecans, commanded by Sevier and Isaac Shelby, there were Virginians, led by William Campbell ; North Carolinians, led by Benjamin Cleveland and Joseph McDowell ; South Carolinians and Georgians under various leaders of which the best known was James Williams. THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 205 the Americans and sent Daniel Morgan against Tarleton, at the extreme west end of Cornwallis' line; Greene himself threatened the east end. At Cowpens, January 17, 1781, Morgan won a victory, destroying two thirds of Tarleton's command. Cornwallis with some five thou- sand troops then pushed forward to strike Greene, but the American general played a crafty part. He skillfully lured Corn- wallis farther and farther north and kept himself just out of reach. At Guilford, in North CaroHna, he turned at bay. A fierce engagement there, March 15, 1781, while scarcely an American victory, in- flicted such loss upon the British that Cornwallis retreated to the coast and rested his army at Wilmington. 300. Revolutionary Finance. In spite of the gallant work done in the Carolinas, the winter of 1 780-1781 was a gloomy one for the Americans. Their resources were exhausted. Congress had no hard money ■•^dSfS^^L ..,»#» FIRST MONUMENT TO A WOMAN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION at all and its paper money — the so-called Erected on Guilford battle ground at Greensboro, N. C, to Mrs. Kerenhap- puch Turner, who upon hearing that one of her sons was wounded, rode on horseback all the way from her home in Maryland to Guil- ford Court House. " continental " notes — had so little value that "not worth a continental" is a proverb for worthlessness to this day. Of these notes some two hundred forty-two million had been issued.^ In 1781 a gold dollar was worth a thousand paper dollars. Con- gress was in debt to the amount of thirty- six million dollars in gold. No one knew how this debt was going to be paid. General discontent had settled down upon the country. At the opening of 1781 per- haps the only buoyant Americans were the Tories, who in spite of the reverses of Cornwallis and England's misfortunes all 1 Great numbers were redeemed by Congress, in 1780, at two and a half cents on the dollar. 2o6 AMERICAN HISTORY over the world were still confident of success. In startling contrast was the dissatisfaction with the Whig cause shown by a part of the American army. A body of Pennsylvania troops mutinied, deposed their officers, and demanded their pay, which was long in arrears. They were permitted to withdraw from the army and disband. But their example was con- tagious. Soon afterward a New Jersey contingent also mu- tinied. Thereupon Washington showed the iron in him. Though so long-enduring, he could be terrible on occasion. Calling up some faithful Massachusetts troops on whom he knew he could rely, he surrounded the mutineers and com- pelled them to surrender. Two of their number were chosen for an example and promptly shot. That was the end of mutiny in the American army. 301. The Last Crisis. No one saw clearer than Washington, however, that it would not do to let the war drag along much longer. France was the head of the alliance against England, and if France did not push things to a conclusion the cause would yet be lost. Even in its dying agony, the old English empire of the eighteenth century was a terrible adversary. As to the American part of the world-wide war, Washington summed up the situation thus : " Without a foreign loan our present force which is but the remnant of an army cannot be kept together. ... If France delays a timely and powerful aid in the present posture of our affairs, it will avail nothing should she attempt it hereafter. ... In a word we are at the end of our tether and now or never deliverance must come." 302. John Laurens. It was resolved to send a special envoy to Louis XVT, and this delicate mission was entrusted to a young South Carolinian, John Laurens. A gleam of graciousncss flashes across the somber record of 1781 at the mention of John Laurens, an accompHshed youth who added to his other merits the charm of extreme good looks. He captivated both the king and the queen of France and made his embassy a complete success. Louis presented the United THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 207 States with six million livres, loaned them four million, and endorsed their notes for ten million more, which were bor- rowed in Holland. Thus the crisis passed. 303. Last American Campaign. During 1781 Spanish forces drove the British from Pensacola. De Grasse, the best of French admirals, established French naval supremacy in the West Indies and thence, in July, 1781, sailed for the United States, bringing an army of French regulars. Meanwhile, the British commanders in America had de- cided on a change of campaign, and a large part of the British force at New York had been removed by sea to Virginia. There they were joined by Cornwallis, who thus found himself at the head of no less than seven thousand veterans. The moment it became evident that the British would invade Virginia, Washington had sent Lafayette to take command against Cornwallis. During the summer there were several indecisive actions. At length Cornwallis decided to fortify a point on the coast and wait for reenforcements. He occupied Yorktown, August i, 1781.^ 304. The Advance against Yorktown. Washington now formed a bold scheme. With the greatest secrecy he withdrew most of his army from before New York and started on a swift but long march for Yorktown. While Washington was on the march, De Grasse with his French fleet entered Chesapeake Bay. Since the greater part of the British force was still at New York, and Washington was already far to the south, the chief question of the moment was the control of the sea. Four fleets were involved. De Grasse was in the Chesapeake. Another French fleet lay at Newport. Admiral Graves with a British fleet was at New York. Sir Samuel Hood brought ^ Meanwhile Greene had resumed operations against the force left by Corn- wallis in the Carolinas. There was desperate fighting in Carolina during most of 1 781. The fierce battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, was claimed as a victory by both sides. However, the British withdrew to Charleston, where they were besieged. J ^ 4 > .£ rt m St. '^ ties i Pens. keB o 2 c S 3 ■^ •!=! « <2-'a 2 > ^ S! -g 3 J- o 11 n O" u « ^ o c c ti U P ^ f^ -^ ° ° (jh I-) (/} pq PQ « II II II II II < ^ t~- 00 0> M Q t^ 00 a C Oh o o "^ ■5 'z; >> an .A sag u u ■«», u u o .• <= o 6 !3 ja j3 oo ~ S2 w / rt 5 ri <-> ~ ,S' a.- O ^ ^ ^ ^ 111.1 U, fc Q o) II II II II o -a .2-c ;spq > v« c o W) rO Tt lo O 208 THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 209 another British fleet to New York within two days after the arrival of De Grasse at Yorktown. If Hood and Graves could beat De Grasse, it would still be possible to transfer all the British armies by sea to Yorktown, and Washington's long march would count for nothing. 305. De Grasse turns the Scale. In order to open a sea road from New York to Yorktown, Graves and Hood sailed for the Chesapeake. The battle which decided this last American campaign was a naval engagement off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, September 5, 1781. De Grasse won an easy victory over Hood and Graves, who returned hopeless to New York. The Newport fleet then joined De Grasse in safety. It brought soldiers and cannon to take part against Cornwallis. 306. Siege of Yorktown. The Chesapeake was now entirely protected by French ships of war, and Washington's army was conveyed by water from Pennsylvania to Yorktown. By the middle of September the land side of Yorktown was besieged by sixteen thousand men, seven thousand of them French regulars. On the water side it was blockaded by a great French fleet. Within this doomed circle seven thousand British soldiers stood grimly at bay for more than a month. Slowly, steadily, the allies crowded the British into narrower and narrower space. French and Americans vied with each other to see which should show the greater coolness and audacity in assaults. At length, after all the outer fortifica- tions had been taken by storm, Cornwallis gave up his gallant but hopeless defense. He surrendered his whole army October 19, 1781. V. THE END OF ABSOLUTISM 307. Whigs return to Power. When the news of the sur- render of Yorktown reached England, Lord North threw up his hands and exclaimed, " All is over." The personal rule of George III was at an end. Even the Tory majority in Parliament failed him, and sullenly he accepted a Whig prime 210 AMERICAN HISTORY minister, Lord Rockingham.^ Never has an English prime minister come into office under such distressing circumstances. Sixteen years before, this same Lord Rockingham and his Whig colleagues had warned this same king what would in- evitably follow from his attempt to revive absolutism. The spectacle of Rockingham being called on to undo the king's work is one of the famous /V — K^ ironies of history. The men who would have saved the empire were now to wind up its affairs, make an end of the old English empire of the seventeenth and eight- eenth centuries, and begin a new one — the modern British empire of our own day. Toward America their course had never wavered. Nor did it now. Their plan was to offer America instant recogni- tion, but to prosecute the war vigorously against the enemies of England in Europe and Asia. 308. Battle of Dominica. However, the senseless and terrible war was not quite over. At the opening of 1782 France and Spain thought the time had come to destroy England. The last blow to her prestige was to be struck by a great fleet which was brought together in the West Indies with De Grasse in command. At this supreme crisis in her affairs England was saved by one of her greatest admirals, Sir George Rodney, who met De Grasse off the Island of Dominica, April 12, '1782. After twelve hours of furious battle the * The same who secured the repeal of the Stamp Act. See section 243. DISPOSITION OF AMERICAN TERRITORY PROPOSED BY VERGENNES THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 211 French admiral struck his flag. The whole of that proud fleet which was to give England her deathblow was either sunk or taken, or in headlong flight. This great victory put the peace negotiations on a new footing. Everybody was ex- hausted. The time had come to establish peace among the nations with general fairness to all concerned. 309. The Treaty of Paris. The plenipotentiaries of the various powers met at Paris, where America was represented FACSIMILE OF SIGNATURES TO THE TREATY OF 1783 by Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay. After tortuous negotiation,^ several treaties were drawn up. The one between the United States and Great Britain was signed September 3, 1783. This momentous document, which admitted our coun- try into the family of the nations, began thus : " His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States ... to be free, sovereign and independent states." . . . 1 America's allies attempted to play us false, seeking to effect a settlement that would confine the Americans to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast. Thereupon, the American commissioners violated the letter of their agreement with France and concluded a separate treaty. For doing so they have been accused of bad faith. See Channing, "History," III, 346-373; Lecky, "Eng- land," IV, 218-220, 271-302; Hale, "Frankhn in France," chaps, iv-xi. FitzMaurice, "Life of Shelburne," III, 164-327; Fiske, "Critical Period," 1-49- 212 AMERICAN HISTORY Selections from the Sources. Hart, Contemporaries, II, Nos. 170-183, 193-220 ; Macdonald, Docwnentary Source Book, No. 52 ; Documents, No. 15. The young student is hardly in a position to use wisely the vast mass of source material on the Revolutionary War. At most, perhaps, — if he is to venture outside the few noted above, — he might use the Journals of the Continental Congress; Moore, Digest of International Law; Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspofidence; Force, American Archives. Secondary Accounts. Trevelyan, American Revolution, Pt. 3, 2S9- 339; FiSKE, American Revolution, II, 25-48, 82-109, 1 16-130; Van Tyne, American Revolution, 120-135, 202-243, 269-333; Lecky, His- tory of England, IV, 70-96, 166-170, 218-220, 271-302; Bancroft, His- tory (last revision) V, 226-268, 300-365, 439-458, 535-58°; Channing, History, III, 210-387; Fisher, Struggle for Itidepcndence, II, 106-121, 246-255, 328-335, 504-551 ; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, chaps. V, vii-xii ; II, chaps, i-iv, viii, x-xiii ; Sumner, Financier and Finances of the Revolution ; FitzMavrice, Life of Shelbtirne, III, 164-327; Hale, Franklin in France, chaps, iv-xi ; Morse, Frajtklin, 352-397; Tower, The Marquis de La Fayette in the American Revolution; Carter, Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 103-163 ; Turner, State Making during the Revolution (American Historial Review, I, 70-87, 251-269) ; Cald- well, History of Tennessee. Bibliographies. Channing, Hart, and Turner, Guide to the Study of American History, 111-152; Andrews, Gambrill, and Tall, Bibliog- raphy of History for Schools, 107-108. Maps. Avery, History, V, 174-175, 402; VI, 279, 350, 351, 362; Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 189-194, 199. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Parties in America. 2. Washing- ton's Early Career. 3. The Great Campaign. 4. The American Party in France. 5. The Policy of Vergennes. 6. Frederick the Great and the American Revolution. 7. The American Navy in the Revolution. 8. The Conquest of the West. 9. John Sevier. 10. Revolutionary Finance. 11. The Mission of John Laurens. 12. De Grasse. 13. The European Volunteers. 14. Negotiations in Connection with the Treaty of Paris. CHAPTER XVI THE THIRTEEN STATES ILLUSTRATION USED IN FRANKLIN'S PAPER 310. The New Power. Out of all this turmoil had come a new power called the United States of America. We must now consider just what it was the day that King George acknowledged its independence; we must then consider the difficulties confronting it that day and how it dealt with them. 311. The Nature of the New Power. First of all, the new power was a confederation. We have seen that there had long been a demand for some sort of union among the western states of the empire. The Congress at Albany in 1754 (section 228) was busied with schemes for a union of colonies. Franklin had exerted his powerful influence in favor of union, and had made clever use in his newspaper of the superstition that a snake cut into pieces may regain life if the pieces are quickly united. Thus he described the condition of the American states. Soon after the Declaration was signed. Congress set to work to devise a plan of union, and after long discussion drew up certain Articles of Confederation (November 17, 1777) which were submitted to the states for ratification.^ 312. The Adoption of the Articles. The plan proposed in these Articles was speedily accepted by various states, but 1 Meantime, in the various states local revolutions had overturned the royal governments and set up new ones in their stead. See Fiske, "Critical Period," 64-70; Van Tyne, "American Revolution," 136-156; Jameson, "Constitu- tional Conventions," 125-158; Fisher, "Evolution of the Constitution," chap. iv. 213 214 AMERICAN HISTORY not without objection. There were contentions among the states due to the fact that the original grants from the crown were often inconsistent, and the state boundaries therefore not beyond dispute. For example, a strip of land which is now northern Ohio, was claimed by Connecticut because it lay within the boundaries laid down in the Connecticut charter (section ii6). On the other hand, Virginia claimed the same region, partly on the strength of Clark's conquest of the Ohio country (sections 293-294), partly by virtue of King James' Virginia grant of 1609, which, it was claimed, gave V'irginia the entire Northwest.^ There were many other contentions over boundaries (see map, opposite), but this one about the Northwest shows us the heart of the matter. It shows also why Maryland re- fused at first to ratify the Articles of Confederation. A small, closed state, it had no chance to expand westward, and feared to enter a confederacy in which after a while the one state, Virginia, might be almost an empire in itself. Therefore Maryland declared it would not enter unless the principle was established that all unoccupied land acquired during the war should belong to the confederacy as a whole. After nearly three years of contention, the matter was compromised.* Political jurisdiction over the West was renounced by the states claiming that region ; but they retained as mere owners large tracts of land. The Articles were then accepted by all the states, and the confederation of the United States of America was estabhshed March i, 1781. 313. The Second American Confederation. This was the second American attempt at confederate government. We ■The grant of 1609 (section 45, note) described Virginia as extending into the interior " west and northwest." Hence Virginia claimed everything west of Pennsylvania. See map. * The final settlement of the western land question was not effected until many years later. However, the compromise indicated above was eventually carried out. Most of the land retained by the various states was used to re- ward Revolutionary soldiers w'ho had claims for hack pay. Numbers of them started West almost as soon as peace was declared. THE THIRTEEN STATES 215 have seen how the " United Colonies of New England " were brought together, what trouble they had in keeping together, how at last their confederacy collapsed (sections 103, 106, 108). The second American confederacy was in general much like the first. Both illustrated the same type of confederate government, — the type in which there is equal distribution of authority among the members, but unequal distribution of burdens. While every state was to have the same share in lawmaking, the expenses of the confederacy were to be divided among the states in proportion to the value of the land in each.^ Moreover, in the second confederation, as in the first, the general government was not to be allowed to collect its own revenues. The Articles provided for a confederate Congress that was to apportion to each state the part it ought to pay, make a " requisition " on the state for that part, and leave everything else in the state's own hands. If the state should not see fit to honor the requisition, Congress was not to have any power to compel it to do so. This new confederate Congress, like the older Continental Congress, consisted of but one chamber. It was made up of delegates chosen by the state governments. The voting was by states, and each state, as we have seen, cast one vote. A mere majority of states could pass measures of minor impor- tance, but no vital measure could be passed unless nine states approved it. The Articles could be amended only by unani- mous vote of all the states. All the officers of government were appointed by Congress and were answerable to it, much as the EngHsh ministry is answerable to Parliament to-day. Of the officers appointed by Congress, the chief were secretary of war, superintendent of finance, secretary of foreign affairs, and postmaster general. 1 At first it was proposed to apportion expenses, as in the New England Con- federation (section 107), according to population. At once was raised the ques- tion, how shall population be counted ? This question made slavery an issue in American politics, for the states which had few slaves wished to have the slaves counted, while the states with numerous slaves objected. 2i6 AMERICAN HISTORY However, very little was given Congress to do except to conduct negotiations with foreign governments. Practically everything else was left to the separate states, which were declared to be sovereign, free, and independent. The con- federacy as a whole was described as a " perpetual Union and firm league of friendship." This loose confederacy, at the head of which stood a Congress with very Httle authority, was the new power among the nations which was recognized by George III in 1783. 314. The Problems of 1783. The new government was confronted by a number of difficult problems. First of all there was the great problem of the land. By the treaty with George III the territory of the confederation was defined.^ But the treaty settled nothing as to the boundaries of the different states. As we have seen, the Articles had been ac- cepted on the understanding that the western country should be taken over by Congress. One of the chief problems of 1783 was how to convert into law the understanding about the western land. 315. The Interstate Problem of 1783. The jealousy among the states revealed by the contention over the land was but one sign of a general strained relation. In seeking the reason for this we discover two main sources of all the troubles of America during the next hundred years. First, the people of the various states differed widely in thought and feeling, but in each state the population was comparatively of one mind. The people of Virginia, for ex- ample, when compared with the people of Massachusetts, almost without exception found it hard to understand how ' The northern boundary was practically what it is now, as far west as the Lake of the \A'oods. The western boundary was the Mississippi. The southern was the thirty-first parallel from the Mississippi to the Apalachicola River; thence to the sea it was the present southern line of Gcorf^iia. .\11 America west of the Mississippi and everything south of the thirty-first parallel and the Georgia line was given to Spain. There were two confusing statements in the description of the boundary. See section 431, note, for the settlement of the northwestern confusion; section 492, note, for the settlement of the northeastern confusion. THE THIRTEEN STATES 217 the other people looked at things. This was more or less true of any two states separated from each other by a considerable distance. Second, the geographical conditions of the various states were widely dissimilar. This latter fact introduces us to a matter which henceforth is one of the prime issues of American history. Because of the great differences in geographical conditions, different parts of our country have developed in different ways. Since 1783 there has never been a minute when all parts of the country had the same material interests. Thus have been produced sharp commercial rivalries among the different sections. All this was fully apparent in 1783. For example, the men of New England, with a poor soil, fine harbors, and many ships, being far to the northeast, wanted close commercial relations with the north of Europe, and had Httle interest in the develop- ment of agriculture. Virginia, on the other hand, with a rich soil and no special reason for building ships, cared little about commerce, and everything about agriculture. But both New England and Virginia, since they bordered on the Atlantic and traded chiefly with England, were in haste to get satis- factory commercial agreements with George III. Toward the west, however, there were new settlements which had the richest of soil, but no ships and no seaboard. They wanted free navigation of the Mississippi so that they might float their produce down the river to the sea. But Spain controlled the mouth of the river. In foreign affairs these people cared nothing about relations with England, everything about rela- tions with Spain. They were jealous lest their interests should be sacrificed to those of the old states along the seaboard. On the other hand, the Easterners insisted that their interests must not be set aside to please a parcel of " backwoods- men." So it came about that a major problem of 1783 was how to quiet the jealousies of these widely dissimilar states.^ 1 The whole matter is well presented in McMaster, "United States," I, 147- 150, 154-166, 204-208, 262-266, 371-389. 2i8 AMERICAN HISTORY 316. The Foreign Problems of 1783. What has just been said gives us the clew to a third great problem. The con- federate government had to estabhsh trade relations with foreign powers. In most cases the European nations gave the new country a helping hand, but there were two exceptions. Spain had never favored the colonies. She went into the war solely as the ally of France, and for the purpose of injuring England. In the course of the war she had endeavored to seize for herself the region between the mountains and the Mississippi. She was foiled chiefly by the Virginians, and also by the astute diplomacy of the American plenipotentiaries in 1783 (section 309, note). But having control of the mouth of the Mississippi, she had an effective weapon against the Americans which she meant to use. In the British treaty of 1783 it had been agreed: (i) that Congress should recommend to the states that they deal mercifully with the American Tories; (2) that all debts of Americans to British merchants should be paid; (3) that certain British garrisons stationed inside the boundaries of the confederation should be withdrawn " with all convenient speed " ; (4) that the retiring British soldiers should not take with them any " negroes or other property." England refused to make any commercial agreement with the Ameri- cans until the treaty stipulations were fulfilled. Here, then, was a problem of first importance in 1783 : how were foreign relations to be adjusted with England and Spain? 317. The Financial Problem of 1783. The confederacy inherited, of course, all the debt incurred by the Continental Congress. It had to pay this debt, and also to provide funds for carrying on the confederate government. And yet it was unable to lay taxes of any sort. All it could do was to appeal to the various states for the amounts needed. It could not even make a binding contract agreeing to pay back a loan at some future date. All its future actions in finance dci)cndcd upon what the various states saw fit to do. The fourth great problem of 1 783 was : how could the states be induced to THE THIRTEEN STATES 219 contribute adequately to the payment of the debt and the maintenance of the government of the confederacy? 318. Efforts of Congress to solve the Land Problem. Let us observe in turn the efforts of the confederate Congress to solve each of these problems. First, the land problem. There were three distinct areas west of the mountains to be considered. One of these was not involved in the contentions which had retarded the acceptance of the Articles. This area, which should not be considered in this connection, com- prised the region now occupied by Kentucky and Tennessee. It had been entered by settlers from the East before the Revolutionary War began, and there was no question as to what states were entitled to this area. The upper part, in 1783, formed the Kentucky County of Virginia; the lower part, Washington County of North Carolina. The land in dispute in 1783 formed two great blocks, one south of Washington County, the other north of Kentucky County. The southern block proved the more difficult prob- lem of the two. A thin strip along its upper edge was claimed by South Carolina on the strength of its original charter (section 118) ; Georgia claimed all the rest ; while the portion lying southward from the mouth of the Yazoo was also claimed by Spain. ^ Of these claims one, that of South Carolina, was transferred to the confederate government in 1787, but both Georgia and Spain refused to yield their claims. All through the period we are now discussing, the problem of the south- western land remained unsettled, a constant source of friction between Spain, the United States, and Georgia. The northwestern area offered fewer difficulties, and one after another the various states claiming the Northwest ^ made 1 Spain's argument was that in 1764 England changed the north line of West Florida, making it the parallel of the mouth of the Yazoo (32° 28'); in 1783 she ceded Florida to Spain (section 314, note); therefore, said Spain, in fixing the south line of the United States at 31°, England had ceded land not right- fully in her possession. 2 New York claimed most of the Ohio Valley on the ground that it had for- merly belonged to the Six Nations, and the Six Nations were subject to New 220 AMERICAN HISTORY over their claims to the confederacy — New York in 1781; Virginia in 1784 ; Massachusetts in 1785 ; Connecticut in 1786. 319. Sale of Lands. Even before the various cessions were completed, Congress had decided to sell the western lands and use the proceeds to pay off the confederate debt. Jeffer- son, in 1784, brought forward a plan for organizing new states in the West as fast as desirable, and for providing meanwhile a temporary government there. ^ Congress accepted part of his plan and the next year adopted the Grayson Ordinance, which provided for setting aside, to be used as an endow- ment for schools, one thirty-sixth part of all the confeder- ate lands in the West, the remainder to be sold at one dollar an acre. Companies were soon formed which began to speculate in the West, ex- changing the depre- ciated government bonds — to use our present term — for certificates of land. Notable among these companies were the Ohio Company ,2 which took up some nine hundred thousand acres in present Ohio, and the Symmes Company, which took up a quarter of a million acres, including the site of Cincinnati. Many settlers were transported by the land AN EARLY MILL IN OHIO York. Massachusetts relinquished to New York, her claim to the western third of that state. See map opjxjsite page 214. Connecticut relinquished to Pennsylvania her claim to the northern third of the state. The northwest corner of Pennsylvania was secured by purchase in 17S8. ' For the boundaries and names of the states proposed by Jefferson, see map in Channing, "History," III, 538. * The second company of that name. THE TfflRTEEN STATES 221 companies into the West. The immigrants generally went to Pittsburg, built flatboats there, and floated down the Ohio River to various points along its banks as far west as the new town of Louisville. In the course of eight months in 1787, two thousand seven hundred persons went down the Ohio on these immigrant boats. 320. Northwest Ordinance. In that year, 1787, the Ohio Company sent its agent, Manasseh Cutler, to confer with Congress. Revolutionary soldiers in New England were the chief supporters of this company, and many of them wished to settle beyond the Ohio, but they also wished to have the economic conditions with which they were familiar extended to the Northwest. As a consequence of Cutler's mission Con- gress passed the Northwest Ordinance, July 13, 1787, organ- izing the Northwest Territory ^ and setting forth six articles of compact which were to bind the Northwest forever. These were: (i) There should be absolute religious toleration. (2) The principles of poHtical freedom, as inherited by the older states from En^gland, should be perpetual. (3) Education should be " forever encouraged," and — as if Congress thought the two things went together — " the utmost good faith " should be observed toward the Indians ; their lands were never to be taken from them without their consent. (4) The Northwest Territory, and such states as might be formed from it, should " forever remain a part of this con- federacy." (5) As soon as practicable the territory should be divided into not less than three, nor more than five, states. (6) Slavery should never exist in the Northwest, but fugi- tive slaves having escaped from the older states should be re- turned to their owners.^ * Comprising the region now occupied by the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 2 Slavery was then supposed to be gradually disappearing. It had been aboHshed by state law in Vermont in 1777, in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts 22 2 AMERICAN HISTORY Thus was solved the Northwestern problem. A territorial government was speedily organized with General Arthur St. Clair as governor. The capital was fixed at Marietta, which was founded by colonists sent out by the Ohio Company, under Rufus Putnam, April 7, 1788. 321. Efforts of Congress to solve the Foreign Problem. The confederate Congress in its attempts to deal with the other problems of the day was unsuccessful. Conspicuous was its humiliating failure to solve the foreign problem. It could not negotiate satisfactorily with England because its recommendations with regard to Tories were ignored by the states. How we wish to-day that we could wipe out this part of the record ! If only our fathers could have been magnani- mous to their fallen enemies. The Tories were, in the main, men of high social position who had borne great hardships with fine courage. Now, when they were willing to accept the decision of fate and do their part in the new country, they would have formed an element of strength. The best Whigs wished to forgive and forget. Such men as Patrick Henry in Virginia and Alexander Hamilton in New York ardently took the side of the Tories ; but they made no impression on the mass of their party. By merciless state laws the property of Tories was generally confiscated. Ill-treatment of various kinds forced many thousands to leave the country. Nor was Congress able to secure the payment of debts due British merchants previous to the war. Before the treaty was signed, five states had passed laws practically confiscating such debts. Even after the signing of the treaty, in defiance of the promise which it contained, Massachusetts and Penn- sylvania passed similar acts. Therefore England refused either to withdraw her garrisons from the northern posts or in 1780, in New Hampshire in 1783, in Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. The northern states of New York and New Jersey and all the southern states still legalized it, but most people looked forward with indifference to its gradual extinction. A few were vehemently against it. An antislavcry society had been formed at Philadelphia in 1775. Some three thousand negroes who had been slaves in the war were set free with their families. THE THIRTEEN STATES 223 to make any sort of commercial treaty, while a royal decree excluded all American ships from the West Indies. Thus Americans who were engaged in commerce were shut off from what, in colonial times, was a chief source of their prosperity. Furthermore, Spain forbade them to navigate the Mississippi without paying duties at New Orleans. All the East was angry because no agreement was reached with England ; all the West because none was reached with Spain. And yet, having no power to enforce its promises, Congress could do nothing to improve the situation. The European attitude toward the problem was summed up by the Duke of Dorset, speaking for George III: ''The apparent determination of the respective states to regulate their own separate interests renders it absolutely necessary, towards forming a permanent system of commerce, that my court should be informed how far the commissioners (of Con- gress) can be duly authorized to enter into any engagement with Great Britain which it may not be in the power of any one of the states to render totally useless and inefficient." 322. Efforts of Congress to solve the Financial Problem. These shrewd words of the British diplomat described the whole American situation. They were amply justified by the failure of Congress to solve the financial problem which proved too difiicult even for the genius of Robert Morris, the able superintendent of finance.^ Morris made a full in- ^ Second only to Morris as financier of the confederacy was an able Jew of Philadelphia, Haym Soloman. This remarkable man was an ardent patriot during the Revolution, and was imprisoned by the British. Having made his escape, he set up a brokerage business, and became treasurer of the French army in America. In Morris's diary between 1781 and 1784 his name occurs seventy-five times. In the desperate period just before the end of the war, Soloman was almost the main support of the patriot cause financially. On August 26, 1782, Morris wrote in his diary, "I went to Soloman and desired him to try every way he could to raise money, and then went in quest of it myself." The next day Madison wrote to Virginia urging remittance saying, "I have for some time past been a pensioner on the favor of Soloman." Shortly afterward he wrote that he never applied to Soloman without great mortifi- cation, "as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of money is so 224 AMERICAN HISTORY vestigation of the accounts of the confederacy, and con- cluded that on January i, 1784, the United States owed at home thirty-one million five hundred thousand dollars, and in Europe eight million dollars. In the preceding year Congress had not been able to raise enough money to pay off the troops as they were disbanded, and Morris had raised on his personal security funds to pay the common soldiers ; while to the officers he had issued interest-bearing certificates. He also persuaded Congress to charter the Bank of North America located at Philadelphia, — the first joint-stock bank in the country. But in spite of every effort of the great financier, the financial situation grew worse and worse. Sometimes the states paid the " requisi- tions " made upon them, sometimes they did not. IVIorris could barely raise sufficient funds to pay the salaries of govern- ment officials, while the interest on the debt went unpaid. 323. Failure to solve the Interstate Problem. What lay at the root of all the difficulties of Congress was its inability to solve the interstate problem. The jealousies and the con- flicting interests of the various states could not as yet be reconciled. This was demonstrated by the failure of three successive attempts to amend the Articles of Confederation. In 1 78 1 Congress asked the states to authorize what was called the " five-per-cent scheme." A duty of five per cent was to be laid on all imports, and the proceeds used to pay off the pubHc debt. Twelve states consented, but Rhode Island would not consent. As an amendment to the Articles had to be accepted by all the states, this one fell to the ground.^ In 1783 was proposed a new " revenue plan." It would have usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but those who are in profitable speculations. To a necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock." Soloman was one of the earliest and heaviest contributors to the Bank of North America. 'See Bancroft, "United States" (last ^e\^sion), V, 453-454, 560-561; VI, 13-14, 24-35, 63-69, 80-82, Qo-96; McMaster, "United States," I, 141-147, 153-154; Fiske, "Critical Period," 90-119; Dewey, "Financial History," chap. ii. THE THIRTEEN STATES 225 given Congress authority to assess moderate duties for a period of twenty-five years, the collection of these duties to be left to the several states. The single state of New York defeated this' plan.^ In 1784 Congress, grown desperate over the failure to secure commercial treaties with England and Spain, made another appeal to the states to permit it to exercise sovereign authority. It asked for an amendment enabling it to pass navigation acts which should embarrass such foreign powers as persisted in refusing to conclude treaties of commerce. But only seven states could be brought to support this amend- ment, which, of course, came to nothing.^ 324. Demand for a Stronger Government. In this chaotic state of affairs some of the chief men in America began demanding a stronger government for the confederacy. In speaking of the way the states neglected the requisi- tions of Congress, Jefferson said, " There will never be money in the treasury until the confederacy shows its teeth." Wash- ington, in 1783, wrote a circular letter to the governors of the states urging a more effective central government. Later he summed up the situation in one sentence, " Thirteen sov- ereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole." 325. State Enmities. Some time had still to elapse before the pressure of necessity brought about a constitutional revo- lution. Meanwhile the thirteen sovereignties pulled against each other in every way possible. They showed their pref- erences in foreign relations by the duties they levied or refused to levy. Such as were bitter against England laid high duties on British goods. Some, willing to do anything to secure British trade, opened their ports to British ships without any duties at all. ^ See footnote on opposite page. -See McMaster "United States," I, 207-208, 226-249; Fiske, "Critical Period," 134-144; Bancroft, "United States" (last revision), VI, 27,111-112, 136, 139. 145- 2 26 AMERICAN HISTORY States which had no good harbors were at the mercy of those that had. For example, New Jersey had to get all its European goods from either New York or Pennsylvania. Both these states laid heavy tolls on goods carried across them to New Jersey, which was described as " a cask tapped at both ends." It retaliated by laying an outrageous tax on the lighthouse of Sandy Hook, which was maintained by New York for the safety of its harbor. Massachusetts established a high tariff which operated against the other states. New York did the same. In Connecticut associations were fonned to boycott the New Yorkers. Five states went so far as to maintain their own armies, though the Articles of Confederation forbade them to do so. Worst of all were what are known as the " stay and tender laws." State after state passed " stay " laws by which the col- lection of debts was '' stayed," that is, put off for a specified period. The " tender " laws permitted a debtor to offer property instead of money in payment of debts. Naturally, the effect of such laws was to make it all but impossible for a citizen of one state to collect debts due to him in another. Thus there was some ground for the charge that the states, after confiscating the debts of their citizens to British mer- chants, had gone on in their evil course and were now con- fiscating debts of their citizens to their fellow-countrymen. To make the situation as bad as possible, several of the states indulged in reckless issues of valueless paper money. 326. Secessions. These ruinous contentions were not only between states but also within states. All through this period the region which we now call Vermont was in rebellion against the state of New York, of which, previous to the Revolution, it had formed a part. In 1777 its people had organized a government of their own, and Vermont now clamored to be recognized as a state in the confederacy ; but it was not recognized, and all this while had no representatives either in the legislature of New York or in Congress. (See section 359-) THE THIRTEEN STATES 227 A more determined secession movement took place in Ken- tucky. Fourteen years before the confederacy was formed, Daniel Boone had led the way into Kentucky. As far back as 1776 Virginia had organized it as a county with its present boundaries, and in 1784 Kentucky had a considerable popula- tion of bold pioneers who had pushed their way into the wilder- built themselves log cabins, and carried on desperate ness, A PIONEER KENTUCKY SETTLEMENT warfare with the Indians. So fierce had been the struggle between the races that Kentucky acquired the name of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." In 1784, like all the settlers west of the mountains, the Kentuckians were out of humor with the East. Already they had perceived that the key to their prosperity was the great western river, and they objected to remaining in a state whose interests were chiefly upon the seaboard. Therefore, a convention was held in Kentucky with a view to bringing about separation from Virginia, and the parent state, seeing that separation was inevitable, prac- 228 AMERICAN HISTORY tically promsiccl not to oppose it. From 1 784 Kentucky was eagerly waiting to become a state. The restlessness of the times affected still more powerfully the settlements south of Kentucky. A contemporary of Boone was William Beane, the first settler on the Watauga River in Tennessee. After the defeat of the " regulators " in the battle of the Alamance (section 250), many of the boldest North Carolinians withdrew across the mountains. Under the lead of John Sevier (sec- tion 298) and James Robert- son, there grew up the little community of " the Watauga Association." On the Wa- tauga, as in Kentucky, there was restless dissatisfaction with the idea of being part of an Atlantic state, and in 1784 the Watauga people held a convention at Jonesboro, drew up a constitution, elected Sevier governor, and formally declared themselves members of the separate " State of Franklin." During the next two years there was considerable friction between this im- promptu state and North CaroHna. The new state was at last dissolved upon the understanding that the Tennessee country should speedily be formed into a separate common- wealth. 327. A Dangerous Moment. It was by these determined Westerners that the issue over the Spanish question was forced. Congress, under the influence of the Eastern states, at length proposed to make a treaty with Spain, abandoning the freedom of navigation on the Mississippi, and the moment this became known the West flew into a rage. Just then the Spanish authorities at New Orleans confiscated the property JOHN SEVIER THE THIRTEEN STATES 229 of an American trader. Thereupon the Kentuckians retali- ated by seizing the possessions of some Spanish merchants. The Westerners loudly threatened to secede. As a result, the treaty fell through, while Americans of each section de- clared angrily that they would never consent to let the oppos- ing section dictate the foreign policy of the confederation. Washington, always temperate, wrote, " The western states (I speak now from my own observation) stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way." 328. The Demand for Reorganization. The year 1786 brought things to a head. The northern posts were still oc- cupied by British troops, and Congress seemed as far as ever from being able to get rid of them. All the West was seething with discontent over the Mississippi question. Congress was bankrupt and the state governments were almost as badly off. Debts could not be collected. Business was at a standstill. There were riots which amounted to small insurrections. Finally Rhode Island took a step which seemed to forecast the destruction of the confederacy. The state recalled its delegates in Congress and refused to appoint others. Practi- cally, Rhode Island had seceded. At this desperate moment Virginia made the first move toward better things. It took the lead in organizing a con- vention on interstate trade, which met at Annapolis in Sep- tember, 1786. But only a few delegates appeared — so few that they did not attempt any business ; instead, a report was drawn up advising a general convention to be held in Philadel- phia the following May, for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. 329. Shays' Rebellion. While the Virginia proposition was being discussed, in the winter of 1 786-1 787, the various causes of discontent merged at last in a fury of insurrection. It reached its height in Massachusetts, where many farmers were so deeply in debt that they lost hope of ever getting out. They began to draw together in bands which attacked the courts and drove the judges from the bench. Presently, 230 AMERICAN HISTORY they found a leader, a discontented Revolutionary soldier, Captain Daniel Shays. From him the movement has been called ever since Shays' Rebellion. In the early part of 1787 he was at the head of an unruly force of eighteen hundred rebels. However, the rebels had too little organization to be really formidable. Their first serious clash with the state militia ended in their dispersion, and Shays' Rebellion passed away like a passing thunder storm. But people generally saw in it a significant warning that cither things must change or worse rebellions would follow. 330. The Constitutional Convention. Within a month after the collapse of Shays' Rebellion, Congress acted on the Virginia proposition and issued a formal call (February 21, 1787) for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. Selections from the Sources. Johnson, Readings in American Constitu- tional History, 55-139; Hart, Contemporaries, II, 134-137, 209, 210; III, 37-59, 166-169; Macdonald, Source Book,'^o?,. 51-53; Documents, Nos. 4, 6, 21 ; Elliot, Debates, I, 85-116; Washington, Writings (Ford edition), IX, 174-176, 192-194; X, 201-202, 274-279. Secondary Accounts. Fiske, Critical Period of American History, 64-216; Channing, History, III, chaps, xiii-xv, xviii ; Jameson, Consti- tutional Conventions, sees. 125-162 ; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, III, chap, iii; Hinsdale, Old Northwest, 192-279, 345-350; Wilson, Ameri- can People, III, 24-60; McMaster, United States, I, 103-416, 503-524; Sumner, Robert Morris, 53-138; Morse, Thomas J ejfer son, 122-152; Alexander Hamilton, I, 64-154; Hunt, James Madison, chap. v. Topics for Special Reports, i. Organization of New State Govern- ments. 2. The Debate upon the Articles of Confederation. 3. The Western Land Claims. 4. Sectional Diflerences in the Confederation. 5. Robert Morris. 6. The Movement toward the West. 7. The Mississippi Problem. CHAPTER XVII THE CONSTITUTION 331. The Virginia Plan. James Madison and other gentle- men of Virginia, before the convention met, drew up a scheme of government which is known to-day as " The Virginia Plan." It was embodied in a series of resolutions and laid before the convention^ by Edmund Randolph (May 29). Like almost all other schemes considered by the convention, this was an adaptation of institutions already familiar to Americans. We have seen that the colonial legislatures were composed of two " chambers," an Assembly chosen by the people and a Council appointed in some other way. The latter acted as a check upon the former. One of the main features of the Virginia plan was a proposal to give the whole confederacy a supreme legislature of this type. It was to consist of a " lower " cham- ber, elected frequently, and an ''upper" chamber, the members of which were to be chosen at long intervals. The idea was that the upper chamber, with its long term of office, would be a steady, conservative body to restrain the more change- able lower chamber. Furthermore, the Virginians were tired of a confederacy j:hat gave a small state as much power as a ^ The convention had been organized a few days previous with Washington in the chair. Its membership included most of the distinguished men of the country. Besides those mentioned in the present chapter, there were such famous leaders as Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. South Carolina sent the two Pinckneys. Roger Sherman of Connecticut and William Paterson of New Jersey were the champions of the small states. The brilliant Virginian, George Mason, and the great constitutional lawyer, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania were members. The full roll of the convention included fifty-five names, representing every state except Rhode Island. (See section 340, note.) The convention sat with closed doors and during the three months of its deliberations strange rumors got abroad. One was that it would recommend a constitutional monarchy. 231 232 AMERICAN HISTORY large state. They proposed to have each state represented in the supreme legislature in proportion to its importance. Naturally, this would give the large, rich states control of the confederacy. 332. The New Jersey Plan. The delegates of the small states at once banded together and brought forward what is now known as " The New Jersey Plan." ^ It sketched a confederate government with a legislature of but one chamber in which each state should have equal representation. Roughly speaking, it was an attempt to revive the discredited system of the Articles of Confederation. 333. Conflicts of the Convention. The champions of these conflicting plans fought over them so bitterly that more than once the convention seemed in danger of breaking up. However, all the members were loath to adjourn without agreeing upon something. They felt that the one hope for America was a general movement in favor of some sort of new system of government. Whenever they were on the point of giving up in despair, a fresh realization of the importance of their task put new spirit into them and they made another attempt to come to an understanding with each other. At length, chiefly through suggestions made by Roger Sherman of Connecticut, the convention hit upon a com- promise. It was agreed that there should be two chambers, or " houses," and that representation in the lower house should be proportionate to population, but that each state should have equal representation in the upper house, and that both must agree in order to enact laws. This was the so-called " Connecticut compromise." 334. The Three-Fifths Compromise. The Connecticut compromise having been accepted, the question arose : What is meant by " population "? Does the word cover all inhabitants, or only free inhabitants? Some Northern men * Still a third complete scheme was the Pinckney plan, drawn up by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina. The original manuscript has been lost, but it seems to have anticipated many of the features at last agreed upon. THE CONSTITUTION 233 replied that it should cover only free people, and that in counting population for purposes of representation slaves should be ignored. This would give the North a larger representation than the South. A South Carolina delegate replied that this was a polite way of telling South Carolina she was not wanted. Bitter contention ensued. One side argued that govern- ment should represent people only — the out-and-out demo- cratic idea — and that slaves, being property, should not be counted any more than horses. However, few people at that time were ready for out-and-out democracy. They felt that a rich community deserved to have more representatives than a poor one. Representation according to population seemed a good thing to them because it was a rough-and- ready way of determining the relative importance of communi- ties, not only in numbers but in wealth. In this connection, also, the question of taxation came up. Ought not a state to share the cost of maintaining the con- federacy in proportion to its power to pay? Should not a rich community bear a large part of the cost, whether its number of voters was large or small? The issue was upon the vital question whether population or property is the true basis of representation. At last, after long discussion and some threatening, a compromise was effected. It was agreed that representation and direct taxes should both be appor- tioned among the states in proportion to population, but that in taking the count a slave should be rated as three fifths of one unit. In this way a system of classifying the states ac- cording to population was curiously blended with a system of classification by property. This is known as the " three-fifths compromise." 335. The Navigation Problem. The next important dis- agreement in the convention divided its members into three groups. Two of the three combined against the third and voted it down. The Virginia statesmen — in the main so influential — were this time completely defeated. 234 AMERICAN HISTORY As the apportionment of representatives according to popu- lation would give to the seven states north of Maryland thirty- five representatives and to the six remaining states only thirty, the Northern states would thus have a majority of the votes in both houses of the supreme legislature. If it were made possible to enact laws by a mere majority of the legislature, any measure on which the seven Northern states agreed could be made law no matter how detrimental it might be to the six states of the South. These Northern states already had one great interest in common. This was commerce. Their interests and those of the agricultural South might easily become hostile. Therefor-e, said the Virginians, let us compel them, in order to pass navigation acts, to secure the support of at least a part of the South. To this end, the Virginians proposed that a navigation act should not become law unless it received two thirds of the vote of the supreme legislature. 336. The Navigation Compromise. Had the Virginians been able to force the issue on this question alone, they might have carried the day. But, unfortunately for them, there was another point on which they had still more uncompromising views. They disbelieved in slavery and were determined enemies of the African slave trade. On this point they en- countered opp>osition from the Carolinians. While the pro- posal to require a two-thirds vote on navigation acts set the North against the Virginians, their proposal to abolish the slave trade with Africa set against them the brilliant and in- fluential delegates from South Carolina. Between these latter and certain Northern delegates a " deal " was arranged. The Carolinians agreed to unite with the Northerners in vot- ing down the opposition of Virginia on the question of navigation acts, while the Northerners promised to support the Carolinians and vote down Virginia's opposition to the slave trade. Thus there was carried over the heads of the Virginians, by a coalition of extreme North with extreme South, a compromise providing that navigation acts might THE CONSTITUTION 235 be passed by a bare majority of the supreme legislature and that the African slave trade should continue unhindered until 1808.^ This was the " navigation compromise." At the time it was scornfully called a " bargain." 337. The President and the Electoral College. One feature of the new government which appears most natural to us to- day was accepted only after much hesitation. This was the of- fice of President. All the colonies were familiar with the office of royal governor, the king's representative who exercised prac- tically the power of a constitutional king. When it was pro- posed to have such an officer for the whole confederation, there was genuine dread that his election might be the first step toward a revival of monarchy.- But the advocates of such an office were sufficiently numerous to carry their point. How- ever, they were not willing to trust his election to the mass of the people ; so, for once, they stepped outside their experience and instead of adopting something already familiar made an entirely new thing — the Electoral College. It was decided that each state, every four years, should choose electors, 1 The backbone of the "deal" was formed by the four states of South Carolina, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. The two propositions, the navigation acts and the slave trade, were voted upon separately. On each point the coalition won over enough other states, though not the same ones each time, to put its measure through. ^ It is imperative to insist on the fact that the men of 1787 took the institu- tions they were familiar with and adapted them to new uses. They invented out of hand scarcely anything. Therefore, we must bear in mind that with the reorganization of the empire in 1696 the general principles of internal govern- ment became fixed and continued so for near a century. Each American state remained during this period an approximate copy of the British state as it was about 1700, and although the British state changed its structure during this period, the American states did not. Thus the foundation of the new govern- ment set up in 1789 was the British system as Americans had conceived it during the eighteenth century. A great factor in preserving their conception intact was the brilliant summing up of the old British system by the French jurist Montesquieu, whose famous treatise, "The Spirit of Laws," had great popularity in America. The new office of President, as originally conceived, was but a republican form of the old office of constitutional king familiar to all Americans not only in theory but in practice through the king's proxy, the colonial governor. 236 AMERICAN HISTORY the same number as its senators and representatives together, and that these electors should choose whom they wished for President, We shall see later what singular results came from this peculiar institution. 338. The Fundamental Disagreement. There remains to be made plain the fundamental disagreement underlying all the others. Even in 1787 there were two conceptions of the nature of the central government. At the very opening of the convention the question came up as to what should be the nature of the proposed new government, whether " na- tional " or " confederate." The Virginia plan described the proposed government as " national." There was violent ob- jection to the word. It implied that each state was to give up its sovereign authority over its own people ; that all the states were to merge and disappear in one great new state. So intense was the feeling on this point that we marvel now how the two sides ever came to an understanding. Finally the word " national " was omitted. But no other adjective was put in its place. Whether the nationalists had been defeated, or had merely yielded the word while really carrying their point, remained to be seen.^ 339. The Vague Compromise. In various connections during the progress of the convention, the question reappeared. Again and again it was made plain that on this point different groups of delegates were irreconcilable. Gradually they reached a tacit understanding that this matter would have to be dropped. There was no possibility of agreeing on any one term, either " national " or " confederate," as a descrip- * This omission of Ihe word without a settlement of the issue was character- istic of the convention. On these general questions of political theory neither side would consent to a positive statement acceptable to the other. Conse- quently the text of the Constitution, as finally adopted, did not state whether the central government was "national" or "confederate." The Virginia plan declared that "a national government ought to be established." This declara- tion was accepted by the convention, May 30. Subsequently (June 20) the word "national" was struck out and the convention resolved that "the government of the United States ought to consist of " certain enumerated departments. THE CONSTITUTION 237 tion of the new government. Nevertheless, on this funda- mental question a vague kind of compromise was effected. At length, after long discussion, three tilings were agreed upon by which it was thought the dispute concerning the exact na- ture of the government was happily shelved. First, the con- vention deliberately specified certain kinds of legislation which the states were to turn over to the central government. Sec- ond, there was instituted a system of federal courts which were to decide, in all cases involving the central government, what laws were binding : that is, whether the enactments of the central government were such as it was allowed to make, and whether any given state enactment was in contradiction of the agreement to put certain matters under the control of Congress. Third, the central government was to have power to execute its enactments through its own military power without asking leave of a state. As a sort of supplement to all this, the central government was given the further privilege of laying indirect taxes.^ 340. The Text of the Constitution. After all the provisions for a new scheme of government had been arranged to the satis- faction of a majority of the convention, the memoranda defining them were turned over to a committee on style in which the chief man was Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. A formal document embodying these provisions, also many others less crucial and entitled " Constitution of the United States," was drawn up by the committee and laid before the convention. A report to the Continental Congress endorsing this " constitution " and recommending its adoption by the states was signed by thirty-nine delegates,^ September 17, 1787. 1 An indirect tax is one that is not incurred except by some specific action of the person paying it. For example, customs are paid only by persons importing goods from abroad. However, the people who buy these goods pay an in- crease in price because of the tax; thus, they really pay the tax, but pay it indirectly. The importance of indirect taxation was not appreciated in 1787. It has turned out to be adequate to the entire support of the central govern- ment, which has thus become wholly independent of the states financially. 2 Several of the original fifty-five had withdrawn. Three refused to sign. (See section 331, note.) 238 AMERICAN HISTORY 341. What the Convention Did. The convention had accomplished two things. Besides devising a new scheme of government, it had formed a pohtical party. When the delegates, headed by Washington, put their names to the Constitution, they were also signing a political platform. They went out from the convention to begin a political cam- paign. Each was to become, in his own locality, the center of a vigorous contest to enforce upon the country the views of the majority of the convention. They were resolved, standing together, to introduce a new chapter in American history. 342. Ratification. The Constitution provided that as soon as it was ratified by nine states, it should at once go into force among those nine. Everywhere the question of rati- fication gave rise to heated discussions. Many objections were raised, some frivolous, some farsighted. Not a few people foresaw that the new government might some day so overtop the states as practically to reduce them to prov- inces. Patrick Henry vehemently besought Virginia not to ratify. On the other hand, three great friends of the Consti- tution, Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay, took thought how they could meet this opposition. The result was a series of essays, written by these three and known collectively as " The Federalist," which argued the case in favor of the Constitution with consummate skill, and had wide influence. One by one the states held conventions and ratified the Con- stitution. Delaware was the first, December 7, 1787. Penn- sylvania and New Jersey ratified the same year. The ninth state was New Hampshire, which ratified June 21, 1788. Eleven states ratified before the end of 1788. However, when the first Electoral College was chosen, in January, 1789, two states had not yet ratified. North Carolina did so in November, 1789 ; but little Rhode Island remained a separate republic until May, 1790. 343. The American Bill of Rights. The discussions over ratifying the Constitution revealed a curious oversight. THE CONSTITUTION 239 The framers had become so deeply engrossed in questions of a strictly federal nature that they had forgotten other things of even greater importance. As ratified by the states, the Constitution did not contain any guarantee of those final rights of Englishmen, to possess which had been the aim of the Revolution. On all sides went up the demand to have these fundamental principles of Anglo-Saxon political freedom incorporated in the Constitution. The oversight of the con- vention was generally admitted, and there was tacit agree- ment that Congress should immediately take steps to correct it. The Constitution provides that it may be amended by con- sent of three fourths of the states. In its first session Con- gress considered some four hundred proposed amendments, and compacted them into twelve, of which ten were promptly ratified by the states. They form a bill of rights on which the political freedom of the citizens of the United States is based. As time passes, and the working of the federal system becomes a matter of course, these guarantees of personal liberty, which sum up the fruits of the Revolution, appear, more and more conspicuously, the live part of the great document. Several of the ten amendments form together a reiteration of the great basal principles of the ancient law of England, such as the right of an accused person " to be confronted with the witnesses against him," and the security of all men against being "deprived of fife, liberty, or property, without due process of law " ; and others equally fundamental. Two amendments were designed to clarify certain points as to the Constitution itself. Four of the ten are monuments of certain great events with which we are familiar. The struggle of the colonies against the removal of accused persons to Eng- land for trial (section 249) gives especial point to the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees to all accused persons '' a pubHc trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." The struggle against the Quartering Act (section 239) comes again to mind as we read in the Third Amendment that " no soldier shall in 240 AMERICAN HISTORY time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner." The Fourth Amendment is a memorial of the opposition to Writs of Assistance (section 236) providing that no house may be searched except under a warrant " partic- ularly describing the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized." That long and illustrious struggle for the freedom of the mind which was the first note in Ameri- can history reached its final expression in the First Amend- ment : " Congress shall make no law respecting an estabHsh- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances." Selections from the Sources. Ferrand, Records of the Federal Conven- tions, 1, II; Elliot, Debates, I, II; Hart, Contemporaries, III, 60-75; Federalist, Nos. 41-48. Secondary Accounts. W. M. Meigs, Growth of the Constitution; McLaughlin, Confederation and Constitution, chaps, xi-xvi; Wilson, American People, 111,60-98; Cambridge Modern History, VII, 243-304; Channing, History, III, 494-527; Davis, Confederate Government, I, 86-103; FiSKE, Critical Period, 222-345; Hunt, James Madison, 108- 160; HosMER, Samuel Adams, 392-401; Morse, Alexander Hamilton, T, 238-375; Tyler, Patrick Henry, 279-301 ; Rowland, George Mason, n, chaps, iv, v; Stevens, War between the States, I, 116-147, 465-486; II, 21-24; NoTT, The Mystery of the Pinckney Draft. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Virginia Plan. 2. The New Jersey rian. 3. The Slruggle to have the New Government described as "National." 4. The Specific Compromises. 5. The Vague Com- promise. 6. Opposition to Ratification (for bibliography, see Channing Hart, and Turner, "Guide," 341-343)- 7- "The Federalist" and its Authors. CHAPTER XVIII THE UNITED STATES IN 1789 344. General Conditions. In the forty years during which the Americans were drifting away from the mother country, their social life had not greatly changed. American conditions in 1789 were still much as they had been in the middle of the eighteenth century (see Chapter XII) ; almost all the people still depended on one of two occupations, trading^ and agriculture. With the exception of shipbuilding there were no manufactures that counted for much. Almost all the manufactured articles and practically all the luxuries came from Europe. There were hardly any steam engines in America and no power machinery.^ The mills were run by water. The roads were few and ill made. There were no good roads across the wide stretch of forest and mountain separating the East from the West.^ However, the need of them was scarcely felt in 1789. Most of the four million Ameri- cans^ of that day lived comparatively near the sea. Nine tenths of them Hved outside of cities.^ 1 Recently trade with the Orient had sprung up, and Pennsylvania was exporting flour to Europe. 2 In 1790 spinning machinery was brought from England to Rhode Island. In 1795 sugar was made in New Orleans. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized the cotton industry. Experiments in steam navigation were made by John Fitch on the Delaware in 1786, and by James Ramsay on the Potomac in 1787. These and other inventions soon worked great changes in American life. ^ The first wagon track into the "Far West" was the "Wilderness Road" to Kentucky, opened in 1795. * The census of 1790 showed 3,160,000 whites; 80,000 Indians; 60,000 free negroes; 700,000 slaves. Practically all the whites were of English descent, excepting 200,000 Scotch-Irish, some Germans, a few Dutch, and French. ^The chief cities in 1790 were Philadelphia, 42,000; New York, 33,000; Boston, 18,000; Charleston, 16,000; Baltimore, 14,000. 241 242 AMERICAN HISTORY 345. " Merchant Princes." The great figures in social hfe were the merchant and the landowner. A noted specimen of the former was John Hancock of Boston. His stately house was surrounded by gardens and included a ballroom sLxty feet long. The furniture and wall decorations had been brought from England ; there were quantities of silver engraved with the Hancock arms ; the owner drove about in ::^JF:''^;:. ^'r^^^m^jiM-- WASHIXGTON'S HOME, MOUNT VERNON a stately " chariot," or family carriage. He was very much of a dandy and delighted in suits of crimson velvet with white silk embroidered waitcoasts. This great personage had ships on every sea, traded with many countries, and did a large banking business both at home and abroad. 346. The Great Estates. However, with all his wealth Hancock owned very little land. In the North, land was not, as a rule, a " good investment." ^ In sharp contrast the * An exception to this was New York. There the descendants of the patrooni still found it profitable to own great estates along the Hudson. THE UNITED STATES IN 1789 243 best investment in the South was land. From Maryland southward all the prosperous men owned great estates. Their country houses and the contents of them were not unlike the great houses in Boston, but the Ufe lived in them was quite different. The owner spent much of his time on horseback, sometimes riding about to view his slaves at work, sometimes hunting, sometimes on a journey to visit other " plantations," — as these large estates were called. The mistress of the house was kept busy training, directing, caring for a small army of slaves. Many of these great country houses of the end of the eighteenth century still stand. A striking instance is Mulberry " Castle " on a bluff above the Cooper River in South Carolina. It is surrounded by huge live oaks and looks out over long stretches of low-lying rice fields. 347. Types of North and South. These two figures, the merchant prince and great planter, were not met with in the same region.^ Already there was the beginning of a " North " and a " South," having different interests. We shall see as we proceed how, step by step, the task of legislating agreeably to both sections became more and more difficult ; and at last impossible. 348. Religion. However, this did not become apparent until long afterward. In 1789 the similarities of the sections were more in evidence than their dissimilarities. Upon many important matters most Americans from New England to Georgia thought and felt very much alike. To begin with the great matter of religion,^ almost every one was a Protes- tant Christian and practically everybody held the Hberal views ^ Excepting always the feudal lords in New York. 2 Several changes in the religious situation had taken place since 1750. Following the war, the Anglican Church in the United States separated from the mother Church and became the Protestant Episcopal. Its first general con- vention was held in 1785. The American Wesleyans had organized as the American Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784. In 1789 the Roman Catholic Church established a general organization for all the United States with the Bishop of Baltimore as primate. The same year the first general assembly of American Presbyterians was held. Though there were synagogues in the various cities, there was no general organization of American Hebrews, 244 AMERICAN HISTORY of religious freedom/ expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution : " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 349. Social Classes. The social system generally was strikingly unlike anything in Europe, strikingly different from America to-day. In theory, it was democratic ; in practice, it was a curious mixture of democracy and aris- tocracy. The European traveler who did not understand America was astounded by what he took for evidence of extreme social equality. Often he saw innkeepers sit down at table with their guests. He saw men of wealth talking with mechanics, and not assuming superiority. However, beneath the surface of social life there was a sharp separation of classes.' This superficial equality had not yet destroyed the general feeling, inherited from England, that the "upper" classes should rule things. In every part of the country there was a local aristocracy which controlled the wealth and edu- cation of the community and looked upon itself as having an innate right to direct the state. John Adams expressed the feeling of these classes when he said, " The rich and the well born, and the able, must be separated from the mass and placed by themselves." But nowhere did this class have any definite pohtical power except what it owed to its own wits. Though these men were born leaders, they could re- main leaders only by persuading the masses to accept their lead. As yet, the masses were willing to do so. Thus, for a time, America had the rare spectacle of a " ruling class," cheerfully followed by the " masses," but not imposed on them by law. This class made no parade of leadership, although enjoying the fruits of it.^ ' In some of the states, compulsory support of religion was not finally done away with until well into the nineteenth centurj'. But the movement had be- gun and the severity of feeling toward persons not members of the local state Church had already passed away. ' Symptoms of a different state of things, in which the political leadership was to pass into the hands of organizations, appeared as early aa 1790, when the THE UNITED STATES IN 1789 245 35O0 Education. The education of well-to-do Americans was of the old-style English sort. For example, Alexander Graydon/ who went to school in Philadelphia, " read Latin fables, learned Ancient history, fought the other boys, was flogged by his teacher, and when fourteen years old had read Ovid, Virgil, Cassar, and Sallust and was reading Horace and Cicero." From such schools the American of 1789 passed to one of the small colleges ^ of his own land, or in rare cases went abroad. Sometimes he pursued advanced studies by himself with the aid of tutors. Girls received little formal educa- tion, and were never sent to college. All girls of the upper classes were taught to play the harpsichord and to embroider. Nevertheless, Amer- ican women, in 1789, as in fact throughout our history, were a great power in all phases of life. In sev- eral ways social conditions forced even the richest women to be active workers. Perhaps the most obvious illustration is the necessity of the southern lady to be a manager and ruler over her slaves. In New England there was an effect of social conditions still more imperative. The men often went to sea in command of their ships. Their wives, left at home for many months, were the sole managers of the household and all its affairs. These WASHINGTON'S BOOK-PLATE famous Tammany Society was formed in New York. Still, for some time after, two great rival families, the Clintons and the Livingstons, controlled New York politics. ' See his "Memoirs" for a classic picture of the times. 2 Several new institutions came into existence toward the end of the century. In 1779 the University of Pennsylvania was founded; in 1795 the University of North Carolina. "The first professional schools in the United States were two medical schools founded in Philadelphia and Boston" about this time. (See section 542.) 246 AMERICAN HISTORY two instances are but the most conspicuous of many. All American conditions, backed up in the main by American sentiment, tended to make the woman of the family as im- portant a personage as the man. 351. Overshadowing of Foreign Thought. Intellectually speaking, the Americans of 1789 were still under the shadow of Europe. They had not begun to produce writers and thinkers who were entirely their own. In some Americans, to be sure, there was a certain quality that had not come to them from Europe. We feel it in the writings of Franklin. In some ways, perhaps, it is still more apparent in one of the chief figures of 1789, Thomas Jefferson. Both of these had a point of view which no European at that time could quite understand. But in imaginative Hterature, the Americans were sadly lacking.^ 352. Human Feeling. In one respect America nobly re- flected the best sentiment of Europe. Previous to this time laws had been characterized chiefly by their barbarity, and prisons, as we saw in the case of Oglethorpe's reform, were abodes of horror. A movement to put an end to all that spread from England to America. It broadened into a general sympathy with inferiors, whether criminals or not, and at last produced the humanitarian spirit of the nineteenth century. In America it strengthened the disHke for slavery. In 1789 slavery no longer existed in five of the states : Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsyl- vania. There was a common behef that it would soon die out everywhere. Selections from (he Sources. Hart, Contemporaries, III, Nos. 10-36; Alexander Graydox, Memoirs of his own Time; Brissot de Warville, New Travels in the United States Performed in 1788; Caldwell, Survey of American History, 132-142 ; Browne, GirVs Life Eighty Years Ago. 'There was an increasing demand for reading matter, and two "literary" magazines came into existence, the Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine of Philadelphia and the Boston Magazine. The first daily newspaper was the Pennsylvania Packet, founded in 1784. THE UNITED STATES IN 1789 247 Secondary Accounts. Coman, Industrial History of the United States, 1 16-164; Channing, History, III, 552-573; Hart, Formation of the Union, sees. 55, 70-72, 79; Walker, Making of the Nation, 64-72; FiSKE, Critical Period, 50-89; Rhodes, United States, I, 1-12, 221-241; Adams, United States, I, 1-184; McMaster, United States, I, 1-102, 423-436; II, 1-24, 57-66, 158-165, 538-582; III, 514-516; V, 268-284; Locke, Antislavery, 88-1 11, 166-197; Morse, Thomas Jeferson, 36- 50 ; Hunt, James Madison, 67-86 ; Ward, Bishop White, 1-89 ; Earle, Stage Coach and Tavern Days; Ravenel, Charleston, the Place and the People. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Beginnings of American Manu- factures. 2 Social Life at the Close of the Eighteenth Century. 3. Evidence that already there was a "North" and a "South." 4. Political Methods of 1789. 5. The Beginnings of American Commerce. CHAPTER XrX THE NEW REGIME I. INTRODUCTORY LEGISLATION 353. Organization of the Government. Washington was unanimously elected first President of the United States.^ John Adams was chosen vice president. On April 30, 1789, Washington took the oath of office, standing in the balcony of the Federal Building in New York, which was the tempo- rary capital of the Union. Both houses of Congress were then in session.^ They went to work at once, establishing offices and fixing salaries. The president was given what seemed at that time an enormous salary, $25,000.^ Four executive departments were created to assist the President. These were the Departments of State, War, the Treasury, and the Post Office. Washington appointed to take charge of these departments the following secretaries : for the State Department, Thomas Jeflferson; for the War Department, Henry Knox; for the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton ; for the Post Office, Samuel Osgood. Before long he began asking the secretaries to confer with him in a body. The custom became fixed and led to our present system of 1 There were sLxty-nine electors. Washington received sixty-nine votes. Adams received thirty-four. The remaining votes for vice president were distributed among ten other candidates. * The new Congress ought to have met the first Wednesday in March, but was slow in assembling. The House of Representatives organized April i, elect- ing Frederick Muhlenburg the first speaker. The Senate organized April 6. ' The question also came up, how the President should be addressed. Wash- ington, who believed in form, wanted the title, "His Highness, the President of the United States of .\merica and Protector of their Liberties." But this did not suit the democratic temper of the time, .\fter long discussion, com- mon consent fixed the style of address as simply, "Mr. President." 248 THE NEW REGIME 249 cabinet meetings which make the cabinet a sort of high council assisting the President.^ The organization of the cabinet was followed by the establish- ment of a system of federal courts. John Jay was appointed the first Supreme Justice of the United States.^ 354. First Sectional Clash. However, Congress was by no means unanimous in its desires. Perhaps its most sig- FEDERAL BUILDING, WALL STREET, NEW YORK nificant debate was that upon the tariff act of 1789. Al- ready those Americans who were interested in manufactures had turned to Congress for assistance, and their petitions brought out a sentiment in favor of protecting " our infant ' Other departments have been added since. The cabinet to-day consists of the four named above, the Attorney-general, and secretaries for the Navy, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. The Postmaster-general was not included in the cabinet imtil 1829. 2 One of his most famous cases was Chisholm vs. Georgia in 1793. In this case the court held that an individual could sue a state. The country at large disliked this idea. Therefore, the Eleventh Amendment was added to the Constitution. It forbids suits in the federal courts brought against a state by citizens of another state. 250 AMERICAN HISTORY industries." In Pennsylvania, especially, the protection sentiment was strong. On the other hand, certain South Carolinians declared the scheme to be oppressive. Here was that clash of interests between the mercantile states and the agricultural states which Madison had feared (section 335). But on this first occasion differences were soon adjusted. A tariff act passed both houses and was signed by Washington. It stated that one of its purposes was the " encouragement and protection of manufactures." 355. The "Deal" over the Capital. Two other matters were combined and settled by a famous political " deal." The deal grew out of a report submitted by Hamilton for the purpose of set- tling the debt of the old Confedera- tion, to which, of course, the new Union was heir. Most of Hamil- ton's plan was accepted by Con- gress.^ But on one point Congress seemed unlikely ever to agree with him. He wanted the federal gov- ernment to assume the debts con- tracted by the various states during the Revolution. It was at once objected that some states owed less than others and that if Congress assumed the debts, it practically divided the total evenly among the whole people. Thus a state with a small debt would, in the long run, pay more than if it paid its debt in its own way.- Congress was so closely divided on this * Congress concurred at once in his proposal to pay the foreign debt in full, but it dissented, at first, from his proposition to pay in full the domestic debt, on the ground that the claims had been bought up by speculators. Hamilton argued that the most important thing just then was to create financial confidence in the new government. At length. Congress concurred. * Here, again, was that difiicult problem of making federal legislation bear evenly on all parts of the country. In this case southern states, generally, opposed the assumption of state debts by Congress, while northern states favored it. CHAIR USED BY WASHINGTON AT HIS INAUGURATION THE NEW REGIME 251 subject that the opposition to Hamilton had a majority of but two votes. Hamilton then effected his " deal." Congress was also considering where the capital should be located. Virginia and Pennsylvania were the favorite local- ities. As yet, however, it was impossible to get a majority to vote for either. Hamilton solved the problem by offering to persuade his followers to vote for a southern capital on condition that his financial scheme be passed through Congress. This proposal induced certain _ . .. southern members, hitherto opposed to Hamilton, to change sides. Thus both measures were carried. The state debts were assumed and the site of the capital was fixed upon the Potomac.^ 356. Hamilton's Policy. The aim of the secretary of the treasury was to teach men to rely upon the central government as their chief friend in all respects, but especially in business. He also wanted to bring to the aid of the government all the moneyed classes. Therefore, he proposed a plan for establishing a great financial corporation to be known as the Bank of the United States. The purpose of the bank should be to keep the country supplied with ready money, to issue notes, to make loans that would aid in developing business, and in general to lead the country to depend upon it, arid on the government behind it, for the maintenance of FREDERICK MUHLENBURG First Speaker of the National House of Representatives. 1 A "District of Columbia" was laid off ten miles square, part in Maryland, part in Virginia. There the city of Washington was located. Until the city could be built, Philadelphia was to serve as capital. Eventually Congress ceded back to Virginia the part of the district south of the Potomac. THE UNITED STATES IN 1790 Note. Vermont was separate from New York ; it became a state in 1701. Kentucky was preparing to separate from Virginia ; it became a state in 1792. 252 THE NEW REGIME 253 prosperity. It was to have a capital stock of ten million dollars, the government to own one fifth. 357. Washington as Referee. The friends of Hamilton passed through Congress a bill estabUshing such a bank. But there was intense opposition/ and Washington was implored to veto it. Before taking action, however, he called for written opinions from the two great men of his cabinet, Hamilton and Jefferson. The latter drew up an elaborate argument to show that Congress had no right to estabhsh such an institution. He developed what has been known ever since as the " strict constructionist " view of the Constitution. That is, he argued that we should hold Congress strictly to account not to use any power not granted to it in so many words. With great skill, he argued that none of the powers granted to Congress in- cluded the right to establish a moneyed corporation like the proposed bank. Hamilton, with equal argumentative skill, developed what is known to-day as the " broad construction '' principle, reasoning that Congress possessed not only the powers definitely granted to it, but, in addition, all those logi- cally resulting from the granted powers. These latter he held to be " implied powers," and among these he found the right to establish his bank. Washington accepted Hamilton's rea- soning and signed the bill under which the Bank of the United States was established (1791). 358. First Coinage Act. Another great financial measure was passed through Congress the next year. It provided for a national mint and authorized our present system of coinage. The Spanish dollar was accepted as the standard of value. It was also provided that fifteen ounces of silver should be considered equal in value to one ounce of gold.^ ' Here again, the difference in the interests of the mercantile and agricultural sections was revealed. The North was almost solid for the bank, the South was largely opposed. ^ In 1834 the proportion was made sixteen to one. The act of 1792 set up free coinage of both metals, which was continued until 1873. 254 AMERICAN HISTORY II. PROBLEMS OF THE FRONTIER 359. The Admission of Vermont. The local conditions of the northern and western frontiers were forced upon the at- tention of Congress. To the northeast, within the territory ceded by England, was a community not yet recognized as a state, but not certainly included in any other state. This was Vermont (section 326). It had a considerable population and its people had done good service in the Revolution. Congress decided to recognize Vermont as a state and in 1791 it was admitted to the Union. 360. The Border Indians. Farther to the west there was trouble with the Indians. Indian war began in the Northwest Territory the year the Union was formed and in 1791 an American army commanded by General St. Clair was de- stroyed at Fort Recovery. For a time the situation in the West was desperate; but Washington sent out General Anthony Wayne, who broke the Indian power at the Falls of the Maumee. By the Treaty of Greenville, in 1795, the Indians gave up all southern and eastern Ohio. 361. The State of Ohio. The region thus surrendered was quickly settled. Two distinct streams of emigra- tion flowed westward and blended to form the pres- ent state of Ohio. One of these streams came from Virginia, the other from New England.^ We have seen that Virginia had reserved for her- 1 Ohio, settled both from New England and Virpinia, was the meeting point of streams of emigration that, until then, had avoided each other. Tn this fact lay the promise of a new phase of American life. THE NORTHWEST, 1802 THE NEW REGIME 255 self, when ceding her Northwestern claims to the confedera- tion, a great tract known as the " mihtary bounty lands " (section 312). These were now opened to settlement. Con- necticut, similarly, had retained a great tract called the " western reserve." Most of it was transferred in 1795 to the Connecticut Land Company. General Moses Cleveland went West and founded a post on Lake Erie, which is now the city of Cleveland. Other settlements were made at ChilH- cothe and Losantiville, now called Cincinnati. So rapid was this western movement that Ohio, which had but a handful of people in 1790, had nearly fifty thousand in 1800. In 1803 it was admitted as a state. ^ 362. On the Southwest Frontier. South of the Ohio, two regions demanded the attention of Congress. Kentucky in 1790 had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, drawn chiefly from Virginia and the CaroHnas. During the first years of the Union there was such constant emigration to Kentucky that by 1800 the Kentuckians numbered two hundred twenty thousand. By that time, however, their country had become a state. It was admitted in 1792. 363. Tennessee. There was still another western region with which Congress had to deal. We have seen that the state of Franklin (section 326) was organized by pioneers during the Revolution in what is now Tennessee. Afterward it became Washington County of North Carolina. Later North Carolina gave up its rule over these lands, which were then formed into the " Territory South of the Ohio River." Its population was already thirty-five thousand. In 1796 it was admitted to the Union as the state of Tennessee. 364. On the Spanish Border. We have seen what excite- ment there was, during the confederation, over the navigation of the Mississippi (sections 316, 327) and how near it came to producing a Spanish war. The matter appeared to be settled by a treaty made in 1795. Spain granted the fre^ navigation of the Mississippi and accepted the line laid ^ The region west of Ohio was organized in 1802 as the Territory of Indiana. 256 AMERICAN HISTORY down in the British treaty of 1783 as the southern boundary separating the United States from the Spanish possessions. 365. Mississippi Territory. The long contention with Georgia over its claim to western land (section 318) was also brought to an end. In 1798 Mississippi Territory was organ- ized, and four years later Georgia gave up all claim to any- thing west of its present western Une. 366. The British Posts. There was one other frontier trouble. England still had garrisons at several points inside the territory of the United States and, in spite of the treaty of 1783, refused to withdraw these garrisons. Neither would the British government send a regular ambassador to the United States. This contemptuous disregard of the wishes of the Americans had a marked effect upon events to which we must now turn our attention. III. WASfflNGTON'S FOREIGN POLICY 367. Original Conception of the Presidency. Our fathers intended the President to be a great ruler who should decide, in the last resort, what was best for the country. Once in ofhce, he was not to be bound by the will of the people who had elected him. Washington held this view of his own posi- tion. He felt he was head of the whole country and that the people had authorized him to use his judgment as to what course was best. His way of deahng with the bank ques- tion (section 357) was characteristic. He did not ask what the people wanted, but invited both sides to argue the mat- ter before him, and then decided it on his own responsibiUty. 368. First Theory of the Cabinet. Having this view of his office, he had included in his cabinet men of different political principles. No two men could be farther apart in their ideas than the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury. To-day, we could not imagine both of them in the same cabinet. It was possible for both to be in Washing- ton's cabinet only so long as Washington refused to take THE NEW REGIME 257 sides, definitely, with either, but acted as a sovereign over both. Naturally, each tried to bring the President to his way of thinking. Their antagonism became so intense that Jeffer- son said they contended with each other in cabinet meetings " hke cocks in a pit." But could this go on? Could Washing- ton keep his detached sovereign position, or would he be forced by circumstances to ally himself with some political party and allow himself to be directed by its wishes? At bottom the question was whether the President of the United States should have the character of an elective sovereign, or the character of a party leader. 369. Aristocracy versus Democracy. Had there been no call for the formation of parties, Washington might have kept the presidency on the lofty plane where he wished it to be. But already it was evident that political parties were inevitable. Hamilton and Jefferson were great figures in politics because each summed up in himself the whole belief of a numerous group of Americans. Hamilton stood for aristocracy; Jef- ferson for democracy. Hamilton despised the mass of the people. " Your people. Sir," said he, " is a great beast." His poHcy aimed at strengthening the upper classes, and at arresting those social forces which already were beginning to undermine their rule. Jefferson on the other hand, though born an aristocrat, had gone over to the side of the people. He loved France and had the deepest sympathy with those movements which were bringing on the French Revolution. He said that he and his followers " identified themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise, de- pository of the public interest." Both men pushed their theo- ries to logical conclusions. Hamilton wanted a strong govern- ment that would not hesitate to use its powers and would steadily befriend the moneyed classes. Jefferson wanted to limit the power of the government as much as practicable and have no laws whatever for the benefit of any particular class. 258 AMERICAN HISTORY 370. First Political Struggle. As early as the second election for President, the followers of the two leaders acted like two political parties. There was no question about reelecting Washington, who again received every electoral vote, but there was a sharp fight over the vice presidency. Jefiferson and his friends supported George Clinton. Hamilton supported John Adams. Adams was elected. 371. Foreign Complications. The relation of the two parties became further compHcated by a question of foreign poHcy. The treaty of 1778 (section 290) made it the duty of the United States, in case France became engaged in " defen- sive war," to protect her possessions in the West Indies. But that treaty was made with the French monarchy. In 1 792 France became a republic ; soon after, Louis XVI was exe- cuted and war was declared against England and Spain. The French Republic then called upon the United States to take part in the war, and sent over an ambassador, Edmond Genet, to persuade the Americans to do so. While Genet was at sea, Washington debated with his cabinet whether the treaty of 1778 was still in force. 372. Proclamation of Neutrality. Though Jefferson favored the French republic, and Hamilton was against it, both agreed that the French treaty did not apply to present conditions. Therefore Washington issued on April 22, 1793, a proclama- tion of neutraUty, stating that the United States would " pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the bel- ligerent powers." 373. The Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Genet landed at Charleston. He was received with enthusiasm. The old friendship of America for France became the theme of much public speaking, and " Democratic " clubs were organized, modeled on the famous Jacobin Club of Paris. The followers of Jefferson joined these clubs and began to call themselves by the party name " Democrat." ^ Thus the Democratic party was born. ' For the later history of the name, see sections 380, 451, 480. ALEXANDER HAMILTON THE NEW REGIME 259 374. The Federalist Party. Hamilton looked with con- tempt upon the Democratic movement. His aristocratic sympathies bhnded him to ail that was good in the French Revolution and made him oversensitive to all that was bad. And he thought that American interests were with England far more than with France. He and his followers now drew together in a confessed political party, advocating principles exactly the opposite of those of the Democrats. They ap- propriated as their party name the familiar term, " Federalist." 375. A Crisis in Foreign Affairs. During 1793 the two parties. Democrats and FederaHsts, found plenty of cause for contention. The conduct of Genet was foolish in the extreme, and the Democrats had all they could do to apologize for him. In defiance of the proclamation he enlisted men for an expedition against New Orleans ; he fitted out a cruiser, the Petit De?nocrat, and, in spite of Jefferson's protest, sent her to sea. At last he tried to meddle in American politics. Toward the end of the year Washington demanded his recall and the French government ordered him home. It was now plain that the United States must come to an understanding with either France or England. Both powers ignored the proclamation of neutrahty and seized and plundered American ships on the high seas. As the chief maritime states of Europe had all become involved in the war, the United States formed the one important neutral trader, and each side was determined that the United States should not trade with its enemy. France seized American provision ships bound for EngHsh ports. England seized similar ships bound for French ports. To the American contention that " free ships make free goods " and that French property on an American ship was protected by the American flag, England refused to hsten. England further asserted that any neutral ship bound for a port she had declared blockaded was subject to confiscation. The United States repHed that " a blockade to be binding must be effective " : in other words, that neu- trals had the right to enter any port not actually closed by a 26o AMERICAN HISTORY blockading squadron. England also advanced the claim that a neutral ship should not enter in time of war any port which was closed to it when the war began. ^ Therefore, because France opened her colonial ports to Americans after war was declared, England seized American vessels coming home from those ports. Finally, Enghsh warships overhauled American merchantmen and " impressed " — that is, forcibly carried away for service in their own navy — any British sub- jects found on board. Sometimes they did not distinguish be- tween Englishmen and Americans, and impressed citizens of the United States. 376. Conflicting Party Claims. The two American parties held opposite views. The Democrats demanded a policy hostile to England and friendly to France. The FederaUsts wished to remain neutral and were hopeful that a satisfactory understanding with England could be reached. When a new Congress met at the close of 1793, the Federal- ists had a majority in the Senate, the Democrats in the House. It was plain that neither party would be satisfied until the President definitely took sides with one or the other. Through- out 1793 he had leaned more and more toward the policy of the Federahsts. Jefferson, in the cabinet meetings, had less and less influence. At last he resigned, and in January, 1794, Washington appointed as his successor a Federahst, Edmund Randolph. 377. The President as a Party Leader. During the re- mainder of his administration Washington allied himself with the Federahsts. In this way the attempt to have a sovereign President in America came to an end. Thereafter, Washington was a party leader, whom his enemies abused without mercy. In their vehemence they took leave both of good taste and of common sense. They nicknamed him " the stepfather of his country." They accused him of ^ It must be remembered that many ports were at that time open to foreigners only by special favor. England herself excluded Americans from her West Indian ports. THE NEW REGIME 261 incapacity during the Revolution. He was charged with embezzling the public funds and was threatened with im- peachment and assassination. Washington felt this injustice deeply. Even before it had reached its height, he broke out one day at a cabinet meeting, exclaiming that " he had never repented but once having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since, that ... he had rather be on his farm than to be emperor of the world, and yet they were charging him with wanting to be a king." IV. THE RULE OF THE FEDERALISTS 378. The Jay Treaty. Washington accepted the Federalist policy of coming to terms with England, and appointed John Jay special envoy to accomplish it. After months of negotia- tion, Jay signed a treaty which Washington sent to the Senate ^ for ratification June 8, 1795. The Federalist Senate promptly ratified it, but when the Democrats heard what it contained they were fiercely indignant. Jay had not succeeded in getting England to abandon her claim to the " right of search " for the purpose of discovering runaway Englishmen on Ameri- can ships ; nor would England consent to let Americans trade with her West Indian possessions (section 321) except on unsatisfactory terms. Jay had also given up the principle that " free ships make free goods," and had promised to make compensation to British merchants who still held claims for American debts due in 1775. On the other hand, he had secured a pledge from England to withdraw the obnoxious garrisons from the frontier posts, to refer the question of her capture of American ships to a commission of arbitration,^ and to negotiate a commercial treaty with the United States. In the minds of the Democrats Jay had given more than he got. Great public meetings were held and the President was ex- horted not to sign the treaty. Seldom has an American Presi- ^ The Constitution requires that treaties shall be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and signed by the President. 2 Eventually England paid half a million dollars, assessed by this commission. 262 AMERICAN HISTORY dent faced such widespread disapproval of his course as Wash- ington did in 1795. But he beheved the treaty was the best that could be had and that any treaty was better than none. Therefore, in spite of the general indignation, he signed it. 379, Washington's Farewell. About a year later Washing- ton withdrew from politics. He refused to be a candidate in the presidential election of 1796 and issued his celebrated Farewell Address to the American people, urging them to maintain their federal government, to put down party spirit, and to refrain from " permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." 380. The Election of 1796. A party battle over the presidency now fol- lowed. The Federalists were successful in the elections but, through a blunder in the Electoral College, lost part of their victory. All their electors voted for John Adams for President. For vice president, however, they scattered their votes. As every Democratic elector voted for Jefferson, his vote was second to that of Adams. ^ Thus, a Federahst became President while the vice president was a Democrat, or, as the party was now styled, a RepubUcan.^ 1 This blunder of the Federalists led eventually to the Twelfth .Amendment to the Constitution. Four years later every elector voting for Jefferson took care to vote also for Burr, the candidate for vice president. Both having the same vote there was a technical tic. The Constitution provides that in case of a tie vote the House shall determine the matter. Though every one knew that Jefferson was the choice of his party, many Federalist representatives voted for Burr. Nevertheless, Jefferson was chosen. The Twelfth .Amend- ment in 1804 provided for separate votes for President and vice president. ■ This change of name was due, in part, to certain events which took place in 1794. In western Pennsylvania there were many small distillers. Hamilton JOHN .\DAMS THE NEW REGIME 263 381. The X. Y. Z. Matter. As might be expected, the Federalists in coming to an understanding with England had created trouble with France. Adams found himself very soon on the verge of a French war. The American minister, C. C. Pinckney, was insulted at Paris, and the French navy seized American ships. Hoping to effect a settlement, Adams appointed a special commission, composed of Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry, to treat with the French government. After a time Adams received dispatches from the envoys which led him to send a message to Congress declar- ing, " I will never send another minister to France without assurances that he will be received, respected and honored as becomes the representative of a great, free, powerful and widespread nation." What had so angered the President was an attempt to blackmail the envoys. Three men who were indicated in the dispatches as " X. Y. Z." had come to the envoys and informed them that they must pay down a quarter of a mil- lion dollars " for the pocket of the French Directory and Ministers." 382. The Rage against France. When these facts became known in America there was a general outburst of anger against France. Congress declared the treaty of 1778 at an end. A Navy Department was organized with George Cabot of Massa- chusetts as its first secretary. A wave of war feeling swept the country. The courage of the President was praised in pop- ular songs composed for the occasion.^ The general cry was " Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute." ^ had persuaded Congress to lay an excise tax on whisky. Much discontent was the result. In 1794 there broke out what is known as "the whisky re- bellion" in Pennsylvania. It was easily put down. However, in his message to Congress with regard to it, Washington attributed the rebellion to the in- fluence of the Democratic clubs. The word "Democrat" was therefore tem- porarily in disfavor. To escape its unpopularity, Jefferson took up the word Republican, by which the party was known until about 1828, when it resumed the older name. It has been known as the Democratic party ever since. 1 One of these was Hopkinson's "Hail Columbia." 2 The expression is attributed to Pinckney. 264 AMERICAN HISTORY 383. The Naval War. During the next two years a naval war was carried on between France and the United States. Though no formal declaration of war was made by either country, their ships fought upon the high seas. The ocean swarmed with American privateers by which the commerce of France was sorely damaged. The most noted action of the war was the battle between the American frigate Con- stellation and the French frigate Vengea7ice. The latter was put to flight. 384. The Appearance of Napoleon. However, a change soon took place in the government of France. It was now dominated by the great genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose European schemes would only be hampered by this side war with the United States. He sent word to the President indirectly that he was wilHng to make peace. Adams seized the opportunity and concluded a treaty with France in 1800. 385. Alien and Sedition Acts. While pursuing this resolute pohcy abroad, the FederaHsts had made a great mistake at home. Carried away by their hatred for France they had passed a series of acts known collectively as the Alien and Sedi- tion Acts. These gave the President power to order out of the country any foreigner he thought undesirable, and also made it a crime punishable with imprisonment to issue any false, scandalous, or malicious writing aimed at the government. Congress, or the President. The former act was inspired, in part, by the impertinence of French ministers to the United States, who had freely meddled in American poHtics, while the latter act was a blow at certain RepubHcan newspapers which heaped upon the President the same sort of abuse formerly showered upon Washington. 386. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. These acts killed the Federalist party. They were felt to be an intol- erable enlargement of the power of the central government, and in the very year when they were passed, 1798, two state k^gislatures protested against them. A series of resolutions drawn up by Jefferson was adopted by the legislature of THE NEW REGIME 265 Kentucky ; a similar series drawn up by Madison ^ was adopted by the legislature of Virginia. These resolutions formed a sort of poHtical platform for the RepubHcan (Democratic) party. They declared the Alien and Sedition Acts " void and of no force," because they violated the guarantee of personal liberty (section 343) set up by the Constitution ; the resolutions [fcITecI abiJiries to do JirKlcc to ifii owcr. The United States met it as before by contending that a blockade " to be binding must be efTective." England ignored this contention and captured sliips bound for any prohibited port, irrespective of whether the port was actually closed or not. 2 Between 1803 and 1811 the English captured Q17 American vessels; the French, 558. And yet, during that time, the tonnage of American sliips in foreign trade almost doubled. THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 277 permitted to return home, bringing news of this insult to the American flag, this outrage upon American pride. 405. The Embargo. Naturally the country became en- raged. On all sides went up a cry for war, but Jefferson was still determined to keep the peace. It occurred to him to do on a small scale what Napoleon appeared to have done on a great scale. ^ Napoleon having closed England's European market, Congress might now close her American market. Jefferson advised Congress to lay an embargo on American shipping, — that is to say, prohibit all American ships from trading with Europe. The shipowners protested, but the Re- publicans had a majority in both houses of Congress, and the shipowners were almost all New England Federalists. Their protestswere not heeded. The embargo was laid. (1807.) 406. Reaction against Jefferson. The next fourteen months formed a period of bitter discontent in America. Ships lay idle at the wharves. Cargoes of grain rotted in the ware- houses. Business, of course, was at a standstill, and many men were thrown out of employment. Gradually a reaction against the government came about. In New England the feehng was so intense that secession seemed not unhkely. Reluctantly the Repubhcan leaders decided to repeal the embargo. Said a South Carolina member of Congress, " The excitement in the East renders it necessary that we should enforce the embargo with the bayonet or repeal it. I will repeal it. . . ." 407. Madison becomes President. A few days after the repeal of the embargo, Jefferson left the White House and was succeeded as President by his friend James Madison, who had been his secretary of state. No other American President, with the exception of Lincoln fifty years later, came into ofiice under such trying circumstances. Abroad the greatest powers of the world, England and France, both threatened us with ^ In point of fact Napoleon had failed. Smuggling was carried on in France as never before. Napoleon was forced to wink at it and even turn smuggler himself. His army, for example, wore English shoes. 278 AMERICAN HISTORY destruction. At home one section of the Union, New England, had become aUenated from the rest. In other sections there was a growing tendency to pay no attention to New England's wishes. Hatred of the British government was daily increasing and there was a popular demand to take revenge in war. If war should be declared at Washington, it would be eagerly applauded by the South and the West. But in the East, as a rule, it would be grimly opposed. Agents of Eng- land were beHeved to be at work even then, seeking to bring about a secession of the New England states from the Union. Certainly it appeared to be to Eng- land's interest to force war upon the United States. And neither England nor Napoleon would make the least concession to the neu- tral power. Both stood fast by the stern doctrine "Who is not with me is against me." 408. Madison's Policy. Nevertheless Madison made heroic efforts to maintain peace. At one time he seemed about to succeed. The British minister at Washington, David Erskine, was persuaded to sign a treaty which would have satisfied the Americans; but the British government promptly dis- avowed it. Erskine was succeeded by another minister, Jackson, who showed his contempt for Americans so plainly that Madison refused to have further deaHngs with him. It was an ominous sign of the times that the New England Federal- ists, when Jackson went on a tour of the country after being dismissed from Washington, received him with enthusiasm. Diplomatically, the President had failed. The country was a long step nearer war. MADISON THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 279 409. Congressional Schemes. Congress had no better suc- cess. By a series of enactments it tried to force one or the other of the great European contestants, England or Napoleon, to come to the relief of the Americans. In 18 10 it passed an act promising that if either would make satisfactory com- mercial agreements with the United States, all trade with the other should be prohibited. This act gave rise to tortuous diplomacy, in the course of which Napoleon showed himself a master of deceit, but nothing satisfactory to Americans was accomplished. England, also, refused to make concessions.^ 410. The Indian War. The strength of the war party was in the West, and surprising events which now took place increased greatly the Western hatred of England. We know to-day that England had nothing to do with these events. At the time, so credulous do men become in moments of anger, many people were willing to beheve that a hostile movement among the Indians was inspired by the British government. This hostile movement was nothing less than the organization of a great Indian confederacy. The organizer was Tecumseh, perhaps the ablest of all American Indians. In 1 8 10 he had drawn together the northern tribes and had an army of live thousand warriors. He was endeavoring also to draw in the southern tribes, of which the most important were the Creeks of Alabama. So threatening was Tecumseh's power that the governor of Indiana Territory, General William Henry Harrison, prepared for war. Presently Harrison had an opportunity to attack Tecumseh's forces in the absence of their leader and, seizing his opportunity, he invaded the Indian country, attacked the Indian town of Tippecanoe, and won a decisive victory (181 1). Thereupon the South became 1 When the embargo was repealed in 1809, Congress substituted a "Non- Intercourse Act," by which Americans were forbidden to trade directly with either France or England. This act played a leading part in subsequent negotiations, but it could not be enforced once American ships were allowed to go to sea. In spite of it, trade with England and France went on. The act of 1810, known as " Macon's Bill, No. 2," authorized direct trade with England and France while expressing the provisional threat indicated above. 28o AMERICAN HISTORY the seat of war. The Creeks attacked Fort Mims and massacred its garrison. However, Tecumseh's great scheme had been nipped in the bud. The northern confederacy fell to pieces. The Creeks, after stubborn fighting, were finally conquered by General Andrew Jackson, in the battle of Tohopeka (1814). 411. The John Henry Letters. President Madison stimu- lated the anti-English feeling by sending to Congress certain documents which he had recently purchased at a cost of $50,000. They came from a " John Henry," who claimed to have acted as secret agent of England to New England. The British minister officially denied that Henry had ever been employed on such a mission, but Congress, already at fever heat, would not believe him. It passed a resolution, in the spring of 18 12, declaring its belief in Henry and bitterly denouncing England. War was now almost certainly a matter of time. 412. New Political Leaders. This Congress of 1811-1812 was controlled by young men. The old men, whose youth had been spent as subjects of the British crown, were passing away. Their places were taken by such men as William H. Crawford of Georgia, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and Henry Clay of Kentucky, and a little later, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. A new note was struck in American politics by the advent of these young leaders. It is not fanciful, perhaps, to add that most of them had become possessed, so to speak, by the spirit of the West. Of Clay, at least, this is entirely true. And Clay was the most influential of them all. He summed up in himself both the strength and the weakness of the daring life of the frontier. In Clay were embodied the frontier boldness, its love of adventure, its contempt of danger, its willingness to take a great risk for a great gain, its impulsiveness, its generosity, but also its lack of restraint, its tendency to go to extremes, its willingness to fight, not troubhng itself much about the strict justice of the cause. To such a nature, war always makes a romantic appeal. THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 281. We are not surprised to find Clay, in 181 2, eager for war and assuring Congress that if it would force war, his frontiersmen would easily conquer Canada and we should " negotiate the terms of a peace at Quebec or Halifax." He carried his point and war was declared against England June 18, 181 2. 413. The War of 1812. It was perhaps the worst instance in American history of rushing into a great undertaking without sufficient preparation. The whole American army numbered only a few thousand men. As to conquering Canada, ^ N/;'4/1.0 N T A R 1 o THE WAR OF 1812 ON THE CANADIAN BORDER Clay had forgotten that no good roads led to the Canadian line. To move an army northward would be a serious matter. At sea we had but a handful of ships with which to meet the greatest navy in the world. Furthermore, the northeastern states were certain to obstruct the war in every way possible. The history of the war on land is largely a record of un- successful attempts to invade Canada. An exception was an expedition under General Harrison, in 1813, which de- feated a force of British and Indians at the battle of the Thames in Canada and delivered the northwest from the threatened danger of British conquest. Harrison's expedition had been made possible by a brilliant naval action on Lake Erie, won by Lieutenant Oliver H. Perry (September 10, 18 13), who re- 282 AMERICAN HISTORY ported his victory in the famous dispatch, " Wc have met the enemy and they are ours." The British retaHated in a series of invasions of the United States. In 1814 a part of Maine was occupied and all the coast blockaded. Other attacks were made at various places that same year. One of them ended in a striking American success. At Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain, eighteen thou- sand invaders moving down from Canada were repulsed by en- trenched forces of militia (September i i). A naval attack upon Baltimore (September 12) was also unsuccessful/ the invaders being held in check by the fine defense of Fort McHenry. The one distinguished countermove made by the Americans against Canada, in 18 14, had ended with the doubtful battle of Lundy's Lane (July 25). However, one event of this year made all others seem insignificant. A British army landed in Maryland, defeated an American force at Bladensburg, and marched against Washington. The President and cabinet fled ; the city was taken ; the capitol burned ; and the in- vaders withdrew in safety to their ships. 414. The War at Sea. At sea, on the other hand, the Americans astonished the world. Their ships, which proved to be much superior to the British ships, were handled with perfect seamanship and with startling audacity. The Ameri- cans were victors in a series of brilliant naval duels. The first in this roll of fame was the action between the American frigate Constitution and the Guerricre. It took the Americans only thirty minutes to make of the Guerriere a total wreck (August 19, 181 2). Nevertheless, before the end of 18 14 the superiority of the British in numbers turned the scale. Practically all the American warships had been either captured or driven into * It was during this attack that Francis Scott Key was detained a virtual prisoner on board one of the British ships, where he waited during a night of bombardment for "the morning's first Hght" to reveal whether our flag still flew above Fort McHenry. Thrilled by the sight of it still flying, he wrote off, on the back of an old letter, the first draft of the " Star-Spanglcd Banner." THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 283 port and there blockaded. But the American flag was not driven from the seas, which swarmed with American privateers. In the course of the war they captured twenty- three hundred British merchantmen.^ The London Times expressed the dis- may and bewilderment of the English business world when it said of. the American ships, " If they fight, they are sure to conquer ; if they fly, they are sure to escape." Courtesy of the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass. A MODEL OF THE CONSTITUTION 415. Opposition to the War. By the latter part of 1814 the Americans, in spite of their great deeds at sea, appeared to have lost their cause. Their navy was destroyed ; the capitol had been taken and burned ; their aggressive movements had generally been disastrous. The opposition to the war among their own people had become threatening. The ^ On the other hand, the British took seventeen hundred American §hip5 and recaptured seven hundred and fifty of their own. 284 AMERICAN HISTORY governors of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey had refused to supply miUtia called for by the President. Recently, in the legislature of Massachusetts language had been used that was almost identical with that of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions (section 386). In the autumn of 18 14 the Massachusetts legislature voted to raise a state army of ten thousand men and asked the other New England states to send delegates to a convention. 416. The Hartford Convention. The convention met at Hartford in December, 1814. The debates were held in secret and we do not know what propositions were actually dis- cussed. It seems probable that the movement which resulted in the Hartford Conven- tion began as a secession movement, but that men opposed to secession skill- fully got control of it and changed its drift. ^ And yet the official report of the convention, considering the moment at which it was made, was sufficiently alarming. Besides urging a number of changes in the details of the federal sys- tem — such as limiting the President to one term of office — its main demands were two : payment to each state of part of the federal rev- enue collected within it, and wholesale reduction of the powers of Congress. 417. Battle of New Orleans. While the Hartford Conven- tion was in session, a British army approached New Orleans. ' In spite of these anti-war demonstrations, the New Englanders bore their share in the war, especially at sea. WAR IX THE SOUTHWEST THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 285 The American commander at New Orleans was General Andrew Jackson, who had already distinguished himself in the war with the Creeks.^ He took liis position outside the city and threw up entrenchments a mile long, extending from the Mississippi to a swamp. A canal formed a further defense in front of his line. In this position he was attacked by Enghsh regulars. The attack was made with great spirit, but the American lire was " so terrible, so continuous, that it dwelt in the memory of the assailants as most like to the continuous roar of tropical thunder." After fearful loss, the British retreated (January 8, 181 5). 418. Peace Negotiations. Meanwhile a different sort of event was taking place at Ghent in Belgium. Commissioners from the United States were debating with commissioners from England the terms of a treaty of peace. This had been made possible by the overthrow of Napoleon's empire and the close of the European war the previous year. Unless England treasured vindictive feelings toward the United States, there was no longer any real reason for continuing the war in America. The English must be given credit for meeting the changed conditions in a liberal spirit. The great Duke of Wellington threw his influence on the side of peace. As a result, the commissioners of the two countries signed the Treaty of Ghent. It was ratified by the Senate of the United States in 1815.^ 419. The Treaty of Ghent. The treaty was little more than an agreement to stop the war and begin over in friendly rela- tions. The particular questions over which the war started, such as right of search, and what goods a neutral might carry, ^ Following his victory of Tohopcka (section 410), Jackson had invaded Florida, where the Spanish authorities, though supposed to be neutral, had allowed the British to form a base of supplies. Having repulsed a British move- ment toward Mobile, Jackson then pushed on against Pensacola, the British base. He took possession of it November 7, 1814. ^ The American commissioners were Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, John Quincy Adams, Johnathan Russell, and Henry Clay. Gallatin and Bayard had been sent over as early as 18 13, when the Emperor of Russia made a fruit- less attempt to bring England and America to terms. 286 AMERICAN HISTORY were simply dropped. England agreed that the United States should have all the territory they had when the war began. ^ 420. The Peace of 1815. The news that peace had been made put an end to the secession movement in New England. The Hartford Convention was soon forgotten, and the issues it had raised were never voted upon. In all parts of the Union joy over the return of peace subdued all other feelings. The Republicans (Democrats), who had captured so much popu- larity by making war, now gained as much more by making an end of it. The war expenses, including loans amounting to $98,000,000, had been felt everywhere, and the whole people turned toward peace with grateful hearts. The Treaty of Ghent marks the close of the long struggle of the Americans to withdraw from European politics. From that time forward, the United States were enabled to pursue their own course and develop in their own way. With one exception, they were hardly concerned in European politics during the space of three generations. Thus they were enabled to determine for themselves what their civilization was to be. When, after long isolation, the American republic be- came again one of the factors in the world's diplomacy, it returned into the field as a first-class power. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Source Book, Nos. 65-70; Documents, Nos. 24-32; Ames, State Documents on Federal Relations, No. I, 26-44; No. 2; Johnson, Readings, 237-291; Hart, Contem- poraries, III, Nos. 106-129; Johnston, American Orations,!, 164-215. Secondary Accounts. Adams, United States, I, 185-446; II- VIII; IX, 1-103 ; Wilson, American People, III, 153-234; Cambridge Modern History, VII, 331-348; Hart, Formation of the Union, sees. 94-117; Walker, Making of the Nation, 168-213; Channing, Jejer- sonian System; Stanwood, Presidency, 74-105 ; Schouler, United States, II, 1-229; McMaster, United Stales, II, 583-635; III, 1-88, 142-458, 516-560; IV, 1-279; V, 373-380, 418-432; Babcock, Rise of American Nationality; Gordy, Political Parties, 9-333; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 54-64 ; Locke, Antislavcry, 131-165 ; Roosevelt, ' Astoria (section 398), which had been seized by the British in the course of the war, was now returned to the United States. THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 287 Winning of the West, IV, 258-343 ; Hosmer, Louisiana Purchase, 21-178; Sparks, Expansion, 188-215; Cable, Creoles of Louisiana, 1-209 ; Foster, Century of Diplomacy, 185-232 ; Morse, Thomas Jefer- son, 186-307; Merwin, Thomas Jefferson, 119-164; Aaroti Burr, 57-147; Stevens, Albert Gallatin, 170-200; Adams, John Randolph, 1-233; ScHURZ, Henry Clay, I, 67-125; Brown, Andrew Jackson, 24-86; Parton, General Jackson, 25-248; Tkvrston, Robert Fulton; LiGHiON, Lewis and Clark; Eggleston and Seeley, Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet; Mahan, War of 181 2; Roosevelt, Naval War of 1812; Maclay, United States Navy, I, 305-658; II, 3-22; Mollis, Frigate Constitution; Hosmer, Mississippi Valley, 146-191 ; Semple, Geographic Conditions, ()2,~ii2„ 134-139; Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West, I, 222-341. Topics for Special Reports. i. The Character of Jeflferson. 2. Napoleon's American Schemes. 3. The Cession of Louisiana. 4. The Expedition of Lewis and Clark (their original " History " is pub- lished in the Trail Maker's Series, edited by Professor McMaster, three volumes). 5. Astoria (see H. H. Bancroft, "Oregon"). 6. The Burr Conspiracy. 7. The American Decrees of Napoleon. 8. Tecumseh. 9. The War at Sea. 10. The Hartford Convention. FOURTH PERIOD (1815-1876) NORTH AND SOUTH IN THE AMERICAN UNION CHAPTER XXI THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 421. The Three Historic Forces. The experience of the United States between 1789 and 1815 reveals to us the chief problem of all governments which rule over a vast extent of territory. It is the difficulty of making laws agreeable to every section. Where different sections of a country are unlike geographically, they are bound to develop different interests. Furthermore, accident is almost certain to give rise in each section to hkes and dislikes peculiar to the lo- caHty. Also, the way of living in each section, as years pass, is sure to become distinctive and thus create in its people a point of view of their own. All these things came about in the United States. New England's in- terests were all upon the sea, and hence New England bitterly opposed any laws that did not protect its shipping. The interests of the West were all on land, and its demand was ever to make sure of our position on land and treat the shipping interests as secondary. Hence the bad feehng between New England and the West. In the matter of likes and dishkes, the New Englanders loved old England and hated France. The Southerners, or at least a considerable number of Southerners, were in the main friendly to France and indifferent, or even hostile, toward England.^ So New ^ Subsequently, these relations were altered. See chapter XXII. 288 THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 289 England and the South became enemies upon a matter of feeling. As to the zeal of each locality to preserve its own way of living, this was not so clearly demonstrated previous to 181 5, though already people saw that any sweeping change of conditions in any given section would tend to alter the entire social system. This point will be treated more fully later. To sum up : we have encountered, in the ex- perience of our country between 1789 and 181 5, three of the leading forces that determine the course of history — the economic force, the sentimental force, and the social force. 422. The Despotism of the Majority. All three forces had their share in separating the states of the Union into groups.^ As we have seen, the minority group was forced to accept the dictation of the majority group. In the presidential election of 181 2 the opposition to Madison had very little strength outside New England. However, the large group of states which supported him was not destined to hold together. An important group — New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey — were soon to become what we now call " doubtful " states. Their interests in general inchned them to side with New England and support what came to be known as an " eastern " policy. Their feeling, on the other hand, was often with the South, so that their votes at times upheld a " southern " poHcy. Counting out these three, the remaining states in the majority group fell sharply into two other subgroups : (i) the really Southern states — Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the CaroHnas, Georgia, with the new state of Louisiana, and (2) the Western states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio. These latter, with the vast territories beyond them, in 181 2 formed " the West." We have traced, step by step, how circumstances had estabhshed an alKance 1 In all groupings of the states in sections previous to 1861, there was always a string of border states which were not unconditionally in any group. In 1815 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York formed the "border" group. Both in interest and feeling, their sympathies were divided among the three clearly defined sections. Soon these states lost their border character and another group acquired it. 290 AMERICAN HISTORY between the West and the South with the result that the East was at their mercy. Thus had come about the first great instance in our history of a majority of the states over- ruHng in their own interests the sohd opposition of a minority. 423. Rearrangement of the Sections. If the West and the South could have held together, the course of our history would have been very different from what it actually became. But they could not hold together. In the twenty years following 181 2 they gradually drew apart. By degrees, the West became an ally of the East. The chief topic of American history during this transitional period is the rearrangement of the sections which ended in combining the West and the East against the South. By 1830 the three sections were practically consolidated into two, the South and the North. 424. The Causes of the Change. Our next purpose is to get a clear understanding both of how this rearrangement of the sections took place and of what were its chief causes. To do so, we shall need to get a general impression of what the West at that time was like. Also we must see how slavery suddenly became a great question in American politics. Then, too, we must trace certain economic consequences of the war which did not appear until several years afterward, but which at last proved to be most profound. Finally, we shall observe another case of defiance of the will of a majority of the states ; the " nullification episode " in South Carolina will show a startHng kinship to the earlier secessionist movement in New England (section 415). Thus the history of these twenty years may be summarized under four heads : (i) The Needs of the West; (2) Slavery CompUcations ; (3) The Problem of the Tariff ; (4) NulUfication. I. THE NEEDS OF THE WEST 425. The Western People. In 18 10 the western people numbered nearly a million. During the next ten years their numbers rose to more than seventeen hundred thousand, and by the end of the period we are now considering were nearly THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 291 three million.^ These people, however, differed among them- selves for several reasons, but first of all because the streams of immigration moving westward had in the main kept apart. From New England and New York, settlers occupied the north- west section along the Great Lakes. From Virginia they moved directly westward into southern Ohio and Kentucky. Tennessee drew its population largely from the Carolinas. Of course there were exceptions to all this. Ohio, for example, drew from all parts of the seaboard. Indiana, on the other hand, was settled chiefly from the South, and remained for a long time distinctly Southern in its sympathies. Thus, from the beginning there were great differences of feeling among Westerners, differences of inherited attitude toward the states of the seaboard. The states north of the Ohio inclined to be tender of the interests of New England, while the states south of the river inclined to favor the interests of Virginia and the Carolinas. 426. Western Interests. However, all the Westerners soon began to develop interests of their own. Almost all of them were farmers. The little towns of the West were trading places, not manufacturing centers. At the opening of this period of the rearrangement, western life was mainly rough and hard. The " frontiersman " lived in cramped quarters, very often in a log cabin, with few comforts and no luxuries. His prosperity depended entirely upon his crop. He had to meet, therefore, two exacting problems — how to get plenty of good land to cultivate, and how to dispose of its produce. 427. The Land Question. Upon the first question. Congress had already come to his assistance. As early as 1800, land offices were established in the Western states. Land was offered for sale by the government at a minimum price of two 1 Including Kentucky and Tennessee. Kentucky eventually became a "border" state, while Tennessee was drawn into the southern group. The part of the West that definitely joined with the East to make the North, — that is, the portion north of the Ohio, — had, in 1830, about a million and a half people. 292 AMERICAN HISTORY dollars an acre and only one fourth of the money had to be paid down ; the settler was given four years in which to pay the rest. This system enabled practically every one to get as much land in the West as he wanted. 428. The Market Question. There was still, however, the question of disposing of the produce. At first there was no way but to load it upon flatboats and float it down the ROUTES TO THE WEST, 1823 Mississippi to New Orleans. The invention of the steamboat helped matters greatly. About 1812 steamboats began to be in general use on the western rivers.^ From Pittsburg to New Orleans was a ten-day voyage. The return voyage against the current took thirty-five days. 429. The Need of Roads. However, the problem of getting western produce to market was not solved by the steamboats, for New Orleans served only as a stopping point on the way to ' Steamers were introduced on the Great Lakes in 1818. In 1832 began direct water communications between the East and Chicago. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 293 distant ports. The place where western produce was finally sold was either some port in Europe, or some American city on the seaboard, and early in the century Westerners turned their eyes upon the seaboard cities as the best markets for their produce. But how were they to reach the cities except by the slow and costly voyage to New Orleans and thence through the Gulf and round Florida to the East? It was a question of roads. The interests of the West demanded good m (in (lid print BROADWAY, NEW YORK, IN 1S30 roads across the mountains, and yet who was to build them? Not the West itself for two reasons : the needed roads would be chiefly outside the Western states — across New York or Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or the Carolinas — and further- more the Western communities were too poor to pay for them. Congress, which had already supplied the Westerners with land, now set to work to supply them with a profitable market. It undertook the construction of roads across the mountains. A " national road," as it was called, was authorized in 1806, 294 AMERICAN HISTORY and was opened for travel in 1820.^ It extended from Cumber- land, Maryland, to Wheeling on the Ohio. 430. The " American System." The chief leaders of the movement to build up the West through the aid of Con- gress were Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Their cooperation shows how the South and West at that time mutually supported each other. Clay, speaking for Kentucky, urged upon Congress what he called the "American system," a great scheme of internal '^^-'-^^^^ From an old print. CHICAGO IN THE EARLY DAYS improvements calculated to bring all parts of the country into close relations with all others. Calhoun, in 181 7, intro- duced into Congress the so-called Bonus Bill, providing for the beginnings of such a system. Congress was to distribute among the states $1,500,000 " for constructing roads and canals and improving the navigation of water courses." This bill inevitably aroused much opposition. Many people ob- jected to being taxed in order to make internal improvements which might not in the least benefit their own locaHties. But Clay and Calhoun carried the day. New York was brought * Subsequently Congress ceded the various sections of it to the states in which they lay. The road had been extended across Ohio and Indiana to Vandalia, Illinois. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 295 to support the bill because one of its chief objects was a great canal connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie, Natu- rally, it would be much to the advantage of New York to have this canal largely paid for out of federal taxes. However, almost in the last moment of his term, President Madison vetoed the bill. He doubted whether Congress had the right to appropriate money for purposes of this sort.^ 431. The Western Doctrine. There, for the moment, the matter was brought to a standstill. During the greater part of the next administration, the first presidential term of James Monroe,^ minor issues held the attention of Congress. However, the influence of the West upon the Union as a whole had only begun. Out of the circumstances just reviewed, the ^ Thus deprived of federal aid, New York went to work alone and built the Erie Canal. The effect was revolutionary. The cost of freight from the sea water to Lake Erie dropped from $120 a ton to $19. The population of New York City increased from 124,000 in 1820, to 203,000 in 1830. 2 For the second time, the secretary of state succeeded the President. The Republican (Democratic) candidates in 1816 were Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York. They received one hundred eighty-three electoral votes. The Federalists cast thirty-four electoral votes for Rufus King of New York, but did not agree on a candidate for vice president. During Monroe's presidency occurred the First Seminole War (1817-1818). The Seminoles were Creeks who had retreated into Florida after the power of their nation was shattered by Jackson (section 410). From Florida, with the connivance perhaps of the Spanish authorities, they raided the Georgia border. Jackson having been sent against them speedily crushed their power. It was in the course of this war that Jackson seized and hanged two British traders, named Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were accused of intriguing with the Indians. (See section 454, note.) While Jackson was virtually conquering Florida, Monroe was negotiating for its purchase. In 1819 Spain consented to a cession, accepting in return the promise of the United States to discharge claims against the Spanish govern- ment amounting to some $5,000,000. The same treaty defined the western boundary of the United States as far north as the forty-second parallel (see map, p. 272) which was accepted as the northern limit of the Spanish possessions. The year previous (1818) a treaty with England had defined our northwestern boundary, making it the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. (See maps following pp. 272, 278.) For the great events of Monroe's second term, the dispute over Oregon and the dealings with the Holy Alliance, see for the former, sections 504, 505, and for the latter, section 441. 296 AMERICAN HISTORY West formulated its chief political proposition — the doctrine that it was not only right but sensible to use the power of the central government to assist a state to counteract its natural disadvantages. The Westerners, Clay particularly, applied this doctrine in various ways. For one thing they supported legislation in the interests of the eastern manufactures. We shall see how and why, when we come to the third section of this chapter. 432. Western Sentiment. So much for the working of the economic force in the West. However, we should blind ourselves to something still more significant if we thought that the West had no other inspiration. On the contrary, the men of the West were stirred by a great sentimental force which had little to do with economics. The mass of Westerners had been infected, so to speak, by what we may call " Western- ism," a state of mind that had come to them through their struggle with the mighty forests they had hewed down ; in their Long journeys on the soKtary western rivers ; in their lonely pondering on the vastness of their land of the setting sun. Their imaginations were enthralled by a sense of the grandeur of their undeveloped empire and the majesty of the task of developing it. Then, too, these people had another influence in their lives making them different from the men of the South and East. Their state governments had not yet had time to become objects of deep feeling with them. The Easterner, on the other hand, inherited a love for his state. He told his children how the state had borne itself in colonial wars, how it had fought for its freedom against the king. The Westerner was often a newcomer in his state, often uncertain how long he would remain. All the West was still more or less on the move — across the mountains, along the rivers, through the forests, toward the sunset. These bold Westerners were mostly people of intense feel- ing. Frontier life always makes people bold and passionate, and American frontier life in the first quarter of the nineteenth century was characterized by vehemence. In religion, for THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 297 example, the forms most popular in the West were of an intense, emotional sort. As far back as 1800, what was known as the Kentucky revival caused a wave of religious excitement to go over the West. Later, the chief religious figures were the " circuit riders," Baptist or Methodist ministers who rode a circuit through many neighborhoods, holding services where- ever they could find a place. Often they had only a tent. The " camp meeting " was an assemblage drawn together from SCENE ON THE NATIONAL ROAD all the country round, to hear some traveling preacher. America has produced no bolder or more devoted men than these circuit riders of a hundred years ago. They put into their religion the imagination, the mystery, the faith in the future, both here and hereafter, that characterized their section. It must not be supposed, however, that the West was all rough and rude, even at first. Many a man of education, many a woman of refinement, crossed the mountains before the Cumberland Road was built. There were small groups of educated people here and there in the West, even before 298 AMERICAN HISTORY 1800 and a great many of them before 181 5. Houses still stand, built before that year, which are spacious mansions.^ 433. Nationalism. The most distinctive thing about all these people was their peculiar state of mind politically. With all their hearts they longed to satisfy their imaginations by becoming part of a grand state. But no state then existing in the West seemed to answer this purpose. What were they to do to satisfy their longing? This unspoken question was answered by the springing to life among them of a new con- ception of the federal government. It seems fairly certain that down to about 181 5, perhaps later, no one thought of the Union as anything but a group of states. They did not think of it as a single thing. With comparative suddenness, in the latter part of the twenty years of the rearrangement of the sections, considerable numbers of men began to think of the Union in a different way. They began to think of it not as a mere association, a group of part- ners as you might say, but as a fixed and inviolable unit. They began denying that any member, under any circum- stances, had the right to withdraw from it. They began say- ing that however one might oppose the course of Congress, any law, once enacted, was as binding on all Americans, no matter how they felt about it, as in Europe would be the edict of an emperor. This was the national idea, or "nationalism." It was this idea, from whatever source it came — and people are not of one mind as to what was its precise origin- — that fell in perfectly with the mood of the West, that found there the conditions favorable to its growth, and became, through its ' One such is a beautiful old house in Cincinnati, now the i)roi)erty of Mr. Charles P. Taft, which was counted the home residence of President William H. Taft. ^ The national idea was undoubtedly held b)' Hamilton and believers in it think they fmd it in the writings of Washington. Whether Washington's approval of a strong government was the same thing as this passionate later faith in the right of the central government to act with sovereign finality as the instrument of a single unit, the nation, may be c|Ucstioned. However, there can be no doubt that the national idea reaped the fruit sown by the great Federalists, notably John Marshall. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 299 acceptance by the Westerners, a tremendous force in American politics, destined to work the greatest revolution of our history. II. SLAVERY COMPLICATIONS 434. The Parts of the West. The political situation about 1818 may be described thus : the South and the West were mainly Republican (Democratic). They upheld the American system and a protective tariff, while in the Middle Atlantic states and in New England many manufacturers were also finding it to their advantage to join the Republicans and profit by their poHcy. It seemed that before long the last remnant of the Federalists would disappear and the minority group of states would surrender unconditionally to the majority group. But all this triumphal career of the new party depended upon maintaining a " solid West." Suddenly it was revealed that the West contained within it possibilities of division, that there was a northern West and a southern West, that the two parts of the West might easily fly asunder, and that if they did so their division would break the whole Union into two sections — North and South — with opposing interests too different to be reconciled. This startling knowl- edge came upon the country so suddenly that Jefferson spoke of it as an " alarm bell in the night," that seemed to ring the " knell of the Union." 435. Causes of the Western Division. To understand it fully we must go back a little. We saw that when the Union was formed, slavery appeared to be passing away. Nowhere, except in the malarial rice fields along the coast, was it highly profitable. We saw how bitterly opposed to it were the Virginians in 1787 (section 336). The movement which the Virginians championed had quietly continued its course and one after another the Northern states had abolished slavery, without serious opposition. A national colonization society was founded to carry free negroes back to Africa^ and was 1 One result was the negro state of Liberia, in Africa, founded under Ameri- can protection in 1821. JOO AMERICAN HISTORY given assistance by Congress. In Virginia itself there was still a powerful opposition to slavery. However, a great change in economic conditions had been brought about through the invention, in 1793, of a machine for clearing the seed from the fiber of cotton. This was Eli Whitney's cotton gin. By the aid of this machine, cotton growing, which could now be done profitably with the crudest negro labor, became at once the chief industry of the South. The quan- tity of the product advanced from a few hundred bales in 1790 to six hundred thousand bales in 1830. By reason of the cotton gin, negro slaves became valuable property in every cotton growing section. Meanwhile, slavery had been affecting the West. Even before 1820 it was plain that many settlers avoided those parts of the West which were slave-holding. The poorer immigrants, who did not want to be forced into competition with slave labor, turned toward the northern West, which in consequence grew more rapidly than the southern West. The statistics of two adjoining states tell the whole story. The free state of Ohio^ increased in population from 45,365 in 1800 to 581,434 in 1820; the slave state of Kentucky in- creased, in the same time, from 220,955 ^o 564,317. The population of the free state increased tenfold; that of the slave state less than threefold. There was the same ratio, of course, in the increase of their representation in Congress. ' Being part of the Northwest Territory (section 320) it was reserved to free settlement. COTTON GIN THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 30T 436. The Missouri Question. Such was the state of affairs in 1 8 19 when a bill was introduced in Congress to admit to the Union the slave-holding territory of Missouri; whereupon, James Tallmadge, of New York, proposed to make the ad- mission of Missouri conditional upon the abolition of slavery- there. This proposition caused a sharp disagreement in Con- gress, which adjourned without coming to a conclusion. THE UNITED STATES AS DIVIDED BY THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE Congress did not meet again for nine months. During that time, the Missouri question was the chief topic of popu- lar discussion, and in a number of free states the legislatures called upon Congress to prohibit slavery in Missouri. In the slave states the demand for the maintenance of slavery was equally positive. The West divided. Clay, who took sides with slavery, found himself unable to control his fol- lowers on the north side of the Ohio. When Congress reas- sembled in December, 18 19, all other political questions were, for the moment, dropped. The division between free-state men and slave-state men was the only issue. There was a deadlock between the two Houses. It hap- 302 AMERICAN HISTORY pened that the states of the Union were then evenly divided between slavery and non-slavery.^ Each side had twenty- two votes in the Senate. But the free states had some six hundred thousand more people than the slave states. If the two sides kept their forces together, it would never be possible to pass a bill admitting Missouri. Here, for the moment, was an end of the " solid West " and the collapse of the combination of West and South. 437. The Missouri Compromise. The politicians found a way out of their difficulty by means of a compromise. Missouri was admitted as a slave state, but slavery was forever prohibited in all other places north of 36 ° 30' north latitude. It was also agreed that Maine ^ should enter the Union as a free state. Thus the even division in the Senate was kept up. " I have favored the Missouri Compromise," said John Quincy Adams, then secretary of state, " beUeving it all that could be effected under the present constitution and from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. ... If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question on which it ought to break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep." ' Such appeared to be the case. Clay had thrown all his \m \ "m .v\ -( 00 '-\^ T-l Jiive' • 1-1 P5 P CO w M M 1^ Compromise Una ^ ;Vililed to Srissouri, 1 1836 by Act of Congre»» FIRST VIOLATION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 'Slave states: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky. Free states : Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire. ' Until this time, Maine had been part of Massachusetts. 'See Macdonald, "Documents," Nos. 34-41; Benton, "Thirty Years' View," I, 8-10; II, 140-143, 745; Von Hoist, "United States," I, chap, ix; Schouler, III, 101-103, 147-151, 154-173, 178-188; Turner, "New West," chap, x; Burgess, "Middle Period," chap, iv; Schurz, "Clay," I, chap. viii. In 183O, Congress enlarged Missouri by adding its present northwest corner. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 303 influence on the side of compromise and is generally given the chief credit for bringing it about. Immediately he had his reward. The division in the West was forgotten. Once more the combination of West and South dominated politics, with Clay as its most conspicuous figure. The Republican (Demo- cratic) leaders turned again to the task of advancing their party interests in the North and East. We must now consider what difficulties had arisen in that quarter. III. THE TARIFF PROBLEM 438. Review of Economic Conditions. Again let us go back a little. At the time of the embargo of 1807-1808 (section 405), the country went mad, you might say, in its clamor to be revenged upon England and France. Associa- tions were formed, the members of which pledged themselves not to use any foreign fabrics. Money was subscribed to pay bounties to Americans who would set up manufactures. As European goods were shut out of the American market, manu- factures quickly sprang up. Until the end of the War of 181 2 foreign manufactures, by one law or another, continued to be kept out of the American market. Thus, two forces con- tributed to foster our " infant industries " : the people who loudly pledged themselves to buy only American products, and the government which excluded foreign goods from competition. However, these American goods could not be produced as cheaply as European goods. When peace was made and the Europeans were at last permitted to resume trade with America, the factories that had sprung up during the war were under- sold by the foreigners. The men who had put their money into these factories turned upon the government. They said, in substance, " You got us into this predicament ; now get us out." 439. The Champions of the Manufacturers. This demand was one to make a special appeal to Clay. He and his West- erners were eagerly advocating the idea that the government 304 AMERICAN HISTORY existed to take care of its people. The men who wanted milHons of federal money to develop the West would seem strangely selfish if they opposed a corresponding assistance to the East. Besides, whatever enlarged the markets of the East, meant for the West a better chance to sell its produce on this side of the ocean. So Clay became a " protectionist," that is, he advocated such a tariff on foreign goods as would make the cost of them in the American market so high that home manufacturers could undersell them. Calhoun took the same view. Even more influential, perhaps, than Calhoun was another great South Carolinian, William Lowndes. Both Lowndes and Calhoun joined Clay in support of the tariff of 1816. With these were allied the manufacturers of the Middle states and New England. They were opposed by the Federalists of New England and by various free lances here and there. John Randolph of Virginia warned the Southerners that the tariff would turn out to be an advantage to the North at the expense of the South. Another great op- ponent of the tariff was Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. He spoke for the shipowners who would be hurt by anything whatever that reduced foreign trade. But the opponents of the tariff were not strong enough to check the triple alliance of the South, the West, and the manufacturers ; and the tariff was established. 440. Further Demands of the Manufacturers. However, the tariff of 181 6 did not fully accomplish its purpose. Foreign competitors were not entirely driven from the field, and the American manufacturers had great trouble in holding their own. Money went out of America to pay for European goods and never came back. American business was in a dangerous state and no one felt that his investments were quite safe. A fondness for speculation became general. In 1819 there was a general collapse of business — a " panic," as we say — and the manufacturers cried out for a higher tariff. 441. Second Administration of Monroe. Thus things stood at the time of the presidential election of 1820. The Re- HENRY CLAY From an old print THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 305 publicans (Democrats) appeared to have everything in their own hands and the disheartened Federalists made no nomina- tion. Monroe was reelected with only one electoral vote against him.^ In reality, the Republicans were beginning to be divided among themselves and the question of the tariff was destined to split the party in pieces. For a time, however, though the discontent of the manufacturers steadily increased, nothing further was done to assist them. Temporarily the tariff controversy was at a standstill. It was during this pause in the controversy that the Re- publicans (Democrats) scored their last great triumph as a united party. This was a formulation of foreign policy known to-day as the Monroe Doctrine. Briefly stated, it was a notice to European monarchies that the United States would resist any attempt to set up absolutism in America. It was called forth by the schemes of the so-called " Holy AlUance " of absolute monarchies — • Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France. The Spanish colonies, which had lately revolted, had declared themselves independent republics and had been recognized by the United States. The Holy Alliance, however, proposed to reconquer them for the king of Spain. Both President Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, were determined to prevent the conquest. In his message to Congress, December, 1823, Monroe summed up the foreign policy of the administration in three propositions - : I. That the United States should not meddle in the affairs of Europe. 1 There is a tradition that this one was withheld from him merely to preserve to Washington the honor of being the only President elected unanimously- The short period when there was but one important political party has been called the "Era of Good Feeling." 2 England supported the United States throughout this episode. Except for England's support the opposition of the United States might have counted for little against the Holy Alliance. Canning, the English prime minister, boasted that he had "called the New World into existence to right the balance of the Old." For the relation between these, events and our dealings with Russia, see the section of this chapter devoted to Oregon. 3o6 AMERICAN HISTORY 2. That European governments should do likewise and not attempt to control the destinies of any American republic. 3. That the two American continents are no longer open to colonization by European powers. Such was the celebrated Monroe Doctrine ^ as originally formulated. It has played a great part in later history and we shall hear of it again. Its immediate effect was to bring to an end the schemes of the Holy Alliance touching South America. 442. Consolidation of the Tariff Interests. Meanwhile, the demands of the manufacturers became more and more urgent. The Westerners, generally, indorsed their demands. Factory towns in the East meant a large population that did not raise its own food. The West was the great grain-growing part of the country and for the West those masses of factory population meant an excellent market near at home. Then, too, Kentucky was growing hemp, but there would be no market for hemp unless the manufacture of it should be undertaken in the East. So, as a result of economic conditions, the West and a great part of the East were entirely at one about the tariff. A vast extent of country, stretching from the Missis- sippi all the way to New England, had come to think that its prosperity depended upon building up the Eastern manu- factures, shutting out European competition, and thus creating an American market for the West. The states supporting this idea formed a solid block : the two southern New England states, — Connecticut and Rhode Island, — all the Middle states with the addition of Delaware, and all the Western states north of Tennessee. Even Tennessee was not wholly averse to it. Maryland was uncertain. 443. The Division of New England. New England, how- ever, was divided. The three staU's of Massachusetts, New 'See Macdonald, "Documents," No. 43; Hart, " Contcmiwrarics," III. No. 142; Moore, "Digest of International Law"; Latanc, ".\mcrica as a World Power," 255-268, and "The Diplomatic Relations of the United Slates with South America"; Paxson, "The Independence of the South American Republics"; Fyfle, "Modern Euroix;," II, chap. i. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 307 Hampshire, and Maine, had most of their interests on the sea. For them, the more Americans bought from Europe, the more the condition of things was to be applauded. In these states the economic doctrine of free trade had been fully worked out. Their spokesman was that same Daniel Webster who had opposed the tariff of 1816. In 1824 there was a famous debate in Congress between Clay and Webster, and the contrast in the two j&gures made an impression that was long remembered. The Kentuckian was brilliant, gay, witty, captivating. The New Englander, a grand, dark-looking man, was acute and formidable. Webster put forth one of the ablest arguments for free trade ever formulated by an American. Clay replied for the protection- ists with the liveliness, the oratorical effect, the imagination, which had made him famous. He argued boldly against the interests of the shipowning classes and drew up his final scheme for an " American system " which was to establish home markets and Hnk them with all parts of the country through a vast system of internal improvements. 444. Tariff and the Presidency. There were several reasons why the tariff controversy reached a critical stage in 1824. For one thing, there was intense rivalry among the Republican leaders for the nomination for President. The states in which protection was desired were just about strong enough, if they held together, to dictate the choice of President, and the friends of the tariff saw that now was the time to strike, when all the party leaders would hate to oppose them. As we have seen, Clay promptly came forward as their champion. 445. The Opposition. The three shipping states now faced a great alliance of states that had no regard for their wishes, and the New Englanders looked about for alhes, which they found in an unexpected quarter. In the eight years since 1816, the Southern leaders had perceived that in supporting a tariff they were injuring their section. As we have seen, the chief industry of the South was cotton growing. But only a part of the cotton crop could be disposed of to the 3o8 AMERICAN HISTORY Northern manufacturers ; the rest had to be sent to England. For his exported cotton, the Southerner had to accept the EngHsh price, not a Northern price forced up by the tariff ; but when the Southerner, who had to take English prices for what he sold, wanted to have the benefit of English prices in what he bought, the tariff prevented him. On whatever he bought in England, he had to pay duty before he could get it into the United States. Naturally, the South changed front on the subject of the tariff. A new leader, Robert Y. Hayne,^ appeared in the Senate and denied that Congress had any right, under the Constitution, to legislate on behalf of any particular section or " for the avowed purpose of en- couraging any particular form of industry." Almost the whole South held with Hayne. When the House voted on the new tariff act of 1824, the seven states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- bama, Mississippi, and Louisiana cast fifty-one votes against it and only one for it. In the Senate all seven states voted against it. The tariff of 1824 was passed by the Westerners. They broke with the South and voted almost solidly for protection. 446. Rivalries of the Leaders. Having got the tariff out of the way, as they thought, the party leaders gave their whole thought to their rivalries for the presidency. Calhoun, who had stood aside recently and had made an enviable record as > It was Hayne who clearly formulated the creed of his party that a tariff could be levied " for revenue only." ROBERT y. HAYNE THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 309 secretary of war, was generally accepted as candidate for vice president. The leading claimant for the first place ap- peared to be Clay, the hero of the hour, who had engineered the tariff, and was still the leader of the West. His chief rivals were the secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, and the secretary of the treasury, William H. Crawford. The latter secured the official nomination. The regular caucus (section 387, note) of Republican (Democratic) members of Congress named him as their candidate, but the other factions of the party refused to be bound by the action of the caucus. Both Adams and Clay were placed in nomination by state legis- latures. So was a candidate of a different sort. This was Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans. While the poHti- cians at Washington had been manipulating the tariff, Jackson had been living the rough hfe of a frontier general.^ He had won a name for boldness, downrightness, and rugged honesty. Two things were in his favor : he was a Westerner and thus had a chance against Clay; he had taken no part in the tariff battle and therefore had not earned the hostility of the South. As Clay and Adams were both protectionists, it was not to be expected that they would have much support in the states that had opposed their tariff. However, when the votes were finally counted, the result was a surprise. Clay, the man who had seemed to dominate politics, proved the weakest of the four presidential candidates. He had but thirty- seven electoral votes out of two hundred sixty-one. Even Crawford, who was a man of small ability, went ahead of him with forty-one votes. Adams was next, having received eighty- four votes. The highest electoral vote, ninety-nine, was given to the new man unskilled in politics, Jackson. 447. Election by the House. But Jackson was not yet elected. A majority of all the electoral votes are necessary for a choice. When no candidate receives a majority, the Constitution provides that the three candidates leading the 1 See sections 417, 431, note; 454, note. As to Jackson's political signifi- cance, see sections 481, 482. 3IO AMERICAN HISTORY vote shall become candidates in a second election which shall take place in the House of Representatives. Only these three may be voted on by the House. Thus it happened that the name of Clay could not come up in the second election. His followers helped to secure a majority in the House for John Quincy Adams. Quite naturally he made Clay secretary of state. Thus the two chief protectionists became the chief men of the new administration. 448. The Anti-Protec- tionists. The followers of Jackson and Crawford now made common cause. Craw- ford was in failing health, and presently both factions merged in one. All through Adams's term they fought in Congress every measure the administration pro- posed, and though Adams's followers in the House passed a new tariff bill, it was defeated in the Senate by the casting vote of the vice president, Calhoun. The protectionists, however, did not abate their demands. A national convention of protectionists was held at Harrisburg in 1827. A new Congress which assembled that year con- tained a protectionist majority, and in 1828 Congress again took up the question of raising the tariff so as to satisfy the demands of the West and of the manufacturers. As soon as it was known that Congress would attempt to increase duties, protests were made in the South. The Charleston chamber of commerce sent a remonstrance to Congress, denouncing the proposed increase in the tariff as unjust and unconstitu- tional. Both North and South Carolina made official protests. Alabama declared that the power to protect manufacturers From the painting by John Singleton Copley. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 311 had never been granted to Congress, that it tended to make a few rich and the majority wretched. Georgia declared that she would not submit to that broad constructionist view of the Constitution which made possible sectional legislation. 449. Changed Attitude of New England. At this point we encounter another of those startling changes in the grouping of political forces so characteristic of the time. Upper New Eng- land began facing about toward protection. This was due to an economic revolution, the result of the tariff of 1824, by which the shipping industry had been ruined. Many shipowners had been forced out of business. Whenever possible, New Eng- land capitahsts had sold their ships, made the best of a bad bargain, and put what money they had left into manufac- tures. Webster, the spokesman of Massachusetts, now added his voice to the other advocates of protection. " You forced this upon us," said he, in sub- stance, to the rest of the coun- try, "and we have changed our investments because we had to. We have suffered in doing so. We won't consent to suffering still more by changing them back agaifi." ^ Therefore he abandoned free trade. 450. The Tariff of Abominations. The debate in Congress over the tariff of 1828 was more bitter than any that had gone before. John Randolph said that the new tariff would ' ' plunder nearly one half of the Union for the benefit of the residue." Hayne declared that it " was calculated to sever the bonds of the Union." A senator from Maryland denounced the bill as a " tariff of abominations." As " the tariff of abomina- STATES CONTROLLED BY PROTEC- TIONISTS, 1828. See note below. 1 The Massachusetts delegation in the House opposed the tariff, however, as events prove, expressed the real attitude of his state. Webster, 312 AMERICAN HISTORY tions " it is known to this day. Nevertheless the bill passed both Houses and was signed by the President. IV. NULLIFICATION 451. Election of Jackson. The presidential campaign of 1828 was chiefly a personal rivalry between the two Republican (Democratic) leaders, Adams and Jackson. The breaking of the dominant party in two was further helped on by the adoption of a special name by each faction. The adminis- tration faction called themselves National Republicans ; the opposition took the name of Republican Democrats, or simply Democrats. As little as possible was said about the tariff in this election. The new law was so extreme in its provisions that there was a reaction against it almost at once, but the administration had pushed it through and could not disown it. Nevertheless, the opposition shrank from making it an issue. ^ They dared not alarm the manufacturers and contented themselves with giving out that their candidate, Jackson, was a moderate protectionist. By this time, the northeastern states were solid for protection; they gave all their electoral votes to Adams. The South, on the other hand, chose what it considered the lesser of two evils and supported Jackson. In the Middle and West- ern states each candidate had a following. The Jackson following proved to be far the stronger, giving its candidate one hundred seventy-eight electoral votes against eighty-three for Adams. 452. South Carolina Exposition. In the very year of Jackson's election the legislature of South Carolina decided to make a formal statement of its position on the tariff.^ It 1 In point of fact the worst features of the tariff had been forced into it by the Jackson men in Congress. Their scheme was to maivc it so obnoxious that President Adams would have to veto it and thus appear before the country as an enemy of the manufacturers. We have seen that he refused to be put in that position. * There has been much debate whether the economic troubles of the South, about 1830, were really caused by the tariff or can be traced to other sources. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 313 turned to Calhoun who composed a state paper known there- after as the" South Carolina Exposition." Calhoun was now the chief enemy of protection.^ He shared a widespread belief that his section was on the verge of ruin and that only by getting rid of protection could it be saved. He saw that the Southern states had come to be related to the rest of the Union, much as were the New England states at the time of the Hartford Convention (section 416). In a word, it had become plain to Calhoun's mind that all other questions then before the country were outgrowths of a single question at the back of them all. This was the question of the power of a majority of the states to enforce its will upon a minority. As we have seen, this was no new question. Madison had sought to prevent it by requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress to make laws on a sectional matter (section 335). The Hartford Con- vention also thought that the minority would be protected if two thirds of Congress were required to assent to all bills regulating certain vital matters (section 416). At the same time, as we have seen, it was freely asserted that each state should judge for itself how long it would stay in the Union. Calhoun was animated by two feelings : he wished earnestly to secure the minority of the states against dictation from the majority ; he loved the Union and wanted to preserve it. But he comprehended that the task of holding together the American Union was becoming a delicate problem. To gov- ern an immense area occupied by communities with varying local conditions, appeared to him, after sixteen years spent in Congress and the cabinet, a matter of what should not be done quite as much as of what should be. Even that rough- But it can hardly be doubted that the tariff was a real burden upon the South, even if we conclude that it was not so deadly as, at that moment, it was supposed to be. ^ The enemies of Calhoun accused him of insincerity because, having begun as a supporter of Clay, nationalism, and the tariff, he subsequently repudiated all three. His defense was simply that he upheld the nationalists just so long as their policy did not injure his own state but left them the moment it began to do so. 314 AMERICAN HISTORY and-ready plan of requiring the majority in Congress to rep- resent two thirds of the people involved, did not satisfy him. A lawyer and a student of liistory, Calhoun remembered that in court we require the jury to be unanimous in its verdict ; also that in the Roman republic there were at one time two divisions of the citizenship and that a law had to satisfy both in order to be binding. He was struck by the case of Poland, where a law had to have the unanimous assent of the national Diet. On these observations he based a formal political argu- ment. It is known as " the theory of nulHfication." Con- densed, it amounts to this : in order to protect a minority of the states against harmful dictation by the majority we should limit the action of Congress to those subjects upon which all the states are agreed ; and in order to make sure that Congress will not overstep the mark, each state should have power to nulhfy — that is, reject — such legislation as it considers injurious to itself. To many Southerners this doctrine of nulUfication appeared to be a happy compromise between breaking up the Union and surrendering to the majority. It appealed to the strong local feeling so deeply laid in the hearts of the men of the southeast. These people had not undergone, as had the northeast, a social revolution. Neither were there many newcomers among them. Almost all had inherited a deep, unwavering attach- ment to their own community. Furthermore, the new western feeling for the country as a whole, the western indifference as to which state one happened to live in, was to these men past understanding. So, also, was the feeling of the recent immigrants who were pouring into the Northern states and to whom, as yet, one state meant as much as another. And finally, they believed sincerely that the prosperity of their state would pass away if they submitted much longer to the dictation of the majority in Congress. 453. Growth of Nationalism. However, the doctrine of nullification aroused vigorous opposition. Even in South Carolina it was not at once accepted. In the North and THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 315 West it served as a challenge to the national idea (sections 432, 433). That idea had made great advances. All the rem- nant of the Federalist party had accepted it.^ The national Republicans were ready to accept it and most of them had already done so. Many causes combined to strengthen this conception of the central government as a power, now inde- structible, whose right to rule should not be questioned. Hosts of people had come to look upon that government as the main source of their prosperity. The minds of political thinkers were quickened by the great possibilities opened in politics by the national idea. It must also be remembered that the Americans were a proud and impetuous people whose ancestors had been members of a great empire. When not absorbed in their local problems, their instinct was for a state that should be large and magnificent, one of the mighty ones of the earth. All these feelings found expression in a famous speech of Daniel Webster in the Senate in 1830. He and Senator Hayne had been drawn into a discussion known to-day as " the Great Debate." Hayne stated with admirable clearness and force the doctrine of nullification. Webster in reply gave the national idea its first literary expression. The close of his speech was a famous apostrophe to the Ameri- can flag. It is not too much to say that his powerful phrasing unified the national idea, gave it form and expression, and con- verted a vague feeling into a fixed belief. However men felt toward the Union previous to 1830, it is certain that thereafter thousands of Americans looked upon it as sacred, and were willing to die for it, if need be. They felt for it precisely as Hayne felt for his State.^ ^ The contention that they held it all along must be taken cautiously, remembering the Hartford Convention. - In the states' rights view, the Union was a mere league of sovereign republics and the Constitution a " compact " which any of the states could ter- minate at pleasure. The nationalists held that the central government had been set up by the people of all the states acting together and that the Constitution was an "instrument" through which the mass of the American people had ex- pressed their will. They held that the ancient sovereignty of the English crown had been transferred to this central authority and not to the states. 3i6 AMERICAN HISTORY 454. The Jackson Toast. Another significant assertion of the national idea took place at a public dinner this same year. The President proposed a toast, " Our Federal Union : it must be preserved." For some time thereafter, his great influence was thrown on the side of Webster and the nationalists and against the South Carolinians.^ 455. Triumph of the Protectionists. Another bold assertion of nationahsm came from Clay. In 1832 Congress again took up the question of the tariff. Clay, on behalf of the pro- tectionists, made one of his most famous speeches. In the course of it he said : " The majority must govern, from which there can be no appeal but to the sword. ... If each one, or several states, being a minority, can by menacing a dissolu- tion of the Union, succeed in forcing an abandonment of great measures deemed essential to the interests and prosperity of the whole, the Union from that moment is practically gone." He consented to various reductions of duty but on the general principle of protection stood firm. The new bill was passed and the President signed it. The indignation in South Carolina knew no bounds. 456. Jackson's Second Election. It was now time for another presidential election. A new device had lately been introduced into national politics — the nominating conven- tion. The National Republicans held a convention and nominated Clay. The Democratic national convention nomi- ^ It was once believed that a personal quarrel with Calhoun was the chief explanation of Jackson's course. We need not take so trivial a view of his motives. Nevertheless, it is plain that recently he had become incensed against his great antagonist. Enemies of Calhoun at a critical moment revealed to Jackson the fact that long before, when in the First Seminole War he executed Arbuthnot and Ambrister (section 431, note) Calhoun, then secretary of war, condemned his action. This knowledge caused great bitterness in Jackson and changed his attitude toward Calhoun, but undoubtedly was not the cause of his opposition to nullification. His temper was, first of all, military; he was the last man to brook insubordination, and nullification appeared to his soldierly instinct as next door to mutiny. Furthermore, he was greatly influenced by a small group of personal friends who were st\led by their enemies the "kitchen cabinet," This group was hostile to Calhoun. THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 317 nated Jackson. South Carolina, bitter against both, gave its electoral vote to John Floyd of Virginia.^ Fifteen states out of twenty-four chose Jackson electors, giving him two hundred nineteen electoral votes out of two hundred eighty-eight. 457. Nullification Ordinance. Meanwhile South Carolina had determined to defy the central government. The legisla- ture called a state convention which met November 19, 1832, This convention passed an ordinance of nullification, which declared the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 " null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this state, its officers or citizens." It instructed the legislature to resist the enforcement of the tariff in South Carolina after February i, 1833, ^^d declared that if the United States attempted to exact further payment of duties " the people of this state will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government." Soon afterward Calhoun resigned the vice presidency and was elected a senator from South Carolina. 458. Jackson's Proclamation. Jackson allowed no one to be in doubt as to what he meant to do. A proclamation was issued by the President (December 10, 1832), which was largely the work of his able secretary of state, Edward Livingston.^ It set forth the doctrines of the nationahsts in the strongest terms. " The Constitution of the United States forms a government," said the proclamation, " not a league. . . . The laws of the United States must be executed. . . . Disunion by armed force is treason." Jackson ordered a sloop of war to Charleston and directed General Winfield Scott to prepare to collect by force the customs in South Carolina. War between the United States and South Carolina seemed about to break out. ^ There was also an "anti-Mason" party, which nominated William Wirt, of Virginia, and carried one state, Vermont. The history of this party is one of the oddities of history. A man named Morgan had professed to reveal the secrets of the Masonic order. Subsequently he disappeared. It was reported that he had been murdered. On this slight foundation, an anti-Masonic excitement was worked up. It passed almost as suddenly as it came. ^ He had succeeded Van Buren, who was now vice president. 3i8 AMERICAN HISTORY 459. The Compromise of 1833. From this desperate situa- tion the country was dcHvered by the adroitness of Clay. Congress was induced to pass two bills : one granted all that the nullifiers could wish in the way of a reduction of the tariff ; the other, called the " Force Bill," authorized the President to raise armed forces to deal with the emergency. Thus the government yielded on the particular point, the tariff, while declaring it would never yield its general proposition, namely, that no state had the right to obstruct a federal law. Practi- cally, the nullifiers had carried the day. The compromise tariff of 1833 provided for a gradual reduction of the rates until 1842 ; thereafter the comparatively low rates were to continue. The nullifiers accepted this as virtual surrender on the part of Congress ; they repealed their ordinance , and the crisis was over. 460. The Final Issue. This episode marks a momentous point in the great contention over the relation of the states in the Union. On the one hand, the nationalist sentiment had been fully expressed and a powerful following refused to consider resistance to the central government as anything but treason. On the other hand, the opposite theory had been carried to its logical result in the doctrine that unani- mous consent of all the states was necessary to federal legisla- tion. It remained to be seen which of these theories, or what compromise between the two, would finally prevail. Selections from the Sources. Johnson, Readings, 299-336 ; Mac- DONALD, Source Book, Nos. 72-80, 85-87; Documents, Nos. 33-42, 44, 45, 47-49, 53, 55, 56; Ames, State Documents on Federal Relations, Nos. 3, 4, 1-31 ; Hart, Contemporaries, II, Nos. 130-150; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV-VI ; Benton, Thirty Years' View, I, 1-49, 70-118; Thwaites, Early Western Travels; Works of Clay and Calhoun; Hill, Liberty Documents, chaps, xix, xx. Secondary Accounts. Wilson, American People, III, 234-255; IV, 21-38; Division and Reunion, sees. 2-10, 25-33; Hart, Forma- tion of the Union, 119; Stanwood, Presidency, 106-150; Turner, New West; ScHOULER, United States, II, 205-278, 446-463; III, 1-178, 189- 450; IV, chap, xiii ; McMaster, United States, III, 123-142, 459-5^4; IV, 280-380, 381-521, 570-681 ; V, 148-177 ; Adams, United States, IX, THE FEDERAL PROBLEM 319 106-242 ; GoRDY, Political Parties, II, 333-389, 445-581 ; Peck, Jackson- ian Epoch, 1-122, 158-161, 193-274 ; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 66- 80; SxANWOOD, American Tarif Controversies, I, 11 1-348; Hinsdale, Old Northwest, 313-328, 351-367, 380-392 ; Hosmer, Mississippi Valley, 153-167; ^VARKS, Expansion, 220-274; Semple, Geographic Conditions, 150-168, 246-277 ; CoMAN, Industrial History, 184-227 ; Hart, Founda- tions of American Foreign Policy, 21 1-2 18; Latane, United States and Spanish America, 9-105; Sato, La^td Question, 53-60; Oilman, James Monroe, 128-179, 191-202; Morse, /. Q. Adams, 107-118, 122-250; ScHURZ, Henry Clay, I, 1-47, 126-3 11 J Sumner, Andrew Jackson, 60- 150; Brown, Andrew Jackson, 87-117; Thayer, John Marshall; Lodge, Daniel Webster, 60-166; Shepard, Martin Van Buren, 88-176; McLaughlin, Lem^ Cass, 1-33, 92-132, 139-149; Hunt, Calhoun, 60- 197 ; Houston, Critical Study of Nullification; Jervey, Robert Y. Hayne, 32-45, 93-98, 230-377 ; Roosevelt, Benton, 1-87. Topics for Special Reports, i. The American System. 2. The Bonus Bill. 3. The Sources of Nationalism. 4. The Rise of the Cotton Industry. 5. The Debates on the Missouri Question. 6. Jackson in Florida. 7. The Treaty of 1818. 8. The Treaty of 1819. 9. Origin of the Protective Tariff. 10. New England and the Tariff of 1824. 11. The South and the Tarifif of 1828. 12. The Monroe Doctrine. 13. The Second Bank of the United States. 14. The Great Debate. 15. The South Carolina Exposition. CHAPTER XXII THE DUAL REVOLUTION 461. Nationalism and the Railroads. The conflict of ideas which was outlined in the previous chapter was deeply afifected by several things. Among these were railroads. What chance the national idea would have had without railroads is, of course, a vain speculation. Before rail- roads were built the various parts of the country had so little connection that the likeHhood of their fusing was shght. Before that could happen there had to be estabHshed a general sense of common interests, common feeling, common mode of life. How could such community come about among a group of peoples not intimately connected? Intimate connection of all the states was made possible by the railroads. Quick communication, rapid interchange of commodities, led the way toward a general fusion of interests such as the national idea demanded. 462. First Long Railroad. Our first steam locomotive was brought over from England in 1829. In 1830 Peter Cooper built the first American locomotive. The " first long railroad in the world " was completed in 1834 from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hamburg, opposite Augusta, a distance of one hundred thirty-four miles. 463. New Economic Force. At first the states looked on railroads as merely a new kind of public highway. Many states set to building them, or aided companies to do so by grants of money. But a difficulty appeared in the fact that soon railroads began to extend from one state into another. How to adjust the management of the portions of a road, when each was owned by a separate state, was a problem. By 320 THE DUAL REVOLUTION 321 degrees these state lines passed into private hands. Thus a new economic force was created which stimulated national- ism. Business corporations which were in daily action in more than one state would, inevitably, use their influence against the theory that those states might, at any moment, draw apart. 464. Growth of Railroads. During twenty years (1830- 1850), there was a great deal of railroad building. By 1850, lines of railroad ran along the seaboard from Portland, Maine, to Wilmington, North Carolina. Long arms thrown out from A RAILROAD TRAIN OF 1830 COMPARED WITH A MODERN LOCOMOTIVE this seaboard system crossed the mountains and touched the lakes and the headwaters of the Ohio. Another series of roads had their seaboard terminals at Charleston and Savannah, and extended west and northwest as far as Chattanooga. Still another system was located in Ohio and Indiana. By the end of another decade, only thirty years after the con- struction of our first locomotive, the three main systems had been linked together ; thousands of miles of additional road had been built ; and all the country east of the Mississippi was covered by a network of railroads, much as it is to-day. 465. Northern and Southern Roads. For various reasons the building of railroads went forward more rapidly in the North than in the South. The cotton-growing states traded with England more than with the North or with each other, and most of them had a seaboard. Those that had no seaboard, — 322 AMERICAN raSTORY Arkansas, for example, which was admitted into the Union in 1836, — had good river communication with the sea. There- fore, the Southern states did not need intercommunication as the Northern states did.^ Here, again, circumstances in one section strengthened one idea, and in the other strengthened an opposite idea. Western states, without a seaboard and with their chief market in the East, grew daily more conscious of the dependence of the parts of the country on each other ; TEE SAVANNAH thought less and less about Europe ; became more aggressively American. The Southern states, on the other hand, each in direct communication with England, having the minimum 1 There was little trouble about getting the cotton to market. English ships were always ready to carry it. American ships, in spite of the misfortunes of the shipowners, continued to do business. The American "clipper" ships — fast-sailing wooden vessels — were accounted the best of the kind in the world. They held their own, as freight ships, long after steam came into general use at sea. A steamer, the Savannah, in 1819 crossed in twenty-si.x days from Savan- nah to Liverpool. In 1840 the first oceanic steamship line was established between Liverpool and Boston. As ships increased in size, hari)ors had to be improved. The "American system" was at once extended to warrant con- gressional apjjfopriations for "rivers and harbors." Like the tarid, this matter became a source of bitter controversy. THE DUAL REVOLUTION 323 of dependence on each other, thought less and less of their connection with the Union and increased, if anything, their attention to the Old World. 466. The Coming of Foreigners. Another matter of great importance was the difference in the way population changed in the North and in the South. In 1830 there were between 100,000 and 200,000 people who had recently come to America from Europe. During the thirty years between 1830 and i860, the foreign-born population increased to more than four millions. Nine tenths of it, roughly speaking, settled in the North and West. This was due, mainly, to the refusal of the free immigrants to compete with slave labor.^ These thirty years are among the most significant in our history, and throughout this period the parallel between Ohio and Ken- tucky (section 435) continues to be instructive. From 1830 to 1840 Kentucky's population was increased by 91,000; the population of Ohio in the same decade increased 581,000.^ From 1840 to 1850 Kentucky increased in population 202,000 ; Ohio, 460,000. From 1850 to i860 Kentucky's increase was 173,000 ; Ohio's, 359,000. In i860 the population of Kentucky was a little over a million; that of Ohio, considerably over two million and a quarter. Comparing the increase of Ohio with that of an old seaboard state of the South, Hke South Carohna, the result is startling. In the decade during which Ohio was increased by half a million. South Carohna was in- creased by only 13,213. These figures tell their own story. The newcomers went almost altogether to the North and the northern West. 467. Reenforcement of Nationalism. Inevitably the new- comers reenforced the national idea. This was due to several causes. First of all, they took it for granted. To every ^ Furthermore, the absence of mountains in the Northwest made it easy for the pioneer farmer to get a start. ■ In 1830 Kentucky had 687,000; Ohio, 937,000. Thus it is plain that the gain of Ohio in population was out of all proportion to the natural rate of increase. 324 AMERICAN HISTORY European the idea of a strong national government which branded every internal opponent a " traitor" seemed a matter of course. Second, these people had no conception in advance of any particular American state, but all had a preconception of the United States as a whole. Third, they quickly learned that the commercial system which made possible their new Ufe was the work not of separate states but of the central govern- ment. Fourth, a great many of these newcomers were philo- sopliical radicals. Such was the case, especially after the failure of the revolutionary movement that swept over Europe in 1848. Thousands of German university men fled to the United States to escape imprisonment or execution. These men were bold idealists who had risked their lives for their principles. We shall see what their principles were hereafter. The point now is that this group desired a powerful American government to make their ideahsm effective not only in Amer- ica but throughout the world. 468. The South Stationary. The changes in population among the Southern states form a contrast that is full of meaning. The older states practically stood still. Their increase in population, generally speaking, was less than the natural increase of one generation over the preceding one. This meant that a considerable part of each new generation was drawn away from its native state and not replaced by new- comers. In this connection the statistics of the old rivals, Massachusetts and South Carolina, sum up the differences between North and South. South Carolina in 1830 had a little over nineteen people to the square mile, while Massa- chusetts had seventy -five. In i860 South CaroHna had some twenty-three to the square mile ; Massachusetts, one hundred fifty-three. The Southern state had increased only about one fifth ; the Northern state had doubled. 469. Disadvantages of Slavery. The explanation of all this lies in the fact that slave labor is wasteful and requires a large amount of fresh land in order to be profitable. In a state like South Carolina, it soon became necessary for some THE DUAL REVOLUTION 325 members of each rising generation to go West to seek their fortunes. At home, it was not possible for all of them to keep up the style of living to which they were accustomed. Slave labor and the lack of manufactures thus compelled the South- ern population to spread out over wider and wider areas. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, the growth of business enabled population to concentrate so that almost everybody could find something to do that was profitable. So arose this other sharp contrast between North and South. In the North, everything was in a bustle : there was opportunity for all. The result was a buoyant, optimistic temper. In the South, men looked about them and saw their population practically at a standstill ; they saw many of their young men forced westward into new states along the Mississippi ; they saw the power of those thriving Northern states in the House of Rep- resentatives growing from year to year ; ^ they recalled how merciless had been the action of the majority in Congress whenever it had set its heart on advancing its interests. Naturally a feeling of despair threatened to make its way into the Southern mind with the inevitable consequence of a great intensification of local feeling. The citizen of a Southern state began to feel that his home and his inherited style of living were dear possessions threatened with destruction. He rallied his friends about them. His thought of them be- came more and more fond and uncompromising. Presently his whole mental and emotional life came to center in one purpose — the preservation of the individual character of the life of liis beloved state. 470. Imagination in Politics. These silent economic forces were separating the North from the South with irresistible power. To these was added a force to which historians do not always do justice. This was literature.^ It has been said, ' In 1830 the North had one hundred twenty-three representatives, the South, ninety; in i860 the North had one hundred forty-seven, the South, still ninety. 2 No literary movement can ever be sharply separated from the preceding and following periods. The first American writer after 1800 who attained great 326 AMERICAN HISTORY " Let me make the ballads of a country and let who will make the laws." In other words, the conception of things made current by the writers of a country counts for more, in the long run, than the acts of the poHticians. Our country's experience reaffirms this ancient truth. The stir and ferment throughout America about 1830 roused in many Americans the literary impulse ; thereupon, through the re- actions of the literary activity of the country the mental en- ergies of the American people became vastly more powerful. LONGFELLOW'S HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE Men of intellectual force, responding to the tense atmosphere of the times, looked about them for great subjects with which to delight their souls and found what they sought through discovering and expressing those ideals, not hitherto phrased, by which their brothers, the men of action, were excellence was Washington Irving. He published his "Knickerbocker History of New York" in 1809. William Cuilen Bryant wrote "Thanatopsis " in 181 1. James Fcnimore Cooper began his long series of Indian tales in 1821. William Giimore Simms issued his first volume of poems. in 1827. Edgar Allan Poe also began publishing in 1827; Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1828. THE DUAL REVOLUTION 327 impelled to their great undertakings. These writers and dreamers discovered among others two lofty themes, one of which had stolen unaware into the heart of the North, the other into the heart of the South, Of these two themes, both of which appear and reappear throughout the long drama of history, one, from most ancient times, has embodied a sentiment of intense tenderness for one's immediate world, a sentiment that makes of that world an object of veneration, a precious thing which one longs to pre- serve intact. Many peoples have held this sentiment so de- votedly that it has stood in their way when they have wished to combine with others in a confederacy. It was the perfec- tion of this sentiment that made the Greek incapable of con- solidating his beautiful little city-states into an empire. To men who feel this sentiment in its strength, the thought of submerging their own state in another is as bitter as the thought of destroying the lives of their parents. An imposing antithesis to this sentiment of the sacredness of locality is that austere ideal of empire which was the inspira- tion of the Romans. Not theirs the passionate tenderness of the Greek's love of his home city ; instead there was the towering military conception, the eager foreseeing in imagina- tion of the day when the Roman trumpets should sound vic- torious upon the farthest limits of the world. Men possessed by this Roman ideal grow careless of the loveliness of their homeland and concentrate their thoughts upon a vision of grandeur. As beauty was the end of the Greek vision, power was the end of Rome's. It is not wholly fanciful to think that these two immortal ideals had cast their shadows upon the hearts of the Ameri- cans, the Greek ideal in the South, the Roman ideal in the North. It was the Roman sense of things, the poetry of an imperial career, that thrilled the Northern nationahst in his literary response to the pervasive energy of the times. Seeking an outlet for his enthusiasm he found it through the same subjects that had so charmed his brothers and cousins who 328 AMERICAN HISTORY had been lured away into the West — the vastness of their country, the grandeur of its future, the might and majesty of its government, the imperial signilicance of the American flag. Before long there was a notable group that drew in- spiration, directly or indirectly, from the national idea — Bryant, Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Hawthorne, Emerson, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Parkman, Webster. These men continued the subtle transformation of the national idea begun by Webster in his speech against Hayne. The more they wrote and thought about it, the more enthusiastic they became and the more surely they communicated their enthusiasm to others. They crowned the national idea with a halo of reverent faith. They dreamed of a grand, young, irresistible Western power that was to be the knight errant among nations which should, at last, set free all the oppressed of the world. ^ They gave poetic voice to the nationahsm of the North and West, and framed a sonorous poHtical creed to express its longings. Longfellow at last summed up their behef in his famous lines : Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears. With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. Are all with thee — are all with thee ! 471. A Strange Ally of Nationalism. In counting up the forces that made for nationalism we must not forget another which did its work unwittingly. You would not think that ' It is worth remembering that almost without exception they were deeply influenced by German thought, especially by tiie philosophical literature that was involved in the revolution of 1848. See Faust, "German Element in the United States." DANIEL WEBSTER CoKi-U-sy of The Piang Co THE DUAL REVOLUTION 329 people who called the Constitution " a covenant with death " and an " agreement with hell " would do much to buttress the national idea. Nevertheless, in spite of themselves they did so. These violent people were a new kind ^ of opponent of slavery — the " aboHtionists." To understand their signifi- cance we must understand the exact condition of the slavery question at the date of their appearance. We have seen that in the eighteenth century slavery was supposed to be dying out, and that the Virginians strove hard ^ ^^ if PICKING AND LOADING COTTON to destroy it ; but we have also seen how a change in economic conditions produced a new group of capitalists, the so-called "cotton interest" that repudiated the Virginia tradition and sought to make friends for slavery. Almost the last act of the great career of Jefferson was his opposition, in 1825, to this ^ One of the great mistakes of the time was a failure to distinguish between the various sorts of antislavery men. At least four distinct groups must be recog- nized : (i) the old-time antislavery liberals, who wished to abolish the in- stitution legally, such men as Jefferson; (2) the abolitionists, who treated it in a religious spirit and would consent to nothing but forcible emancipation, like Garrison; (3) the Free Soilers, who wanted to exclude it from the terri- tories and leave it to die of economic competition in the states, like Charles Francis Adams ; (4) the German idealists, who were for abolishing slavery but had not Garrison's vindictive temper, like Carl Schurz (section 467). 330 AMERICAN HISTORY new attitude of friendliness to slavery.^ In 1831 a scheme of gradual emancipation was debated in the Virginia legisla- ture. At that time, a vigorous movement toward emanci- pation was under way in various parts of the South. In Alabama it was led by James G. Birney, of whom we shall hear again. The Southern emancipationists - hailed with delight the Virginian plan, but it was not destined to prevail. The committee to which it was referred finally rejected it by a majority of one. Just what influence brought about this rejection is a matter of dispute,^ but from that time forward there was increased vigor in the movement to make friends for slavery and to per- suade men that it was a good thing all round — good for both black and white. What would have been the result of this controversy, had the Southerners been left to fight it out among themselves, we cannot say, because, unfortunately, they were not permitted to do so. The new friendHness to slavery was offset by a new sort of opposition to it. Between 1830 and 1840 certain extremists began popularizing the idea that slavery was a deadly sin which should be visited mercilessly on the heads of the present holders of slaves. These agitators — the abolitionists, strictly speaking — demanded that slavery cease instantly, no matter at what cost to the present slaveholders, and declared that remuneration of the holders for the loss of their slaves would be the same thing as paying a thief for the goods he had stolen. The first conspicuous leader of the abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison. In 1 83 1 he set up a newspaper in Boston, called The Liberator. He and his followers denounced the South with an indiscrim- inate vindictiveness hard, at this day, to realize. They made use of the impassioned language of the ancient Hebrew * He wrote a famous letter denouncing the new attitude. As to how this attitude came about, see section 435. ^ We may use this awkward word because "abolitionist" has become iden- tified with the special group represented by William Lloyd Garrison. ' Recent writers tend to magnify the power of the "cotton interest " and trace to its activity all movements that in any way favored slavery. THE DUAL REVOLUTION 331 prophets, calling the Constitution " an agreement with hell " because it tolerated slavery. 472. The Irony of Abolitionism. One of the ironies of history is the way the abolitionists unconsciously played into the hands of the "cotton interest." Because of their fury against the South, and because of a one-sided view of Southern life which they recklessly disseminated, it became possible to rouse against them all the eager patriotism of the Southern people. The whole lamentable controversy was summed up, years afterward, by an acute Northern na- tionalist, no particular friend of the South, who wrote in his private diary this candid review of the whole matter : "it began with a few ultra-abolitionists using all manner of irritat- ing and aggravating writing and speech. ... It was not a kind and candid argument against slavery, but bitter, in- sulting and degrading abuse of the slaveholders — calculated to incite the slaves against their masters and incite servile insurrection. This, of course, enraged the slaveholders and they retorted with aggravated asperity, not discriminating much, as indeed they could not fully, between the authors of such abuse and the North at large." 473. The Abolitionists demand National Action. However, what concerns us here is the effect of this movement on the growing cause of nationalism. At first the abolitionists were only a handful, with almost everybody against them. In 1835, when Garrison tried to hold an abolition meeting in Boston, a mob broke it up, tied a rope around him, and dragged him through the streets. One of his adherents, Elijah Lovejoy, who set up an abolitionist paper at Alton, IlHnois, was mur- dered by a mob (1837). Nevertheless, the aboUtionists gained ground. They formed a national society with an annual convention. OberHn College, in Ohio, became an aboUtionist stronghold. In 1835 WiUiam Slade of Vermont made the first aboHtion speech in Congress. In 1838 Ohio sent to Con- gress the first aboUtion member from the West, Joshua R. Giddings. 332 AMERICAN HISTORY Fierce and rebellious as these men were, they had perfect courage, never shrinking from the risk of death in pursuit of their ideal, and indirectly they increased the general emphasis on the national idea. They turned to the central government as the one power that might carry out their wishes ^ and abol- ish slavery. Petitions were rained upon Congress. Gener- ally the petitions asked either for abolition in the District of Columbia, or for the suppression of the slave trade among the states. 474. The Gag Rules. The Southern members of Congress, unfortunately for their cause, lost their heads and attempted to suppress the right of petition. So-called " gag rules " were passed. Thereupon ex-President Adams, who now sat in Congress as a representative, became the champion of the right of petition.^ Year after year, he fought the gag rules, warning Congress that if they did not allow complete freedom of petition, they would have the people down on them " besieging, not beseeching." At last he carried his point, and thereafter abolition discussions in Congress were fre- quent and bitter. 475. Abolition embitters the South. This abolition ex- citement made still more serious the opening breach between the North and the South. It must not be forgotten that the abolitionist attack was made at a time when the South felt that it was growing poor, when it was in many ways at a standstill, and had become extremely resentful of the dictation of a majority in Congress. Hence, any misrepresentation of it naturally roused it to anger. The moment of the attack was unfortunate for another reason. Recently there had been ^ It is important to note that many schemes in which Northerners and West- erners became involved during tlie nineteenth century were of a sort that could be made successful only through govrrnmrntal activity. Consequently the North and West tended to magnify the function of the government and lost a part, at least, of their inherited theory of political individualism. In the South the reverse was true. (See section 478.) - Attempts were made to censure Adams by vote of llic House in 1837 and in 1842. THE DUAL REVOLUTION 333 evidence of a dangerous excitability among the black popula- tion. In 1800 there was a slave insurrection in Virginia ; in 1822 Denmark Vesey, a free negro, formed a conspiracy to burn Charleston; in 183 1 a very horrible insurrection, known as Nat Turner's Rebellion, took place in Virginia. These startling signs of unrest among the blacks had alarmed the whites. They felt that if discussion of the question were allowed, it might extend to the slaves and produce another insurrection. Finally, they repudiated the picture of Southern life painted by the abohtionists. They pronounced it sensational and, in respect to the general impression conveyed, false. The abohtionists made use of such evidence as that of an English lady, Fanny. Kemble, who married a Southerner and has left a harrowing picture of the ill-treatment of slaves on her hus- band's plantation. To this day there is acrimonious debate as to just how far such cases should be accepted as typical. Southerners have always insisted that they were nothing but abominable exceptions and that the general rule was one of humanity.^ 476. The Temper of the Time. The dispute over slavery was destined to go to fearful lengths. It engendered bitter feeling, warped men's minds, and made uncharitableness the order of the day, north and south. Unfortunately, we must hear much more of it before we are done. At this moment we need consider only its effect on the absorbing matter of the ' Dispassionate history tends to reject the picture of slavery current among the abolitionists. Woodrow Wilson sums up the matter thus: "Of the con- ditions of slave life it is exceedingly difficult to speak in general terms with con- fidence or with accuracy. . . . Domestic slaves were almost uniformly dealt with indulgently and even affectionately by their masters. x\mong those masters who had the sensibility and breeding of gentlemen, the dignity and responsibility of ownership were apt to produce a noble and gracious type of manhood, and relations really patriarchal. 'On principle in habit, and even on grounds of self-interest, the greater part of the slave owners were humane in their treatment of their slaves . . .' is the judgment of an eminently competent Northern observer who visited the South in 1844." "Division and Reunion," 126. 334 AMERICAN HISTORY relation of the states in the Union. Inevitably it increased the Southern opposition to the rule of the majority in Congress. It roused the pride of the Southerners and led them to demand to be " let alone." " Slavery is our problem," they said, in substance ; "we will solve it our own way." Just as abohtion indirectly strengthened the national idea, so the slavery dispute indirectly strengthened the belief in states' rights. The Southerners fell back upon the idea that each state was sovereign and inviolable and subject to no dictation from without. 477. The Dual Revolution. There had been a time when this idea was not peculiar to the South. At that time, also, it did not overshadow all other political ideas anywhere, even in the South. By degrees, circumstances had expelled it, or almost expelled it, from the North. Attendant circum- stances had acted oppositely in the South ; as a result, this one idea had come to dominate Southern politics. Thus we see what is meant by the term " the dual revolution." All the political hfe of the North had undergone a revolution which had ended in making the North, as a whole, loyal to the na- tional idea. The South had passed through a corresponding revolution that had crushed out whatever impulse it may once have had to abandon the faith in states' rights. 478. The Southern Individualism. But even when all these tilings have been taken into account, the very heart of the Southern feeling has not yet been revealed. Back of all these lay a basal idea which circumstances might have under- mined but which they intensified instead. This was what we know as the philosophy of individuahsm : that is, a faith that the chief end of social institutions is to produce a large number of highly distinctive individuals and that government instead of repressing the distinctiveness of each individual should encourage it.^ Therefore, argues the political individ- 1 It must be understood that in this chapter we are contemplating all the complex phenomena of that difficult age from a positive point of view. There- fore, neither in the presentation of the national inspiration (section 470) nor THE DUAL REVOLUTION 335 ualist, government should exert no more authority than is strictly necessary and leave to individual enterprise every- thing that it is capable of accompHshing. Opposed to this view are the so-called collective theories of society which pay more regard to the community as a whole than to the develop- ment of its individual members. The individualist judges a society by the number of commanding personalities which it produces ; . the collectivist, by the average happiness of its citizens. The nineteenth century was characterized by its leanings toward collectivism in pohtics. In this respect it was a departure from the old traditions of Anglo-Saxon civiHza- tion, which during many generations had persistently refused to enlarge the powers of the government at the expense of the individual. The South, from 1830 to i860, formed the last citadel of unimpaired Anglo-Saxon individuaHsm. We may sum up the causes of this under three heads : (i) that intense conscious- ness of locality which, as we have seen (section 470), dominated Southern thought ; (2) the aristocratic structure of Southern society ; (3) the comparative isolation of the great planta- tions, each a little world in itself, because of which the necessity for the regulation of affairs by society as a whole was reduced to a minimum. In a social order such as this, men were bound to develop a keen sense of the need of their community for commanding personalities and to look with distrust upon that democratic collectivism which, as they believed, — whether rightly or wrongly does not here concern us, — was threatening to put an end to the production of exceptional people and to increase enormously the number of commonplace people. In other words, they beHeved that majority rule, with regard to this still more elusive matter of individualistic theory do we include in the picture all the minor elements that lay in the shadow of the dom- inants. The national idea carried with it a great accompaniment of individual- ism ; the Southern tendencies included things that have seemed to some students contradictory to the main drift. See Dodd, "Statesmen of the Old South"; Phillips in "American Historical Review," XI, 798; Hunt, "Calhoun," chap. ix; Woodrow Wilson in "Cambridge Modern History," VII, chap. xiii. 33^ AMERICAN HISTORY whether in the Union or in a state, was destined, if riot checked, to revolutionize society by " levehng it down " to a compara- tively low standard of hving and by depriving it of original characters. Furthermore, they ardently believed that free government could not be preserved except on an individualistic basis. For a majority of states to destroy the prosperity of a minority, for a majority of citizens to ride rough-shod over the interests of the remainder, appeared to the Southern mind the same thing as the ancient tyranny of the kings. The final significance of the Southern attitude in the dual revolution was its insistence on the polit- ical theory of individu- alism. Says Woodrow Wilson: "There were many men in the South who, while they had no love for slavery, had a deep love, a deep in- herited veneration even for the Union, but with whom the passion for the ancient principles, the ancient sentiment, of self-government was greater even than these, and covered every subject of domestic policy." 479. States' Rights Literature. It remains but to ask how this faith of the South was given literary form. Who were the Southern writers corresponding to that group of literary nationalists in the North? The most distinguished Southern writer, Edgar Allan Poe, appeared about 1830 and belongs, therefore, to this period of vehement change. But it is doubt- ful whether Poe had any effect upon the life of his section except in purely Uterary ways. He was a great, soUtary artist, whose world was within himself. The men who phrased the Southern poKtical faith were chiefly the orators. Of these there is a long and illustrious roll call, headed by THE HOUSE OF WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS IN SOUTH CAROLINA JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN From a daguerreotype THE DUAL REVOLUTION 337 Calhoun. The novelist, William Gilmore Simms, wove the life of the South into a series of tales to form a sort of prose chronicle of its bravery. Somewhat later came another novehst, John Esten Cooke, of Virginia. J. M. Legare and after him the better known Paul H. Hayne hold their places among the poets. But the Southern author who felt the call of his own land and expressed it most distinctively was Henry Timrod. His poems are a striking contrast to those of the nationalist singers. They have but two main themes — his own soil, South Carolina, and a passion to resist invasion. On his gentler side, in his love of the strange, mj^sterious landscape of the low-lying Carolinas with their rich flora, Timrod expresses in poetry the concentration of Southern life within its own horizon. In his passionate phase, there rang from him the typical Southern devotion to the state. Some lines of his, written after this thirty-year period had ended but none the less appropriate to it, may serve to close this chapter, in sugges- tive contrast to the lines already quoted from Longfellow : The despot treads thy sacred sands, Thy pines give shelter to his bands, Thy sons stand by with idle hands, Carolina ! He breathes at ease thy airs of balm, He scorns the lances of thy palm ; Oh ! who shall break thy craven calm, Carolina ! Thy ancient fame is growing dim, A spot is on thy garment's rim ; Give to the winds thy battle hymn, Carolina ! Selections from the Sources. U. S. Census Bureau, A Century of Popu- lation Growth; Johnson, Readings, 353-366; Hart, Contemporaries, II, 151-157, 163-184 ; Macdonald, Documents, Nos. 63, 69 ; De Tocque- viLLE, Democracy in America; Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans ; Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States; Smedes, Southern Planter, 17-180; QuiNCY, Figures of the Past; Niks' Weekly Register (1820-1S49) ; Kendall, Autobiography. 338 AMERICAN HISTORY Secondary Accounts. Coman, Industrial History, 207-227, 232-243; RjiODES, United States, I, 40-75, 303-383; Schouler, United States, III, 507-531; IV, 1-31, 199-229; McMaster, United States, IV, 522- 569; V, S2-108, 184-226, 284-372; Adams, United States, IX, 175-187, 198-242 ; Wilson, Division and Reunion, sees. 53-57, 60-66 ; Hart, Slavery and Abolition; Sparks, Expansion, 290-296,376-418; Larned, History for Ready Reference, IV, 2927-2935, 2943; V, 3369, 3373, 3375; Page, Old South, 57-92, 143-185 ; Dodd, Statesmen of the Old South; Brown, Lower South, 16-49; Smith, Liberty and Free-soil Parties, 1-47; Wendell, Literary History of America, 157-345; Morse, J. Q. Adams, 242-308; Hunt, /. C. Cclhoun, 121-132, 191-197; Roosevelt, T. H. Benton, 140-151 ; Hart, S. P. Chase, 28-91 ; Schurz, Henry Clay, II, 71-87, 153-171; Garrison, Life of Garrison; Birnky, James G. Birney; Sanborn, R. W. Emerson; Burton, /. G. Whitticr; T: Life of Simms; Jervey, Hayne. Topics for Special Reports, i. Development of Railroads. 2. Settlement of the Northwest. 3. German Influence in Am 4. Emancipation Movement in the South. 5. Garrison. 6. Quincy Adams in Congress. 7. European Views of Slavery. 8. o Tyranny of the Majority in America. 9. Sources of the Sou T . BeUef in Individualism. 10. Nationalist Literature. ^ ft •> ^ n +> ^ bO . t, U -t^ c !-i ^ 20 40 60 e'o "H-* (fX"^ INDIAN CESSIONS IN GEORGIA ^ It is impossible not to see in this the foreshadowing of those political theories of our day that include the "referendum" and the "recall." ^ In 1834 Congress organized the Indian Territory. Practically all the Indians east of the Mississippi were gradually removed thither. This policy caused two Indian wars. In 1832 occurred the Black Hawk War in the North- west, quickly terminated to the disadvantage of the Indians. A part of the Seminoles, however, made their way back to Florida and caused the Second Seminole War. Florida was not cleared of Indians until 1842. 342 AMERICAN HISTORY their admiration by the faithfulness of his friendships and the firmness with which he followed up all his undertakings.^ But there was far more behind Jackson than mere popular admiration of a strong man. In 1832, in spite of the trouble in South CaroHna, every other Southern state except Maryland supported Jackson. To the South, generally, he seemed the deliverer from Clay and Adams and out-and-out nationalism. There was still a third cause of his strength, — the greatest of all. Forty years had now passed since the formation of the Union and in that period a great social change had taken place. The South, to be sure, had not yet been affected ; it was not destined to be affected for thirty years to come. " But in the North, East, and most of the West, the conditions of 1789 had passed away. The Northern aristocratic class, to which political leadership was conceded in 1789 (section 349), had largely gone to the wall. The growth of the manufacturing population and the formation of vigorous new communities had put political power in the hands of the mass of the people. They were just beginning to use it. The day had gone by when great families could dominate Northern politics, when Livingstons and Clintons divided New York between them (section 349). All over the North the plain people were clamoring to have a government that was not in the interests of the aristocrats. The Adams and Clay party was thought to lean toward aristocracy. Therefore, all the plain people everywhere hurrahed for Jackson, the man of the people, the Westerner, who knew not "aristocracy and would not surrender to it. He was nicknamed " Old Hickory " and proclaimed the " standard bearer of the people." ^ ' During his first term he secured to his countrymen a concession from Eng- land which they had long desired. By promising that Congress should repeal all restrictions upon the trade of England, he induced the British ministry to open to Americans the ports of the West Indies. Later, in 1836, he forced a settlement by France of claims growing out of French captures of American merchantmen thirty years before. - Enemies of Jackson have charged him with being a despx)t in the guise of a demagogue. See the famous chapter in Von Hoist, "United States," Vol. II, entitled "The Reign of Andrew Jackson." © D,:!r,u! Pur.'i>,'!ii,x' Co., lyy courtesy of Co ANDREW JACKSON >r.j« Gallery of Art THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 343 Supported by the South for sectional reasons, supported by the masses of the North for social reasons, Jackson combined in his following men whose motives for supporting him were widely different. It remained to be seen whether his following would harden into a party. Could it be held together when his masterful personality was no longer at the head of it? That was a great question during his second term, and we shall see, presently, what came of it. 483. The Bank Question. Besides the issue of the Georgia Indians (section 481), there was another which also had been submitted to the people in the election of 1832, namely, should the President deal as he thought best with the Bank of the United States? ^ The enemies of Jackson had brought forward during his first term a bill to recharter the bank. Jackson who considered the bank a monopohstic and aristo- cratic institution vetoed the bill. Clay and his followers then took up the bank charter as a leading issue in the presidential campaign. It turned out that the popular sentiment was with Jackson and against the bank." This came out so plainly in the course ^ This was not the bank organized by Hamilton (section 356), the charter of which expired in i8i i. The second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 (see Macdonald, "Documents," No. 33; Dewey, " Financial History," 145-157). The government held one fifth of its stock, and appointed five of its twenty-five directors. ^ There seem to have been two chief causes of hostility to the bank. First, for a variety of reasons (see Wilson, "Division and Reunion," sec. 37, and Dewey, "Financial History of the United States," sees. 68-72, 86), many people were interested in state banks most of which were more or less unsound ; the competition of the powerful and wealthy Bank of the United States was a con- stant menace to these weaker banks and was resented by all their supporters. Second, it was known that bank charters were generally granted through politi- cal favoritism. The bankers were expected to aid with convenient loans the politicians who got them their charters, and to find money for use in politics. People not directly interested in banking were ready to believe that the Bank of the United States did the same thing, on a great scale, in the interests of the party of Clay. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the stock of the bank was owned in Europe, and almost all the rest except the government's portion (one fifth) was in the hands of a few Americans, "chiefly of the richest class" (Dewey, 344 AMERICAN HISTORY of the campaign that Jackson felt he had been authorized by the people to withdraw from the bank the support of the government. Although under its old charter the bank had still several years to live, the government might destroy its official character by removing the deposits of the United States, of which hitherto the bank had been the repository. Jackson resolved to remove the deposits.^ In 1833 they were withdrawn and the bank ceased to have a national character, 484. The Specie Circular. Having withdrawn the govern- ment moneys from the Bank of the United States, Jackson caused them to be deposited in various private banks. The charge was made that in selecting these banks he showed favoritism and therefore they were nicknamed '' pet banks." It was a busy moment all over America and much exporting, especially of cotton, had caused a rise of prices. Speculation was rife. Everybody seemed to be getting rich. By putting large sums of money into the hands of the " pet banks," Jackson unintentionally did the country an injury, for the banks used this money without due regard to its safety. Seeing how prosperous the pet bankers were, other people hastened into the banking business. Presently there was a mania for banking all over the United States. Bank notes were issued so recklessly that people began to be afraid to take "Financial History," 208). The mass of the Jacksonian democracy felt that the bank was an aristocratic institution, more or less controlled by foreigners. For a significant case of state opposition to the bank, see Bogart, " Taxation of the Second Bank of the United States by Ohio," Atncrican Historical Review, XVII, 312-331. * There was a legal question as to the authority of the President to remove the deposits without the sanction of Congress, and the secretary of the treasury, Louis McLane, held that the removal was illegal. Jackson forced him to resign. A new secretary, William J. Duane, took the same ground and was removed by the President. At last, Roger B. Taney carried out Jackson's plan. See Dewey, "Financial History," 203-209. In 1834, though there was a majority of Jackson men in the House, the Senate was against him and Clay induced it to pass a resolution censuring Jackson for removing the deposits. In the next Congress, however, the President com- manded a majority in both Houses, and the resolution of censure was expunged from the Senate journal. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 345 them, and at last Jackson himself became alarmed. Suddenly, against the advice of his cabinet, he issued (July 11, 1836) what is known as the Specie Circular.^ Many of the Western banks had been speculating in public lands, which hitherto they had paid for with the unreliable bank notes that had now fallen under suspicion. The Specie Circular, without any warning, put a stop to the use of bank notes in that connection. Thereafter, only gold or silver would be accepted by the government for public lands. As we shall soon see the effect of the Specie Circular was far-reaching. But that effect did not instantly appear. For the moment it was obscured in the public mind by the purely party questions of the election of 1836. II. THE NEW PARTIES 485. Van Buren. Jackson had picked out as his successor the vice president, Martin Van Buren, and the influence of the President was sufficient to secure for Van Buren the Democratic nomination. In Jackson's mind, probably that was enough. But Van Buren was a far more adroit poHtician than was his great leader. He, better than the President, understood the make-up of the Jacksonian party. He under- stood the difficult problem facing any man who wished to be Jackson's successor. It must not be forgotten that South- erners, generally, supported Jackson for a sectional reason, while his Northern supporters stood by him for a social reason. Could any man but Jackson hold these two groups of supporters together? Van Buren's pohtical principles commended him to the South. He and a number of Northern politicians were con- vinced that governmental interference in business had brought nothing but harm to the country. To check the tendency 1 See Macdonald, "Documents," 327-329; Benton, "Thirty Years' View," I, 676-678, 694-707; Dewey, "Financial History," 224-233; Sumner, "Jack- son," 335-336; Von Hoist, "United States," II, 184-194; Bassett, "Andrew Jackson," II, chap. xxix. 346 AMERICAN HISTORY in that direction they had adopted strict constructionist views. Thus Van Buren appealed to the states' rights sentiment in the South. He was an enemy of the abohtionists and on that issue he appealed to all those numerous Southerners who, whatever their personal views on slavery, joined in demanding that the South be left to deal with slavery in its own time and its own way. As an enemy of the abolitionists and an anti- tarilT man, Van Buren carried the South. As the chosen successor of Jackson, he held the Jackson following in the North.^ Apparently he had solved the problem of knitting together the diverse elements in the Jackson party. 486. Distribution of the Surplus. But there were troubles ahead which Van Buren could not prevent. We have seen that Jackson had issued the Specie Circular in order to save the government at the expense of the banks (section 484). After Van Buren was elected, but before he was inaugurated, another disastrous event took place. Shortly before this time, the debt of the United States had been paid off ; there was a surplus in the treasury, and Congress, in 1836, had passed an act for distributing it among the states.^ In January, 1837, those banks having government deposits were called upon to begin paying out the surplus to the states. Nearly $10,000,- 000 were demanded by the government. The banks already embarrassed by the effect of the Specie Circular met this demand with great difficulty. They were forced to call in their loans, thus increasing the tension under which all the business of the country was laboring. At the same time the price of cotton (section 484) unexpectedly fell. The whole business world was thrown into confusion and alarm, the blame for which was placed upon the government. ' There were several other nominations. The National Republicans, known hereafter as Whigs, were divided among themselves and made a poor showing. Van Buren received one hundred and seventy electoral votes against one hun- dred and twenty-four. 2 The surplus amounted to $42,468,000. All but $5,000,000 was to be distributed in quarterly payments. Three installments, amounting to some $28,000,000, were paid. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 347 487. Panic of 1837. At this critical moment Van Buren became President Some two months later (May, 1837), all the banks of the United States suspended specie payments. Business collapsed. This was what is known as " the panic of 1837." Says Professor Hart, " Nine tenths of the men in business in 1836 were bankrupt in 1837." 488. The President's Courage. Van Buren is ordinarily thought of as merely an adroit schemer. But his conduct in the face of the panic deserves to. be called courageous. The suffering throughout the country was great. Flour — to take but one detail — which, in 1834, had cost $5 a barrel, in 1837 cost $11. Everything else went up in price pro- portionately, and Clay and the Whigs did not fail to make much of the fact. They demanded of the President what he was going to do to save the country from distress. They revived all the old Hamiltonian arguments for using the gov- ernment to strengthen business — those arguments which the states' rights men. North and South, had rejected. At such a moment, in the face of such a demand, it took con- siderable courage for Van Buren to stick to his principles. But he did so.^ To the demand to know what he would do, he answered in substance that he would do nothing, and in spite of popular clamor against him, he did not give way. Though he consented to call a special session of Congress, his message to it stated with perfect frankness his belief that business must be left to take care of itself and that any interference by the government would do more harm than good.- However, he consented to put a stop to the distribution of the surplus, and to allow payments to the government to be made in treasury ^ See "Messages and Papers," III, 324-346; Benton, "Thirty Years View," II, 9-67; Schurz, "Clay," II, 1 13-127; Shephard, "Van Buren," 242-277; Von Hoist, "United States," II, 173-216. 2 He also recommended the " independent treasury plan," by which the govern- ment moneys are kept at this day. By this plan, instead of depositing with banks, the government has its own system of vaults, located in the large cities throughout the country. See Dewey, "Financial History," 235-237, 252-255; Phillips, "Methods of Keeping the Public Money," 103-111. 348 AMERICAN HISTORY notes. The United States again began borrowing money and has remained in debt ever since. 489. The Democratic Party. Van Buren's real achieve- ment consisted in defining the position of the Democratic party. By refusing to use the power of the government to force an adjustment of business, Van Buren lost the support of great numbers of voters, but thereby he completed his work of soHdifying a new party with definite principles. These were clearly formulated by the Democratic national convention of 1840. The chief ones were: (i) the central government should refrain from interference with the sov- ereign rights of the states ; (2) it should not interfere with business; (3) it should not make internal improvements; (4) it should not establish a tarifif ; (5) questions of slavery should be left to the various states to deal with as they saw fit. 490. The Whig Party. ^ The Whigs in 1840 made no official declaration of principles, but the majority of them, it seems fairly certain, were nationalists; they believed in using the government to assist business ; they were friendly, to say the least, to all such measures as the tariff. As to slavery, they would not commit themselves either way. By evading the issue of slavery, they both lost and gained. They lost many Northern votes. Abolitionists held a con- vention, organized the " Liberty party," and nominated for President, James G. Birney.- However, by keeping silence about slavery the Whigs gained more than they lost. Though the South was changing fast and was destined soon to become almost wholly a states' rights region, it had not become so in 1840. There was still a minority of Southerners who be- lieved in " strong " government, who wanted internal im- provements by the central government, and were not afraid of a tariff. These men were drawn into the Whig party. ' See section 485, note. The name appears to have been first used in the winter of 1S34-1S35. * See page 330. lie was now living iu New York. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 349 The Eagle of Libertv, Stranpllng the Serpent of COBRVFTIOA'. 491. The Whig Candidate. In selecting a candidate, the Whigs had three things to consider. They must hold fast the minority in the South ; they must break the hold of the Jackson party on the plain people in the North ; they must take advantage of the reaction against Van Buren. They chose a Virginian Uving in the West, William Henry Harrison, of Ohio. He was a brave soldier of the War of 181 2 ; he was friendly to the South ; and his life as a pioneer enabled his partisans to apply to him the very sort of praise that was formerly given to Jackson. He was called the " log cabin " candidate, and loudly proclaimed the true champion of the plain people. Van Buren was denounced as a selfish schemer who lived in luxury and cared only for his own advancement. Though the condition of the country was improving, prosperity had not yet returned, and all those who had suffered in the panic took their revenge by voting against the man who had refused to show them a way out of their troubles. The campaign was one of the most heated and bitter in our history. It ended in what we call to-day a " landslide." The Whigs elected Harrison by a great majority and ob- tained control of both Houses of Congress. 492. The Whig Party Divided. But now occurred a swift succession of unforeseen events, beginning with the sudden death of President Harrison, a month after his inauguration. He was succeeded by the vice president, John Tyler, of Vir- ginia. Tyler had been put on the ticket to secure the Southern vote, and though an an ti- Jackson man, he was not in sympathy with many influential Whigs. This fact now became apparent. The Whigs in Congress, led by Clay, had expected to re- establish the Bank of the United States, pass a new tariff act, and spend money on internal improvements. To their amaze- ment, Tyler vetoed a number of Whig measures which had Xru£ American Ticket. Far Priiidtnt WM. HENRY HARRISON. 3 so AMERICAN HISTORY ^'"'— 'S;;^ passed Congress. A furious quarrel between him and the Whig leaders was the immediate result. Before he had been a year in oflice, his cabinet resigned/ and the Whig leaders made a formal announcement that " all pohtical connection between them and John Tyler was at an end from that day forth." During the rest of his term he pursued an independent course, acting with the Democrats as often as with the Whigs. 493. Tariff of 1842. In spite of their breach with Tyler, the Whigs tried to bring the country back to a high tariff. It will be remembered that the compromise tariff of 1833 (section 459) provided for a gradual reduction of duties until 1842. Two Whig bills providing for a high tar- iff after 1842 were vetoed by the President. A third bill, however, he signed. It made the duties about what they were in 1832, thus upsetting the compromise which had quieted NORTHEAST BOUNDARY the nulUfiers (section 459). 494. A New Issue. Here was ground for a fresh quarrel between Democrats and Whigs, but it was sidetracked by another question which became the chief issue in the campaign of 1844. To bring this question to a head, Calhoun, chief ' There was one exception. Webster was secretary of state and busily engaged with the British government settling the boundary of Maine. It had been in dispute since 1 783, as the treaty describing the boundary was ambiguous. A considerable tract of country was claimed both by the United States and England. Their dispute had engendered much ill-feeling and had even threatened to produce war. Webster continued in ofSce until the Webster- Ashburton treaty with England was signed. It made the boundary' definite and divided the disputed territory about in half. Webster then resigned. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 351 opponent of Clay and all the Whigs, entered Tyler's cabinet as secretary of state. What this question was we must now proceed to consider. III. THE TEXAN COMPLICATIONS 495. Beginnings of Texas. By the treaty with Spain, in 1819, the Sabine River was accepted as the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Across the Sabine lay the Mexican state of Texas. During the next few years a considerable number of Americans crossed the Sabine and settled in Texas. A large extent of land was granted by the Spanish government to Moses Austin, one of the chief men in the early movement to Texas. When Mexico revolted against Spain in 182 1 and became an independent republic, the Americans in Texas quietly accepted the change of government. Emigration from the United States continued. Under what has been known as *' the Constitution of 1824," Mexico enjoyed a federal system and the Americans in the state of Texas were well content. 496, Usurpation of Santa Anna. The Mexicans, however, were not ripe for republican government and the successive presidents generally made themselves dictators. In 1835 a dictator of unusual abihty, Antonio de Santa Anna, had suc- ceeded in crushing the local governments of the various Mexi- can states with the one exception of Texas. In Texas his enemies took refuge. Being resolved to oppose the dictator, theTexans called a convention to determine their course, which, they knew, might end in war. At this critical moment the Mexican authorities made a rash attempt to seize a cannon belonging to the Texan settlement of Gonzales. A force of volunteers, hastily brought together, withstood the Mexicans and after a sharp fight forced them to retreat,^ October 2, 1835. ^ The fight of Gonzales might be called the Lexington of Texan independence. A strange resemblance is to be found in the accidental similarities of the two incidents. In each case an attempt to seize the arms of a discontented region caused a battle with militia and precipitated a war. 352 AMERICAN HISTORY 497. Civil War in Texas. Unofficial war began at once between the Mexican soldiers and bands of Texans variously organized. During the next three months several gallant actions were fought, among which the siege of Bejar, where was a Mexican garrison, was conspicuous. In December the Texans took the town by storm, lighting their way from house to house with most desperate courage and determination. Meanwhile, representatives of the Texan people had assem- bled, and on November 7, 1835, made a formal declaration r THE CONVENT AND GROUNDS OF THE ALAMO to the effect that Texas had taken up arms " in defense of the repubHcan principles of the federal constitution of IVIexico of eighteen and twenty-four," and was ready to join with any other states that would resist the dictator. Samuel Houston was named major-general of the forces of Texas. Henry Smith was chosen governor. 498. The Siege of the Alamo. Santa Anna was not slow in accepting the challenge of the Texans. Collecting an army he marched upon San Antonio where, in a fortified convent called the Alamo, was a little garrison about a hundred and fifty strong commanded by William Barret Travis. The situation was described by Travis in a public letter dated February 24, 1836. He addressed it " to the People of Texas and all Americans in the World." THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 353 " Fellow citizens and compatriots — I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. . . . The enemy has de- manded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. ... I call on you in the name of Liberty, of Patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy is receiving re- enforcements daily and wiU no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country, Victory or Death! " 499. Declaration of Independence. It was while Santa Anna was besieging the Alamo, that a second Texan conven- tion was called together at the town of Washington. By this time all Texas was afire with hatred of the invaders. Letters from the United States urged the convention to declare for independence. It did so. On March 2, 1836, while the little force at the Alamo still held Santa Anna at bay, the Texan declaration of independence was issued. A constitu- tion was at once adopted, a provisional government was set up, with David G. Burnet as provisional president of the Republic of Texas, and a Mexican, Lorenzo de Zavala, vice president.^ 500. The War of Independence. A few days afterward Houston was on the march to reheve the Alamo. At Gonzales he received word that Santa Anna had carried the place by storm (March 6, 1836), and that every man who defended its walls had died at his post. Thereupon, Houston burned Gonzales to prevent its affording shelter to Santa Anna, and retreated northward. He sent word to another Texan force, commanded by Captain J. W. Fannin, to join his own. But Fannin failed to do so. He was surrounded by the Mexicans, and forced to surrender. On March 27 the Mexicans mas- sacred their prisoners in cold blood.^ ^ An election was held in the autumn of this same year. Houston became the first regular president of the republic. 2 The Texan war of independence roused much sympathy in the United States. High-spirited young Americans had joined the Texan forces as volun- teers, and many of the prisoners massacred on March 27 were American citi- 354 AMERICAN HISTORY This cowardly action was quickly avenged. At San Jacinto Houston and his Texans attacked with irresistible fury the much larger army of Santa Anna and totally routed it (April 21, 1836). Santa Anna himself was taken prisoner. He was released and allowed to return to Mexico only after signing' a treaty, in which he promised to cease hostilities and to use his influence in Mexico to secure a recognition of Texan inde- pendence. 501. The Republic of Texas. This was the end of the war for independence. Santa Anna, however, repudiated the treaty he had been forced to sign, but he did not venture to renew hostilities, and in 1837 the United States recognized Texas as an independent repubhc. France did the same in 1839 ; England in 1843. Except for one thing, prob- ably Texas would have at once become a state in the American Union. The Texans themselves were almost unanimous in desiring annexation. They were opposed in this by certain Northerners who feared that Texas would increase too much the power of the South. Though the Texans were not vehe- ment for slavery, it existed there, and Texas, if admitted, would be a slave state. The influence of the enemies of slav- ery kept the question of annexation from coming to a head for several years. 502. Texas and Europe. Meanwhile, both France and England began to take an interest in Texas. Neither of them zcns. This fact, together with the heroic defense of the Alamo, stirred the hearts of the whole ]ko])]v of the United States. The cry of the moment was "Remember the Akiinu ! " SAM HOUSTON, FIRST PRESmENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 355 appear to have relished the idea of its becoming part of the United States. In England, especially, where antislavery feeHng was strong, many people hoped that Texas would not be added to the American slave states. About 1843 various actions of the British ministry pointed to the conclusion that England was endeavoring to heal the breach between Texas and Mexico. On the one hand, Mexico was to acknowl- edge the independence of Texas ; on the other, Texas was to abolish slavery. Thus England hoped both to reduce the area of slavery and also to prevent another important addition to the United States. Once these purposes became apparent, the friends of annexation became active. Of these Presi- dent Tyler was the chief. Another great annexationist was Calhoun. Another was the secretary of state, Abel P. Upshur. During the winter of 1843-1844 Upshur labored to organize a party in Congress pledged to annexation. In this he was powerfully assisted by Calhoun. On his sudden death, in the spring of 1844, Calhoun seemed the one man to succeed him. We have seen that Tyler appointed Calhoun secretary of state (section 494). 503. The Issues of 1844. Hitherto, Tyler had kept his plans comparatively secret. He disclosed them suddenly in April, 1844, when he sent to the Senate a treaty of annexation. The Whig Senate rejected it. However, in both the Whig and Democratic national conventions held the next month, the annexation treaty was the one great issue. ^ The Demo- crats formally endorsed it, and nominated a strong annexa- tionist, James K. Polk, of Tennessee. The Whigs were not so clear about their position, but their candidate, Clay, an- nounced himself opposed to annexation. The sentiment in the North against annexation was very strong. Sectional feeling was beginning to run high and there was vehement objection to adding this great slave state to the southern group. As a countercheck to this objection, the ' The Liberty party had already held its convention. It renominated Birney. 356 AMERICAN HISTORY Democrats brought forward a scheme to increase also the area of the North. They made a political issue of the Oregon question. We must now see what that question was. '"EATy I, Colutiit IV. THE OREGON QUESTION 504. The Russians in America. That portion of our country now occupied by the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, was formerly known by the one name — Oregon. Its modern history may be traced back to the schemes of the Russian emperor, Peter the Great. Pursuing a line of policy mapped out by Peter, his suc- cessors attempted to extend their dominion from Asia across the Pacific to north- west America. The great navigator Bering explored the northwest coast, and as a result of his discoveries, Rus- sian companies were formed to develop the fur trade of the Northwest. Several Russian- THE OREGON- coLMRY American settlements were dotted along the Pacific coast, the most southern being made in what is now the upper part of California. In 1821 Russia served notice to the rest of the world that her empire included both sides of the Pacific north of the fifty-first degree, and that the intervening ocean was a " closed sea " from which all but Russians were excluded.^ John Quincy Adams, then secretary of state, protested. He would allow Russia the Pacific coast of America north of the fifty- 1 Russian aggression in North America was part of the program of the Holy AlHance in 1823. The league of absolutist powers, — Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, Spain, — may be likened to a vast octopus advancing one gigantic tentacle across Siberia and down into America from the northwest, while another tentacle equally huge was to move to meet it from the east. See an excellent summary by Professor McMaster, in " Cambridge Modern History," vii, 364-371- THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 357 fifth parallel, but he denied that she had any claim south of it. This was the beginning of diplomatic contentions, at the end of which Russia abandoned much and the United States conceded a little. In 1824 Russia accepted as the southern boundary of her American possessions the line of 54° 40' north latitude. 505. Americans on the Pacific. This arrest of the Russian advance left open a splendid region extending along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Cahfornia. Who was entitled to this region now became an issue between the United States and Great Britain. We have seen that the Americans had a settlement at Astoria on the Columbia, which river had been discovered by an American sea captain as early as 1792. But the Hudson Bay Company had also pushed its way into the Northwest. It had control of what was later British Columbia and laid claim also to Oregon. The appeal of the Hudson Bay Company to the British government to support its claim brought on tortuous negotiations between the two countries. England demanded for her southern boundary the Columbia, while the United States claimed the whole region, even to the Russian line of 54° 40' . 506. The Indian Mission. Meanwhile, Americans made their way overland to Oregon. In 1832 Captain Bonneville took a wagon train across the mountains. Nathaniel J. Wyeth followed with a party of settlers two years after. Some of these early visitors to the Oregon country — we know not which one — made a deep impression on certain Indians, by means of talk about a priceless " Book " in which was hidden the secret of all things. The silent, imaginative Indians decided to go in search of it, and four of them made the long journey to St. Louis. In the way that they conducted their mission, the singular character of the Indian appeared, for they spoke to no one of their purpose, but trusted their own eyes alone. For some time these silent warriors out of the unknown West walked about St. Louis looking for the " Book." Not being able to discover it, they gave up their 358 AMERICAN HISTORY search and went away, as silent as they came. They returned home to tell their people that the mission to St. Louis was in vain, that the " Book " was not there. 507. Missionaries to the Indians. What the Indians were seeking was, of course, the Bible. Fortunately their purpose was discovered. It led speedily to the sending of missionaries to Oregon. Not only men but women prepared to go, although the best-informed explorers assured them that no women would reach Oregon alive. Mrs. H. H. Spaulding and Mrs. Marcus Whitman, wives of two missionaries, were the first of a number of daring women who risked the perils of the Oregon trail. Their courage is made plain when we reflect that George Catlin, chief authority at the time on Indian conditions, declared : " The hostile Indians that hover around the con- voy would fight against any odds to capture the women." On their way west they were met by Catlin, who begged them to turn back. He de- scribed a massacre in which the Indians killed all the men of a party in order to carry off into horrible captivity one woman. But nothing could turn these women from their purpose. Already Mr. Spaulding had tried to persuade his wife to turn back, but added that the decision " shall be left to you after we have prayed to- gether." Mrs. Spaulding, after a space of silence, had rephed, " I am ready not to be bound only but also to die on the Rocky Mountains for the name of the Lord Jesus." 508. The American Occupation. In this heroic spirit the American occuiKition of Oregon began. A number of people joined the missionary caravan, which grew, at last, to some two hundred persons and six hundred animals. On July 4, AN INDIAN CHIEF THE OCCUPATION OF THE NORTHWEST THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 359 1836, they entered South Pass, on the divide between the Mississippi Valley and the valley of the Columbia. At the western end of the pass, where they were definitely on " the Pacific slope," the company halted. They raised the Ameri- can flag, knelt beneath it, held a service of prayer, and then formally took possession of the country in the name of the United States. It is impossible, in this connection, not to think of another religious service when Columbus raised the flag of Spain on an island in the West Indies, three hundred and fifty years before. 509. Whitman's Ride. As American interest in Oregon increased, the Hudson Bay Company became alarmed. It tried to induce the British ministry to take a firm stand and demand the withdrawal of the Americans from Oregon. In 1842 Marcus Whitman got word of this and determined that something should be done by way of countercheck. He started east for the purpose of rousing the country to take action. This return journey is known in Oregon as " Whitman's Ride." It was a long, hard journey through the snows of a severe winter. Whitman's ride contributed greatly to stimulate the grow- ing interest in Oregon. The two religious organizations by which the early missionaries had been sent out, the American Board of Foreign Missions and the Methodist Board of Missions, continued their support, and when Whitman re- turned in 1843, he guided a party of immigrants numbering about a thousand.^ 510. " Fifty-four Forty or Fight ! ". And yet England still claimed Oregon at least as far south as the Columbia River. Thus things stood when the Democrats determined to annex Texas and looked about them for some way of quieting the 1 See Schouler, " United States," VI, 505-514; McMaster, "United States," VII, 286-302; Barrows, "Oregon," 160-254; Bancroft, "Oregon," I, chaps. V, xiii-xv; Bourne, "Legend of Marcus Whitman," American Historical Review, VI, 276-300; Coman, "Economic Beginnings of the Far West," 11, I 13-166. 360 AMERICAN HISTORY objection that it would increase unduly the power of the South. Oregon served their purpose. They put forward the extreme American claim, demanding the whole Northwest as far as the Russian settlements. So, one of the cries of the campaign was, " Fifty-four forty or fight! " V. POLK AND HIS PLANS 511. Clay's Blunder. A blunder of the Whig candidate helped the Democrats to win. Clay had a talent for devising compromises and more than once this talent delivered his country from political discord, but in 1844 it proved the ruin of his own career. Thinking he saw a chance to compromise on the annexation question, he wrote a letter implying that he might favor annexation at some time in the future. This position, he hoped, would win him votes in the South. But it failed to do so and instead lost him the antislavery vote, which was especially strong in New York. Many Whigs, who would otherwise have supported Clay, now refused to do so, and cast their ballots for Birney. As a consequence, New York was carried by Polk and that one state determined the election. Clay had thrown away his last chance to be President of the United States. 512. Annexation of Texas. A number of senators looked upon the election as a command from their constituents to admit Texas. Accordingly, they voted for a joint resolution in favor of annexation. The resolution passed both Houses of Congress and was signed by Tyler (March i, 1845). 513. The Breach with Mexico. Tyler thus bequeathed to his successor a quarrel with Mexico. It was opened only two days after the inauguration of Polk by a formal protest from the Mexican minister against the annexation of Texas. The new President replied that Texas was an independent power and if it wished to enter the American Union, no other power had the right to interfere. Thereupon, the Mexican government broke off diplomatic relations with the United THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 361 States. At the same time Texas was warned that if she entered the Union, Mexico would declare war. The Texan reply to this threat was made through a convention which voted, July 4, 1845, to accept the terms of annexation proposed by the United States.^ Though American troops were at once sent into Texas to defend the new state should Mexico invade it, Polk did not at that time desire war. He now had in hand three distinct undertakings : (i) with the annexation of Texas, the United States assumed the claim of Texas to certain territory which Mexico ve- hemently claimed as her own ; (2) there was the old contention, still unsettled, with regard to the North- west boundary ; (3) in ad- dition, there was a scheme not yet made public but close to Polk's heart, and this was nothing less than the purchase from Mexico of her great province of California. To restore friendly relations with Mexico and accomplish his .— Boundary of the present State of Texas — West line of the region held by Texans in ■845 Boundary of region claimed by both Texas and Mexico CD Region subsequently renounced by Texas to the United States (1850) TEXAS BOUNDARY PROBLEM 1 The admission of Texas was not completed until February, 1846, when a state government replaced the former national government of Texas. Said the retiring president, Anson Jones, in his valedictory: "The lone star of Texas, which ten years since arose amid clouds over fields of carnage and shone ob- scurely for a while, has culminated, and, following an inscrutable destiny, has passed on and become fixed forever in that glorious constellation which all freemen and lovers of freedom in the world must reverence and adore — the American Union." 362 AMERICAN HISTORY purposes by negotiation was the aim of the President during several months of fruitless diplomacy in which the Mexican leaders proved to be masters of double-dealing. His patience exhausted, Polk was on the point of adopting a more peremp- tory course, when news was received at Washington of a clash between American and Mexican troops on the Rio Grande. Polk had previously instructed General Zachary Taylor to cross the Nueces River, which Mexico claimed as her bound- VVINFIELD SCOTT ZACHARY TAYLOR ary, and advance to the Rio Grande, the boundary claimed by Texas. There, Taylor was attacked by the Mexicans, April 25, 1846. Polk speedily informed Congress that " now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States and shed American blood on American soil." Congress at once appropriated funds for " the prosecu- tion of the existing war." ^ ' There was bitter contention throughout the country with regard to the war. The Whigs, though opposed, gave it unwilling support "on the ground that the army had been forced into a perilous position and must be rescued." The Liberty party was unconditional in its opposition. Their attitude was brilliantly expressed in the "Biglow Papers" of Lowell. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 363 514. The Northwestern Settlement. However, the sum- mer passed before an American army could be assembled for the invasion of Mexico, and meanwhile Polk brought one of his three undertakings to a successful close. He was enabled to do so because England, at this critical moment, proposed to compromise the Oregon question by fixing the boundary at the forty-ninth parallel. Congress advised Polk to accept the compromise, and by a treaty drawn up in June, 1846, the long dispute was finally settled.^ 515. The Mexican War. Turning upon Mexico, the Ameri- cans now demon- strated their instinc- tive military talent. Taylor's campaign in northern Mexico is one of the most bril- liant episodes in our mihtary annals. He was uniformly suc- cessful against greatly superior num- bers. The climax of his advance was a crushing defeat of the Mexicans in the hard-fought battle of Buena Vista, February 22-23, 1847. Equally remarkable was the success of an American army which entered Mexico from the east. General Winfield Scott took his forces by sea to Vera Cruz, whence he marched upon the city of Mexico. The battle of Cerro Gordo, April 18, * See Polk's "Diary," index; also, an excellent brief account in McMaster, "United States," VII, 407-420. The line of the forty-ninth parallel had previously been proposed by the Americans and rejected by England. THE CAMPAIGNS OF THE MEXICAN WAR 364 AMERICAN HISTORY 1847, cleared the way for the fall of the Mexican capital, which was entered by Scott, September 14, 1847. The war was closed by the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. Mexico gave up all claim to the country north of the Rio Grande and, in addition, ceded to the United States her northern provinces of New Mexico ^ and California. The United States paid Mexico $15,000,000. Thus Polk had concluded all of his three undertakings, but the final result of his course formed a startling surprise to the President and his party. To understand this surprise we must once more pause and review a train of past events. \^. Ci\LIFORNIA 516. Earliest California. The beautiful and romantic region of California was first explored by the Spanish con- querors of Mexico. It is probable that the first EngUsh spoken in California was uttered by the crew of Sir Francis Drake,^ who is thought to have put into the harbor of San Francisco ' while on his voyage around the world. Hardly any more English was heard in California during the next two hundred years. Meanwhile, a few Spanish settlers came in, and some small Spanish towns were built. Missionary priests from Spain erected monasteries, or " missions," which were ex- tensive, thick-walled buildings, each inclosing a courtyard bordered by an arcade. These missions formed centers for the picturesque Old-World life which is the local background of Cahfornia history. 1 This cession included all of the present area of the West from Texas to Oregon, except a small portion along the present border of Mexico. This latter portion was bought from Mexico in 1853 and was known as "the Gadsden Purchase." - It is said that Drake received some sort of submission from the Indians and proclaimed the region English soil. ' Some students insist that the harbor visited by Drake was the one now known as Drake's Bay. See Royce, "California," lo-ii ; Bancroft, "California," I, 81-94. Texas (184.5) Oregon (1S4B) Mexican Cession (1848) Gadsden Purchase (1853) Original Area of U.S. 827,844 Area of Louisiana Purchase 875,025 THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 365 517. Americans in California. Early in the nineteenth century bold adventurers from the United States began to make their way to California. In those days it was an almost fabulous land separated from the settled country by an enormous extent of trackless mountain and unknown desert. Nevertheless that lure of the West which has affected our history so deeply did its final work in drawing Americans across the western desert to the genuine land of the sunset, — California. As early as 1820, Major Long explored the Rocky Moun- tains and opened the Santa Fe trail to the southwest. In ''^^^7^ I V ^\ k^_rSM*^llf;:'>' 'M SANTA BARBARA MISSION, CALIFORNIA 1826 Jedediah H. Smith led a party of American trappers to Cahfornia. About the same time began trade by sea between Cahfornia and New England round Cape Horn. By 1836 there were several hundred Americans in California, and a number of them took part in the " Alvarado revolution," which came near making California a sovereign state, but eventually failed.^ Soon afterward a dashing young officer of the United States, Captain John C. Fremont, explored the northern Rockies and found a way across them to California. The name of " Pathfinder," given him in consequence, has been appHed to him ever since. 1 See brief review in Royce, "California," 24-28; full account in Bancroft, "California," III. 366 AMERICAN HISTORY In the wake of the Pathfinder, Americans began making their way along the difficult northern trail, where the hardships were such that all but the bravest faltered. A famous in- stance has been enshrined in the memory of California as typical of the sufferings of the first comers. What is known as the " Donner Party " numbered, at the start, eighty-seven people, men, women, and children. They lost their way and were overtaken amid snow-clad mountains by frightful storms which rendered the passage of the mountains during the remainder of that winter all but impossible. For months they camped, starving among the snows. Only a pitiful rem- nant was at length found by rescuers and taken to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento Valley. The rest had died of cold and starvation. 518. California Republic. At first the relations between the American emigrants and the native Californians were friendly. But when trouble arose between the United States and Mexico, the Americans and the Mexicans of California began to look upon each other with distrust. Presently, wild rumors began to pass from mouth to mouth. It was reported that Mexico meant to drive out all the Americans. In June, 1846, the two races suddenly began fighting. The first blow was struck by the Americans, who seized the town of Sonoma and made it their base for rallying an army. They raised at Sonoma the now famous " bear flag," a white flag on which was painted a grizzly bear and the words " Cali- fornia Republic." Fremont at that time was still exploring in California. Feehng that here was a great chance to strike a blow for American supremacy in the West, he hurried to Sonoma and took command of the revolt. 519. Conquest of California. The conquest of Cahfornia by the Americans went forward with great rapidity. An American fleet had been sent to the Pacific in anticipation of such an emergency, and as soon as it was known that the Mexican War had begun, the fleet acted. Commodore Sloal THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 367 landed at Monterey, raised the American flag, and proclaimed California annexed to the United States (July 7, 1846). Fremont organized a force of riflemen — his " Cahfornia battalion " — and the naval authorities named him provisional governor. However, the conquest was not yet accomplished and the act of Fremont most deserving of praise was yet to take place. The native Californians rallied against the Americans, but on January 8-9, 1847, ^t the San Gabriel River, they were defeated by a force of Americans com- manded by Commodore Stockton and General Stephen Kearney,^ who had advanced against them from the south. Fremont at the same time was marching against them from the north. The defeated Californians hastened to make their submission to Fremont, preferring to trust his mercy rather than that of Kearney, for the latter had threatened them with destruction. They had judged well. Fremont pardoned them all.- This generous action marked the close of the colonial period of California history. VII. REORGANIZATION OF PARTIES 520. The Western Problem. We have seen that the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo confirmed the United States in the possession of California. Thus, through the rapid acquisition of new regions — Texas, Oregon, Cahfornia — the United States had so enlarged its area that a distinctly new section had been created, the Farther West. The absorbing question ^ Kearney had started westward along the Santa Fe trail at the opening of the war. He occupied the town of Santa Fe, August 18, 1846, declared New Mexico annexed to the United States, and organized a civil government. Thence he pushed on to California. 2 This action led to a bitter dispute between Fremont and Kearney as to who was the superior officer. It ended in Fremont's being summoned to Wash- ington to be tried by court martial on the charge of mutiny. He was found guilty but was pardoned by President Polk. Resigning from the army, he returned to California to make his home there. When California became a state he returned to Washington as a senator. 368 AMERICAN HISTORY of 1848 was — how should the Farther West be organized, should it be opened or closed to slavery ? Polk had schemed to open a considerable part, at least, to slavery. In opposition to him various Northern leaders demanded that slavery be excluded altogether from the Farther West.^ A middle ground was taken by those who proposed to extend the line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific, cutting Cahfornia in two. There were excited de- bates on the subject in Congress, in 1848, but nothing was accomphshcd except the organization of the territory of Oregon. After much contention both Houses had consented to let Oregon be organized without slavery. Congress then adjourned and the dispute was taken up by the national party conventions. 521. The Changed Parties. And now it became plain that a transformation had recently taken place in American politics. It will be understood most readily through a brief review of the history of the parties between 1836 and 1848. In 1836, when Van Buren was elected, the Democrats rep- resented, at least in the North and West, the extreme of Jacksonian faith in popular government. Van Buren, how- ever, through his course in 1837 (section 489), gave his party a new significance. He ahenated many of the followers of Jackson but secured to the remainder of the party a genuine unity. In this second phase of the Jacksonian party, though it was taken for granted that the people should control politics, the matters chiefly insisted upon were general questions of public poUcy not involving class distinctions. This was an inevitable change, because the popular move- ' This proposition, ignoring the Missouri Compromise, was first made in 1846. Polk asked Congress for $2,000,000 to be used in "negotiations" with Mexico. David Wilmot of Pennsjdvania moved an amendment to the bill appropriating the money. This was the famous "Wilmot Proviso," which declared that "as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory . . . neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever e.xist in any part of said territory." The bill failed, but it marked the opening of a new and more vindictive stage of the long contention over slavery. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 369 ment all over the North and West could not be confined to any one party. ^ As we have seen, the Whigs — who were not really in sympathy with the masses — had promptly surrendered to the popular movement and made every effort not to seem a party of aristocrats. They had sought to make it appear that their doctrine of a " strong " government not afraid to interfere with business was a benefit to the mass of the people. It was with this argument that they elected Harrison in 1840. Thereafter, no class distinction separated the two parties, whose antagonism was now based on genuine difference of political principle. In the main they had revived the old parties of the previous generation. The Democrats held the principles of Jefferson ; they had thrown off all nationalistic tendencies and based their policy consistently on the two ideas of states' rights and non-interference of the government in business. The Whigs, on the other hand, had frankly revived the principles of Hamilton ; they wanted the states subordinated to the central government, and they wanted that government to have a free hand to legislate as it thought best with regard to business. Each side strove to prove that its principles were best for rich and poor alike, for both the high and the low. 522. The New Slavery Question. However, we have not yet perceived the whole of the change that had taken place since Van Buren's election. In the twelve years between 1836 and 1848 the southern wing of the Democratic party had ac- ' Unless this is steadily borne in mind, neither the later history of the parties nor the differing social structures of North and South in i860 can be under- stood. Even the significance of Jackson is frequently misstated. He is spoken of as the beginner of an era. In a sense he was, but still more truly he was the closer of a gradual social revolution, which began almost with the beginning of the Union and found triumphant expression in Jackson. The moment it triumphed, all politicians accepted the fact and immediately began building upon it. Immediately, popular control of politics became the condition assumed by all, and thereupon men began recorabining to express general prin- ciples of government under this condition. The key to what follows is the fact that this revolution was at first northern and western, and did not, for another generation, affect the South. 370 AMERICAN HISTORY cepted the domination of that group of politicians who held the new view with regard to slavery (section 471), maintaining that it was a positive good for both black and white. The great Calhoun had joined this group and used his wonder- ful genius in spreading its views. He declared that slavery- was the cornerstone of Southern society, that it must be systematically encouraged, and that there must be new slave states. The attitude toward slavery, now that so much fresh terri- tory had been acquired, gave poHtics a new aspect in 1848. Twelve years before, when Van Burcn became the champion of the South against the abolitionists, this question had not existed. Slavery was then on the defensive, and Garrison was seeking to interfere with it in states where it had long been estabhshed. Many Northerners, who personally disapproved of slavery, joined with those who thought it a good thing in telling Garrison to mind his own business. That was Van Buren's position in 1836. But in 1848 slavery was on the in- crease. The question was now, not whether slavery should be let alone, but whether it should be assisted to grow. This question, as soon as it was clearly perceived, revealed a difference of opinion among Northern Democrats. Some of them, it appeared, were quite willing to acquiesce in the new-style Southern view and encourage slavery, but a great number of them were not. The latter, the moment slavery showed signs of expanding, feh that they must oppose it even if they had to withdraw from their party. Among these was the great organizer of the party, Van Buren. The Democratic presidential nominee, Lewis Cass of Michi- gan, was an out-and-out friend of slavery. Rather than sup- port him, Van Buren and other Democrats revolted. Many Democrats left the party and became organizers of the " Free- Soil " movement. This must not be confused with the aboHtion movement, for these seceding Democrats were willing to let slavery alone where it then existed, but were unconditionally opposed to its extension into the new territory recently ac- THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 371 quired. The " Free-Soilers " held a national convention at Buffalo. They nominated Van Buren for President, and for vice president Charles Francis Adams, the talented son of John Quincy Adams. ^ 523. Election of Taylor. The election of 1848 was decided by two things. One was the personal popularity of the Whig candidate, General Taylor, who had borne himself so gallantly in the Mexican War. The other was the effect of the Demo- cratic spHt on the vote of New York. The seceding Free- Soilers drew off so many votes from Cass that Taylor was enabled to carry the state and was elected. 524. Democratic Party after 1848. Few national elections have been more significant. It fixed the issue that remained the absorbing one until the outbreak of the Civil War. This was : Shall slavery be extended into the territories ? The election also consolidated a party that was bent on answering "Yes." This was the Democratic party, which now, through the secession of its Free-Soil members, became all of one mind on the subject of slavery. VIII. THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 525. The Congress of 1850. Thus everything was ready for a great struggle in the next Congress, which was due to meet December 3, 1849. The regular Democrats had a major- ity in the Senate. Neither Democrats nor Whigs had a ma- jority in the House. There, a small group of Free-Soilers held the balance of power. It was plain that any proposition relating to the West or to slavery would be fought over with great bitterness. 526. Gold. Between the election of this Congress in 1848 and its meeting in 1849, a new factor was added to the problem, already so distressingly complex. All of a sudden the people iThe Liberty party was effaced politically by the Free-Soil party. Ex- treme abolitionists continued hostile to the principles of this new party, but they ceased nominating candidates for President. 372 AMERICAN HISTORY of California organized a state government, and demanded admission to the Union. ^ This sudden popular upheaval was a result of the discovery of gold. In January, 1848, some bits of gold were washed out of the earth at Sutter's Fort. The discovery had a magical effect. From the coast settle- ments of California almost every one rushed into the interior. In the East, also, the news caused wild excitement. Thou- sands of the most adventurous men of the East packed up and SUTTER'S FORT started for California — some by the long voyage round Cape Horn, some overland. Many perished of hardship on the way, but great numbers, in the course of the next year, reached their goal. These were the now famous " Forty-niners " of Cali- fornia. In that one year the American population of Cali- fornia increased from a few hundred to more than a hundred thousand. 527. Californian Government. There was no machinery of government with which to control this great number of ' In this bold move they had the encouragement of Taylor. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 373 hardy and often reckless men. Therefore, they took matters into their own hands. They had in them the instinctive sense of free representative government inherited from many genera- tions of self-governing Americans. This instinct was expressed in a convention which assembled September i, 1849, a-t Mon- terey. Three important things were done by this convention. It drew up a plan of government ; it forbade slavery ; and it marked out the boundaries which the Californians agreed to demand as the hmits of their proposed state. The work of the convention was ratified by popular vote November 13, 1849.' 528. The Problem of Congress. All this was done without the least authority from Congress. When Congress met, in December, the state of California was already in existence. It was composed of as bold and hardy men as were to be found anywhere, and there were many thousands of them. Here was a factor in the situation, unsuspected when the Congress was elected but with which it now had to reckon. Plainly there were but three courses before it. It might refuse to recognize the self-constituted state and order a second con- quest of Cahfornia, — a conquest of the Americans there. It might accept the state as an accomplished fact with its prohibition of slavery and admit it to the Union. It might attempt to divide the state in two. In order to defend any of these courses, Congress would have to agree upon a general principle by which to deal with slavery in the future. The situation, at the opening of 1850, seemed well-nigh desperate. 529. The Compromise Debates. During the better part of the year the various factions in Congress fought over this ^ These founders of the free state of California were animated by much the same motives as the Free-Soilers of the East. Among them were many South- erners. Very few, if any, were abolitionists. But all were bent on securing the new land for those who sought fortune through their own toil ; and all meant to exclude the slaveholder, whose coming would force the free white pioneer to compete with unpaid labor. Their bill of rights began, "All men are by nature free and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." 374 AMERICAN HISTORY great matter. All the chief political leaders took part. The older generation was represented by Clay, Webster, Calhoun. Among the young men, who were destined to play great parts in the future, were such Northerners as Seward of New York, Chase of Ohio, and Douglas of Illinois. Prominent among the younger Southerners were Stephens and Toombs of Georgia, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. In the course of their contentions, all their cardinal prin- ciples were fully stated. The irreconcilable difference be- tween nationalists and states' rights men was put as bluntly as possible. The debates were given a tragic appearance — as well as a tragic significance — by the failing health of one of the chief figures. Calhoun was dying. Nevertheless, he insisted upon taking his place in the Senate, though at times he was too feeble to trust his voice in speaking. Only his unconquerable will kept him alive during these trying scenes. His greatest speech he wrote out and had read to the Senate by John M. Mason. During the reading Calhoun sat motion- less — plainly in the shadow of death. The states' rights view of the Union — namely, that it was a mere league from which any state could withdraw whenever it chose — received final expression in this debate. It was stated best by Southerners but was practically endorsed by some of the Northerners. Some of the Southerners opposed it. Among these was Samuel Houston, Senator from Texas. Though Calhoun frankly threatened secession if the South were not given a fair share of the new country, Houston made a sensation by declaring that he would stand by the Union. On March 7 Webster delivered a famous speech. " There can be no such thing as peaceable secession," said he; "dis- ruption . . . must produce war and such a war as I will not describe. ..." Here was the nationalist principle stated without reserve. Clay was equally unconditional. He de- clared that whoever attempted disunion would be a " traitor," and added, " I hope he will meet the fate of a traitor." Nevertheless, both Clay and Webster, with many others THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE SECTIONS 375 among the nationalists, shrank from forcing the issue. By degrees all considerations merged in one — anxiety for the Union. Clay took the lead in devising a compromise. Web- ster ably seconded him, and though some extreme nationalists charged Webster with treachery to his side, a compromise was finally brought about. ^ It embraced a number of provisions. Only two, however, were of lasting significance: (i) the western country was divided between slavery and freedom, California and Oregon continuing free, while Texas and all the remainder — covering the present states of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and part of Colorado — was opened to slavery; (2) a severe law was passed for the pursuit and capture of fugitive slaves escaping into free states.^ 530. Substance of the Compromise of 1850. Stated broadly, the compromise admitted that the Union now em- braced two distinct sections, doubtfully united. It settled a few points as to the future relations of these sections and sharply defined their boundaries on the map. In the very nature of things, as we can see to-day, it was a temporary arrangement — a mere truce, not a real peace. And yet at the time people were so eager for any sort of peace that it was hailed with rejoicing. The men of 1850 — all, that is, but a few extremists — now assured each other that there was an end of such contentions, and that the terrible slavery question was " finally settled." Selections from the Sources. Jom^soN,' Readings, 370-415; Mac- DONALD, Source Book, l^os. 71, 81-84, 87-108; Documents, Nos. 46, 50, 1 The compromise was expressed in five bills. It is a question whether President Taylor would have signed them. His sudden death and the suc- cession of Vice President Fillmore, July, 1850, made certain the completion of the compromise. 2 The fugitive slave law of 1793 (section 401, note) had been rendered in- effective by a decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1842 (Sprigg vs. Pennsylvania, see Johnson, "Readings," 416) laying down the principle that state officers could not be compelled to execute the federal statute. The fugitive slave law of 1850 (see Macdonald, "Source Book," No. 106; "Documents," No. 82) provided federal machinery for its execution. 376 AMERICAN HISTORY 52, 54, 57-68, 70-84; Benton, Thirty Years' View, I, chaps. cxHv, cxlv ; II, chaps, xxiv, cxxxv-cxlili, clxxxiv-cxcvii ; Polk, Diary; Garrison, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic oj Texas; Fremont, Report; Hart, Contemporaries, III, Nos. 158-162, 185-179; IV, Nos. 7-22; Johnston, American Orations, II ; Moore, Digest of International Law, (Texas) I, 277, 274, 446-457; (Oregon) I, 259, 260, 265, 457-458, 462, 463; II, 277; V, 720; (California) I, 46, 291, 306, 315, 317, 323. Secondary Accounts. Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West, I, 28-375; II, 75-331; Industrial History, 227-235, 243-265; Schouler, United States, IV, 359-550; V, 1-260; Von Holst, Constitutional His- tory, II, 1-39, 553-570; III, chaps, iii-viii, xiii-xvi ; Rhodes, United States, I, 75-302; Wilson, Division and Reunion, sees. 34-52,67-86; American People, IV, 88-128; Garrison, Westward Extension; Stan- wood, Presidency, 206-257 > Turner, New West, chaps, v-viii; Semple, Geographic Cotulitions, chaps, x-xii; Burgess, Middle Period, chaps, xiii-xvi; Smith, The Annexation of Texas; Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, chaps, ii, iii ; Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties, 48-120; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 102-109; Sato, Land Question, 6o-6g; Sparks, Expansion, 296-309,319-350; Foster, Century of Diplomacy, 273-325; Latane, United States and Spanish America, 105-116, 176-194; American Relations in the Pacific, 72-123; ScHURZ, Henry Clay, II, 199-415; Hunt, Calhoun, 199-321; Lodge, Webster, 265-333; McLaughlin, Lewis Cass, 175-292; Roosevelt, T. H. Benton, 210-289; Morse, Abraham Lincoln, I, 1-93; Bancroft, W. H. Seward, 1, 1-332 ; Hart, Chase, 95-132 ; Elliott, Sam Houston, 122-133; Howard, General Taylor, 76-294; Brown, Douglas, 1-81 ; Wright, General Scott, 149-2S8; Wilson, General Grant, 1-73; Garri- son, Texas; Winn, Mormons; Royce, California; Richman, Cali- fornia under Spain and Mexico; Parkman, The Oregon Trail; Bar- rows, Oregon; Thwaites, Rocky Mountain Exploration; E. G. Bourne, The Legend of Marcus Whitman (American Historical Review, VI, 276- 300) ; Garrison, First Stage of the Movement for the Annexation of Texas (.\merican Historical Review, X, 72-96). Topics for Special Report, i. Jackson. 2. The Opposition to the United States Bank. 3. The Policy of Van Buren. 4. The Republic of Texas. 5. The Alaska Boundary. 6. The Occupation of Oregon. 7. Polk's Negotiations with Mexico. 8. Early Settlers of California. 9. The Formation of the State of California. 10. The Compromise of 1850. CHAPTER XXIV THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 631. Merchant Marine. The country in which these fierce disputes took place was now fast approaching the stature of a first-class power. Its energy had estabhshed commercial relations with all parts of the world. The fast-saihng " clipper ships " of the Americans were famous upon all the seas. Steamships, however, were beginning to compete with clippers. In 1847 Congress began granting subsidies to steamship lines across the ocean, giving $850,000 a year to a line running to Bremen. 532. Panama. American interests abroad took several new turns about the middle of the century. For one thing the Isthmus of Panama began to figure constantly in the thought of Americans. In 1846 a treaty was made with New Granada (now United States of Colombia) by which the United States of America guaranteed to protect the isthmus in case any foreign power should attempt to seize it ; in return we were promised equal rights with other countries should a canal be built. 533. Oriental Trade. The annexation of California, which was largely responsible for this interest in the isthmus, also stimulated trade with the East. In fact, Americans had had their eyes on the harbor of San Francisco for that express purpose. Already the Sandwich Islands were under the in- fluence of American missionaries and the native kings treated Americans as a " favored nation." In 1844 China made a treaty opening five " treaty ports " to American ships. Japan, however, refused to open any of her ports until 1854, when Commodore Perry, with an American fleet, forced the Japanese 377 THE SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATION IN 1850 378 THE SYSTEM OF COMMUNICATION IN 1850 379 380 AMERICAN HISTORY to sign a treaty. From that time forward American interests in the Orient steadily j)rogressed. 534. Internal Commerce. This growing commerce abroad was paralleled by growing commerce among the states them- selves. It was at this time that the short railroad lines began to be consolidated into long " through " systems. In 1853 ten short lines were combined to form the New York Central. That same year there was a continuous line of rails from New York to Chicago ; in 1859, from New York to New Orleans. By i860 there were 30,000 miles of railroad. 535. Land Grants. Congress began aiding the railroads with large grants of land, the first of which was made to the Illinois Central in 1850. There was general talk of a trans- continental railway, and the War Department in 1853, when Jefferson Davis was secretary, surveyed a route. However, railways were quite different from what they are to-day. The cars were small and uncomfortable. As late as i860, the best time made between New York and Chicago was thirty- eight hours. 536. Post Office and Express. With the growth of rail- roads came imjirovcmcnts in the Post Office Department. In 1847 postage stamps were introduced, and in 1863 the rate on a sealed letter was reduced to three cents, which remained the charge for many years thereafter. Packages, however, were not carried either by the post office or by the railroads. Therefore, small express companies came into existence. In 1854 a large company, the Adams Express, was organized and began to operate on an extensive scale. Not long after, Wells, Fargo and Company organized an express system on the Pacific coast. 537. Inventions. Business was further stimulated by in- ventions. In 1845 ^^^ McCormick reaper began revolution- izing methods in farming. In 1846 Elias Howe invented the sewing machine. In 1847 ^^e rotary printing press was invented by Richard Hoe. These were but a few of many inventions that soon made American ingenuity famous THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 381 throughout the world. Perhaps the most important invention of that day was the electric telegraph designed by Samuel F. B. Morse. The first successful line was operated in 1844. One of the earliest messages was the news, sent from Baltimore to Washington, that Polk had been nominated for President. 538. New Industries. With the inventions came increased opportunity to use them. Oil was discovered in Pennyslvania in 1859, and gave rise to an enormous quantity of new busi- ness. Mining also became one of the chief industries ; coal, iron, copper, silver, and gold, all were produced in abundance. 539. Industrial Conditions. Industrial conditions were changing fast. The rapid increase of wealth and new con- ditions of labor created new problems. On the one hand, capital began combining into great corporations from which sprang the trusts of the present day ; banking became more and more important, and in 1853 the New York clearing house was organized. On the other hand, laboring men began taking thought how to better their condition through organizations of their own, with the result that trades unions became im- portant factors in American life. As early as 1840 there was a demand to shorten the day's labor and ten hours were made the legal day for all federal employees. What are known as " labor troubles," attended by strikes and lockouts, were first known in the United States about the middle of the century. 540. Population. Altogether, there were in the United States in 1850, 23,191,876 people; in i860, 31,443,321. East of the Mississippi the whole country was populated fairly thickly, more so in the North than in the South. The greater population of the North was due largely to its cities, which were the result of the manufactures. The census of i860 showed 158 cities, five sixths of them in the North. New Orleans with 168,000 people was, in i860, the one large city in the Southern states. Charleston had but 41,000. Be- sides the great cities of the East, many towns in the West were fast becoming important. Cincinnati and St. Louis had 382 AMERICAN HISTORY each 161,000, while Chicago — now so gigantic — was still but a small place of 109,000 inhabitants. Louisville had only 68,000 ; Pittsburg, 49,000 ; Detroit, Milwaukee, and Cleveland, each about 45,000. One sixth of the whole population lived in cities. 541. Civic Improvement. One of the notable movements of the times was a general effort to improve the cities. Previous to 1840 they had been generally ill- paved, ill-lighted, badly drained, and inadequately po- liced. Gradually a revolution in all these respects took place. In 1857 New York organized its uniformed and dis- ciplined "metropoli- tan police" and laid out the first pleasure ground designed on a large scale, Central Park. Street rail- ways had come into general use some ten years earlier. 542. Education. Education was much what it had been fifty years before, except that schools were more numerous and less expensive. Massachusetts led the way in giving a larger share of the taxes to public schools and in organizing a State Board of Education. Several new universities enlarged the opportunity for higher education. The University of Virginia — founded by Jeffer- son in 1819 — was the first American institution framed on UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 383 European models and giving elective studies. Other state universities contributed to bring higher education within the reach of the people. There were many endowed colleges. Law, medical, and divinity schools were now numerous. For a long time the federal government had maintained its own academies — one at West Point to train officers for the army, one at Annapolis, for the navy. 543. Intellectual Activity. The third quarter of the cen- tury was a vigorous period intellectually, when some of the most famous American writing was produced. Emerson, Hawthorne, Lowell, in the North, Poe, Simms, Timrod, in the South, were all at their best in those years. In the middle of the century a characteristic American institution, the popular magazine, had its beginning. Before then we had literary reviews, such as the North American and De Bow's Review, but a new chapter was begun by Harper's Monthly Magazine in 1850. Newspapers also took on a new phase. Such famous papers as the New York Sun, the Herald, and the Tribune, all acquired their particular lines of thought and style shortly before 1850. The combination of many news- papers in the Associated Press was effected in 1849. 544 Humanitarianism. It was an age of humanitarian endeavor. As far back as 1830, interest had been aroused in prison reform and a model prison was built at Phila- delphia. This interest extended to poorhouses and asylums. A great woman, Dorothea Dix, in- * , ' . , ' , DOROTHEA DIX carnated a new sense of duty which compelled people to feel an obligation with regard to the neglected classes, — " the lame, the halt, and the bhnd." Her most notable achievement was the establishment of pubHc asylums for the insane. 384 AMERICAN HISTORY 545. Woman's Rights. Other women had already made themselves felt in the public life of America. What is known as the " Woman's Rights Movement " dates back to about 1830. Frances Wright, one of the most striking figures of her day, was among its first leaders. She was succeeded by such women as Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, and Mary B. Livermore. Among the first demands of this movement was better education for women. Almost at once many public schools were opened to girls, and academies especially for girls were founded. Oberlin College established coeducation iij 1833. The demand for woman suffrage, however, had to wait another generation be- fore it gained its first victories. 546. Prohibition. Another rcfomi tendency of that time was the movement against the use of spirituous Hquors. Until about 1840 there was scarcely any restriction upon their use in all classes of life, from the liflfc clergy at their dinner tables to the sailors in the forecastles. The abuse of the custom led to the formation of Washing- tonian societies, whose members were pledged to use liquor in moderation. Soon a further step was taken, and in 1851 Maine adopted the first state prohibition law. 547. Communism. A curious feature of the time was a widespread impulse to invent new forms of social life. Little communities were organized which put various theories to the test of experiment. Such were " The New Harmony Community of Equality " in Indiana, and later the famous " Brook Farm " in Massachusetts. These and other communi- ties of experiment bore witness to the belief that society stood in need of some sort of reorganization. There was a time when I'RANCES WRIGHT THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 385 Emerson could say, " Not a leading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket." 548. The Mormons. One of these societies had a remark- able career. At Palmyra, in New York, Joseph Smith an- nounced himself the prophet of a new religion. He told how the angel of the Lord had come to him in a vision and revealed to him the Book of Mormon. On the principles laid down in the Book he founded a commu- nity at Kirtland, in Ohio. Thence the Mormons moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they grew into a city of twenty thousand. However, the Mor- mons inspired dis- trust in their neigh- bors and even defied the laws of the state ; finally there was a popu- lar tumult in which Smith was killed (1844). Soon af- terward his followers went still farther west and, under the leadership of Brigham Young, settled Utah. 549. Conditions in the North. The industrial and social conditions at which we have glanced characterized the North. They were scarcely in evidence in the South. In the North commerce and manufactures were even more important than agriculture. The North was also a democratic country, where an industrial revolution had broken down completely the social system of 1789. The " old families " had either sunk into the masses, or had joined hands with the " new " MORMON TEMPLE, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 386 AMERICAN fflSTORY people whose fortunes had been made in the recent expansion of business. The popular will — expressed through political clubs — was the ruling power in poHtics. When a man of ancient name took the lead in pohtics, he did so through his own personal chann, or as the head of a club, not any longer as a member of an upper class pri\-ileged to lead. Almost everywhere in the North the suffrage had been freed of practi- cally all restrictions.^ 550. Conditions in the South. The South was quite different. It had taken no part in the industrial revolution, and unlike the North, had neither manufacturing cities nor a great number of foreign-born citizens. Its social system was still the same that had been common to both sections in 1789. The presence of slavery had serv'ed as an economic break- water that turned aside the industrial current and kept it from undermining the aristocracy of the South. Consequently Southern life was dominated in 1861 by the same classes that dominated it in 1 789. The one source of prosperity in the South was agriculture. The plantation, wdth its hospitable mansion, its retinue of slaves, its broad tract of surrounding land, was still the center of Southern hfe. The aristocracy all possessed plantations. They varied greatly in extent, however. The number of his slaves was the best gauge of a man's wealth, and there is record of some sixty-seven famihes each of which owned more than three hundred slaves. The total number of families owning a hundred slaves or more was reported in the census of 1850 as 1733. However, these great slaveholders were a compara- tively small portion of the conmiunity. More than half of the slaveholders owned less than five slaves each. The census of 1850 shows that in most of the Southern states less than a 1 In some states there were educational qualifications and as late as 1842 Rhode Island still restricted the suffrage to property holders. What is known as the "Dorr Rebellion" was a p)etty insurrection in Rhode Island to seciire manhood suffrage. Though tha "rebellion" was suppressed, the recognized authorities soon adopted the views of the rebels and abolished property quali- fications for the siiffrage. ngjtude Un'^ West ^^m m Greenwich THE UNITED STATES ^ in 1850 Sectional Boundary THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 387 third of all the white families held slaves.^ Some of the non- slaveholders were prosperous farmers ; some were dependents of the slaveholders ; while the great mass of them, known as " poor whites," occupied a place in society similar to that of the peasantry in Europe. They were poor, ilHterate, and had great difficulty to make a livelihood. 551. Feeling of the Sections. The last word descriptive of the country as it was about 1850 should deal with the feel- ing of the sections toward each other. In general, it was bitter. Unfortunately there was little intercourse between North and South, and neither section knew nor understood the other. This ill-will of the sections was aggravated by the violent propaganda of the abolitionists.^ Furthermore, the abolitionists maintained what was known as the " under- ground railroad " — a secret system for aiding slaves to es- cape from their masters, cross the free states, and take refuge in Canada. Three thousand people are known to have taken part in it. Some of its agents were men of great coolness and daring who secretly went about in the South, and persuaded slaves to run away.^ More than 60,000 slaves are said to have been spirited away to Canada, The final evidence of the separation of the sections was 1 "In 1790 approximately . . . one-third of the white population of all the Southern states were members of slaveholding families. In 1850 the decline in the proportion of such persons was apparent in every geographic division. In the Southern states as a whole, there was a decrease from 36.6 to 32.1. Some of the states of the lower South, however, showed an increase. . . . the move- ment of slaves was steadily toward the lower South and Southwest, where the proportion in the entire population . . . was becoming very large. . . . The proportion of those who either owned slaves or were in some manner identified with slaveholding was slowly but steadily declining." "A Century of Popu- lation Growth in the United States " (U. S. Census Bulletin), 139. 2 These indomitable fanatics remind us of the covenanters of Scotland. The character of Balfour of Burley in "Old Mortality" is, perhaps, our best clue to their state of mind. ^ John Fairfield, the most noted character of this sort, is said to have aided several thousand slaves to escape. He is described by Levi Coffin, an aboli- tionist, as a "wicked man, daring and reckless in his actions, yet faithful to the trust reposed in him. . , ." "Reminiscences," 432. 388 AMERICAN HISTORY revealed by the religious organizations. Many men felt that they could no longer remain in a church that should include both Northerners and Southerners. Two great churches, however, resisted the tendency to divide into northern and southern branches; the Church of Rome and the Episcopal Church did not so divide. On the other hand, the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians divided. This is perhaps the best evidence that Northerners and Southerners had come to feel toward each other, speaking broadly, almost as members of ditlerent countries. Selections from the Sources. The compact collections of source material do not as a rule venture far from the beaten track of political and constitutional debate ; consequently, for the authorities upon gen- eral social conditions, the young student can hardly undertake to seek. They are found in memoirs, in collections of letters, and in publications too special to be always accessible. Important exceptions are : Com- pendium of the Seventh Census ; A Century of Population Growth (bulletin of the census bureau) ; Callender, Readings in the Economic History of the United States, 738-793; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 22-23. Secondary Accounts. Rhodes, United States, III, 1-56 ; Schouler, United States, V, chaps, xx, xxi; McMaster, United States, VII; Burgess, Middle Period, chap, xviii ; Smith, Parties and Slavery, chaps, i-vi ; Latane, Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America, 176-195; Johnson, Four Centuries of the Panama Canal, 51-77 ; A. T. Hadley, Railroad Transportation, its History and its Laws, chaps, i, ii; Coilan, Industrial History, 232-278 and The Economic Beginnings of the Far West, II, 167-331; Bogart, Economic History, 206-215, 222-226, 238-249; Dewey, Financial History, 248-274; Wright, Industrial Evolution of the United States, 133-142 ; Edward Ingle, Southern Sidelights, 55-60, 88-94; Brown, The Lower South in American History, 32-49; Siebert, The Utidergroutul Railway, 18-76. Topics for Special Reports, i. Perry in Japan. 2. Development of American Railroads. 3. The Public Lands. 4. American Inventions 5. The Growth of Free Schools. 6. Beginnings of the Woman's Rights Movement. 7. The Social Revolution. 8. The Underground Railway. CHAPTER XXV "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 552. Fugitive Slaves. The compromise of 1850 in reality settled nothing. Trouble between the sections broke out again directly, the immediate subject of debate being the new- Fugitive Slave Law. Under this law persons of color in the North, if accused of being runaway slaves, could be seized by United States marshals and carried off into slavery. They were not allowed jury trial, nor were they permitted to testify in their own behalf. Arrests under the new law began at once. At Boston a negro named Shadrach, an undoubted runaway, was arrested early in 1851, but was rescued by a mob and conveyed to Canada. The same year a slave owner named Gorsuch was killed while attempting to recover runaway slaves at Christiana, Pennsylvania. These cases were the first of a long series of tumults which roused to fury both slaveholders and abolitionists. They led to what were known as " personal liberty laws." These were state enactments de- signed to block the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law by securing to the accused negroes jury trials. Such enactments were made by all the Northern states except two. They amounted to a rejection of the compromise of 1850. 553. " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Another consequence of the Fugitive Slave Law was the famous novel " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Its author, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a New Englander, was living in Cincinnati in 185 1. Events con- nected with the new law stirred Mrs. Stowe to write a popular story that should put the case against slavery in its blackest terms. The book appeared in 1852. In the words of Pro- fessor McMaster, " It is a picture of what slavery might be 389 390 AMERICAN HISTORY rather than what it was." However, the North and the world generally accepted " Uncle Tom's Cabin " as a literal state- ment of fact ; not as " a product of the sympathetic imagina- tion." ^ The effect of the story was tremendous. Three hun- dred thousand copies were sold in a single year. It played a great part in reviving that antislavery tempest which had lulled in 1850. Thereafter, the opposition to slavery became a relentless crusade. 654. A Dual Empire. If the compromisers of 1850 really wanted to maintain the Union as a sort of dual empire, " half slave, half free," they should have made the two sections equal in extent and resources. Instead they had uninten- tionally given the North the larger share. Soon it became apparent that much of the region opened to slavery was not the sort of soil where slave labor could be used to advantage. This fact, together with renewed sectional bitterness aroused by the personal hberty laws, led Southern leaders to look for some new region to add to the South. 555. The Ostend Manifesto. They fixed their eyes upon Cuba. The next President, Franklin Pierce of New Hamp- shire, a Democrat,^ intimated in his inaugural address that he wished to annex the island, and in the following year it seemed, for a time, that he would succeed in doing so. An American ship, the Elack Warrior, having been seized by the customs authorities at Havana, the President — or more truly, his able secretary of war, Jefferson Davis — threatened war. It was while negotiations with Spain were in progress, that three American ambassadors, all Democrats, met at 1 Woodrow Wilson, "Division and Reunion," 181. ^ In Ihc election of 1852 both Whigs and Democrats refused to mention slavery in their platforms. They insisted that the compromise was a " finality " and that the abolitionists were making a fuss about nothing. There were three parties in the field; the regular Democrats, who were united in defense of slavery; the Whigs, who were divided among themselves, some for, some against, slavery; and the Free-Soilers, now called the Free Democracy, who were united opponents of slavery. Under these conditions the regular Democrats easily won, though their candidate was little known and of slight ability. "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 391 Ostend in Belgium to discuss the situation.^ They drew up a statement of policy, urging the purchase of Cuba, if possible — its conquest, if necessary. Their communication on the subject is known as the " Ostend Manifesto." However, Spain made reparation for the seizure of the Black Warrior, and the excuse for war was lost. Free Slave OUR WESTERN TERRITORIES, 1854 556. Kansas and Nebraska. Meanwhile, another plan for extending the area of slavery had drawn all eyes away from Cuba and fixed them again upon the West. It was devised by Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois, who proposed to organize the two territories of Kansas and Nebraska and open them to both slaveholders and non-slaveholders. Sub- sequently, the people of each territory were to decide for 1 James Buchanan, minister to England, James M. Mason, minister to France, and Pierre Soule, minister to Spain, 392 AMERICAN HISTORY themselves whether they wished to form a free state or a slave state. Since both of the proposed territories lay north of the Hne of the Missouri Compromise, Douglas boldly proposed to repeal the compromise. This plan of opening the terri- tories to slavery, regardless of the old line of division between North and South, and leaving each locaHty to decide the matter for itself, was termed " popular sovereignty " or " squatter sovereignty." At first the slaveholders failed to see the full significance of the plan. But the antislavery men saw what would come of it. Any region that permitted slave labor would inevitably be avoided by free labor, since the latter would refuse to compete with the cheaper labor of slaves. The real issue of the moment was upon the question : what industrial sys- tem shall dominate the North- west ? To meet this issue a group of " independent Democrats " in Congress drew up an "appeal" to the American people denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska plan as "an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own states." The most energetic slaveholding leaders now took the plan up and gave it hearty support. Such were Jefferson Davis, Alexander H. Stephens, and Robert Toombs. The bill was passed and President Pierce signed it, May 30, 1854. Seward, in the course of the debate, had used these threatening words, " Come on then, gentlemen of slave states, since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of the cause of freedom. We will engage in competition for the soil of Kansas and God give the victory to the side which is stronger. ..." STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 393 557. The Rush to Kansas. The passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Bill marked a new stage in the slavery question. Now went up the cry, " Slavery is invading free soil." Many Northerners who had hitherto been indifferent now became eager opponents of the slaveholders, and associations were formed to send antislavery settlers to Kansas. In opposition, slaveholders, especially in Missouri, made haste to fill Kansas with their partisans. Towns, inhabited altogether by people of one faction or the other, quickly sprang up. The chief CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS, 1855-1857 free-state town was Lawrence ; the chief slave-state town, Lecompton. Around each gathered an armed population. 558. The War in Kansas. All these men went to Kansas with their rifles in their hands. There was violence, blood- shed, and dishonest voting. At first the slaveholders seemed the stronger party and the earUest elections in Kansas were favorable to their interests. Thereupon the Free-Soilers, de- claring that the slaveholders had been aided by thousands of illegal voters from Missouri, met at Topeka and framed a constitution prohibiting slavery. Practically, there were two governments in Kansas. So fierce and unrestrained was their enmity that civil war soon broke out. It is known as the 394 AMERICAN HISTORY Wakarusa War and consisted of guerrilla fights made especially shocking by the lack of mercy shown on both sides. In May, 1856, the free-state town of Lawrence was taken and sacked by the slaveholders. By way of reprisal the sternest of the free-state leaders, John Brown, took a number of slaveholders and put them to death in cold blood. President Pierce now interfered, and a free-state legislature which tried to assemble under the Topeka constitution was broken up by United States soldiers. For a brief time the slaveholders controlled the situation and Kansas had peace. ^ 559. The Republican Party. These dreadful events con- soUdated a new political party. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill had caused a secession from the Democratic party, and the seceders, together with the Free Soil party, the antislavery Whigs, and the abohtionists, all drew together on this latest issue of resisting the opening of the territories to slavery. Much as they differed on other points, they could agree on this. Presently, the coahtion began to act as one party and was named " Republican." The name appears to have been first used at Ripon, in Wisconsin, in 1854. The first RepubHcan convention was held that same year at Jackson, Michigan. State RepubHcan conventions were held in Wisconsin, In- diana, Ohio, and Vermont. In 1856 was held the first Repub- Hcan national convention. A platform was adopted condemn- ing unconditionally the extension of slavery in the territories. John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder (section 517), was nominated for President. 560. Election of Buchanan. The formation of the Repub- lican party was the deathblow of the Whigs. Though a few 1 The bitterness of feeling engendered over Kansas was further demon- strated by an encounter between Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, and Preston Brooks, a representative from South Carolina (1856). In a speech entitled "The Crime against Kansas," Sumner criticized Senator Butler of South Carolina in language that was coarse and violent. Brooks, a kinsman of Butler, assaulted Sumner in the Senate chamber and beat him insensible. Brooks was censured by the House, resigned his seat, and was reelected by his constituents. "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF ' 395 Whigs still stuck to their colors, nominating Fillmore for President, this was the last time their party figured in a national election. Fillmore carried but one state, Maryland.^ The Democrats were more fortunate. Their candidate, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, carried every Southern state, together with Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, IlHnois, and California. The Republicans carried eleven states — all New England, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa — and cast 114 electoral votes, against 174 for Buchanan and only 8 for Fillmore. 561. The Dred Scott Decision. In his inaugural address Buchanan alluded to a case then before the Supreme Court. This was the famous case of Dred Scott, a negro, who claimed his freedom because his master had taken him into a free territory, previous to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The decision of the Court, rendered March 6, 1857, was another startling event in this long succession of starthng events that were rapidly bringing the country to a danger point. The case was highly complicated ; the judges did not agree, and the decision dealt with various points of law. However, Scott was refused his freedom, and one of the prin- ciples laid down in the decision at once became a burning question in politics. Hitherto it had been generally admitted that Congress could legislate upon slavery in the territories as it saw fit. In repealing the Missouri Compromise, Congress had not questioned the authority of the law so long as it stood unrepealed. The Supreme Court now declared that the law had been unconstitutional from the beginning. The Court laid down the principle that as slaves were property, any citizen owning such property could take it where he chose in the national domain, — namely, the territories, — and neither 1 He was also nominated by the "American party." It had sprung into ex- istence two years previously as a protest against the increase of foreigners in the country. The backbone of it was a numerous secret society, which required its members to deny any knowledge of its existence. Hence they were nick- named "Know Nothings." The American party broke into factions and quickly disappeared. 396 AMERICAN HISTORY Congress nor any government created by Congress could prevent his doing so. It followed, therefore, that Congress was bound to protect any slaveholder who might take his slaves into a territory, whether the people of the territory approved or not. According to this decision the Republican platform was a defiance of law. The friends of slavery pointed this out exultantly. The Republicans replied that the Dred Scott decision was inspired by party spirit and declared they would not abide by it. Seward made the bold statement, " We shall reorganize the Court and thus reform its political sentiments." 562. " The Impending Crisis." By strange coincidence, this year, 1857, saw the publication of a book that is next in im- portance to " Uncle Tom's Cabin " as an antislavery tract. This was " The Impending Crisis," by H. R. Helper of North Carolina, a " poor white," whose purpose was to show that slavery, indirectly, was the curse of his class; that it made possible a social system in which the southern white man who held no slaves was at a cruel disadvantage. The book was reprinted by the Republicans as a campaign document. 563. The Lecompton Scheme. Meanwhile, the struggle over Kansas had continued. In November, 1857, a slave- holding convention at Lecompton drew up a new constitution establishing slavery, and submitted it to the people.^ The free-state men refused to take part in the election, and this constitution was ratified by a vote of 6063 to 576. By this time, however, the Free-Soilers were distinctly the more numerous party. Many circumstances had assisted them to become so. Not the least of these was an especially severe winter that made the slaves, accustomed to milder climates, of httle use, and disheartened their owners. At length, the free-state men got control of the regular ter- • The voting was arranged so that slaves already in the territory would not be excluded whichever way the election turned. Every one was asked to vote for "Constitution with slavery" — that is, with an article expressly establishing slavery — or for "Constitution with no slavery." "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 397 ritorial legislature. They at once ordered another vote on the Lecompton constitution. This time the slaveholders appear to have abstained from voting. There were over 10,000 votes against the constitution and less than 200 for it. Nevertheless, President Buchanan tried to have Kansas brought into the Union with the Lecompton constitution in force, but he had not reckoned with Douglas, who steadily refused to give up the principle of popular sovereignty. He took the lead in fighting a bill which would have carried out the President's wishes. He held that the majority in Kansas were opposed to this constitution, and therefore it ought not to be forced upon them. Finally, a compromise was made and the people of Kansas were offered a vast grant of public land, if they would accept the Lecompton constitution. On a final vote they refused. With a territorial government controlled by a Free-Soil majority, Kansas waited quietly during the next few years, until in 1861 the Repubhcans were strong enough to bring it in as a free state. 564. Lincoln and Douglas Debate. Once more the Demo- cratic party showed signs of division. Though the greater portion of it sided with the Supreme Court, holding that no- body had power to shut slavery out of a territory, a portion of it drew back and stood fast by the idea of popular sover- eignty (section 556). The split in the party was revealed, in 1858, when Douglas became a candidate for reelection as senator from Illinois. He was opposed by Abraham Lincoln, who, in accepting the RepubKcan nomination for the Senate, used the famous words that stand at the head of this chapter! He said : " A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." He was then forty-nine years old, a tall, homely, loose-knit man, with little formal education. His parents belonged to that same class of poor whites from which came the author of " The Impending Crisis." Born in Kentucky, he was taken as a child to Illinois, where most of his life had been spent. 398 AMERICAN HISTORY He had served one term in Congress. Though without any hatred of slaveholders, he was an ardent Free-Soiler, as well as a firm nationahst, and hoped to hve to see slavery disappear. He spoke of slavery as " a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable." Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of pubHc debates, and in the course of them, at the town of Freeport, Lincoln made a square issue on the Dred Scott decision. He asked Douglas, " Can the people of a United States territory in any legal way, against the will of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution? " Douglas was compelled by his own prin- ciples to answer that they could. He then tried to reconcile his answer with the Dred Scott decision. His argument — shown by Lincoln to be unconvincing — was known after- wards as the " Freeport Doctrine." Douglas had saved himself with the Democrats of Illinois, and was reelected senator, but he had split his party in two. From that time forward, the President and his advisers would have nothing to do with him. They rejected popular sover- eignty and made acceptance of the Dred Scott decision a test whether a man was a regular Democrat or not.^ 565. The Approach of the Crisis. About this time, two new states were admitted to the Union — Minnesota in 1858, Oregon in 1859; both were free states. The North now had 36 votes in the Senate while the South had only 32. In the House, the representation of the Northern states numbered 147 ; that of the Southern states 90. Thus it was plain that one section, if it could ever be brought to act as a unit, might legislate as it pleased to the injury of the other. At present, for two reasons, there was still no immediate danger that such would be the case. A large part of the people of the North were still states' rights men, who would stand with * " Never in the history of American party warfare has any leader been more bitterly attacked by the head of his own house." Professor William E. Dodd, "The Fight for the Northwest," American Historical Review, XVI, 778. "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 399 Southern states' rights men at a crisis. Also, the Democrats controlled the executive. The President's veto could be relied upon to defeat legislation designed to injure the South. So long as the President continued to be a Democrat, the South was safe. But if a Republican became President, there was no telHng what hostile legislation the South might have to face. Naturally the year 1859 was a moment of intense excitement when events were moving fast, and all men dreaded what the day might bring forth. Two powers were contend- ing for the mastery of the Union. ' ' The power which obviously grew , ' ' says Woodrow Wilson, " was the power of the North ; the power which obviously waned and was threatened with extinction was the power of the South." 566. John Brown. Suddenly, in the midst of this tense sectional feeling, something happened that was like a clap of thunder. On October 16, 1859, a band of twenty- three men descended from the mountains near Harper's Ferry, seized the United States arsenal there, and issued a call to the slaves of the surrounding coun- try to rise in rebellion against their masters. The leader of the band was that terrible John Brown who had been the sternest figure of the Wakarusa War (section 558). From friends in the North, Brown had lately obtained funds to be used in a secret undertaking, the nature of which he probably did not divulge. He had then proceeded to west- ern Maryland ; he rented a mountain farm and gathered about him his httle band of enthusiasts, all as reckless as himself. Their intention was to organize an insurrection on a great scale which should compel the immediate aboUtion of slavery. JOHN BROWN 400 AMERICAN HISTORY But this desperate scheme was swiftly brought to nought. The negroes did not rise, and instead there was a rising of the whites. United States soldiers led by Colonel Robert E. Lee hastened to their assistance. Brown, in an engine house which he had fortified, was surrounded and taken prisoner, though not until half his men were slain, together with a number of his assailants, and himself severely wounded. Charged with murder and treason. Brown was given an open trial in a Virginia court and condemned to die. He was hanged, December 2, 1859. Selections from the Sources. Johnson, Readings, 411-453; Mac- DONALD, Source Book, Nos. 108-114; Documents, Nos. 77-92; Hill, Liberty Documents, chap, xxi ; Johnston, American Orations, III, 3-207 ; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 30-48; Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 352-360, 390-391, 401-407, 449-454, 471-481. Secondary Accounts. Rhodes, United States, 1, 207-506; II, 1-416; ScHOULER, United States, V, 270-454; Von Holst, History, IV, 9-12, 20-28, 236-246; V, 61-70; Phillips in The South in the Building of the Nation, IV, 398-422; Davis, Confederate Government, I, 26-31; Wilson, Division and Reunion, 90-100; Johnston, Politics, 167-189; Stanwood, Presidency, 226-278; Smith, Slavery and Political Parties; Macy, Political Parlies, 183-282 ; Smith, Liberty and Free Soil Parties, 261-307 ; Curtis, Constitutional History, II, 259-285, 295-299; Spring, Kansas; Brown, Lower South, 50-82, and Douglas, 82-128; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 110-115; Taussig, Tariff History, 11 5-1 54; Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy, 108-127; Foster, Century of Diplomacy, 335-356; Latane, United States and Spanish America, 1 16-136, 194-198, and The Diplomacy of the United States in Regard to Cuba (American Historical Association Report, 1897), 217- 277; Morse, Abraham Lincoln, I, 93-160; Bancroft, Seward, I, :i;i:i- 519; Hart, CAo^e, 132-177; Stored, Charles Sumner, 101-164; Dodd, Jefferson Davis, 130-188; Wise, Henry A. Wise, chap, xiv; Chamberlin, John Brown. Topics for Special Reports, i. Personal Liberty Laws. 2. The Black Warrior Episode. 3. Popular Sovereignty. 4. The Wakarusa War. 5. Formation of the Republican Party. 6. The Drcd Scott Decision. 7. Lincoln. CHAPTER XXVI THE CRISIS OF 1860 567. 1860. It is almost impossible to-day to realize the state of the country in the year i860. The bad feeling be- tween the sections, which had been increasing so steadily since 1830, all came to a head, and burst into fury, over the episode of John Brown'. Though most of the Northern people at once condemned his undertaking, the abolitionists pronounced him a martyr. They redoubled the fierceness of their abuse of the South. The South, on the other hand, was swept by a vehement anti-Northern feeling that united all classes and all political groups in a general storm of protest against the influence of the North in national politics. Men of the most diverse views eagerly joined forces upon this one point and assured each other of their resolution not to stay in the Union if the entire government — • House, Senate, Presidency — should fall into the hands of Northerners. 568. The Republican Platform. In May the Republicans held their national convention at Chicago. The platform adopted was frankly nationahstic. However, it admitted the right of each state to " control its own domestic institutions " — that is, legislate as it pleased on slavery — but demanded the complete expulsion of slavery from all the territories. It took another step which put the party in a new light. The great state of Pennsylvania, which had gone for Buchanan in 1856, was now demanding a return to high tariff. It was largely to capture the vote of Pennsylvania that the con- vention declared in favor of a tariff. To make sure of the remnant of the Whigs, it also declared for internal improve- 401 402 AMERICAN HISTORY ments. Except for the antislavery provisions, the platform might have been the work of the Whig nationahsts of a gen- eration before. One might almost say that the spirit of Clay had risen from his grave. Thus the slavery question became entangled with that older and even more disturbing question, the power of a majority of the states to impose its will on the minority through commercial legislation. Lincoln was nom- inated for President. 569. The Democratic Split. Meanwhile the Democratic party had spht. The national convention held at Charleston broke up without making nominations, and in June two Democratic conventions met at Baltimore. One nominated Douglas with popular sovereignty as the basis of its platform. The other nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and based its platform on the Dred Scott decision. 570. The Fourth Party. But even these three parties were not enough to hold everybody. Many men, especially in the South and West, were unwilling to endorse the national- istic and protectionist platform of the Republicans, and yet would not accept either of the Democratic platforms. They took the name " Constitutional Union party," held a con- vention, and adopted a vague platform declaring that their only principles were : " the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." They nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. 571. Election of 1860. The election was the fiercest popular contest in our history. The vehemence and bitter- ness of the feeling displayed could hardly be overstated. In November Lincoln carried every Northern and Western state except New Jersey, whose electoral vote was divided, but not one Southern state. He received i8o electoral votes out of 303; Breckenridge, 72 ; Bell, 39 ; Douglas, 12. The majority of the popular vote, however, was against him. Though he received some 1,900,000 votes, the total of the votes for the three other candidates was 2,800,000. THE CRISIS OF i860 403 572. The Southern Vote. The most significant detail of the election was the vote in the South. Practically no votes were cast for Lincoln. Though Breckenridge carried most of the Southern states, there was a large vote for each of the remaining candidates. This meant that Southerners were still divided among themselves as to what they wanted, but were almost a unit as to what they did not want. They did not want a Republican President and they dreaded what might follow his accession to power. t \ For Lincoln II Against Lincoln ELECTION OF i86o 573. Secession. Few, if any, other Southern states were as bitter over the election as was South Carolina, that old- time stronghold of opposition to nationalism, which cherished proudly the memory of its successful defiance of the central government in 1832. On the day following the election, South Carolina called a convention to consider withdrawing from the Union. The convention met at Columbia and ad- journed to Charleston. The events of 1832 were now repeated on a larger scale. Military companies were formed ; federal buildings were seized; federal ofiQcers, including the two 404 AMERICAN HISTORY CIARIK1«N MERCURY EXTRA: senators, resigned ; commissioners were sent to other states to confer upon secession. Finally, the convention by unan- imous vote, on December 20, i860, passed an Ordinance of Secession, declaring!: that the union between South Carolina and the other states was ''hereby dissolved." 574. The Final Issue. If the spirit of Clay seemed to have risen from the grave to domi- nate the Chicago convention, similarly we may say that the spirit of Calhoun dominated the convention at Charleston. Around these two mighty resur- rections gathered powers im- measurably greater than those which obeyed the living men during their terms on earth. Antagonisms which had been growing gradually during nearly a hundred years — which clashed in that other convention in 1787 — and had drawn into their vehement currents numerous in- cidental issues, were now, at last, to receive final settlement. Nationahsm, challenged for the second time by South Carolina, was in a position where compromise was impossible. The one question was now: what would the nationahsts do? Would they surrender their principle, allow the Union to be dissolved, or would they appeal to that dreadful court of last resort, the field of battle? Would they verify Webster's prophecy, " There can be no such thing as peaceable seces- sion. . . ." ? AJ« ORDLfAJVCE •Ma kdvpM »} •• to CotnUlot, ot lk« M*aii4Urt 44/ of Xar. h Ik* OIlM SuiM 0/ AiM r« *u aULt^ Md d*^ all Act* m^ pwo tH M* «f ita OvMnfr MJi^jUulMiMrahiUiiacMw* baa bnllMMd otto 8taM& mJm ih*taB««/ •IWOuutf 8UM«IAavt«*it'M*bidl«ot*«d. UNION DISSOLVED! REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE ORDINANCE OF SECESSION THE CRISIS OF i860 405 Selections from the Sources. Johnson, Readings, 446-453 ; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 49-52, 58-60; Macdonald, Source Book, No. 115; Documents, No. 94; Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 433, 434, 437-460, 487, 493-495, 503-S06, 527-529, 555-558, 593-596, 608-625, 648. Secondary Accounts. Stanwood, Presidency, chap, xxi ; Fite, Presi- dential Election of i860; Wilson, American People, IV, 174-189; Pollard, Lost Cause, chap, iv ; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, II, chaps, x-xvi ; Morse, Lincoln, I, chap, vi; Greeley, American Conflict, I, chap, xxi ; Dodd, Jefferson Davis, 163-191 ; Rhodes, United States, II, chaps. X, xi. Topics for Special Reports. 1. Revival of the Tariff Issue. 2. The Democratic Conventions. 3. Secession of South CaroHna, CHAPTER XXVII THE WAR I. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION 575. Buchanan's Waverings. President Buchanan was at a loss to know how to deal with secession. He believed it wrong, but he thought the Constitution gave him no authority to prevent it. Because of his unwillingness to play the part of a second Jackson and try to stop secession by force, his secretary of state, Lewis Cass, resigned. At the same time the secretary of war, John B. Floyd, took sides with the secessionists. South CaroUna was demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, then garrisoned by Federal troops, and the secretary of war held that this de- mand should be granted. The Pres- ident wavered. His course was finally determined very largely through the influence gained over him by a new member of his cabi- net, Edwin M. Stanton. Under Stanton's lead he refused to accept the advice of Floyd, who thereupon resigned. Thence- forth the Northern faction in the cabinet controlled the President. 406 CHARLESTON HARBOR THE WAR ' 407 676. Schemes of Compromise. However, Buchanan was not alone in his shrinking from an appeal to force. As soon as it became plain that the secessionists were in earnest, desperate attempts were made to patch things up once more by a compromise, and both the Senate and the House appointed committees for that purpose. Many compromise schemes were debated. The most famous was the so-called " Crittenden Compromise," submitted by Senator John T. Crittenden of Kentucky, who proposed to extend the line of the Missouri Compromise westward to California, to have the " personal liberty laws " declared unconstitutional, and in case of rescue of fugitive slaves after they had been ar- rested, to have Congress reimburse the owner. However, the time for compromise had unfortunately gone by and eventually Crittenden's plan, together with a number of others, was cast aside. 577. Secession. While Congress debated the possibility of a compromise, a merchant steamer, the Star of the West, had been sent to Charleston harbor with supplies for Fort Sumter. It was fired upon by the state militia and com- pelled to retire. This incident greatly increased the tension between the sections, but even before it occurred a num- ber of Southern senators and representatives at Washington had drawn up an address ^ " To our Constituents," advising all the Southern states to withdraw from the Union and unite with South Carolina in a Southern confederacy. A few days after the retreat of the Star of the West, conventions in a number of Southern states were hotly debating the question of secession.^ So, at the same time, two debates raged — one in Congress at Washington on compromise ; another in the state conventions of the South on secession. ^ December 14, i860. Their action was reaffirmed by a second caucus, January 5, 1861. 2 In many cases there was strong opposition. Alexander H. Stephens, after- ward vice president of the Confederacy, led the opposition in Georgia. In Texas, Governor Houston was the chief opponent of secession. 4o8 ' AMERICAN fflSTORY Several Southern states, one after another, seceded. By February i, 1861, six states had formally declared their connection with the Union at an end. Besides South Carolina these included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana. Furthermore, as these states seceded, their senators and representatives at Washington resigned,^ while the states chose delegates to a general convention to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, for the purpose of forming a Southern confederacy, which Texas also was preparing to join.- 578. The Peace Congress. At this desperate moment, when the Union seemed to be already divided, the state of Virginia made a last attempt to save it. Most Virginians were eager supporters of the Union, but they felt they be- longed to it as partners in a firm, so to speak, with full right to withdraw if they chose. They felt that their Southern neighbors were acting unwisely, but not wrongfully. If the North attempted to use force against them, Virginians gener- ally felt that duty would compel them to side with the South. To prevent such an unhappy event Virginia called a '* peace congress," which met at Washington, February 4. Twenty states sent delegates. After long discussion a report was drawn up which was very similar to the Crittenden Com- promise. 579. Formation of the Confederacy. Unfortunately, the peace congress was held too late. On the very day it assembled, the Confederate convention met at Montgomery. While the Congress at Washington was framing its compromise, the convention at Montgomery drew up a constitution,^ and pro- ' The withdrawal of Southern members of Congress made possible the admission of Kansas under its free constitution (January 29, 1861). ^ On February i the Texas convention passed an ordinance of secession, which was ratified by popular vote, February 23. ' The Confederate constitution was planned to correct those features of the federal Constitution held by the Confederates to be defects. Except for changes of detail, such as lengthening the president's term to six years, the strilid Reunion, sees. 125-141; Johnston, Politics, 207-242; Stanwood, Presidency, 313-335; Dunning, Reconstruction, and Civil War and Re- construction, 66-302 ; Larned, History for Ready Reference, V, 3560, 3721; VI, 170; Curtis, Constitutional History, II, 349-396; Lanbon, Constitutional History, 250-265, 331-348; Brown, Lower South, 191- 225; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 142-158, 163-170; Foster, Century oj Diplomacy, 401-437 ; Latane, United States and Spanish America, 136-174, 221-265; Dodd, Jefferson Davis, chap, xxii ; Pen- dleton, A . H. Stephens, chap, xvii ; McCall, Thaddeus Stevens, 239- 348; Storey, Charles Suniyier, 225-270, 282-432; Hart, S. P. Chase, 319-435 ; Bancroft, W. H. Seward, II, 419-500 ; Adams, C. F. Adams, 377-397 ; Linn, Horace Greeley, 214-259; Mayes, L. Q. C. Lamar, chap. XII ; Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, chap. xv. Topics for Special Reports, i. Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. 2. Johnston's Plan. 3. The Vagrancy Laws. 4. The Radical Party. 5. The Liberal Republicans. 6. Congressional Reconstruction. 7. The Impeachment of President Johnston. 8. The Rule of the Carpetbaggers. 9. The Ku-Klux Klan. 10. The Union League. 11. The Act of Am- nesty. 12. The Liberal Party. 13. The Fifth Avenue Conference. 14. The South in 1876. 15. Election of Hayes. FIFTH PERIOD (1877-1913) THE AMERICAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC CHAPTER XXIX THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 691. The Cruiser Claims. The great war left in the hands of the American people three problems : (i) reconstruction ; (2) foreign affairs; and (3) the national debt. We have THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON traced the stern course of the solution of the reconstruction problem. Our foreign affairs were more easily adjusted. As has been shown, the war was followed by a vigorous reasser- 493 494 AMERICAN HISTORY tion of the Monroe Doctrine (section 675). Napoleon with- drew his armies from Mexico. There remained a contention with England. The United States claimed that the British were responsible for damages done to American commerce by the Confederate cruisers fitted out in the British ports. A joint high commission drew up, in 1871, the Treaty of Wash- ington, under which the matter was referred to a court of ar- bitration. The court met at Geneva in 1872. It awarded damages to the United States amounting to $1 5,500,0)00. Eng- land, in due time, paid that sum to the American government.^ 692. The Payment of the Debt. At the end of the war the United States owed $2,758,000,000. The government immediately took steps toward paying its enormous debt. This brought up a question with regard to the currency. Gold and silver had practically disappeared and in 1865 the Ameri- can paper dollar was worth only seventy cents, calculated in gold. The intention of the government, nevertheless, was to pay the bonds in gold, and offer gold in return for its "greenbacks," dollar for dollar. But the business world in 1866 was de- spondent and many people objected to the government's plan ; they feared it would necessitate high taxes. There was an outcry against resuming specie payments — that is, giving out gold to all who wished to exchange their greenbacks. But after a great deal of vehement discussion the friends of resump- tion carried the day, and the Resumption Act was passed January 14, 1875. It directed the secretary of the treasury to begin collecting a store of coin, and after four years to begin giving out coin in return for greenbacks.^ * Two minor controversies with England, one relative to our boundary in the islands of Puget Sound, the other concerning Canadian fisheries, were also settled by arbitration. * The resumption of specie payments began, as directed, in 1879. Previously (February 12, 1873) there had been passed a Coinage Act. At that time few silver dollars were in circulation and this act provided that, in future, gold dollars should be coined with a weight of 25.80 grains and also specially heavy silver "trade" dollars (intended for the China trade) with a weight of 420 grains. The "standard" silver dollar which had formerly been coined with a weight of 41 2.50 grains was discontinued. A later act (1878) forbade the use of the trade THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 495 693. Readjustment of Business. In the ten years between 1866 and 1876, the business of the country struggled hard to readjust itself to new conditions. This was inevitable because in the course of the war the old-time business conditions had been entirely upset. We have seen that the federal govern- ment had sought to stimulate internal business so as to have more wealth to tax. At the same time American commerce had been very nearly swept off the seas by the Confederate LINE OF THE FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY cruisers. Thus during the war two causes had cooperated to turn American capital into purely American ventures — into equipping the armies, building railways/ and organizing new industries. The close of the war and the return of a million soldiers to civil life caused vast increase in the demand for employment, and satisfactory employment could not always be had. In dollar as legal tender. Therefore, in 1879, the United States was a "gold standard" country. The act of 1873 was called by the silver men "the crime of '73." ^ Congress chartered the Union Pacific Railway in 1862. In 1869, at Ogden, Utah, was driven the last spike and there was a continuous track from New York to San Francisco. 496 AMERICAN HISTORY all respects the moment was one of great restlessness. Men had become accustomed to doing things on a great scale, and not unnaturally, when they turned from war to business, they began to speculate. Reckless investment became the order of the day. Suddenly, two great fires, the Chicago fire of 187 1 and the Boston fire of 1872, destroyed property valued at $200,000,000. In 1873 a reaction began. Banks began to fail. Railroads could not pay their dividends. It is esti- mated that losses through business failures in 1873 amounted to $225,000,000. 694. A New Type of Business Man. All these conditions united to bring about new and very significant forms of busi- ness. Railroads, especially, entered upon a new era in their development. The financial troubles of 1873 caused a great many roads to change hands, ^ and the reorganization of these roads offered great opportunities to a new style of business man, a more far-sighted and original type than the country had yet known. Men of this t>^e reorganized the railway world by compacting the shattered small roads into great systems that were rich enough to stand almost any reverse of fortune. Thus began the era of the great " corporations " of which we hear so much to-day. However, the new railroads were not the only great corpora- tions. Even before the troubles of 1873, John D. Rockefeller had organized the Standard Oil Company. He was one of the first Americans who saw the great profit that may result from getting virtual control of the sale of a single article. In the general collapse of 1873 strong organizers saw a chance to imitate Mr. Rockefeller's methods in other lines. As in the case of the railroads, small concerns were combined into great ones. The result was a number of great mercantile and manufacturing corporations which we know to-day as " trusts." • As a result of the panic of 1873 two fifths of the railway mileage passed into the hands of receivers. Between 1876 and 1879, 450 roads changed hands through forced sale. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 497 695. A New Power. The results of this readjustment of business to the new conditions were far-reaching. Business men discovered that a rich corporation has enormous power. In some cases, by giving their business to one town and with- holding it from another, they could literally make one and destroy the other. Hereafter, we shall hear much of the power of the corporations.^ We need now to realize that these power- ful business combinations met the need of the moment. That was the secret of their immediate success. They restored confidence, gave employment to great numbers of people, and set business going again in an orderly fashion. However, — • to speak broadly, — they had practically brought back into American politics the aristocratic factor. We shall see more clearly what this means as we proceed. 696. The Centennial Year. In 1876 the hundredth anni- versary of American independence was celebrated by an international exposition, held at Philadelphia. It made a splendid showing of material wealth. It also revealed to the world the vast possibilities of that part of our country which had not until then been more than a noble promise — the West. Beginning with 1876, the next twenty years of our history are concerned chiefly with the logical working out of those forces which were organized just previous to 1876. In this process the conditions of American Hfe were revolutionized. Old questions were forgotten ; new questions became insist- ent. All this immense transformation was made possible by the growth of the West. We must fix in memory the condi- tion of the West at the opening of this twenty-year period. 697. The Opening of the West. We have seen how the federal government encouraged railroads to extend into the 1 Almost at once the power of the corporations became a political issue. In the West their power was very great and was freely used. An association known as the Farmers' Alliance, whose members were sometimes called "Grangers," led the way in opposing corporations. It especially opposed the western rail- ways, which were in the habit of discriminating against various localities. Tliis agitation contributed both to the formation, later, of the Populist party, and to the federal legislation on interstate commerce. 498 AMERICAN HISTORY West. Millions of acres of land were given to them as rewards for building westward. But the West needed people even more than it needed roads. As far back as 1862 ^ Congress passed the Homestead Act, which provided that every perma- nent settler could have 160 acres of land, practically without charge. During the next ten years 28,000,000 acres were given away to settlers.- Another act, in 1873, offered land to any settler in the West who would plant a certain number of A GROUP OF IMMIGRANTS trees. Under this act, 9,000,000 acres were soon occupied. Large numbers of immigrants poured into the West. For the most part they were either energetic Americans from the Eastern states. North and South, or sturdy foreigners from the North of Europe — Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians.^ ^The Bureau of Agricullurc was established in 1862. It began at once to assist farmers in many ways. In 1889 it became a department. * Beginning in 1868, treaties were negotiated with several foreign govern- ments to make it easy for immigrants to transfer allegiance from their home government to the United States. ' Subsequent to 1870, new t\pes of immigrants began to arrive in greater and greater numbers — Italians, Poles, Bohemians, Russians, Jews, Hungarians, Greeks, Syrians, .\rmenians. These, as a rule, were of the peasant class. American workingmen began to demand some restriction upon the stream of immigrants. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 499 Very soon the great region between Iowa and California had a considerable and prosperous population. New discoveries of mines gave this population still other means of support. Copper was worked in Montana in 1864 ; gold in Dakota and Wyoming in 1874; silver in Colorado in 1876. As a result of all this three new states were organized; Nevada in 1864; Nebraska in 1867 ; Colorado in 1876 ; also the territories of Dakota, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, and Wyoming.^ 698. Indian Wars. This new movement of population west- ward renewed the ancient struggle between the white men and the Indians, though the latter were mainly confined, in 1866, to special " reservations." Sometimes, however, through one cause or another, they left their reservations and came into conflict with the immigrants. As the population increased on the borders of the reservations, conflicts between the two races became frequent. In 1872 and 1873 the little Modoc tribe in northern California waged a spirited war with the United States. A much more serious war involved the powerful tribe of the Sioux, led by their famous chief. Sitting Bull. In 1876 General Custer, with his whole force, was surrounded by the Sioux in the Black Hills of Dakota, and every soldier was killed. General Miles at length subdued the Sioux, and the West was freed, for several years, of its dread of Indians. 699. The West and the Corporations. Through the settle- ment of the West, the trusts and the railroads found a new field of enterprise and because of the great number of immi- In 1868 Congress had repealed an act of 1864, which allowed employers to engage laborers in foreign countries. In 1882 Chinese laborers were excluded; also lunatics, paupers, and convicts. In 1885 the Alien Contract Labor Act positively excluded all foreign laborers coming over under contract, if their labor would compete with American labor. In 1903 a new immigration act excluded anarchists and laid on every immi- grant a head tax of two dollars. Another act, in 1907, increased the head tax to four dollars, gave the President power to exclude Japanese laborers, and created a commission to study immi- gration. See Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem, 305-313. ' In this same period two famous explorations were made ; the Colorado River was explored in 1869; the Yellowstone country, in 1870. 500 AMERICAN HISTORY grants, the trusts could generally secure labor at low rates. The immigrants assisted the railroads by developing the lands given to the roads by the government. Both the railroads and the trusts steadily planned to develop those communities founded on their lands, or those that were friendly to their interests. They planned to retard those communities where they had no influence. Thus these powerful corporations, managed by a few men, took part everywhere in the life of the West. Through their attempts to make the mass of the popu- lation subservient to their own commercial interests, they re- vived the question whether the country should be ruled by the few or by the many. Therefore, we say that their pohcy amounted to a resurrection in American politics of the aristo- cratic factor — an organized attempt by the few to control the many. 700. Labor Troubles. This increase of power in the hands of a few alarmed the workingmen of the country, especially since the capitalists took advantage of the immigration laws to bring over numbers of European laborers who would work at very low rates, while Chinese, accepting incredibly low wages, were also encouraged to come to America.^ Though the law which permitted capitaHsts to import labor was repealed in 1868, the coming of the Chinese - was not yet forbidden. On Thanksgiving Day, 1869, in Philadelphia, was organized an association of wage workers called the Knights of Labor.^ ' By the Burlingame Treaty, 1868. -They had appeared in California about 1850. The Burlingame Treaty guaranteed them the protection of American law. * Many similar societies have since been formed. The American Federation of Labor was organized in 1881. Some of these societies include workers in various trades. Many (the "Unions") confine themselves to a single trade or occupation. Of the latter type is the American Railway Union, organized in 1893. In general, the aim of these societies is to offset the consolidation of capital by a corresponding consolidation of labor. The most recent of them, the Industrial Workers of the World, differs from the earlier ones in being frankly a class organization in distinction from a trade organization. It seeks to organ- ize the working class in a world-wide struggle against the capitalist class. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 501 Their purpose from the beginning is best stated by one of their subsequent pubHcations, which denounced "the alarming development and aggressiveness of the power of money and corporations under the present industrial and political sys- tems." The labor societies, like the corporations, were brought into prominence by the business troubles that began with the panic of 1873. Thus we see that even at the open- ing of the twenty-year period following the centennial, our country was already bitterly divided between capital and labor. During nearly fifty years there had been practically no conflict between classes in the United States. Such conflicts as had taken place were between localities, or sections, or polit- ical parties, over questions of general policy. In this twenty- year period conflicts between classes reappeared. What is called by an eminent authority ^ the " first great labor revolt in our history " may be said to have ushered in the twenty- year period. It took place in 1877. A strike on the Bal- timore and Ohio Railway was followed by other strikes designed to prevent a general reduction in wages. At one time 100,000 men were on strike and more than 6000 miles of rail- road were out of use. At Pittsburg there were desperate riots. Much property was destroyed and many people killed. Federal troops were sent to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Maryland in response to appeals from the gov- ernors of those states. The strike was unsuccessful. It is supposed to have cost the country nearly $100,000,000. 701. The Insistent Problems. From this time forward the " labor problem " and the " trust problem " have always been present in American politics. They have grown steadily more insistent because of the enormous development of American manufactures. ^ By degrees these two questions, 1 Carroll D. Wright. - Beginning with the laying of the first Atlantic cable, in 1866, there has been a long succession of remarkable inventions. To mention only the most con- spicuous : the electric light, the telephone, the electric trolley, all previous to 1880; the typewriter, 1874; the bicycle, 1876; the typesetter, 1890. Lately the gasoline motor and wireless telegraphy have opened new possibilities. 502 AMERICAN HISTORY and the questions growing out of them, pushed aside all others, and at the end of the twenty-year period they were the main questions of politics. That condition in which these two form the main political contention is what we know as " industri- alism." Therefore, the period from 1876 to 1896 maybe des- ignated accurately by the phrase the " rise of industrialism." ^ 702. The Silver Question. At the same time the mone- tary question was developing. In 1878 the owners of silver mines were urging the government to remonetize silver. The large supplies of silver recently mined had brought down the price, and the owners hoped that if the government resumed coining silver dollars the prices would go up. Their demand was endorsed by a popular movement which revived the old arguments against paying the bonds in gold (section 692). A "greenback" party ^ figured in the elections of 1878 and polled 1,000,000 votes. The Greenbackers and the mine owners had little in common otherwise, but on this one point they agreed. Their joint in- fluence was sufficient to induce Congress, in 1878, to pass over the President's veto the Bland-AUison Act, which required the secretary of the treasury to coin each month not less than two million, nor more than four miUion, silver dollars, at the old ratio of 16 to I (section 692, note). 703. The Government in Business. In this act, as in others which arc to follow, wc should observe the frankness of Two great engineering feats, in which Americans have applied the new science, are the Brooklyn bridge, 1870-1883, and the Eads jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi, 1879. Of late years, .'Vmerican engineering of all sorts has attained the highest excellence. • All this time parallel questions were gradually coming clearly before the country. What they were will appear in Chapters XXX and XXXI. 2 It developed largely out of the Granger movement. (See section 694, note.) JAMES A. GARFIELD THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 503 the demand to get aid from the federal government in solving economic problems. This is one of the tendencies of the period we are now studying. It springs from the discovery that the federal government, in certain respects, has the wel- fare of us all in its hands. One of the matters that brought this home to the working classes was the federal control over immigration. A demand for the exercise of that control was made in 1877, in California, where it took the form of a popular agitation against the Chinese. A leader of the movement, Dennis Kearny, closed every speech with, " The Chinese must go! " At length Congress passed a bill to restrict their immigration. President Hayes vetoed it, on the ground that it violated existing treaties, but promptly negotiated a new treaty with China that gave Congress the right to do what it pleased. Eventually, Chinese laborers were excluded from the country.^ 704. Election of 1880. The exclusion of the Chinese was en- dorsed by both parties in their platforms of 1880, but neither party took decided ground upon any significant issue and there was little excitement. The Republican candidate, James A. Garfield of Ohio, defeated Winfield S. Hancock of New York. 705. The United States and South America. The months from March to September, 1881, are notable chiefly because of the South American program of James G. Blaine, who was Garfield's secretary of state. Blaine has often been compared with Clay. In one respect, at least, the two followed similar policies. Neither cared much about economic questions and both were haunted by dreams of imperial greatness. Blaine's chief desire was to unite all American republics in a close league presided over by the United States. However, he was not as tactful as he might have been and created an im- pression in South America that the United States might easily become an international tyrant. His scheme for practical ^ The Chinese treaty was drawn up in 1880. In 1882 Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years. The suspension was repeated in 1892 and 1902. In 1904 Chinese laborers were excluded indefinitely. 504 AMERICAN HISTORY free trade with South America — through reciprocity treaties lowering duties on both sides — was rejected by Congress. He failed to rouse public interest in his advocacy of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Altogether, the episode is remem- bered for what he designed, not for what he did.^ 706. Assassination of Garfield. In July, 1881, the country was shocked by the news that a disappointed office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, had assassinated the President, who lingered between life and death until September 19. His death was followed by the accession of the vice president, Chester A. Arthur of New York. 707. Civil Service Reform. The murder of President Garfield aroused interest in the civil service. The murderer was probably of feeble mind and had become deranged through vain petitioning for undeserved office. Thoughtful people felt it would be a benefit to the country if all such men were made to realize that public office was beyond their reach. A Civil Service Act was introduced into Congress by Senator Pendleton, a Democrat, of Ohio. It was supported by both parties and signed by President Arthur. This act created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission and provided for a " classified " list of offices to which, henceforth, appoint- ments should be made as a result of competitive examination. About 14,000 offices were at once " classified." The number has steadily increased. 708. The Return of the Democrats. President Arthur's administration was on the whole an uneventful one politically. The tariff was revised in 1883 but was only slightly changed. The one great event was the split in the Republican party in 1884 when the national convention nominated Blaine, who was identified, in the minds of many people, with the old- style " spoils " politics. Believing that he would throw all his influence against the growing tendency to increase the ' After a war between" Peru and Chile, he instructed our ministers to attempt to restrain the victor, Chile. This interference in their affairs was misconstrued by the Chileans. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 50s " classified " civil service, many Republicans left the party and supported the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, of New York. Cleveland carried all the Southern states, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Indiana. He received 219 electoral votes against 182 for Blaine. 709. Renewed Labor Troubles. However, the RepubHcans retained control of Congress and consequently very little was accomplished by either party. President Cleveland vetoed 301 bills, and Congress was not able to pass them over the veto.^ Nevertheless, it was an important adminis- tration during which great events took place. Chief among them was a great series of strikes in 1886. Chicago ^ was the center of disturbance, but other parts of the country were affected. Six thousand miles of railway were out of use during seven weeks. To prevent such oc- currences in the future, Presi- dent Cleveland advised Con- gress to appoint a commission with power to settle all diffi- culties between capital and labor, but Congress shrank from such an extreme measure. Two years later it established a commission for voluntary arbitration. 710. The Growth of the West. While the Eastern states had been distracted by labor troubles, the West had con- 1 Two interesting laws, not strictly party questions, were the act regulating the succession to the presidency (1886) and the act putting all questions of the electoral count into the hands of the several states (1887). ^ A small body of anarchists took advantage of the excitement of the time to attack the Chicago police with bombs. Four anarchists were taken and executed for murder. All were foreigners. GROVER CLEVELAND 5o6 AMERICAN HISTORY tinued its rapid development. This was aided by the success- ful termination of the last notable Indian war. The powerful tribe of the Apaches were subdued in 1886. Two years afterwards, by the Severalty Act, Congress sought to induce the Indians to leave their reservations and become regular citizens. Six new Western states were admitted to the Union ' : North and South Dakota, Washington, and Montana, in 1889 ; Idaho and Wyoming, in 1890. In the latter year the new territory of Oklahoma was organ- ized out of part of the Indian Territory. When the Oklahoma country was opened for settlement, April 22, 1889, a host of settlers poured into it. Towns sprang up as if by magic. These changes gave the West increased influence in Congress and made possible some of the measures which are now to be discussed. 711. Favoritism of the Railroads. During fifteen years the reorganized railroads that resulted from the troubles of 1873 had been using their great power as they saw fit. We have seen that they deliberately favored those who were willing to advance their interests (section 694). Their policy was to encourage large shippers at the expense of small ones, and large towns at the expense of small towns. By what was known as " rebating," large shippers received back a percentage of what they paid, while small sliippers received no such favors. Rates to small towns were higher in proportion than those to large cities. Moreover, a group of roads would often " pool " rates, — that is, make an agreement among themselves to keep rates up and divide all the proceeds of traffic according to a stipulated scheme. We have seen that the Grangers be- gan the agitation against the favoritism shown by railroads ' Utah was not admitted because the Mormons tolerated polygamy. By the Edmunds-Tucker Act, 1887, Congress prohibited polygamy, and confiscated the property of the Mormon Church. In 1890 the Mormon Church ofi'icially repudiated polygamy. In 1893 the confiscated property was restored. In 1896 Utah was admitted under a constitution forever prohibiting polygamy. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 507 almost as soon as it appeared (section 694, note). By 1887 the feeling on the subject had grown so vehement that Con- gress passed an Interstate Commerce Act which forbade rail- ways doing interstate business to form pools, or to have different rates per mile for different distances — for " long hauls" and " short hauls " ^ — or to indulge in ''rebating." Congress also created the Interstate Commerce Com- mission to put the law into effect. 712. The Tariff Question Revived. About the same time President Cleveland came to the conclusion that the real need of the country was a reduction of the tariff. In his message to Congress in 1887 he used the now fa- mous words, " It is a condi- tion that confronts us, not a theory." He alluded to the fact that the revenues of the government were $50,000 000 in excess of its expenditures. He advocated a reduction of the tariff, which he thus made the main issue in the campaign of 1888. The Democrats accepted his views and renominated him on a platform urging tariff reduction. The RepubHcans nominated Benjamin Harrison of Indiana; they accepted President Cleveland's challenge and declared that a high pro- tective tariff was their cardinal principle. Though Cleveland got the larger popular vote, it was so massed that the majority in the electoral college was for Harrison. 713. The Harrison Administration. Harrison appointed Blaine secretary of state. Therefore, in foreign affairs the ^ The commission was authorized to make exceptions in special cases. GRANT'S TOMB 5o8 AMERICAN HISTORY United States resumed the policy attempted in 1881 (section 705). But now as then there was Httle actual accomplishment except the holding of a Pan-American congress, at Washington, in 1889. The same year a controversy with England and Ger- many, relative to the Samoan Islands, ended in a joint German- American protectorate (June 14, 1889).^ The Republicans maintained that the one solution for the financial troubles of the country was the creation and main- tenance of a " home market." To that end, the new tariff of 1890, which was largely framed by William McKinley of Ohio, aimed to exclude as far as possible European competi- tion. It raised the average of the duties charged to some 49 per cent. 714. Congress and the Trusts. ]\Ieanwhile, the business corporations had combined and recombined, forming larger and larger corporations whose power was now enormous. The " trust problem " was forced upon the attention of Congress by popular clamor, much as the railway question had been three years before. The trusts were creating monopolies which undersold and broke up the small dealer. They did so by putting down prices and selling at a loss until the small dealer was ruined. Their immense wealth enabled them to bear the loss much longer than he. As soon as he had failed and was out of the way, they could, if necessary, put prices up and thus get their money back. The popular demand for an end of all this led Congress, in 1890, to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act. It made many forms of combination illegal and punished with fine and imprisonment " conspiracies in re- straint of trade," — that is, attempts to estabhsh monoplies.- 715. Silver. By 1S90 the new states of the West were beginning to make themselves felt in federal legislation. Again, as in 1878 (section 702), the mine owners and the farm- * It lasted ten years. (Sec section 741.) * For many years the Sherman .\ct did not produce results. In spite of it, in iQoi the United Steel Corporation was formed with a capital of $1,000,000,000, probably the most powerful industrial corporation known to history. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 509 ers joined hands in another attempt to force up the price of silver. These " silver men " induced Congress to pass the Silver Purchase Act, by which the secretary of the treasury was directed to purchase each month, at market rates, 4,500,000 ounces of silver which, under certain conditions, were to be converted into coin.^ It had been expected that these great purchases would cause the price of silver to rise, but the effect was only temporary. Very soon the price of silver began again to fall. The discussion over silver had only begun. We shall hear much more of it presently. 716. The Tariff Again. In 1892 both parties evaded the " silver question," but took firm ground on the question of the tariff. The RepubHcans reaffirmed " the Amer- ican doctrine of protection," while the Democrats pronounced it "a robbery of the great majority . . . for the benefit of the few." The Republicans renominated President Harrison; the Democrats, for the third time, nomisated Cleveland. A national People's party, better known as " PopuHsts," nominated James B. Weaver ; their platform demanded free coinage of silver, and denounced both the great parties as being in politics for the sake of " power and plunder." The Popuhsts secured 22 electoral votes; the Republicans, 145 ; the Democrats, 277.^ 717. The Homestead Strike. It was plain to all observers that the country was in a dangerous, unsettled condition. BENJAMIN HARRISON 1 The treasury was to issue " treasury notes " (paper money) redeemable in gold or silver and was to coin the silver purchased by the government In order to redeem these certificates. - There was also a Prohibition ticket and a Socialist ticket. Neither received any electoral votes. Sio AMERICAN HISTORY On three great questions — the tariff, the currency, and the relations of capital and labor — there was bitter difference of opinion and an event of the presidential year showed that the temper of the time might easily produce war. There was a great strike, at the Homestead Iron Works in Pittsburg, over a reduction of wages. For a time the strikers, on the one hand, and the owners, on the other, took the law into their own hands. The strikers practically formed an army. The Pinkerton detective agency supplied a small but active army to the owners. The result was a " private war," not unlike those which were carried on in the Middle Ages between great barons and their revolted tenants. To restore peace the governor of Pennsylvania had to call out the entire militia of the state. 718. Hawaii. In his second administration President Cleve- land was beset by difficulties from the day he was inaugurated. First of all, his convictions compelled him to take an unpopu- lar course with regard to the republic of Hawaii. One of the last acts of the preceding administration was the negotiation of a treaty annexing Hawaii.^ But this treaty was made by Hawaiian revolutionists who had recently dethroned the native ruler, and President Cleveland believed that the revo- lutionists had had secret assistance from the United States. He refused to continue the negotiation, and the American flag, which had been raised at Honolulu, was hauled down. The Senate, however, insisted upon the recognition of the Hawaiian republic. 719. Venezuela. Only one other foreign compUcation of importance '^ arose during this administration. It was caused • Originally, Hawaii was a monarchy, under native kings. Early in 1893 a revolution took place. The reigning sovereign was deposed and a republic proclaimed. Most of the revolutionists were Americans, or of American descent. * An outstanding contention as to Bering Sea was settled by arbitration in 1893. The sea was declared a i)artof the open ocean. The United States had claimed exclusive control in order to restrain seal hunters. The treaty gave us special rights as to seals. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 511 by a dispute of long standing between England and Venezuela with regard to the boundary of British Guiana. The President tried to persuade them to arbitrate, but in 1895 England de- cHned. Thereupon, in a message to Congress, the President asked for a special commission to compel a settlement. The secretary of state, Richard G. Olney, declared that " to-day the United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon subjects to which it confines its inter- position." Apparently England had not appreciated that 4J .. ^ 41 JlJ -^ ^ COURT OF HONOR, COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION Americans regarded her course as a defiance of the Monroe Doctrine. The eagerness with which the action of the Presi- dent was commended in America led England to reconsider the matter. At length it was adjusted satisfactorily by arbitration. 720. Repeal of the Silver Act. Shortly after his inaugura- tion, President Cleveland felt it necessary to call a special session of Congress. What is known as " the panic of 1893 " ^ ^ At the same time the vast Columbian Exposition was in progress at Chicago. The year previous, the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America had been generally celebrated. The exposition, also designed as a celebration, was not opened to the public until May i, 1893. 512 AMERICAN HISTORY had thrown the business world into confusion. Numbers of banks had failed and many railroads had gone into the hands of receivers. One of the chief causes of the panic was a general movement among European investors to get rid of American securities. The various disorders in the United States had impaired their confidence in their American investments, with the result that American securities were thrown upon the market at low prices and loans to Americans were refused by European bankers. President Cleveland, who was an ar- dent believer in the gold standard, thought he could restore confidence by making the United States unconditionally a " gold " country. Therefore, he urged Congress to repeal the Silver Purchase Act. A majority of Congress, made up of members of both parties, took the same view and the act was repealed November i, 1893. The repeal gave deep of- fense to the silver men. They accused the President of dis- loyalty to his country. Another turning point had been reached in the political battle over silver. The next phase of the contest will soon appear. 721. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff. The Democrats had come into power as the friends of low tariff and now they set to work to put their beliefs into practice. What is known as the Wilson-Gorman tariff ^ went into effect in 1894. It made a sweeping reduction of duties, bringing down the average from 49 per cent to 40 per cent.- 722. The Great Strike. Meanwhile there was general dis- tress. The troubles in the business world had thrown great numbers of workingmen out of employment and in their des- peration some of them formed peaceful " armies " ^ to tramp 1 The bill also provided for an income tax, which, however, the Supreme Court pronounced unconstitutional. ^ As finally passed, his act was a compromise measure which was so unlike the bill as first introduced that President Cleveland refused to sign it and it became a law without his signature (see Constitution of the United States, Article I, section 7). ' The most noted case was that of "Coxey's army." A band of the unem- ployed marched from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington, where they were dis- persed by the police without much difBculty. THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 513 to Washington to demand aid from the government. The distress and excitement of 1894 culminated in a great strike begun by the employees of the Pullman Car Company of Chi- cago, who refused to work on the company's terms. There- upon a powerful labor society, the American Railway Union, took up the matter and demanded the right to conduct negotiations with the company on behalf of the strikers. The company refused to negotiate except with its own employees. THE MISSISSIPPI JEiriES The union contended that the interest of any workingmen were the interests of all workingmen, and when the company refused to let it act for the strikers, it took a step that began a new era in the relations of capital and labor. The presi- dent of the union, Eugene V. Debs, ordered a " sympa- thetic " strike ; that is, railway employees went on strike not because of their own troubles but in order to embarrass the railroads and force them to use their influence with the Pullman Company on behalf of the Chicago strikers. Dur- ing most of the summer of 1894 the railway service of the 514 AMERICAN HISTORY country was in confusion, while at Chicago there was vir- tual civil war. The Pullman Company attempted to re- place the strikers by non-union men nicknamed " scabs," whom the strikers were determined to keep from working. In the conflicts between the two groups of workmen the local police authorities were barely able to maintain their authority. At length the President interfered. As the strike was ob- structing the mails, he made use of United States troops to secure the regular operation of mail trains. An injunc- tion was served on Mr. Debs, forbidding him to interfere with interstate commerce. He ignored the injunction. The fed- eral authorities then arrested him and sent him to prison. The Pullman Company carried its point, so far as the union was concerned, and privately came to a new understanding with its own workmen. 723. The New South. In 1895, however, there was suffi- cient prosperity to sustain the " Cotton States and Interna- tional Exhibition " at Atlanta. Piedmont Park, where the buildings stood, was the very ground on which, thirty years before, Sherman planted his bat- teries to shell the city. This exhibition was a remarkable All along this line, the abundance of monumcnt to the change which water power has led to profitable , , , , • 1 o 1 manufacture. had taken place in the South during those thirty years. It showed that the South was once more rich and powerful. The cotton industry was still its chief concern, but the sugar in- dustry in Louisiana was also of great importance. Agri- culture, however, was no longer the sole material interest THE FALL LINE THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 515 of the South. Cotton mills in the Carolinas, iron mills in Ala- bama, had begun to compete with the mills of the North. The Atlanta exhibition marked the point at which the ravages of the great war had, at last, been repaired. The year 1895 is thus an important date in national history, as well as the birthday of the " New South." 724. The Rearrangement of Parties. The growth of manu- factures in the South has had a direct effect upon politics. It introduced a movement away from the traditional Southern policy of free trade and toward the idea of pro- tection. The movement has progressed slowly, but it has contributed to make still more complex the question of the tariff and its effects upon different parts of the Union. However, the effects of this movement revealed themselves slowly and it is doubtful whether, in the election of 1896, they played a part. That election turned, not on protection — though the Republicans renewed their endorsement of protection — but on silver. The silver men in both parties had not for- given the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act (section 720). They were resolved not to support any party that would not declare for free coinage of silver. They put the question to the Republicans at their national convention. The RepubH- cans answered by declaring themselves " opposed to free coin- age of silver except by international agreement." Thereupon the silver men in the convention, led by Senator Teller of Idaho, seceded from the Republican party. In the Demo- cratic party, on the other hand, the silver men had a majority. WILLIAM Mckinley Si6 AMERICAN HISTORY The gold-standard men seceded. At their head was President Cleveland.^ The election of 1896 is further marked by the appearance of a new and very remarkable Democratic leader, William J. Bryan of Nebraska. He was one of the most conspicuous of the " free silver " champions and was nominated for Presi- dent both by the Democrats and the Populists. Nevertheless, Mr. Bryan received only 176 electoral votes, while the Re- publican candidate, William McKinley, of Ohio, received 271. 725. The Dingley Tariff. As the Republicans also got control of Congress, legislation in favor of silver was, for the moment, out of the question. The victorious Repubhcans now set to work to reverse the action of the Democrats in relation to the tariff. The Wilson-Gorman tariff was re- pealed and a new one — known as the Dingley tariff — was established. It brought duties back to about where they stood under the tariff of 1890, and in some cases put them still higher (July 24, 1897). 726. End of the Twenty Years. We have now reached the end of the twenty-year period (section 696). We have traced the rise of industrialism and have watched its effect upon con- ditions. They may be briefly summed up as follows : First. The South, having recovered prosperity and devel- oped manufactures, began to divide upon the question of 1 Many of the "gold Democrats" voted for the RepubHcan candidate. Others supported a "National Democratic" ticket. Their candidates were John M. Pahner of Illinois, and Simon B. Buckner of Kentucky. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN THE RISE OF INDUSTRIALISM 517 protection, while on the question of free silver most of the South combined with most of the West. As a result of this shifting of interests, a number of Southern Democrats had gone over to the Republicans, while many Northern and Western Republicans had joined the Democrats. In a word, neither " Republican " nor " Democratic " meant the same thing as in i860. How far this shifting of parties would go was one of the problems of 1897. Second. Industrial development and increased immigra- tion had -revolutionized the relations between capital and labor. On the one side, there had grown up great corporations, aristocratic in their attitude, and, on the other, workingmen had formed powerful associations to oppose capital. During the twenty-year period the two forces had grown more and more hostile. At the close of the period one of the chief problems was how to adjust their clashing interests. Third. A succession of business troubles had produced deep dissatisfaction with the American system of coinage. This dissatisfaction, being largely sectional, threatened to divide the Union, not into North and South, but into East and West. How to consolidate the interests of the whole country so as to make such a division impossible was also one of the chief problems of the day. To deal with all these problems was the formidable task of the victorious Republicans in 1897. The boldest statesman might well have shrunk from the magnitude of the undertaking. However, it was now suddenly complicated in a new and sur- prising way. American liistory was drawn into a new current ; our affairs became entangled with European affairs, and all internal problems were temporarily thrust aside. When, after a momentous interruption, they were again taken up, they had developed new forms. What it was that arrested them we shall now see. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Select Statutes, Nos. 96-98, 100-127; Hart:, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 160, 179, 197-209; Johnston, 5i8 AMERICAN HISTORY American Orations, IV, 238-420; Applcton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1875- 189S ; numerous annual publications such as The Statesman's Yearbook, The World Almanac. Bibliography. Channing, Hart, and Turner, Guide, 498-542 ; Dewey, Finarcial History, 331, 3S9-360, 383, 402, 414, 434-436, 463 ; CoMAX, Industrial History, 415-417, 424-427. Secondary Accounts. Wilson, Division and Reunion, sees. 140- 148; and American People, V, 104-269; Johnston, Politics, 242-279; Stanwood, Presidency, 356-569; Ford, National Problems; Cambridge Modern History, VII, 447-485, 512-543, 655-674, 697-722; Larned, History for Ready Reference, V, 3577-3S8i ; VI, 154, 553, 684; Brown, Lower South, 247-271; Cable, Negro Question; Tillinghast, Negro in Africa and America; Curtis, Constitutional History, II, 397-440; Dewey, Financial History, sees, 159-161, 171-196; Noyes, American Finance, 17-254; Taussig, Tariff History, 230-409; Stanwood, ^wen- can Tariff Controversies, II, 192-394 ; Coman, Industrial History, 269- 312; Wright, Industrial Evolution of the United States, chaps, xiii, xiv, xxii, xxiii; Bogart, Economic History of the United States, chaps. XX, xxii, xxv; N. S. Shaler (ed.). The United States, Vol. I, chap, vii; Vol. II, chaps, i, ii, xii; Sparks, National Development, chaps, i-v, xviii ; McCulloch, Men and Measures of a Half Century, chap, xxxiii ; D. A. Wells, Recent Economic Change, chap, ii ; H.A.DLEY, Railroad Transportation, 129-139; Latane, United States and Spanish America, 198-214. Topics for Special Reports, i . Effects of the War on American Life. 2. Causes of the Formation of Great Corporations. 3. The Develop- ment of the Power of Corporations. 4. The Immigration Problem. 5. Labor Organizations in America. 6. American Relations with South America, 1877-1898. 7. The Silver Question. 8. Favoritism of the Railways. 9. The Hawaiian Episode. 10. Strikes, 1877-1898. 11. The New South. 12. Conflicting Interests of the East and the West. CHAPTER XXX RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 727. The Cuban Revolt. In 1895 an insurrection broke out in Cuba. It was aided by a " Junta," or council, of wealthy Cubans living in the United States. The sympathy of the Americans was enlisted and many adventurous men joined the Cuban revolutionists in their struggle against Spanish authority. The fighting was exceptionally merciless. The Spaniards kept control of the western part of the island, but seemed powerless to put down the rebellion, though they forced the country people to leave their farms and come into " reconcentrado " camps, where there was great suffering due to insufficient food. Many Americans, some of them revolu- tionists, some legitimate traders, were arrested and imprisoned. As early as 1896 a committee was appointed by the Senate to investigate the situation in Cuba. No serious action was taken, however, until 1898, when a private letter of the Span- ish ambassador found its way into print. In the published translation, this letter of Ambassador De Lome appeared to be an insult to President McKinley. It aroused violent indigna- tion. His recall was demanded and Spain promptly acceded to the demand. 728. The Destruction of the Maine. At Havana, about the same time, there were public demonstrations of ill-will toward resident Americans. Thereupon the battleship Maine was ordered to Havana as an intimation that the Americans would be protected by their own government. The explosion of a submarine mine,^ on the night of February 15, 1898, destroyed 1 The Spanish government maintained that the ship was blown up through some defect in its own magazine. A commission investigated the wreck and reported that it had been blown up from without. In 191 1 a second investiga- tion confirmed the report of the first. .519 520 AMERICAN HISTORY the Mahte and 260 of its crew. In response to an instant de- mand for explanation, General Fitzhugh Lee, consul-general at Havana, reported : " I do not think it (the mine) was put there by the Spanish government. I think it was the act of four or five subordinate officers." Nevertheless, the American people generally held the Spanish government responsible. Intense anger took possession of the United States. Every- where the popular watchword was, " Remember the Maine ! " The excitement during the next five weeks can hardly be overstated. It was stimulated by a vote of Congress, March THE DEWEY MEDAL 9, placing $50,000,000 at the disposal of the President " for national defense." Senator Proctor of Vermont, on March 17, made a speech in which he described the horrors he had recently seen while visiting Cuba. This speech still further incensed the American pubHc. At length, on March 28, President McKinley sent a message to Congress with the report of the commission which had investigated the Maine. From that moment there was no resisting the general demand for war.^ 1 On April 11 the President had asked for authority to intervene in Cuban afifairs. On April 20 he was authorized to do so, and the Cuban republic was recognized as an independent power by the United Stales. On April 22 a blockade of the Spanish part of the island was ordered. On April 23 the Presi- dent called for 125,000 volunteers. On April 25 he announced the withdrawal of the Spanish minister from Washington, and Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that war existed. RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 521 729. Battle of Manila. The first event of the war took place in the Orient. Commodore Dewey with the Pacific squadron of our navy was off the coast of China. With six warships, — the most powerful being the cruiser Olympia, of but 5870 tons, — he sailed at once for the Philippines. At Manila, under the guns of the Spanish forts, lay a fleet of four cruisers, together with other ships of antiquated type, On May i, 1898, Dewey entered the harbor and opened fire, A short but brilliant engagement ended in the destruction of the Spanish fleet. 730. War on the Atlantic. In the Atlantic, Admiral WilHam Sampson was the chief naval commander. Associated with him was Admiral W. S. Schley. They established a blockade of the Cuban coast and made preparations to meet a Spanish fleet, under Ad- miral Cervera, that was known to have sailed from the Cape Verde Islands. This fleet was sighted off Martinique, May 12. Both the American admirals were then roving the seas, in the vicinity of Cuba, on the lookout for Cervera. On May 27 Admiral Schley got word that Cervera had anchored in the harbor of Santiago. The next day he blockaded that port. Admiral Sampson joined him and a naval siege of Santiago was begun. 731. The Invasion of Cuba. Meanwhile, an army of in- vasion under command of General Shaffer had been organized at Tampa.-^ It landed in Cuba, not far from Santiago, June 22. 1 Only a small part of the United States forces were employed in Cuba. The bulk of the volunteers were gathered in various camps of instruction. These camps were badly managed, and tj^ihoid fever proved far more fatal to oui 522 AMERICAN HISTORY Advancing westward, the Americans found themselves, July 3, with the fortifications of El Caney upon their right and San Juan Hill upon the left. They struck right and left at the same time. El Caney was taken by General Lawton. At the same time San Juan Hill was stormed, while Colonel Theodore Roosevelt^ carried the neighboring Kettle Hill. The Americans now had Santiago at their mercy. 732. Battle of Santiago. Meanwhile, in the hope of securely " bottling up " Cervera, Lieutenant Hobson had performed a daring feat. Accompanied by only seven seamen, he took the collier Merrimac into the entrance of the harbor, and there sank the vessel. As the American successes on land had now made the capture of the city only a question of time, the Spaniards decided upon a last attempt to save their fleet. On July 3 Cervera made his way past the wreck of the Merri- mac and steamed out of the harbor. The American fleet, however, was fully prepared for his attack and in the sharp fight that followed took of sank every one of his ships. 733. The Round Robin. The Americans now pushed their operations against Santiago city, which surrendered July 17, There was still a Spanish army at Havana, but the Americans were in no condition to advance against it. Local conditions, bad food, and improper equipment had resulted in so much sickness that the officers decided upon a singular course. They signed a " round robin " to General Shafter, declaring " this army must be moved at once or it will perish." Ac- soldiers than were the Spanish bullets. In fact the inadequacy of the War Department formed a public scandal. The soldiers at the front were supplied with impure food and heavy clothing unfit for tropical service. This dis- graceful mismanagement was redeemed by private energy. No one was more conspicuous in counteracting the inadequacy of the War Department than the noted millionaire, Miss Helen Gould. 1 At the opening of the war he was assistant secretary of the navy. Resign- ing his office, he organized the Rough Riders, a cavalry command composed in part of cowboys, in part of Eastern university men. Another distinguished officer who joined the United States army at the out- break of the war was the Confederate cavalry general, Joseph Wheeler. He served with distinction throughout the Santiago campaign. RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 523 cordingly, the army was transported to a camp of recuperation on Long Island, August 7. 734. End of the War. Two other campaigns were going forward during the siege of Santiago. General Miles landed in Porto Rico, July 25, and quickly subdued the island. In the Philippines General Merritt, accompanied by a Philip- pine exile, Aguinaldo, besieged Manila. The city was taken August 13. Even before the capture of Manila, Spain had made over- tures for peace. On August 12 a ''protocol," or preliminary agreement, was signed at Washington. The negotiations which followed were not entirely concluded until December 10. In the final agreement Spain recognized the independence of Cuba, and consented to its temporary occupation by the American forces ; Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands were ceded to the United States ; Spain was to receive, in return, $20,000,000.^ 735. The Anti-imperialists. This treaty gave offense to certain Americans who felt that the war, which had been under- taken to set free an oppressed people, had been converted un- fairly into a war of conquest. They also maintained that a republic Hke ours should not undertake to govern a subject country — as we should have to do if we retained the Philip- pines. They denounced the course of the administration as *' imperialistic " and were known, themselves, as " anti- imperialists." However, this opposition was not sufficient to prevent the ratification of the treaty, February 6, 1899. 736. The Philippine War. The anti-imperialists grew still more bitter against the administration when war broke out between the Filipino revolutionists, led by Aguinaldo, and the American troops. In fact the fighting had begun (February 5, 1899) before the treaty was ratified. Anti-imperiaHsts both in and out of Congress now made vigorous attempts to persuade the government to make peace, acknowledge the ^ It is estimated that the war cost the United States $842,000,000. See Dewey, " Financial History," 467. 524 AMERICAN HISTORY Philippine republic, and withdraw from the islands, but they were unable to shape the course of events. The administra- tion pushed on the Philippine War, which continued during 1899 and was still raging at the time of the presidential election in I goo. 737. Election of 1900. The Republicans renominated McKinley ; for vice president they named Colonel Roosevelt. The Democratic candidate was again Mr. Bryan. The matter which was most discussed in this campaign — the one which was uppermost, probably, in the minds of the voters — was the new issue of " imperialism." On the old issue of the cur- rency the two parties reiterated their platforms ^ of four years previous. Now, as then, almost all the gold-standard men supported McKinley. He also received the support of all ardent imperialists, who brushed aside the Democratic protest against the " seizing of distant islands . . . whose people can never become citizens." The personal popularity of Colonel Roosevelt, who had captured the popular fancy by his gallant action at San Juan, was also a great source of strength to the Republicans. McKinley was reelected by an electoral major- ity slightly larger than his previous onc.'^ 738. The Problem of Dependencies. The Philippine War was pushed on with unceasing vigor, and in 1901 Aguinaldo was captured. Detached bands of revolutionists, however, held out during another year. Eventually the islands were reduced to obedience. Through the acquisition of Porto Rico ^ and the Philippines 1 A bill establishing the gold standard had passed Congress and was signed by the President, March 14, 1900. In their platform of 1900 the Republicans stated, "We renew our allegiance to the principles of the gold standard." The Democrats in their platform declared for "free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at . . . the ratio of 16 to i." 2 There were ten other parties in the field. Six of them nominated presiden- tial candidates. Of these the Prohibition candidates received the largest popular vote. None of them secured any electoral votes. ' A government had been provided for Porto Rico by an act of Congress which was passed in April, 1900. The island was treated as a subject depend- ency separate from the United States. A tariff against imports from Porto RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 525 a new constitutional question had arisen. What power did Congress have over these new possessions? Were they part of the United States, or were they subject countries? The anti-imperialists made a last stand upon this issue. They maintained that if we were to hold these countries at all, we must include them in the Union and give them the full protec- tion of American law. One of the chief events of the year 1 901 was a decision of the Supreme Court which laid down the principle that Congress might rule the new possessions as it saw fit. 739. Colonial Government in the Philippines. Under the authority of Congress the President set up a civil goverrmient in the PhiHppines. WilHam H. Taft, of Ohio, a distinguished federal judge, became their first civil governor, July 21, 1901. As the islands form a difficult problem in government — many of the inhabitants being Mohammedans with local customs utterly different from ours — a complete scheme of government was not worked out until a year later. Meanwhile (March 8, 1902), a special tariff was enacted for the Philippines. The Philippine Government Act (July i, 1902) created a full system of administration and guaranteed to Filipinos most of the civil rights of American citizens. An excellent school system was estabHshed. At length, in 1907, they were al- lowed to have an elective assembly closely supervised by the American governor and his executive council. 740. The Cuban Problem. The affairs of Cuba were also put on a new basis. The miHtary governor, General Leonard Wood, accomplished wonders in the way of revolutionizing its sanitary conditions and putting an end to yellow fever. A convention was called to provide the island with a constitu- tion. But before the constitution went into effect the United States formulated the attitude it would henceforth maintain with regard to Cuba. The Piatt amendment to the Army Bill of March, 1901, laid down three propositions: (i) Cuba Rico was established. The act was defended by the Republicans and con- demned by the Democrats in the campaign of 1900. It went out of force, 1901. 526 AMERICAN HISTORY must bind herself not to part with any of her territory; (2) she must not contract debts she cannot pay ; (3) she must acknowledge the right of the United States to intervene, should her government fail to preserve order. The Cuban constitutional convention agreed to these terms, June 12, 1901. Less than a year afterward, Cuba's first president was inaugurated and the American troops were withdrawn from the island.^ 741. Efifects of the War. The ardor of war had given a new turn to American politics. The chief significance of the events we have been following hes in this : they waked Americans to a consciousness that their country was enormously powerful and might, if it chose, play the role of a first-class power. Eagerness to play such a role led to general support of another annexation which was effected by President McKinley. The little republic of Hawaii was annexed by the United States, July 7, 1898. If our country is to hold the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands are of immense advantage as a naval stepping-stone between San Francisco and Manila. Other stepping-stones are also needed. Therefore, President McKinley concluded treaties with Germany and England which allowed the United States to occupy several Pacific islands, notably the most desirable one of the Samoan group (section 713). 742. " The Open Door." When the Spanish War began, few countries except England understood the United States. The continent of Europe still looked upon Americans with a sort of kindly tolerance. But their eyes were opened by the efl&ciency of the American navy and when, in 1900, the United States took a hand in general diplomacy, there was no longer any disregard of our opinion. The issue which signalized our * In 1903 the United States assisted Cuba to recover prosperity by reducing the sugar tariff 20 per cent and thus opening our market to Cuban sugar. How- ever, the relations between the two countries arc still of an equivocal sort. In 1906, owing to the political disorders in Cuba, the United States intervened and for some time controlled the government. Subsequently Cuba was again made independent. RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 527 return into world politics concerned China. That great but feeble empire was in danger of dismemberment. There was a tendency among the European powers to advocate a policy that would end by dividing China into distinct countries, each dependent upon a government in Europe. Our secre- tary of state, John Hay, in 1899 proposed to the powers that, instead of partitioning China, all should unite to maintain its integrity and open its trade to all on equal terms. This was known as the " open-door " policy. THE AMERICAN POSSESSIONS 743. The Boxer Episode. At first the European powers, with one exception, made evasive replies to Secretary Hay's proposal. England was the exception. The British ministry indorsed the plan. However, circumstances very soon put a new aspect on the American proposal. The Chinese natu- rally were bitterly hostile to dismemberment, and a Chinese patriotic society, the " Boxers," in 1900 stirred up an insur- rection. The German ambassador was assassinated. For- eigners who had taken refuge in their legations were besieged, for nearly two months, by furious mobs. The gratitude of the Chinese for the friendship of the United States now be- 528 AMERICAN HISTORY came apparent, and presently the imperial government com- municated to Secretary Hay the hopeful news that while it was unable, for the moment, to suppress the insurrection, the legations at Pekin were still safe. Acting on this information, an international expedition marched from the coast to relieve them. On August i, 1900, the Boxer revolt ended with the arrival of the foreign soldiers at Pekin. 744. Triple Agreement. This episode rcenforccd the Ameri- can argument against attempting to dismember China. The United States and England were now joined by Japan in a vig- orous assertion of the open-door policy. The three were said to hold the " moral balance of power " in Chinese affairs. For the time, at least, the scheme of dismembering China was set aside. ^ The, Chinese imperial government agreed to pay indemnities to all the Western nations for the harm done their people by the Boxers. 745. Revival of Internal Issues. With the close of the year 1900 the United States may be said to have taken its place among the great powers of the world. FeeHng that they had done so, and that they were secure in their new position, the American people turned their attention again to internal conditions. The currency question was allowed to drop.^ The tariff question was for the moment at a standstill, because neither the Republicans nor the Democrats were all of one mind on the subject, and both parties felt safer in taking up other problems. The obvious question of the hour was the condition of business. From 1901 until now an overshadow- ing question in American pohtics has been the relation of business to legislation. 746. " The Business Man's Party." The purpose of the supporters of McKinley in 1900 was to make the Repubhcan party preeminently the " business man's party." The special ' A further check was the defeat of Russia, one of the chief advocates of dismemberment, in her war with Japan, 1905-1906. * As a consequence of this tacit dropping of the currency question, both parties at the next election nominated candidates fully committed to the gold standard. RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 529 champion of that purpose was McKinley's campaign manager, Marcus A. Hanna of Ohio. It was to strengthen such a policy that the Repubhcans in their platform had asserted " the necessity and propriety of honest cooperation of capital to meet new conditions of business and especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade " ; they condemned, how- ever, all " combinations to restrict business " or to " create monopolies." Upon the question of trusts — soon to become the chief issue in politics — the Republicans, as late as 1900, were comparatively noncommittal. The Democrats, on the contrary, had made the trusts their especial object of attack, and had proclaimed " an unceasing warfare " against them. As the foreign complications were now cleared away, the chief question became — what is the real aim of Hanna in demand- ing a " business man's party " ? 747. The Hanna Policy. The answer of Hanna and his following was prompt and clear. They pointed out that the United States had lately increased its volume of business in a way that staggered the imagination. American wealth was piling up with immense rapidity. The country was more prosperous, they argued, than ever before. They attributed all this to two causes : (i) the tariff, and (2) a general atti- tude on the part of the government that inclined it to shape legislation so as to benefit the large investors. Such was Hanna's conception of the country's needs. 748. The Distribution Policy. His enemies took a view of the situation utterly different. The great increase in the vol- ume of business in late years they did not deny. They ad- initted that American wealth was becoming fabulous. None the less they maintained that the country was in a dangerous condition. They said to Hanna, in substance : Your policy takes no thought of the small business man, only of the large one ; the great investor is tenderly cared for in your policy ; while the small investor is crowded out. What you are aiming at, is not truly a " business man's party," but a " rich man's party." In a word, they demanded less thought about the 530 AMERICAN HISTORY volume of business and more thought about the way its bene- fits were distributed. They raised the cry that the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. 749. Hanna's Influence Declines. President McKinley had a sure instinct for what the people wanted. He appears to have perceived, in the course of 1901, that a strong opposi- tion to Hanna was growing up inside the Republican party. His extraordinarily sensitive nature divined, when the move- ment was just beginning, a tendency in his own party to call Haima's policy a return toward aristocracy. He knew that it would never do to let the " business man's party " become the " rich man's party." He knew, also, that in the vice president, Mr. Roosevelt, the enemies of Hanna inside the party might find a powerful leader. Therefore, in the course of the year, he began cautiously to intimate that the time had come to " reform " the commercial and economic system of the country. 750. Assassination of McKinley. What reforms he had in mind we do not know. On September 6, at the open- ing of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist named Czolgosz. He died September 14. His amiable and sympathetic nature caused him to be universally lamented. Selections from the Sources. Macdonald, Select Statutes, Nos. 128- 131; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, Nos. 180-196; Moore, Digest of In- ternational Law, I, 48, 243 ; IV, 611 ; V, 213, 375 ; VI, 105 ; Richardson, Messages and Papers, X; Caldwell, Territorial Dcveloptncnt, 213-255; Wheeler, Santiago Campaign ; Hoar, Autobiography, II, 304-329 ; Roosevelt, Rough Riders; Funston, Memories of Two Wars; Schley, Forty-five Years under the Flag, chaps, xxiv-xxvi ; Long, New American Navy. Secondary Accounts. Coolidge, The United States as a World Power, chaps, v-viii ; Foster, American Diplomacy in the Orient, chap, xiii; CuvRiiAT^, Philippine A fairs; Willis, Our Philippine Problem; Sparks, The Expansion of the American People, chap, xxxvi; Latane, America as a World Power, and United States and Spanish America, 174, 175, 214-220; Wilson, American People, V, 269-300; Cambridge RETURN INTO WORLD POLITICS 531 Modern History, VII, 674-686 ; Larned, History for Ready Reference, VI, 6s, 171, 225, 258, 367, 583 ; Elson, Side Lights, II, 352-401 ; Dewey, Financial History, sees. 197-202 ; Carpenter, American Advance, 288- 331; Callahan, Cuba, 453-496; Maclay, United States Navy, III, 39- 440; TiTHERiNGTON, Spanish American War ; Brooks, War with Spain; Mahan, Lessons of the War with Spain. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Cuban Revolt. 2. The American Army in the Cuban War. 3. The Anti-imperialist Movement. 4. American Rule in the Philippines. 5. America in the Orient. 6. The Issues of 1900. CHAPTER XXXI THE NEW AGE 751. Theodore Roosevelt. The remarkable man who now became President had already revealed himself as one of those highly distinctive natures that inspire their followers with unlimited devotion and arouse in enemies fierce dislike. In the eyes of his followers he was his country's greatest good ; in the eyes of his enemies, its greatest evil. In whichever category we place him, we shall all agree that his tremendous forcefulness profoundly affected his time.^ One of his first conspicuous achievements was the settle- ment of the anthracite coal strike of 1902. This strike, in which the coal miners were led by John Mitchell, was a particularly bitter one. The mine owners took an uncom- promising position. Coal ran short and a large part of the country was threatened with coal famine. The President, though without any legal warrant to do so, intervened. He brought the miners and owners together and secured the ap- pointment of a commission by which the strike was settled. It is possible that his success in that connection gave a new turn to his thoughts. At any rate, it was the beginning of a course he followed steadily thereafter. Because of it, his enemies sometimes accused him of being a socialist. His great rival, Mr. Bryan, declared that he had " stolen the thunder " of the reforming group which Mr. Bryan himself ^ Perhaps his most valuable achievement previous to his succession to the presidency was accomplished as commissioner of the ci\il service. Largely through his endeavors about 100,000 offices were withdrawn from politics and opened to competitive examination. Continuing this reform while President, he secured the enlargement of the classified civil service so as to include some 234,000 ofl&ces. 532 THE NEW AGE 533 represented. The course in question consists in using the vast influence of the government to break down whatever appears to be tending back toward a revival of aristocracy. That there is such a tendency to-day is freely admitted. Both the soil of the United States and its business interests are concen- trated in the hands of comparatively few people. The large business concerns tend to combine and crush out the smaller ones, reducing their 5wners to dependent posi- tions. One of Mr. Roose- velt's popular achievements consisted in frustrating such an attempted combination. The Great Northern Rail- way, the Northern Pacific, and the Chicago, Burling- ton, and Quincy were con- templating a " merger." The President caused his attorney-general to bring suit under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to prevent the merger. In 1904 the Supreme Court sustained the President and held the merger to be illegal.^ 752. The Panama Canal. A project which appealed to the ardent imperialism of the President was the Panama Canal. We have seen that as far back as 1846 the United States made a treaty on this subject with Colombia (section 532). At that time two routes were under consideration. The alternative route crossed the state of Nicaragua. England held the key 1 The year previous a stringent antitrust act had been passed requiring cor- porations that do an interstate business to open their books to government inspection. Copyright by Harris and Swing. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 534 AMERICAN HISTORY to the Nicaragua route, which was then more popular than the Panama route. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, negotiated in 1850, provided that whichever route should be chosen, both England and America should control it jointly. Subse- quently both parties lost interest in the canal. When a French company, under Ferdinand de Lcsseps, stepped in and went to work building a canal at Panama, Americans took no notice. President Hayes tried in vain to rouse them, saying that the proposed canal would be " part of the coast line of the United States." However, De Lesseps failed, his company went bankrupt, and the canal question again came to a standstill. It was revived by an incident of the Spanish War. The battleship Oregon, in 1898, was at San Francisco. In order to join Sampson's fleet it had to steam 13,000 miles, rounding Cape Horn. Immediately there was a demand to cut the isthmus by a canal. Two complications had to be straightened out. One was the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty; the other was the French company of De Lesseps. England showed her friendly feeling toward the United States by consenting to a termination of the treaty. By the new Hay-Pauncefote Treaty,^ November, 1901, Eng- land gave up all claim to take part in the management of the canal. The French company offered to sell its property and rights to the United States government for $40,000,000. Congress, June 28, 1902, authorized the President to buy out the Frenchmen and build the canal. Thereupon a new problem arose. After a treaty had been negotiated with Colombia, that country refused to ratify it ' In force, February 22, 1912. JOHN MITCHELL President of the United Mine Workers of America. THE NEW AGE 535 CARIBBEAN (September 14, 1903). However, Colombia, like ourselves, is a federation. The canal would Ke entirely within the borders of the state of Panama. Knowing that it was practically sure of the support of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia and declared itself a separate repubhc, November 3, 1903. It was promptly recognized by the United States,^ and Colom- bia made no attempt to recover the seceded state by force. On Febru- ary 26, 1904,^ a treaty was made between Panama and the United States giving the latter full control of a strip of land from sea to sea, across the isthmus.^ 753. Election of 1904. The mas- terful President encountered much opposition inside his own party. Those Republicans who wished, be- fore all else, to make their party " the business man's party," were alarmed at his desire to bring busi- ness within the scope of national legislation. However, the sudden death of the anti-Roosevelt leader, Senator Marcus A. PACIFIC THE CANAL ZONE 1 There was a rival plan. A company had been formed to utilize the Nica- ragua route, and Congress instructed the President that if he could not secure satisfactory agreements with Colombia "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms" he was then to go to work on a canal through Nicaragua. One reason why the matter was pressed upon Colombia so urgently was the fear that Congress might reconsider its action and adopt the Nicaragua route after all. The revolution in Panama is supposed to have been hastened by this fear. Enemies of the President have not hesitated to say that he was informed of the revolutionary movement in advance. ^ Negotiated towards the close of 1903. * By an act of Congress, March 4, 191 1, the United States has undertaken to fortify the canal. It is thus, as President Hayes prophesied, "part of the coast line of the United States." 536 AMERICAN HISTORY Hanna of Ohio, disorganized his faction. President Roose- velt was renominated. The Republican platform declared for protection but laid especial stress on the belief that corpo- rate business should be regulated by Congress. The Demo- crats nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. The MODERN INVENTION A steam shovel used in digging the Panama Canal. real issue of the campaign was whether or not the country had confidence in the President.^ The event showed that it had. The President received 336 electoral votes against 140.^ 754. The Roosevelt Policies. The President now increased ' There is more than a fanciful similarity to the election of Jackson in 1832. In each case, economic and administrative questions, though they counted for much, were subordinate to the strictly personal question of confidence in a man. ' Three other candidates received each a considerable popular vote : Eugene V. Debs, Socialist, 402,000; Thomas E. Watson, Populist, 113,000; Silas Swallow, Prohibitionist, 259,000. THE NEW AGE 537 his hostility to the trusts. During his second term of office he lent his influence to support a variety of measures designed to reduce the power of capital. Incidentally, the phrase " malefactors of great wealth " was coined by the President, accepted by the popular fancy, and fixed upon his opponents as a damaging label. Among the conspicuous measures of this period were the Elkins Act (1903), designed to abolish rebating (section 711) ; the Hepburn Act (1906), to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Commission ; and the Pure Food . 111.:: .. _. -f ^ « AMP mmu wwwMmmi, ^ WAHHWGTOM ^IVERSnY m CAMIFVS AMIS) AM^dMiT (SM^ffM WMi^ ©ccwms© i¥ 'Wai fifflWKSKElFOS :0R(OTI1CT IHE WJIWISAL EWOSmOM OF 11§§4 KUMB m C®MMIEM0?M3rE "ME ©IME IHIW«P]riEI ANNIVEISAIY ®F TME A€(OMSffl©N ©F a TiHEiiowMAiiMnroer ^ ■ Law (1906), to protect the pubhc against the adulteration of foodstuffs. The President also gave his support to a movement of re- cent origin that is as significant as any of these others. What is known as " conservation " is an attempt to counteract the recklessness with which Americans have squandered their natural resources, especially their forests. Popular agitation to save the forests led to a conference on conservation called by the President at Washington, in May, 1908. Shortly after- ward the National Conservation Commission was estabhshed. 538 AMERICAN HISTORY It drew up the first thorough report upon the natural resources of the United States. At the close of 1908 a joint Conserva- tion conference, composed of the governors, or official repre- sentatives, from 22 states and territories, met at Washington and discussed this report. Vigorous action to save the for- ests of the country has been brought about by this new inter- THE ROOSEVELT DAM, ARIZONA A monument of the conservation policy. est in conservation. As a result vast areas have been set apart as forest reserves.' There is now a national Bureau of Forestry headed by the national forester.- ^ At the end of 191 2 there were 163 national forests with an acreage of 187,000,000. Among them are the Appalachian forest and the White Mountains forest. Both of these were reserved by act of Congress in March, 1911, with a view to protecting the watersheds of streams. ^ The same impulse that led to forest reserves has also led to great works of irrigation to reclaim western "deserts." The Roosevelt dam, in Arizona, is one of the most famous instances. THE NEW AGE 539 The masterful temper that made President Roosevelt, in some respects, a kind of second Jackson, made him also a bold and resourceful administrator of foreign affairs. As early as 1901 Germany was brought to make acknowl- edgment of the Monroe Doctrine. Germany did so when she refrained from collecting by force of arms debts due the Germans from Venezuela. To offset this self-restraint of Germany, President Roosevelt in 1902 sent to Congress what has sometimes been called the " big stick " message. He maintained that the United States ought to exercise a sort of police authority over our southern neighbors, and not allow them to use the Monroe Doctrine as an excuse for repudiating obligations. In 1905 the President put his views into practice. As San Domingo, though heavily in debt, would not satisfy its credi- tors, the United States intervened, appointed a receiver of cus- toms for San Domingo, and effected its deliverance from debt. A treaty with San Domingo, confirming the course of President Roosevelt, was eventually ratified by the American Senate. A permanent understanding between the United States and Latin America was effected in 1907. Our secretary of state, Elihu Root, had recently made a tour of South America and convinced its peoples of the good intentions of the northern republic. As a consequence, in a session of the Hague Con- ference^ the representative of the United States, together with most of those from Latin America, advocated a plan which was formulated by the foreign ministef of the Argentine Republic, Seiior Drago. This was the proposition that all members of the Hague Conference should submit their finan- cial claims to arbitration. 755. Resurrection of an Old Problem. Meanwhile the United States had become involved in other foreign compli- ^ The International Court of Arbitration, commonly known as The Hague Conference, consists of representatives of forty-three governments to promote the cause of arbitration as a substitute for war. It meets periodically at The Hague, where it was instituted July 29, 1899. 540 AMERICAN HISTORY cations which came upon us as a surprise. In October, 1906, the emperor of Japan ^ complained to Washington that the San Francisco schools were discriminating against Japanese children. Japan pointed out that the United States, by a treaty made in 1894, had guaranteed to Japanese in this coun- try the same treatment accorded to American citizens. 'A-\' •'i3!^"iwiili f :. Limited by Eleveoth .\meQdment. APPENDIX B 571 levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testi- mony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. [§ 2] The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. ARTICLE IV Section i. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. Section 2. [§ i] The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privi- leges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.^ [§ 2] A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. [§ 3] [No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regula- tion therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.] ^ Section 3. [§ i] New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union ; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. [§ 2] The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot to convened) against domestic Violence. ARTICLE V The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and 1 Extended by Fourteenth Amendment. * Superseded by Thirteenth Amendment so far as it relates to slaves. 572 APPENDIX B Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided [that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article ; and] ^ that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VI [§ i] All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.'' [§ 2] This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land ; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith- standing. [§ 3] The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution ; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. ARTICLE VII The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September and the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our names. Go WASHINGTON — Presidt and deputy from Virginia. [Note of the draughtsman as to interlineations in the text of the manuscript.] Attest WrLxiAu Jackson. Secretary. NEW HAMPSHIRE John Lancdon Nicholas Giluan MASSACHUSETTS Nathaniel Gorham RuTDS King ' Temporary provision. PENNSYLVANIA B Franklin Thomas Mifflin Root. Morris Geo. Cylmee Tho. Fitz Simons Jared Ingersoll James Wilson Gouv Morris VIRGINIA John Blair James Madison, Jr. NORTH CAROLINA Wm. Blount RiCHD. DoBBS Spaight Hu Williamson * Extended by Fourteenth .Amendment, Section 4. APPENDIX B 573 CONNECTICUT Wm. Saml. Johnson Roger Sherman NEW YORK Alexander Hamilton NEW JERSEY Wn,: Livingston David Brearley Wm. : Paterson Jona: Dayton DELAWARE SOUTH CAROLINA J. RUTLEDGE JuN. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Charles Pinckney Pierce Butler Geo: Read Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson Richard Bassett Jaco : Broom MARYLAND GEORGIA James McHenry William Few Dan of St. Thos. Jenifer Abr Baldwin Danl Carroll, Attest William Jackson, Secretary [AMENDMENTS] ARTICLES in addition to and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the legis- latures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.! [ARTICLE I] 2 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- hibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [ARTICLE II] A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [ARTICLE III] No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. [ARTICLE IV] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 1 This heading appears only in the joint resolution submitting the first ten amendments. * In the original manuscripts the first twelve amendments have no numbers. 574 APPENDIX B [ARTICLE V] No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled in any crim- inal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. [ARTICLE VI] In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusa- tion ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. [ARTICLE VII] In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. [ARTICLE VIII] Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. [ARTICLE IX] The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [ARTICLE X] The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.' > Amendments First to Tenth proclaimed to be in force, Dec. 15, 1791. APPENDIX B 575 [ARTICLE XI] 1 The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. [ARTICLE Xn]« The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhab- itant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate ; — The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted ; — The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. — The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest num- bers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that o£ Vice-President of the United States. 1 Proclaimed to be in force Jan. 8, 1798. * Proclaimed to be in force Sept. 25, 1804. 576 APPENDIX B ARTICLE XIII 1 Section i. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish- ment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Sec- tion 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ARTICLE XIV 2 Section i. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any oflice, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previous!}' taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obli- gation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, ' Proclaimed to be in force Dec. 18, 1865. Bears the unnecessary approval of the President. ' Proclaimed to be in force July 28, 1868. APPENDIX B 577 or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave ; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis- lation, the provisions of this article. ARTICLE XVI Section i. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro- priate legislation. ARTICLE XVI 2 The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from what- ever source derived, without apportionment, among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. ARTICLE XVII 2 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years ; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies : Provided, That the Legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the Legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. 1 Proclaimed to be in force March 30, 1870. ' Ratified, 1913. APPENDIX C States of the Union Repre- Admission Previous Status sentatives 1910' 22 Alabama Dec. 14, 1819 Territory 10 48 Arizona Feb. 14, 1912 Territory I 25 Arkansas June 15, 1836 Part of Arkansas Territory 7 31 California Sept. 9, 1850 Unorganized territory II 38 Colorado Aug. I, 1876 Territory 4 S Connecticut Jan. 9, 17882 Original state 5 I Delaware Dec. 7, 1787 2 Original state I 27 Florida March 3, 1845 Territory 4 4 Georgia Jan. 2, 17882 Original state 12 43 Idaho July 3, 1890 Territory 2 21 Illinois Dec. 3, 1818 Part of Illinois Territory 27 19 Indiana Dec. II, 1816 Indiana Territory and part of Michigan Territory 13 29 Iowa Dec. 28, 1846 Part of Iowa Territory II 34 Kansas Jan. 29, 1861 Part of Kansas Territory 8 IS Kentucky June I, 1792 Part of Virginia II 18 Louisiana April 30, 181 2 Territory of Orleans 8 23 Maine March 15, 1820 Part of Massachusetts 4 7 Maryland April 28, 17882 Original state 6 6 Massachusetts Feb. 6, 17882 Original state 16 26 Michigan Jan. 26, 1837 Part of Michigan Territory 13 32 Minnesota May II, 1858 Part of Minnesota Territory 10 20 Mississippi Dec. 10, 1817 Territory 8 24 Missouri Aug. 10, 1 82 1 Part of Missouri Territory 16 41 Montana Nov. 8, 1889 Territory 2 37 Nebraska March i, 1867 Part of Nebraska Territory 6 36 Nevada Oct. 31, 1864 Territory I 9 New Hampshire June 21, 17882 Original state 2 3 New Jersey Dec. 18, 1787 2 Original state 12 47 New Mexico Jan. 6, 1912 Territory I. II New York July 26, 17882 Original state 43 12 North Carolina Nov. 21, 1789* Original state 10 39 North Dakota Nov. 2, 1889 Part of Dakota Territory 3 ' A reapportionment of representatives among the states in proportion to population, follows each census. ' Date of ratification of the Constitution. 578 APPENDIX C 579 Rf.pre- Admission Previous Status SENTATIVES I910 17 Ohio Feb. 19, 1803 1 Part of Northwest Territory 22 46 Oklahoma Nov. 16, 1907 Oklahoma Territory and In- dian Territory 8 33 Oregon Feb. 14, 1859 Part of Oregon Territory 3 2 Pennsylvania Dec. 12, 1787 2 Original state 36 13 Rhode Island May 29, 17902 Original state 3 8 South Carolina May 23, 17882 Original state 7 40 South Dakota Nov. 2, 1889 Part of Dakota Territory 3 16 Tennessee June I, 1796 Territory South of the Ohio 10 28 Texas Dec. 29, 1845 Independent state 18 45 Utah Jan. 4, 1S96 Territory 2 14 Vermont March 4, 1791 Semi-independent state 2 10 Virginia June 26, 17882 Original state 10 42 Washington Nov. II, 1889 Territory S 35 West Virginia June 19, 1863 Part of Virginia 6 30 Wisconsin May 29, 1848 Part of Wisconsin Territory II 44 Wyoming July 10, 1890 Territory I ' Congress passed an enabling act for the admission of Ohio, April 30, 1802. Formerly, it was held that the admission of Ohio was completed November 29, 1802. The date given in the table is the one now accepted by the United States Census authorities. 2 Date of ratification of the Constitution. APPENDIX D Presidents of the United States No. PRESroENT PoLrrics Inaugurated Years Served I Washington Federalist 1789 7 y. 10 mo. 4 d. 2 J. Adams Federalist 1797 4 3 Jefferson Republican * 1801 8 4 Madison Republican 1809 8 5 Monroe Republican 1817 8 6 J. Q. Adams Republican 1825 4 7 Jackson Democrat 1829 8 8 Van Buren Democrat 1837 4 9 Harrison Whig 1841 I mo. lO Tyler Democrat 1841 3 y. II rao. II Polk Democrat 1845 4 12 Taylor Whig 1849 I y. 4 mo. 5 d. 13 Fillmore Whig 1850 2 y. 7 mo. 26 d. 14 Pierce Democrat 1853 4 15 Buchanan Democrat 1857 4 16 Lincoln Republican 1861 4 y. I mo. II d. 17 Johnson Republican 1865 3 y. 10 mo. 19 d. 18 Grant Republican 1869 8 19 Hayes Republican 1877 4 20 Garfield Republican 1881 6j mo. 21 Arthur Republican 1881 3 y. si mo. 22 Cleveland Democrat 1885 4 23 B. Harrison Republican 1889 4 24 Cleveland Democrat 1893 4 25 McKinley Republican 1897 4 y. 6 mo. 10 d. 26 Roosevelt Republican 1901 7 y. 5 mo. 18 d. 27 Taft Republican 1909 4 28 Wilson Democrat 1913 ' It must be remembered that the four Presidents calling themselves "Republicans," in the early nineteenth century, were members of the party now known by the name "l)emocratic." 580 APPENDIX E Congressional Representation of the Sections 17 go- 1860 Senate House Year Free States Slave States Free States' Slave States 1790 14 12 35 30 1792 16 14 57 48 1796 16 16 57 49 1800 16 16 57 49 1804 18 16 77 65 1808 18 16 77 65 1812 18 18 103 79 1816 20 18 104 79 1820 24 24 105 82 1824 24 24 123 90 1828 24 24 123 90 1832 24 24 141 99 1836 26 26 142 100 1840 26 26 142 100 1844 26 26 135 98 1848 30 30 139 91 1852 32 30 144 90 1856 32 30 144 90 i860 36 30 147 90 Note : To find the Electoral Votes, add together the number of Senators and Representatives. S8i APPENDIX F GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY The thirty-one special bibliographies contained in this volume form together an adequate working list of books on American history. In almost every case the full title of a work, the place and date of publication, may be found in the indispensable ** Guide to the Study and Reading of American History by Channing, Hart, and Turner (191 2. $2.50. Ginn). However, this extended list includes books not absolutely necessary to the young student, while some of the works mentioned are not to be found except in the large historical collections. The following briefer list is suggested as the basis of a school library. Of almost all the books named below, short but authoritative criticisms will be found in a recent work, of great value to teachers, the ** Bibliography of History for Schools and Libraries, by Andrews, Gambrill, and Tall (191 1. $0.60. Longmans). The titles marked with two stars are recommended as a minimum reference group. To these it is desirable to add as rapidly as possible the volumes marked with a single star. Acts of the Privy Council of England {Relative to America). Edited by W. L. Grant and J. Monroe. 5 vols. 1908. *Adams, H., History of the United States, 1801-1817. 9 vols. 1889-1891. $18.00. Scribner. *k\cxz.TLd&T,¥.. v., Military Memoirs of a Confederate. 1907. $3.00. Scribner. *Andrews, C. M., Colonial Self -Government. (American Nation Series.) American Commonwealth Series. $i.25pervol. Houghton. Titles and authors as follows : Ca/i/onna, by JosiahRoyce. 1886; Co««ec//c7aptists in Rhode Island, 121 Bates, Edward, 409 Beauregard, General P. G. T., 410, 415; succeeds A. S. Johnston, 425; evacuates Corinth, 426 Beecher, H. W., 438, 472 Belknap, W. W., 488 Bell, John, 402 Benjamin, J. P., 409 Bennington, Vt., defeat of British at, 194 Bering Sea arbitration, 510 I'.erkeley, Lord, 86 Berkeley, Sir William, 59, 66, 90 Bethlehem, Pa., settled by Moravians, 95 Bienville, Celoronde, takes possession of Ohio valley, 152 Bimey, J. G., 330, 348, 355 Black Hawk War, 341 Black IViirrior, 390 Blaine, J. G., 487, 503 Blair, Montgomery, 409 Blockade, southern, 413, 423, 448 Bolzius, 134, 142 Bonhomme Richard, battle with Sera- fis, 201, 202 Bonus Bill, 294 Boone, Daniel, explores Kentucky,227 Booth, J. W., 467, 468 Boscawen, Admiral, 154 Boston, 52 ; revolt in, against Andros, 107; population in 1700, 116; British troops sent to, 169; Mas- sacre, 170; "Tea Party," 171, 173; seizure of Dorchester Heights by Washington, 180; fire in, 496 Boston Common, Quakers hanged on, 55 Boston Massacre, 170 Boston " Tea Party," 171, 173 Boundaries of United States, proposed, 210; (1783), 216; (1803), 271; (1S14), 271 ; (i8r8), 295; (1819), 295; (1842), 350; (1845), 360; (1846), 363; (1848), 364; (1853), 364 Boxer indemnity, 542 Boxers, 527-528 Braddock, General Edward, defeated by French, 153, 154 Bradford, William, 37 Bragg, General Braxton, 432, 434, 435; Murfreesboro, 436; Chicka- mauga, 451 ; Chattanooga, 452 Brandywine, battle of, 196 Brent, Mrs. Margaret, 59, 61 liright, John, 438 Bristow, B. M., 488 Brook Farm, 384 Brooks, Preston, 394 Brown, B. Gratz, 4S3 Brown, John, 394, 399, 400 Bryan, W. J., 516, 542, 549 Bryant, 328 Buchanan, James, 395, 397, 406 Buckingham, Duke of, 40 Buell, General Don Carlos, 422, 423, 424, 434, 435 Buena Vista, battle of, 363 Bull Run. See Manassas Bunker Hill, battle of, 178 Butler, Captain, 42 Butler, General B. F., 422, 425, 457 Burlingame treaty, 500 Burnside, General A. E., 434, 452 Burr, Aaron, 273, 274 l?usiness, new phases of, 496 " Business Man's Party," 528 Cable, Atlantic, 501 Cabot, John and Sebastian, 13 Calhoun, John C, 280, 294, 313, 314, 316 California, ceded to United States by Mexico, 364 ; early history of, 364 ; early American explorers in, 365, 366 ; conquest of, by Americans, 366, 367 ; discovery of gold in, 372 ; government formed in, 372, 373 ; Japanese question in, 541 Calvert, Leonard, 57, 59 Cambridge Agreement, 49 Camden, S.C., battle of, 203 Cameron, Simon, 409 Canada, unsuccessful expeditions against, by Arnold and Montgomery, 179, 180; reciprocity with, 545 Cannon, Joseph, 545 Cardross, Lord, 93 Carolina, 83 ; religious toleration in, 92, 03 ; Spanish expedition against, 100; expedition against Spaniards at St. Augustine prevented, 104; INDEX 591 religious intolerance of Tories in, 129; revolution in, against proprie- tors, 132; colony of, divided into North and South Carolina, 133 " Carpetbaggers," 481, 486, 489 Carteret, Sir George, 86 Cartier, Jacques, 13 Carver, John, t,^ Cass, Lewis, 406 Catholics. See Maryland Cavendish, Lord, 43 Cedar Creek, battle of, 457 Centennial Exposition, 497 Cerro Gordo, battle of, 363 Cervera, Admiral, 521 Champion's Hill, battle of, 443 Champlain, Samuel de, 96 Chancellorsville, battle of, 442 Charles I, 51, 52, 56, 67, 70 Charles II, 70, 82, 83, 85, 92, 102 Charleston, S.C., first settlement of, 84; population in 1700, 116; ex- pedition of French and Spaniards against, in 1706, 130; surrender of, to British, 203 ; map of harbor, 406 ; evacuated, 462 Chase, S. P., 409 Chattanooga, battle of, 452 Cherokee Indians, 139 Chesapeake Bay, battle of, 209 Chesapeake, 276 Chicago fire, 496 Chickamauga, battle of, 451 Chickasaw Bayou, battle of, 436 China, opens " treaty ports " to American ships, 377 ; open-door policy, 527, 528 ; Taft's reception by, 541 Chinese problem, 500, 503 Chisholm vs. Georgia, 249 Chittenden, Miss A. H., 551 Christina, Fort, 81 Church of England, 31, 46, 52, 54; established in Maryland, 62 ; in Maine, 67 Cities, problem of, 551 Civic improvement, first efforts to- wards, 382 Civil Rights Bill, 473 Civil Service Act, 504 Civil Service classified, 532 Civil War in England, 66 Claiborne, William, 58, 59 Claims, confederate cruisers, 493 Clarendon, Earl of, 84 Clark, George Rogers, campaign in West, 200 Clay, Henry, desires war with Eng- land, 280, 281 ; urges " American system," 294 ; debate with Webster on tariff, 307 Cleveland, Grover, 505, 507, 509 Coinage, system of, established, 253 Coinage Act (1873), 494 Coins, weight of, 494 Colleges, founded in 1 7th century, 1 1 9, 120; founded in 18th century, 148 Colleton, James, governor of Caro- lina, prevents expedition against Spaniards, 104 Colorado, 408 Columbia, S.C., burning of, 462 Columbus, 8 ; left Portugal for Spain, 9; aided by Queen Isabella, first voyage, 10, 11 ; death, 12 Cold Harbor, battle of, 457 Columbian Exposition, 511 Commerce Court, 544 Commission government, 551 Committees of Correspondence, 170, 171 Communism, 384, 385 Compromise of 1850, 373, 374, 375 Concord, Mass., retreat of British from, 176 Confederacy, formation of, 408 Confederate constitution, 408 Confederation, Articles of, 213, 214, 224, 225 Congregationalists in New England, 121 Congress, first Continental, 174, 175; second Continental, 177; petition sent to king, 178, 179; Confederate, 222 ; and the reconstructed states, 471 Connecticut, 67; foundation of col- ony, 67, 68 ; charter received from Charles II, 83 ; under rule of Andros, 105; represented at con- gress of 1690, 108 Connecticut compromise, 232 Conscription, 441 Conservation, 537, 538 Constitution, engagement with the Guerriire, 282 Constitution of United States, sign- ing of, 237 ; ratification of, by states, 238; amendments to, 239, 240, 548 592 AMERICAN HISTORY Constitutional Convention, 230, 231, 232. ^33^ 234, 235, 236 Constitutional Union party, 402 Contraband, 439 Cooke, J. E., 337 Copperheads, 454, 470 Corporation Tax Law, 544 Corporations, growth of, 381 ; use of, 496 ; power of, 497 Corinth, Mississippi, 424 ; battle of, 435 Cornwallis, Lord, captures Fort Lee, 184; surrenders British army at Yorktown, 209 Cortez, Hernando, 12 Cotton, key to the situation (1861), 420; in England, 437, 438, 439, 450 Cotton gin, effect of invention of, 300 Council for New England, 36, 37, 39 ; scheme of government, 40; number of small grants issued by, 45, 67 Cowpens, battle of, 205 Coxey's Army, 512 Craven, William, Earl of, 104 Crawford, W. H., 280 Crittenden Compromise, 407 Cromwell, Oliver, 62, 72, 79, 80, 82 Cromwell, Richard, 82 Culpepper, John, rebellion of, 91 Cuba, 519, 521, 525, 526 Custer Massacre, 499 Cuzco, Peru, i, 2, 3 Dale, Governor, 28 Dale's laws, 28 Danvers, Sir John, 43 Dare, Virginia, 22 Debs, E. v., 513, 514. 536. 54''^ Debt, United States, 460; Southern states, 481 Davis, Jefferson, Secretary of War, 390; president of the Confederacy, 409; Fort Sumter, 410; inaugura- tion, 411; habeas corpus, 449; cap- ture, 464; release, 480 Debt national, 268 Declaration of Independence, 181, 182 Deerfield, Mass., attacked by French and Indians, 128 Defenses, Southern (1861), 421 De Grasse, Admiral, 207, 209, 210 Delaware, early settlement in, 81 Delaware, Lord, 28 De Lome, Ambassador, 519 Democratic conventions (i860), 402 Democratic party, 258, 262, 265, 286, 305- 3 '2. 345' 348, 359' 394> 402, 460,475,504,515,547 De Monts, Sieur, 96 Depreciation of currency, 485 De Soto, Ferdinand, 14 Dewey, Commodore, 521 Diaz, Bartholomew, 10 Dingley tariff, 516 Dissenters, 87 Dix, Dorothea L., 383 Dominica, battle of, 210, 211 Dongan, Thomas, treaty with Iroquois, 99, 100, loi, 103 Donner party, 366 Dorr Rebellion, 386 Douglas, Stephen A., 392, 397, 402 Dover, N.H., 67, 107 Draft riots, 441 Drago, Seiior, 539 Drake, Sir Francis, 19, 20, 24 Dred Scott Decision, 395 Duane, W. J., 344 Dudley, Joseph, 105 Duquesne, Fort, built by French, 153 ; captured by English, 156 Dutch, the, fort planted on Connecti- cut River by, 69, 73 ; settlements in America ceded to England, 86 Dutch Reformed Church in New York, 121 Dyer, Mary, 55 Early, General J. A., 457 Earthquake, San Francisco, 540 Edict of Nantes, revocation of, 92 P2ducation, in America, in 17th cen- tury, 119; in United States in latter part of 1 8th century, 245 ; in middle of loth century, 382, 3S3 Edwards, John, 147 Elections: {17S9), 238, 248; (1792), 258; {1796), 262; (1800), 265; (1804), 273; (1808), 277; (1812), 289; (1816), 295; (1S20), 304; (1824), 309; (1828), 312; (1832), 316; (1836), 346; (1840), 349; (■844). 355' 360; (1848), 371; (1852), 390; (1856), 394; (1S60), 401; (1861), 411; (1862), 432; (1863), 442; (1864), 460; (1866), 47S; (.868), 478; (1872), 485; (1876), 4S8; (1880), 50:1; (1884), 504; (1888), 507; (1892), 509; INDEX 593 (1896), 516; (1900), 524; (1904), 535; (1908), 54^; (1912), 547 Electoral College, 235 Electoral Commission, 489 Electoral Count, 505 Elizabeth, Queen, 19, 23 Elkins Act, 537 Emancipation, early movements to- wards, in South, 330 ; unauthorized proclamations, 439 ; territories and District of Columbia, 440 ; Lin- coln's proclamation, 440 ; com- pleted, 466 Embargo, 277 Emerson, 328 Endicott, John, 46, 48 England, foreign relations with, in 1783, 218; seizure of American ships by, 259, 260; and the Con- federacy, 437-438, 440, 444, 448 Ericsson, John, 427 Eric the Red, 5 Erie, Lake, naval battle on, 281 Erie Canal, 295 Eutaw Springs, S.C., battle of, 207 Everett, Edward, 402 Ewell, General, 446 Express companies, early, 380 Fair Oaks. See Seven Pines Farmers' Alliance, 497 Farragut, Admiral U. G., 422; New Orleans, 425; Mobile, 460 Federalist party, formation of, 258, 259 Ferrar, Nicholas, ;5o, 43 Fifteenth Amendment, 478 Fifth Avenue Conference, 487 Fillmore, Millard, 395 Finance, state of, during Revolution, 205; problem of, in 1783, 218, 219 Five Nations. See Iroquois Flag, American, 195 Flags, Confederate, 412 Florida, ceded by Spain to England, 158 ; purchase of, from Spain, 295 ; secedes, 408 ; readmitted, 478; con- trolled by whites, 489 Florida, commerce destroyer, 437 Floyd, J. B., 406 Force Acts, 481 Forests, National, 538 Forrest, General N. B., 434 Fort Donelson, 423 Fort Fisher, 462 Fort Henry, 423 Fort Sumter, 406, 410, 41 1 Fourteenth Amendment, 473 France, secret aid to colonies during Revolution, 192, 193; negotiations for alliance with America, 196; be- comes ally of Republic of United States, 198; seizure of American ships, 259; naval war with United States, 264 Franklin, Benjamin, 148, 149, 192, 193 Franklin, state of, 228 Frederick the Great, 154, 155, 157, 192, 202 Fredericksburg, battle of, 434 Free Democracy, 390 Free silver. See Silver Free-Soil party, 370, 371, 390 Freedmen's Bureau, 473 Freeport Doctrine, 397 Fremont, General J. C., defeats Mexi- cans in California, 366, 367, 394, 439 French Protestants. See Huguenots Fugitive Slave Law, of 1793, 275; of 1850, 375, 389 Fulton, Robert, designer of steamer CIe7-mont, 274, 275 Gag rules, 332 Gage, General, in command of British troops at Boston, 175, 176; suc- ceeded by Howe, 180 Gallatin, Albert, 268 Galveston, attacks on, 447 Garfield, General, J. A., 451, 503, 504 Garfield, J. R., 543 Garrison, W. L., 330 Genet, Edmond, French ambassador, 258, 259 _ Geneva arbitration, 494 George III, 157 Georgia, colony of, established, 134; introduction of slavery into, 142; made royal province, 144; secedes, 408 ; readmitted, 478 Germans, emigration of, to Georgia in 1 8th century, 134 Germantown, Pa., settled by German Quakers, 95 Germantown, battle of, 196 Germany and Venezuela, 539 Ghent, treaty of, between England and United States, 285, 286 Giddings, J. R., 331 594 AMERICAN HISTORY Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, i6, 20 Gladstone, W. E., 438 Goffe, William, 82 Gold, discovery of, in California, 371, 372 Gold standard, 495, 516 Good Hope, Fort of, 69, 73 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 67 Government, colonial, 144, 145, 146; of United States, organization of, 248, 249 Grangers, 497 Grant, General U. S., 416; at Forts Henry and Donelson, 423; at Shiloh, 424 ; moves against Vicks- burg, 436; at Champion's Hill, 443; takes Vicksburg, 447; at Chat- tanooga, 452 ; takes supreme com- mand, 455; at "Wilderness," 456; at Appomattox, 463; made Presi- dent, 478 ; reelected, 485, 487 Grayson Ordinance, 220 Great Lakes, first explored by French, 97 Great Meadows, engagement at, 153 Greeley, Horace, 439, 480, 484 Greene, General Nathanael, takes command of American army in the South, 204 Greenland, 5 Grenville, George, policy in regard to colonies, 158; issue of proclamation laying off territory ceded by France, 160 Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, be- tween United States and Mexico, 364 Guerriire, British warship, engage- ment with the Constitution, 282 Guilford, N.C., battle of, 205 Gustavus Adolphus, 81 Habeas Corpus, suspension of writ of, 441, 449 Hague Conference, the, 539 Hale, Nathan, 184 Halleck, General H. W., 422, 423, 425- 434 Hamilton, Alexander, 250, 251, 253, 257 ; shot in duel with Burr, 273 Hampton, General W., 490 Hampton Roads Conference, 462 Hancock, General W. S., 446, 447, 503 Hancock, John, 161, 170, 176, 242 Hanna, M. A., 529, 530, 535 Harlem Heights, battle of, 184 Harpers Ferry, 399, 433 Harrison, Benjamin, 507, 509 Harrison, General W. H., 279, 349 Hartford, Conn., 68, 105 Hartford Convention, 284 Hawaii, 510, 526 Hawkins, Sir John, 17, 18, 20, 24 Hawthorne, 328 Hay, John, 527 Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 548 Hayes, R. B., 4SS-491 Ilayne, R. Y., 308, 315 Heath, Sir Robert, 83 Hennepin, Father, 96 Henrietta Maria, 56 Henry, John, letters, 280 Henry, I'atrick, 159, 162, 179, 222, 238 Henry IV, 96 Hepburn Act, 537 Herkimer, General, 194 Hessian troops, 179 Hobson, Lt. R. P., 522 Holly Springs, battle of, 436 Holy Alliance, 305, 356 Homestead Act, 498 Hood, General J. B., 458, 459 Hooker, Cieneral J. E., 442 Hooker, Rev. Thomas, 68 House of Burgesses of Virginia, 32, 41 Houston, Samuel, 352, 407 Howard, Lord, of Effingham, 23, 24 Howe, General, 180, 183, 188 Hudson, Henry, 73 Hudson Bay Countfy, surrendered by French to English, 127 Huguenots, 87, 92 Humanitarianism, in middle of nine- teenth century, 383 Hunter, General D., 439, 457 Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 53 Iberville, Sieur d', takes possession of lower Mississippi, 1 26 Iceland, 4, 5 Idaho admitted, 506 Illinois, Clark in, 200; admitted, 578 Immigration, 323, 498 Immigration laws, 498-499 Impeachment, Chase, 268; Johnson, 477 " Impending Crisis, The," 396 Implied powers, 253 Impressment of seamen, 275, 276 INDEX 595 Income tax, 512, 548 Independence, movement for, 179-182 Independent Democrats, appeal, 392 Independent treasury, 347 India, 7, 8, 9 Indian Territory, 341 Indiana, territory, 255; admitted, 578 Indians, 3, 6, 87, 88, 254, 279 Individualism, 334 Industrial Workers of the World, 500, 555 Industrialism, 502 Industries, 118, 143, 241, 303, 325, 381, 496, 498, 501 Ingle, Richard, 59, 61 Initiative, 553 Insurgents, 544, 547 Interstate Commerce Act, 507 Intolerable Acts, 173, 174 Inventions, 241, 3S0, 381, 501 Ipswich, Mass., citizens of, refused to pay tax levied by Andros, 104 Ironclads, Confederate, 448 Iroquois, 88 ; enemies of France, 96, 97 ; treaty of, with English, 99 ; attacked by French, 100; acknowl- edged English subjects by France, loi ; joined by Tuscaroras, 139 Isabella, 10 Island No. 10, 424, 425 Jackson, General A., 280, 285, 309, 317. 339' 340, 341,342, 343 Jackson, "Stonewall," 415; campaign in the Shenandoah valley, 429 ; at second Manassas, 431; at Harpers Ferry, 433 ; at Chancellorsville, 442 James I, 27, 29, 31, 23, 43- 44 James II, 102, 103, 104, 105, to6 Jamestown, Va., founded, 27; burned, 90 Japan, 377, 380, 528, 540, 541 Jasper, Sergeant, 180 Jay, John, 249, 261, 262 Jefferson, Thomas, 181, 257, 263, 267, 268 Jesuits, missions of, 97 Jews in America, 120 Johnson, Andrew, 460, 468, 469, 475, 477 Johnson, Sir Nathaniel, 129, 130 Johnson, Robert, 132 Johnson, Sir William, 139 Johnston, General A. S., 422, 423; at Shiloh, 424 Johnston, General J. E., at Manassas, 415; at Seven Pines, 428; in Georgia, 458, 461, 462, 464 Jones, John Paul, 201 Kansas, struggle for, 393 ; admitted, 408 Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 392 Kaskaskia, 200 Kearney, Denis, 503 Kearney, General S., 367 Kearsarge, 460 Kenesaw Mountain, battle of, 458 Kent Island, 58 Kentucky, 227, 255, 300, 323, 416, 435 Kentucky Resolutions, 264, 265 Kettle Hill, battle of, 522 Key, F. S., 282 Key, General D. M., 491 King George's War, 136 King Philip's War, 89 King William's War, 109 King's Mountain, battle of, 204r Kitchen Cabinet, 316 Knights of the Golden Circle, 454 Know-Nothings, 395 Knox, General H., 190 Ku-Klux Klan, 482, 483 Labor problems, 555 Lafayette, Marquis de, 197 La Follette, R. M., 543, 547 Lake Erie, battle of, 281 Lands, public, 219, 22c, 291, 292, 380 La Salle, exploration of the Missis- sippi, 99 Laurens, John, 206 Lawrence, Kans., 394 Lecompton constitution, 396 Lee, Arthur, 192 Lee, Fitzhugh, 520 Lee, Fort, N.J., 184 Lee, General Charles, 185, 186 Lee, General Robert E., succeeds J. E. Johnston, 428; attacks McClellan, 430; at second Manas- sas, 431 ; at Sharpsburg, 433; at Fredericksburg, 434; at Chancel- lorsville, 442 ; at Gettysburg, 445- 447; in the "Wilderness," 455-456; character, 461 ; at Petersburg, 463; at Appomattox, 463 Lee, R. H., 180 Legare, J. M., 337 Leif Ericson, 5 596 AMERICAN HISTORY Leisler, Jacob, revolt headed by, 107 ; congress called by, 107 ; execution of, 112 Leon, Ponce de, 14 Leopard, the, 276 Lewis and Clark expedition, 272 Lexington, battle of, 175, 176 Liberal Republicans, 472, 474, 477, 4S0, 483, 484, 490 Liberator, the, 330 Liberia, 299 Liberty Party, 348, 355,371 Lincoln, Abraham, debate with Douglas, 397 ; elected President, 402 ; inaugurated, 409 ; calls for volunteers, 411; blockade procla- mation of, 423; letter to Greeley, 439 ; emancipation proclamation by, 440 ; liabeas corpus, 44 1 ; mild genius of, 454; reelected, 460; Hampton Roads Conference, 462 ; attitude toward South, 466; assas- sination, 467; reconstruction policy of, 469 Lincoln-Douglas Debate, 397 Literature, 325, 326, 327, 32S, 336, Livingston, R. R., 270, 271 Locke, John, 84 London Company, 26, 29. ^SV^ Virginia Company Long, Major, 365 Long Island settlements, 73 Longfellow, 328 Longstreet, General James, 445, 446, 452 Lords of Trade, 143 Louis XIV, 99, 126 Louis XVI, 206 Louisburg, 136, 137, 155 Louisiana, 99, 269, 270, 271, 478, 490 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 537 Lovejoy, P^lijah, 331 Lowell, 328 Lowndes, W. J., 304 Loyalists, 191 Lundy's Lane, battle of, 282 Lutherans, 121, 134, 148 Lyon, Capt. N. 414 McClellan, General G. B., 415, 422; peninsular campaign, 428; change of base, 429, 431; at Antietam, 433 ; nominated for President, 460 McCormick reaper, 380 McDowell, General Irvin, 415, 429 Mc Henry, Fort, attack on, by British, 282 McKinley, William, 508, 516, 520, 524, 530 McLane, L., 344 Macon's Bill No. 2, 279 Madison, James, 231, 265, 277, 278 Magazines, popular, beginning of, 383 Magellan, 16 Maine, 67 ; French settlements on coast of, 96; taken over by crown, 102 ; annexed to Massachusetts, III; admitted to Union, 302 Maine, the battleship, 519 Mallory, S. R., 409 Malvern Hill, battle of, 431 Manassas, first battle, 415; second battle, 431 Manhattan Island, purchase, 73 Manila, battle at, 521 Manufactures, in 17th century, 123; (1789), 241; and War of 181 2, 303 ; and tariff, 303 ; effects of, 325 ; expansion of, 38 1 ; Northern, 420 Marietta, Ohio, 222 Marion, Francis, 203 Marquette, 97 Marshall, John, 263, 298 Mary II, Queen of England, 106 Maryland, origin of name, 56; found- ing of, 57 ; civil war in, 59; Act of Toleration passed by Assembly, 61 ; religious toleration in, 62, 63 ; civil strife between Protestants and Catholics, 107 ; made royal province, 1 1 1 Massachusetts, formation of state, 50 ; charter of, 51, 52; religious intoler- ance in, 52, 53, 54, 55 ; memorial to Parliament, 71 ; refusal to attack Dutch, 75, 76; made royal province, 102; administration of Andros, 104, 105; represented at Congress of 1690, 108; expeditions against Can- ada, 109; woolen mill established in, 123 Massachusetts Company, 45, 49, 50 Mason, John, 67 Mason, J. M., 391, 416 Mason and Dixon's line, 94 Massasoit, 36 Mather, Cotton, 51 Mather, Increase, 51 INDEX 597 Maximilian, 480 A/ayJio7VL'i-, the, 35 Mayflower Compact, the, 35, 36 Meade, General G. G., at Gettysburg, 445 Mecklenburg declaration of indepen- dence, 181 Memminger, C. G., 409 Memphis, battle of, 426 Menendez, Pedro, 14 Merchant marine, growth of, 377 " Merchant Princes," 242 Merger, railway, 533 A/er>imac. See Virginia Metacom. See Philip, King Mexican War, 363, 364 Mexico, protests against annexation of Texas, 360 Mexico, City of, 3, 364 Michigan admitted, 578 Military districts, 476 Mill, J. S., 438 Miller, Thomas, 91 Mims, Fort, 280 Minden, battle, 155 Mines, 499 Minnesota, 398, 578 Minuit, Peter, 81 Minutemen, 175, 176 Missionary Ridge, battle of, 452 Mississippi, territory of, organized, 256; secedes, 408; controlled by Federals, 447 ; readmitted, 479 Mississippi River explored by Mar- quette, 97 Missouri, question of slavery in, 301, 302 ; war in, 414 Missouri Compromise, 302, 303, 392 Mitchell, John, 532 Mobile, Ala., settled by DTberville, 126 Mobile, battle of, 460 Mobilier, Credit, 488 Modoc war, 499 Molasses Act, 143 Money, in America in 17th century, 123; Continental, 187; United States, 253; Confederate, 450; depreciation, 494 Monitor and Virginia, 428 Monmouth, battle, 198, 199 Monroe, James, 295 Monroe Doctrine, 305, 306, 437, 480, 5". 539 Montana admitted, 506 Montcalm, 156 Monterey, 367, 373 Montesquieu, 235 Montgomery, General Richard, 180 Montgomery convention, 408 Montreal, region near, attacked by John Schuyler, 109, no Moore's Creek, N. C, victory of Whigs over Tories, 180 Moravians in Pennsylvania, 95 Morgan, General J. H., 434, 453 Mormons, 385 Morris, Robert, 223, 224 Morse, S. F. B., 381 Morton, Joseph, 100 Motley, 328 Moultrie, Colonel, 180 Mound builders, i Mount Vernon, 242 Muhlenburg, Frederick, 248 Muhlenburg, H. M., 148 Municipal government, 551 Murfreesboro, battle, 436 Napoleon I, treaty of, with United States in iSoo, 264; cedes Louis- iana, 270; foreign policy, 277, 279 Napoleon III, neutrality, 423; inva- sion of Mexico, 437. See Maximilian Narragansett Indians, 74, 89 Nashville, battle, 459 Nat Turner's Rebellion, 333 National Republicans, 312, 316, 346. See also Whigs National road, 293, 294 Nationalism, growth of, 298, 299,314, 315; reenforced by foreign immi- grants, 323, 324; in 1865, 466 Native races, i Navigation acts, 79, 112-113 Navigation Compromise, 234 Necessity, Fort, 153 Negroes, 12, 118, 299, 333, 440, 466, 470, 473. 482 Neutrality, English and French proc- lamations of (1861), 423 Nevada, territory, 408 ; admitted, 461 New Amsterdam, 73 ; surrendered to English, 85 New England, council for, 39, 45 ; named by Captain John Smith, 39; settlers in, murdered by Indians, 89; dependent on the crown, 102; dominion of, 102 ; supports protec- tion, 311 598 AMERICAN HISTORY New England Confederation, 69, 73, 74. 75 New France, extent of territory, y6, 97 New Grenada, canal treaty, 377 New Hampshire, 67 ; annexation to Massachusetts, 69 ; made a royal province, 92 New Haven, Conn., independent towns, 69 ; treatment of, by Charles II, 82, 83 New Jersey, foundation of, 85, 86 ; religious toleration in, 93 ; added to "dominion of New England," 106 New Jersey Plan, 232 New Mexico, ceded to United States by Mexico, 364 ; admitted, 546 New Netherland, 80, 103 New Orleans, battle of, 284, 285 ; capture of, 425 New South, 514 New Sweden, 81 New York, 85; general assembly of, abolished by James H, 103; added to " dominion of New England," 105; revolt in, against Stuart power, 107 ; represented at congress of 1690, 108; in confederation, 225, 226; election of iSoo, 266; election of 1844, 360; election of 1S48, 371 New York City, population in 1700, 116; siege of, 199; temporary capi- tal of Union, 248 Newcastle, Thomas, Duke of, ad- ministration of, 153, 154 Newfoundland, 20 ; attempted coloni- zation by Lord Baltimore, 56; sur- rendered by French to English, 127 Newspapers, colonial. 119; Tory, 191; daily, 246; in middle of nineteenth century, 383 Nicaragua Canal, 535 Nichols, Governor, 103 Nicholson, Deputy Governor, 107 Nominating conventions, 316 Non-Intercourse Act, 279 Norsemen. See Vikings North Anna, battle of, 457 North Carolina, first permanent settle- ments in, 84 ; freedom of govern- ment, 91 ; made royal province, 133; battle of Alamance, 170; secedes, 411; readmitted, 478 North Dakota admitted, 506 North, Lord, 169; measures for con- ciliation, 197, 198 Northeastern boundary, 350 Northern Virginia, army of, 445, 455 Northwest Ordinance, 221 Northwest passage, 16, 17 Northwest Territory, organization of, 221 Northwestern boundary (1818), 295; (1846), 363 Norway, 4 Nova Scotia, French settlements on coast of, 96; ceded to England, 127 Nullification, theory of, 314; ordi- nance of, passed by South Carolina, 317 ; repealed, 318 Oberlin College, 331 Oglethorpe, J. IC, colony of Georgia established by, 133, 134; attack on St. Augustine, 1740; led by, 135; repulse of Spanish at Frederica, 1.35' 136 Ohio, formation of state of, 254, 255; admitted, 255; settlement, 21 1, 254; immigration to, 300 ; growth, 323 Ohio Company, first, 152; second, 220 Ohio valley, 152, 153 Oklahoma, 542 (note) ; 579 Olney, R. G., 511 Open-Door Policy, 526 Orange, Fort, 73 Oregon, claims of Russia to, 356, 357 ; claims of England to, 357 ; early settlers in, 357 ; missionaries to the Indians of, 358 ; American occupa- tion of, 358, 359 ; boundary of, settled by treaty with England, 363; territory of, organized, 368 ; ad- mitted, 39S ; disputed election in, 489 Oriskany, N.Y., battle of, 194 Orleans, Isle of, 164 Ostend Manifesto, 390 Otis, James, 159 Paine, Thomas, 179, 187 Panama, Isthmus of, treaty with New Granada in reference to, 377 ; State of, 535 ; tolls, 548 Panama Canal, 533-535 Panama Canal Act, 548 Pan-American Congress, 508 Panic of 1819, 304 ; of 1837, 346, 347; of 1893, 511 INDEX 599 Paris, treaty of, between France and England, 158; between Great Brit- ain and United States, 211 Parker, A. B., 536 Parkman, 328 Parliament, authority over colonies, 69, 70 ; Massachusetts commanded to surrender charter by, 70, 71 •' Parson's cause," law case in Virginia, 159, 160 Paterson, William, 231 Patroons, jt, Payne-Aldrich tariff, 543 Peace Congress, 408 Pea Ridge, battle, 414 Pemberton, General, 443 Peninsular Campaign, 428-430 Penn, William, 93 Pennsylvania, 56 ; charter issued to Penn, by Charles II, 93; constitu- tion of, 95 ; religious toleration in, 95 ; election of 1S60, 401 Pepperell, Sir W., 137 Pequot War, 74 Perry, Commodore O. H., 281 Perryville, battle of, 435 " Personal Liberty laws," 389 Peru, 1-2 Pet banks, 344 Petersburg, 458, 463 Philadelphia, foundation of, 95 ; population in 1700, 116; capture of, by British, 196; exposition, 497 Philip, King, 89 Philip II, 22, 23 Philippine Islands, 521, 523-526 Phips, Sir William, 109 Pickett, General G. E., 446 Pierce, Franklin, 390 Pike, Lieut. Zelulon, 272 Pilgrims, 31, 32, 35, 36 Pinchot, Gifford, 543 Pinckney, Charles, 232 Pinckney, C. C, 263 Pinckney Plan, 232 Pineda, 14 Pioneer life, 297 Piracy, 124 Pitt, William, 151-167; sends f?eet against Quebec, 156; friend of colonies, 158; becomes prime min- ister, 163; illness of, 165; later career, 181, 197 Pittsburg Landing, battle of, 424 Pizarro, Francisco, 12 Plantations, description of, 243 Plassey, battle of, 155 Plattsburg, N.Y., repulse of British at, 282 Plymouth commonwealth, 36 ; repre- sented at congress of 1690, 108; annexed to Massachusetts, 11 1 Plymouth Company, 26, 29, 39 Pocahontas, 27 Poe, E. A., 336 Pokanoket Indians, 89 Polk, General Leonidas, 416 Polk, James K., 360-363 Ponce de Leon, 14 Pontiac, attacks frontier posts, 158 Pope, General John, 425, 431 Popular sovereignty, 392 Population, colonial, 87, 116; (1790), 241; Western, 300, 323; foreign, 323; (1850), 381; (i860), 381; in middle of nineteenth century, 381, 382; of North and South, 417 Populist Party, 509, 516 Port Royal, Nova Scotia, 109, no Port Royal, South Carolina, 93, 100 Porter, General Fitz-John, 430 Post Office, improvements in, in mid- dle of nineteenth century, 380 Postal system, colonial, 123 Potomac, army of the, 422, 433 Powhatan, 42 Presbyterians, 87 Prescott, 328 Prescott, General William, 178 Presidency, original conception of, 256 Presidential Succession Act, 505 Princeton, battle of, 189, 190 Printing in seventeenth century, 119 Privateers, 283 Proclamation, royal, 160 ; George III, 178; Neutrality, 258 ; Jackson, 317; amnesty, 468 ; " insurrection" (1866), 469 Proclamation Line, 160 Progressives, 547 Prohibition, first state law passed by Maine, 384 Prohibition party, 509, 536 Proprietor, or Proprietary. See Balti- more, Pennsylvania Protectionists, 304, 308, 310, 316 Pure Food Law, 537 6oo AMERICAN HISTORY Puritan Church established in Massa- chusetts, 51 Puritans, 46; emigration to Massa- chusetts, 51 ; in Virginia, 54 ; in Mar)land, 61, 62 Puritan party, 46 Putnam, General Israel, 178 Putnam, Rufus, 222 Quakers, treatment of, in Massa- chusetts, 54, 55; in Rhode Island, 55; control in New Jersey, 86; set up democratic form of government in New Jersey, 93 ; in Pennsyl- vania, 95 Quartering Act, passed, 160; opposi- tion to, 169 Quebec, founded, 96; expedition of Phips against, 109; taken, 156; attacked, 180 Quebec, province, 174 Queen Anne's War, 127, 128 Quincy, Josiah, 272 Radicals, 471, 472, 474, 475, 479, 483, 491 Railroads, early, 320, 321 ; growth of, up to i860, 380, 495, 496 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 20; settlement on Roanoke Island, N.C., 22, 24 Randolph, Edmund, 260 Randolph, Edward, 113 Randolph, John, 311 Ratification of Constitution, 238 Rebating, 506 Recall, 553 Reciprocity, Canadian, 545 Reconstruction, Lincoln, 469 ; John- son, 469; congressional, 471-474; military districts, 475; Act of 1867, 476 ; readmission, 478 ; Force Acts, 481; Ku-Klux,483; Act of Amnesty, 485 ; local conflicts, 486-487 ; white control, 490 Red River Expedition, 447 Referendum, 552 Regulators, 170 Religion, revivals in colonies, 147, 148; state of, in United States in latter part of i8th century, 243, 244; NN'est- ern, 297 Religious bodies in America in 17th century, 120 Republican (Democratic) party. See Democratic Republican party, 394, 401, 470, 472, 477. 485, 487. 504. 507. 509. 5 '5. 516, 528, 536, 542 Resources, Southern {1S61), 418; Northern (1861), 419; (1864) 453 Resumption Act, 494 Revere, Paul, 176 Revolutionary War, 17 5-2 11 Rhett, Colonel William, 125, 131 Rhode Island, foundation of, 53 ; reli- gious tolerance in, 53, 54, 55; charter accepted from Long Parliament, 66 ; royal charter received, 83 ; under rule of Andros, 105; recalls dele- gates in Congress, 229 ; ratifies Con- stitution, 238 ; Dorr Rebellion, 386 Ribault, 83 Richmond, Va., 411 ; evacuation, 463 Rights of Americans, 239 Roanoke Island, 22 Robertson, James, 228 Robinson, William, 55 Rochambeau, Count of, 198 Rockefeller, J. D., 496 Rockingham, 163, 210 Rodney, Sir George, 210 Roosevelt, Theodore, 522, 532, 533, 536, 537- 539. 541. 542, 546, 547. 548 Root, Elihu, 539 Rosecrans, General W. S., at Corinth, 435; at Murfreesboro,436; atChick- amauga, 451 " Rough Riders," 522 Ryswick, treaty of, no Sabine Pass, 447 St. Augustine, Florida, 14; expedition by South Carolina against, 128; second expedition against, under Oglethoq^e, 135 St. Clair, General Arthur, 254 St. Johns River. Florida, 14 St. Leger, Colonel, 193, 194 St. Mary's, Md., 58 Salem, Mass., 45; witchcraft at, 122 Salzburghers, 134 .Samoa, 508, 526 .Sampson, Admiral W., 521 San Domingo customs, 539 San Francisco, 20, 364, 540 San Gabriel River, 367 San Ildefonso, treaty, 269 San Jacinto, 354 San Juan Hill, 522 INDEX 60 1 San Salvador, 10, 11 Sandys, Sir Edwin, 30, 31, 32, 33, 43 Sandys Constitution, 40 ; abolished, 44 Santa Anna, Antonio, 351 Santa Fe, 14, 367 Santa Maria, 10 Saratoga, N.Y., surrender of Bur- goyne at, 196 Savannah, Ga., founded, 134; victory of British at, 200 ; taken by Sher- man, 460 Savanttak, the, 322 Scalawags, 481 Schenectady, N.Y., attacked by French and Indians, 107 Schley, Admiral W. S., 521 Schools. See Education Schurz, General C, 483, 487, 491 Schuyler, General Philip, 186 Schuyler, John, 109 Scotch-Irish in America, 117 Scotch, the, exiles in Carolina, 93 ; settlers in Pennsylvania, 95 Scott, Winfield, in Mexican War, 363, 364 Seal hunters' difficulty, 510 Seceding states, 408, 41 1 Secession, Ordinance of, 404 Secession conventions : South Caro- lina, 403 ; throughout the South, 407 Sections compared (i86i),4i7; (1864), 453; representation of, 325, 581 Sedition Act, 264 Seminole War, first, 295 ; second, 341 Semmes, Admiral Raphael, 416 Separation, movement towards, 179 Serapis, battle with Bonhotnme Rich- ard, 201, 202 Seven Days' Battles, 430 Seven Pines, battle of, 428 Seven Years' War, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158 Severalty Act, 506 Sevier, John, 204, 228 Seward, W. H., 392, 396, 409, 467 Seymour, Horatio, 478 Shadrach, 389 Shafter, General, 521 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 84 Sharpsburg, battle of, 433 Shays's Rebellion, 229, 230 Shaw, Rev. A. G., 551 Shaw, Colonel R. G., 440 Sheridan, General P. H., 457 " Sheridan's Ride," 457 Sherman, General W. T., 436, 455; at Atlanta, 458; march to the sea, 459; at Savannah, 460; at Colum- bia, 462, 463 Sherman, Roger, 231, 232 Sherman Anti-trust Act, 508, 533 Shiloh, battle of, 425 Silver, demonetized, 494; Bland-Alli- son Act, 502 ; Purchase Act, 509, 512; free-silver party,5 1 5 Simms, W. G., 337 Sioux War, 499 Six Nations. See Iroquois Slade, William, 331 Slave trade, 17, 142, 234, 275 Slavery in America, 118, 142, 221, 234, 246, 275, 299, 324, 355, 368, 369, 392, 438, 439, 44c, 466 Slaves, Indian, 89 Slidell, John, 416 Sloughter, Henry, 112 Smith, C. P., 409 Smith, Captain John, 27, 28, 39 Smith, General Kirby, 434, 435, 461, 464 Smith, Gerrit, 480 Smith, J. H., 365 Smith, Joseph, 385 Smith, Sir Thomas, 30, 32 Smuggling, 124 Social classes in United States in 1789, 244 Socialist party, 509, 536, 555 Soloman, Haym, 223 Sonoma, 366 Sothel, Seth, 91 Soto, Ferdinando de, 14 Soule, Pierre, 391 South Carolina, 56 ; earliest settle- ments in, 84 ; made royal province, 133; passes ordinance of nullifica- tion, 317; secedes, 403; readmitted. South Carolina Exposition, 312, 313 South Dakota admitted, 506 Southampton, Henry, Earl of, 30, 33, 43 Spain, secret aid to colonies during Revolution, 193; foreign relations with, in 1783, 218; Mississippi treaty, 255 ; closes Mississippi, 269; treaty of 1 819, 295; Black Warrior, 390; war with, 520-525 602 AMERICAN HISTORY Spanish Succession, War of. ^V^ Queen Anne's War Spanish War, 520-525 Spaulding, Mrs. H. H., 358 Specie circular, 344, 345 Specie payments, 494 Spoils system, 340 Spottsylvania, battle of, 457 Sprigg vs. Pennsylvania, 375 Squatter sovereignty, 392 Stamp Act, passed, 160; opposition of colonists to, 161, 162; repealed, 163 Standard Oil Company, 496, 547 Standish, Miles, 37 Stanton, E. M., 406, 454, 476-477 Stanwix, Fort, treaty, 139; battle, 194 Stark, General John, 194 Star of the West, 407 " Star-Spangled Banner," 282 States' Rights, 315, 336, 374 Stay and tender laws, 226 Steamboats, early, 292 Stephens, A. II., 392,407, 409, 462 Steuben, Baron von, 197 Stevens, Thaddeus, 471, 472 Stone, William, 61 Stony Point, capture of, 200 Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 389 Strict construction, 253 Strikes, 501, 505, 510, 513, 532, 554 Stuart, General J. E. B., 457 Stuart Town, 93 ; destroyed by Spanish, 100 Stuyvesant, Peter, 85 Suffrage in the North in middle of nineteenth century, 386 Sugar Act (1733)- '43 Sullivan, Fort, S.C., attack on, by British, 180 Sullivan, General John, 186 Sumner, Charles, 394 Sumter, General Thomas, 203 Supreme Court, 249, 341, 375, 395, 479. 533 Surplus distribution, 346 Sutter's Fort, 372 Swallow, Silas, 536 Swanzey, attacked by King Philip, 89 Swedes, 81 Symmes Company, 220 Syndicalism, 554 Taft, W. H., 541, 542, 543, 545. 547 Tallmadge, James, 301 Tammany Society, formation of, 245 Taney, R. B., 344 Tariff, act of 17S9, 249, 250; of 1816, 304 ; agreement of East and West, 306; division in New England over, 306, 307; act of 1824 pa.ssed, 308; opposition to protection in South, 310, 311; Tariff of Abominations, 311,312; of 1832, 316; compromise of 1833, 318; of 1842, 350; of i860, 401; during the war, 413; Cleve- land on, 507; McKinley bill. 508; Wilson-Gorman bill, 512; Dingley bill, 516; Payne-Aldrich bill, 543 Tariff Board, 544 Tarleton, Banastre, 203 Taylor, General Richard, 447 Taylor, General Zachary, campaign in Mexico, 363; elected President, 371 Tea duty, 170 Tecumseh, 279 Telegraph, 381 Teller, Senator, 515 Tennessee, community of " the Wa- tauga Association," 228; admitted to Union, 255; readmitted, 474 Tenure of Office Act, 476, 477 Texas, beginnings of, 351 ; resistance to Mexican authorities, 351 ; civil war in, 352 ; declaration of inde- pendence, 353 ; war with Mexico, 353' 354; republic of, 354; annex- ation of, agitated, 355 ; annexation of, 361 ; importance in Confederacy, 448 Texas vs. White, 479 Thames River, Canada, battle of, 281 Thirteenth Amendment, 466, 469 Thirty Years' War, 48 Tliomas, General G. H., at Chicka- mauga, 451, 452 ; at Nashville, 459 "Three fifths compromise," 232 Ticonderoga, capture of, 177 Tilden, S. J., 488 Timrod, Henry, 337 Tippecanoe, battle of, 279 Tohopeka, 285 Toleration, Act of, of Maryland, 61, 62 ; abolished, 107 Toombs, Robert, 409, 410 Tordesillas, treaty, 13 Tories, in .America, 171 ; confiscation of property of, 222 Toscanelli, 8. 9 Town meetings, 38, 146 INDEX 603 Townshend, Charles, 168 Townshend duties, 169 Trade and Plantations, Board of, crea- tion of, 113, 114, 130, 132 Trade of colonies, 139, 140 Trades-unions, beginning of, 381 Travis, W. B., 352 Treaties, with France (1778), 19S; with England (1783), 211; with Spain (1795), -55; "^'i*^ England (1795), 261 ; with Napoleon (iSoo), 264; of Ghent {181 5), 285; with England (1818) 295; with Spain (1819), 295; with England (1842), 350; with Russia (1824), 357; with England (1846), 363 ; with Mexico (1848), 364; immigration, 498; with China, 500, 503; v/ith Spain (1899), 523 ; arbitration, 545 Trenholm, 409 Trent affair, 416 Trenton, battle of, 188, 189 Tripolitan War, 268, 269 Troops, withdrawal, 490 Trusts, 496, 508, 529 Tryon, Governor William, 170 Turks, 8 Tuscarora War, 131 Tweed Ring, 488 Tyler, John, succeeds Harrison as President, 349 ; opposition of Whigs to, 350; favors annexation of Texas, 355 "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 389 Underground railroad, 387 UnderAvood, O. L., 549 Union Democrats, 460 Union Pacific Railway, 495 United Colonies of New England. See New England Confederation Upshur, A. P., 355 Utah, settlement of, by Mormons, 385 ; admitted, 506 Utrecht, treaty of, 127, 142 Uxmal, Yucatan, 2, 3 Vagrancy laws, 470, 474 Vallandigham, C. L., 454 Valley Forge, 196 Van Buren, Martin, elected President, 345, 346 ; policy of, during panic of 1837. 347 Van Dorn, General E., 4T4, 435 Van Rensselaer, Jeremias, 103 Venezuela arbitration, 511 Vera Cruz, 17, 20, 363 Vergennes, Count, 193, 210 Vermont, organizes separate govern- ment, 226; admitted to the Union, 254 Verrazano, 13 Vesey, Denmark, -x^-i^T^ Vespucius, Americus, 16 Vicksburg, attacked by Farragut,425; Grant at, 436, 443 ; surrenders, 447 Vikings, 4, 5 Vincennes, 200 Vinland, 5, 6 Virginia, origin of name, 20; extent of territory claimed by English, 26 ; first settlement in, 26; first legis- lature of English America, 32 ; mas- sacre by Indians, 42 ; first royal governor commissioned, 44; reli- gious intolerance in, 54 ; settlers in, murdered by Indians, 89 ; discontent in, 90; women accused as witches, 122; secedes, 411; readmitted, 479 Vh-ginia, the, and the Cumberland, 427 ; and the Alonitor, 428 Virginia Company, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 43, 44 Virginia Plan, 231 Virginia Resolutions, 264, 265 Virginia's Magna Charta, 32 Volunteers, calls for, 411 Walker, Leroy, 409 Wakarusa War, 393, 394 War of 1812, 281-285 ; of Secession, 406-464. See battles and generals by names Warren, General Joseph, 178 Warwick, Earl of, 40 Washington, state, admitted, 506 Washington, D.C., site chosen for capital, 251 ; capture of, by pritish, 282 Washington, Fort, N.Y., captured by Howe, 184 W^ashington, George, leads Virginia expedition against French, 153; appointed commander in chief of continental army, 177 ; given abso- lute power by Congress for conduct- ing war, 187 ; difiiculty in keeping army together, 188; elected Presi- dent, 248; view of Presidency, 256, 257; reelected to Presidency, 258; 6o4 AMERICAN HISTORY issues proclamation of neutrality towards France and England, 258; allied with Federalists, 260 ; with- drawal from public life, 262 Watauga, 228 Watling Island, 1 1 Watson, T. E., 536 Wayne, General Anthony, 200, 254 Wealth, concentration of, 529; dis- tribution of, 555 Weaver, J. B., 509 Webster, Daniel, 280; debate with Clay on tariff, 307; in 1828, 311; debate with Hayne, 315; Secretary of State, 350; in 1850, 374 Welsh, the, settlers in Pennsylvania, 95 Wesley, Charles, secretary to Ogle- thorpe, 134 Wesley, John, 134, 148 West, the, emigration to, 220, 221 ; fear of, by the East, 271, 272; character of early population of, 290, 291 ; sentiment of, 296, 297 ; causes of division in, 299, 300, 301 West Florida, 160, 219 West Virginia, formation of, 414 ; ad- mitted, 415, 460 W'estem Reserve, 255 Whalley, Edward, 82 Whig party, 346, 348, 349, 360, 369, 371. 390, 394 Whigs, formation of party in America, 171 Whisky Ring, 488 White, E. D., 547 White, John, 22 Whitefield, George, 134 Whitman, Dr. Marcus, 358, 359 Whitney, Eli, 300 Whittier, J. G., 328 Wilderness campaign, 455-456 Wilkinson, General James, 274 William III, king of England, 106; reorganization of colonies, no, iii; creation of Board of Trade and Plantations, 1 13 William and Mary College, 119 Williams, Roger, 52, 53 Williamsburg, Va., made capital, 117 Wilmington, Delaware, 81 Wilmot Proviso, 368 Wilson, Woodrow, 547, 548, 549 Windsor, Conn., 67, 68 Winthrop, John, 49; letter from, 70 Winthrop, John, Jr., 83 Witchcraft, 121, 122 Wolfe, James, 156 Woman's Rights, beginning of move- ment, 384 Woman's Suffrage, 550 Women of the Confederacy, 449 Wright, Frances, 384 Writs of assistance, opposition to, at Boston, 159 Wyeth, N. J., 357 Wyoming, state admitted, 506 X.Y.Z. matter, 263 Yale, EHhu, 148 Yamassee War, 131 Yeamans, Sir John, 84 Yeardley, Sir George, 32 Yellow Tavern, battle of, 457 York, Duke of, 85 York town, surrender of, 209 Zenger, Peter, 146, 147 Zeno, Antonio and Nicola, 6 SUPPLEMENT TO AN AMERICAN HISTORY yy BY NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON PROFESSOR Of HISTORY IN THE COLLEGE OE CHARLESTON GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON SIXTH PERIOD (1914- ) THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER CHAPTER XXXII READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES 770. First Administration of Woodrow Wilson. The press- ing questions of 1913 which seemed, so plainly, to forecast immediate changes in American hfe, were not destined to be the chief matters of President Wilson's administration. His- tory is full of surprises. Perhaps the greatest surprise in our history was the new turn given to the thoughts of the whole nation by the terrible events which began, in Europe, just about a year after President Wilson's first inauguration. From March, 1913, to August, 1914, he was able to concern himself with the problems that were under discussion when he was elected. Then, with the sudden opening of the War of the Nations, unforeseen issues sprang to Hfe and thrust those others aside. 771. Domestic Legislation: 1913, 1914. During the first sixteen months of his administration President Wilson showed remarkable skill in forcing his ideas upon Congress. In October, 191 3, the tariff was revised and duties were low- ered. This was followed by the Federal Reserve Act, which reorganized the National Banking Laws and aimed to make it easier for business men to borrow money by permitting banks to lend it under conditions which had hitherto been forbidden. In January, 1914, the President submitted to Congress a sweeping plan for the control of trusts and the abolition of unfair practices in business. This plan was READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES iii worked out, later in the year, by the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. The aim was to do for national business what the creation of the Interstate Com- merce Commission (sections 711, 754) had done for trans- portation.^ 772. President Wilson and Panama. The Panama Canal figured in this period in two ways. It approached completion and the President brought about new legislation upon the subject of canal tolls. ^ Though the Democratic National Convention had declared in favor of discriminating between American and foreign ships using the canal, the President held this to be a violation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (section 752). The Panama Canal Act of 191 2 which laid tolls on for- eign ships but exempted American coastwise ships was now repealed and all ships were placed on the same footing. In September, 191 3, the first water was let into the canal locks at Gatun. In October President Wilson touched an electric button at Washington. A spark resulted at Panama causing the explosion of an immense mine which blew up the Gamboa Dyke, the last important obstruction in the path of the canal. ^ 773. The Mexican Complication. Meanwhile serious com- pHcations arose with Mexico. In the last days of President Taft's administration a revolution overturned the government of Mexico and set up a dictator, General Victoriano Huerta, The dictator was regarded by many Americans as a mere usurper. President Wilson refused to recognize him. The followers of Huerta bitterly resented the refusal. Their ill treatment of American sailors at Tampico led President Wilson to order the dispatch of ships and soldiers to Vera Cruz. ^ For previous history of the movement to regulate trusts and corporations, see sections 694, 699, 701, 714, 745, 746, 751, 754, 758. * See page 548, note 3. 'The canal was opened to navigation August 14, 1914. It is estimated that the total cost was in the neighborhood of four hundred million dollars. The canal is fortified but we are bound by treaty to keep it open to all nations in time of war, even to our enemies. iv AMERICAN HISTORY After sharp fighting the city was taken by the Americans (April 22, 1 914) and for some time garrisoned by American troops. Our soldiers were not withdrawn until after the col- lapse of the Huerta government (November 23, 19 14). 774. The " A. B. C. Diplomacy." Though Huerta, beaten in a civil war, resigned in July, 1914, the Mexican quarrel was not at an end. Two factions, one led by Venustiano Carranza, the other by Francisco Villa, had cooperated against Huerta. The Carranza faction now got control of the government and the Villa faction raised rebellion. Each denounced the United States for not taking its side, and attributed to our government sinister motives. There was reason to suppose that Latin America, generally, feared and distrusted us.^ To put an end to these fears, to prove that we had no secret designs against Mexico, President Wilson, while Huerta was still in power, had accepted the offer of Argentina, Brazil, and ChiU to attempt to reconcile the Mexican factions and establish amicable relations with this country. The resulting negotiations were jestingly styled the " A. B. C. Diplomacy." Nothing permanent was accomplished at that time. The next year, however, the Mexican problem was taken up, in con- ference, by Argentina, Brazil, ChiH, Uruguay, Guatemala, and the United States. On the advice of this conference, President Wilson recognized the Carranza government. 775. The Pan-American Union. These events gave new prominence to the Pan-American Union. This is an official organization of the twenty-one American republics. Its head- quarters are at Washington. It was formed as far back as 1890, but was not important until reorganized in 1906. All the republics contributed to its expenses in proportion to their population. At its head is a governing board composed of the American secretary of state and the diplomatic represent- atives, at Washington, from the other republics. So far, the Union is little more than a society for the promotion of friendship. However, because of the A. B. C. Diplomacy, * For previous attempts to conciliate Latin America see page 539. READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES v and the common interest of the repubhcs in the great events now to be narrated, the hope has arisen that here is the germ of a great amphictyony — Uke those of ancient Greece — for the maintenance of peace and good will among its members. 776. The Monroe Doctrine as a Cause of the War of the Nations. The need of close cooperation among the Western republics came home to us through reflecting upon the way in which we ourselves had contributed to bring on the terrible War of the Nations. That is to say : during the twenty years previous to the war, the nations of Europe might be classified in two groups — the " land-rich " nations and the " land-poor " nations ; the former (either because of their European territories or their colonies) were Russia, England, and France ; the latter were Germany and Austria. The great aim of the latter was to secure land for colonization ; but there were only two regions fit for European settlement which were not already in the hands of great powers ; these were lower South America and the Euphrates valley. The " land-poor " nations seem to have hesitated, for some time, whether to attempt colonizing in South America or in Mesopotamia ; the determined attitude of the United States in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine ^ at length determined them to turn east- ward. Thus our own country was a remote cause of a regrouping of the powers of Europe ; and out of that re- grouping came the world-wide war. 777. " Advance to the East." We must understand just what is meant when we say that our country indirectly caused a regrouping of the powers of Europe. Before the time when the land-poor nations — the great " Central Empires " of Ger- many and Austria — turned their eyes from the West to the East, the three land-rich nations were not in alliance ; France and Russia were allied but England stood aloof from both. In Germany now arose the cry " advance to the East." This meant : let Germany and Austria act together, make Turkey their dependency, occupy Western Asia, and build a great ^ See page 539. vi AMERICAN HISTORY empire extending from the North Sea to the Indian Ocean. Part of the plan was the construction of a railroad from Con- stantinople to Bagdad, and beyond. When the other nations perceived this plan, — Russia, England, and France, — all took alarm. Russia had long coveted Constantinople : if the Central powers succeeded in their " advance to the East," she would lose it forever. England feared that the " advance to the East " would menace her communications with India. France, besides a long- standing dread of Germany, had also an ideahstic impulse. She was committed heart and soul to republicanism. Ger- many, since Bismarck, has stood for a magnificent revival of the belief in monarchy. A great Eastern empire under German leadership seemed to France to menace republicanism throughout the world. For all these reasons the three great powers which had seldom before cooperated, Russia, England, and France, drew together in the alliance known as the Triple Entente. 778. The Ominous Summer of 1914, Panama-Pacific Ex- position. When the summer of 19 14 began, the Americans did not suspect that they were on the eve of a sweeping change in their relations to world-problems. There was talk of what would be done the following winter to carry out the Presi- dent's ideas upon trusts and finance. There was much specu- lation about Mexico. There was the revival of interest in Pan- Americanism. There was universal interest in the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which was to open the next year at San Francisco in celebration of the four hundredth anni- versary of the discovery of the Pacific by Balboa.^ But not until war suddenly broke upon the world, was the dark war ^ The first spadeful of earth in preparation for the exposition was turned by President Taft, at San Francisco, October 14, 191 1. The city of San Fran- cisco officially contributed $5,000,000; the citizens unofficially subscribed $7,000,000; the state of California $5,000,000. Large sums were raised in other ways. The total cost of the exposition was about $50,000,000. After four years in preparation, it presented, in 1915, perhaps the most beautiful spec- tacle yet seen among American expositions. READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES vii cloud hanging over Europe perceived in America. Even the murder, by a fanatical Serbian, of the Archduke Franz Ferdi- nand, heir to the Austrian throne, did not awaken us to what was coming. Thousands of Americans in Europe continued to take their pleasure, — thronged the galleries, or loitered in high Alpine meadows, — without a thought that history had already entered on one of its sternest episodes. 779. Our Attempt to stand Neutral in the War of the Nations. It is not in point, here, to trace out the jealous diplomacy which followed the murder of the Archduke. Austria demanded virtually that Serbia become her vassal. This demand was construed by the Triple Entente as the first step in the " advance to the East." Austria's ally, Germany, and her enemies, Russia, England, and France, all took part in the negotiations. We can now see that all through July the European nations were moving steadily toward war. On July 28, 1914, Austria declared war upon Serbia. Other declarations followed in quick succession. A great German army poured suddenly into neutral Belgium ; swept on into France, almost to the gates of Paris ; thence was driven back by the Anglo-French armies, in the battle of the Marne. Meanwhile Russia invaded Austria. The War of the Nations had begun. Our government at once assumed an attitude of official neutrality. This attitude President Wilson maintained with scrupulous — his enemies said with excessive — care during two years and a half. Meanwhile Americans contributed enthusiastically to an international attempt to heal the ravages of the war in Belgium. That unhappy country had been devastated. A reHef commission under the auspices of the American minister took charge of the distribution of aid to the starving population. From America contributions of suppHes and money were poured into the depots of the commission. 780. First Movement for Preparedness. The suddenness of the breaking of the war cloud shocked Americans into a realization of the defenselessness of their own country. viii AMERICAN HISTORY Military men had long been endeavoring to rouse us to an ap- preciation of how defenseless we were. General Homer Lea, in a book called " The Valor of Ignorance," had labored in vain to persuade us that a sudden attack by any great power might humble us to the dust. But we would not hsten. Now, the country began to Usten. In the autumn of 1914 there sprang up, both in Congress and throughout the country, a movement for an enlarged army system. One of its active leaders was ex-President Roosevelt. The movement was checked by the opposition of President Wilson, who in his speech at the opening of Congress pronounced it unnecessary. 781. The Issue of the Continuous Voyage. With 191 5 our country drifted into a tangle of negotiations which involved it, now this way, now that, with both belligerents. The sea, and the right to use the sea, was the bone of contention. To understand what followed, we must revert to our own expe- rience in the War of Secession ^ because it was a principle laid down in that war, by the Supreme Court of the United States, which we were now obliged to observe — often to our own incon- venience. This was what is known in international law as the principle of the continuous voyage : that is, if goods in time of war are shipped from one neutral to another, with a view to being sent on from the second neutral to a belUgerent, they are considered as making a " continuous voyage," no matter how many times they change hands, and are Uable to cap- ture from the moment they leave their home port. This principle was asserted by the Supreme Court in four celebrated cases during our own great war. Under it American cruisers seized British merchantmen and confiscated their cargoes while they were sailing between the British port of Liverpool and the British port of Nassau, in the Bahamas. When the owners complained to the British government, the latter sustained the American government. The same situation now arose, but with the positions reversed. Our ships carried merchandise to neutral countries, * For foreign relations in the war see page 436. READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES ix like Holland, to be sent on to the Central Empires. England claimed the right to deal with them as we had dealt with the British ships in 1864. Our government had to abide by its own precedents. Consequently many American ships were searched by British cruisers and in some cases their cargoes were con- demned. This caused annoyance to trade, vexatious delays, irritation, and in some quarters bad feehng. 782. The Issue of Submarine Warfare. Germany seems never to have appreciated the obUgation of this country to abide by its own precedents. The Germans could see in our course nothing but weakness or dupHcity. This is, in part, the explanation of their attitude when, early in 191 5, Washington and Berhn began a debate upon the rights of submarines. It grew out of a German decree proclaiming a " war zone " around the British Isles and warning neutrals that belHgerent ships met by submarines in those waters would be sunk without notice. Neutrals were warned to avoid the designated waters. The United States considered this decree a defiance of inter- national law. Our government held it to be settled interna- tional law that a suspected ship must be examined — " visited and searched " — and that if it proved to be liable to destruc- tion, arrangements must be made for the safety of the passengers and crew. This being the official American view, President Wilson notified Germany (February 10, 191 5) that in case Americans were lost on a ship sunk without warning, he would hold the German government to " strict accountabiUty." 783. The Lusitania Case. Resignation of Mr. Bryan. On May 7, 191 5, the great liner Lusitania, one of the largest ships on the seas, was approaching Ireland, from New York. Suddenly, a German submarine rose from the waters and with- out warning attacked the Lusitania with torpedoes. The liner sank with a loss of 785 lives, among them those of 124 Americans. President Wilson promptly demanded satisfac- tion. The tone of his note was such that, for a moment, war seemed at hand. So near did it seem that Mr. Bryan could not find it in his heart to continue secretary of state. He X AMERICAN HISTORY resigned. His successor in the State Department was Robert J. Lansing, who had made his reputation as the department's legal adviser. 784. The Sussex Case. There ensued many months of diplomatic correspondence. Other Americans lost their Hves through the activities of the submarines. At last, on March 24, 1916, the channel steamer Sussex, with Americans on board, was sunk without warning. On April 18, President Wilson sent to Germany his " Sussex note." It reminded the Imperial government of his many protests against sinking ships without providing for passengers and crew ; asserted that it was impossible to carry out Germany's plan of sub- marine warfare without violating the laws of nations and of humanity ; and warned Germany that if she persisted in this course, diplomatic relations between Washington and Berlin would be broken off. This note led to the cessation for some nine months of the more extreme forms of submarine warfare. Germany at- tempted, indeed, to secure a promise that President Wilson would induce England to relax her blockade of the German coasts. But the President stood firm for the idea that he was demanding a right, and refused to mix up his dealings with the two countries. Germany then announced her inten- tion to comply with his demands, though reserving full liberty to reconsider the matter whenever she thought best. Little was heard of the submarine issue from May 4, 191 6, to Feb- ruary I, 191 7. At the latter date, as we shall see, it was suddenly and startUngly revived. 785. The Munitions Issue. Meanwhile the United States had taken a position with regard to another international question. This was the munitions issue. It was forced upon us by the action of Austria, demanding that the American munitions makers be forbidden to sell arms to the Entente. Here, again, the action of the United States must be seen in the light of our own experience during the War of Secession. That war caught both sides unprepared. What happened to the READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES xi Federal government during the first year of war is conclusive evidence of the importance to unprepared nations of free trade in munitions. The Federal government, in spite of every effort, could buy in America only 30,000 rifles. In Europe it bought 720,000 rifles. Remembering such incidents in our own history, ex-President Taft and others protested that the right of trade in munitions was essential to the safety of the country. We could not prohibit it without taking the risk of being caught ourselves in another such situation as that of 1 86 1. Secretary Lansing returned a dispatch to Austria (191 5) defending the freedom of the munitions trade. 786. Further Agitation for Preparedness. What underlay our insistence on the right to buy and sell arms, underlay also avast amount of discussion with regard to the army, in 191 5 and 1916. Almost universal was the admission that we were in a very bad way and that something ought to be done. Many remedies were suggested, not excepting the adoption of universal, compulsory military service. But it seemed impossible to get a general agreement upon any plan. The President wanted one thing ; the secretary of war wanted another; Congress something else. Early in 1916 the secre- tary of war, Lindley M. Garrison, resigned in protest. 787. The Pursuit of Villa. Our inadequate military system revealed its weakness in 1 916, when the government attempted to punish the Mexican, Villa, for atrocious raids into American territory, and for the killing of American citizens. Militia were called into service from every state. An army invaded Mexico. There were a number of small but fierce engage- ments. But Villa was not caught. He disappeared into the wilds of the Mexican mountains. Thereupon Carranza de- manded the withdrawal of the American troops. Negotia- tions resulted in a joint commission that provided for the peace of the border (November 24), and our troops were withdrawn. 788. The Election of 1916. In the political campaign of 1916 the only real issue appeared to be confidence, or lack of xii AMERICAN HISTORY confidence, in President Wilson. The Republicans nominated Charles E. Hughes, of the Supreme bench, who had made a great name as a fearless executive when governor of New York. The Progressives spUt. A large faction, led by ex- President Roosevelt, joined the Republicans. Others sup- ported President Wilson. The President's \'ictory, in Novem- ber, has generally been attributed to two things — his per- sonal popularity, and his prevention of a general railroad strike in the summer of 1916. The various unions of trainmen had united in demanding an eight-hour work day. They threatened to tie up the whole transportation system of the country, — starve all the great cities, — if the demand was refused. The railway managers insisted that the demand was unfair, that the eight-hour claim was a subterfuge, and that what was really aimed at was an unjustifiable increase in wages. The President under- took to mediate. So grave was the situation that when the men would not give way, he decided to take their side rather than permit the national strike. Congress passed the Adam- son Law which virtually secured them in their demands.^ 789. The Danish Islands. Something which took place, almost unnoticed, in January, 1916, would have seemed a great event in less troublesome times. Denmark sold us for $25,000,000 the Danish West Indies. They contain one of the finest harbors in the Caribbean Sea, and are immensely desirable as a naval base. 790. The Peace Plan of 1917. In January, 191 7, the Presi- dent surprised Congress by addressing it on the subject of universal peace. Shortly before then, he had communicated to the warring powers an inquiry with regard to possible terms of peace. The replies did not seem to bring peace any nearer. In his address he reviewed the correspondence, stated his hope for a generous peace doing justice to the needs of all, and then outlined a plan for a sort of universal federation, to be set up after this war with a view to preventing similar wars in the ^ Compare President Roosevelt's course in the anthracite strike, page 532. READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES xiii future. Four hundred years before, the great French king, Henry IV, made a somewhat similar proposition to Elizabeth of England and other European sovereigns. Though poets and philosophers, notably the great German, Immanuel Kant, have advocated " the parliament of man, the federation of the world," it had received no such formal sanction, from a great ruler, since the days of Henry IV, as was given it by President Wilson. 791. The " Prohibited Zone." However, those Americans who fancied that their country had solved its problems with regard to the War of the Nations, were destined to receive a great shock. On January 31, 1917, the German ambassador. Count von Bernstorff, handed Secretary Lansing an official note. It informed the United States that, beginning on the following day, German submarines would sink without warn- ing any merchant ship bound to, or from, the ports of England or France. A " prohibited zone " was marked out bordering England, Holland, France, and including parts of the Mediter- ranean. All neutrals were warned not to allow their ships to enter this area. A slight exception was made in the case of the United States. We were to be allowed to send one ship a week, on a prescribed course, to England. 792. The Break with Germany. President Wilson's reply was the dismissal of the German ambassador. At the same moment, on February 3, Secretary Lansing sent Count von Bernstorff his passport and President Wilson appeared before Congress to explain his policy. After reviewing the long con- tention over submarines, he informed Congress of the dis- missal of Count von Bernstorff. " This government has no alternative," said he, " but to take the course which in its note of the i8th of April it announced that it would take " if unrestricted submarine warfare did not cease. The President's action was met almost universally by the assurance that whatever happened the country would stand behind him. All the governors of the states telegraphed assurance of support. Naturally, there was sympathy with xiv AMERICAN HISTORY those Americans of German descent who could not but be unhappy over the prospect. A notable feature of the occa- sion was their prompt expression of loyalty. The German- American press, almost without exception, though hoping that the break would soon be healed, declared its readiness to stand by the President, wh&,tever happened. The Senate endorsed his action by a vote of 78 to 5. 793. The Scheme to dismember the Country. The Senate Filibuster. During February, American business was severely hampered because many ships lay at their docks afraid to go to sea. With the President's sanction, bills were introduced into Congress to authorize the government to supply these ships with cannon and gunners as defense against submarines. The plan was opposed by a small but determined group in Congress. While Congress deUberated, the President made public (February 28) an intercepted dispatch from the German foreign secretary to the German ambassador in Mexico, who was directed, in case the United States declared war upon Germany, to " propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico ; . . . That we shall give general financial support and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona." Japan was to be invited to join the alliance.^ Four days afterward, the American newspapers informed the country that Dr. Alfred Zimmerman, the German foreign secretary, acknowledged the authenticity of the intercepted dispatch. The publication of the dispatch had caused intense excite- ment. The Senate had taken up with renewed zeal the President's request for increased authority. He wished not only to arm ships but to be free to use the military forces, during the coming adjournment of Congress, in any way that occasion might demand. Nine tenths of both Houses were with him. ' Japan as an ally of England was at war with Germany. The Japanese government promptly made a declaration of friendship toward the United States. READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES xv And now occurred perhaps the most singular case of " ob- struction " in our history. The Senate had no rule which permitted the limiting of debate. The session would come to an end on March 4. A little group of obstructionists determined to " iihbuster " — that is, keep up discussion until the session closed — and thus kill the bill by preventing a vote on it. So great was the indignation against the filibusterers that party Hnes disappeared. Both Republicans and Demo- crats strove to down the opposition and bring the bill to a vote. But they were unsuccessful. Twelve men had blocked the whole Senate by insisting on their right, under the Senate rules, to talk indefinitely. The hour for adjournment came without a vote on the bill to arm the ships. 794. Last Word of President Wilson's First Term. The President immediately gave out a statement describing the Senate as " the only legislative body in the world that cannot act when its majority is ready for action." He described the situation of the country as "a crisis fraught with more subtle and far reaching danger than any other the government has known, in the whole liistory of its international relations." 795. The Change in American Policy. We miss the signifi- cance of these four stirring years if we do not see that the American people, while hardly conscious what was taking place, had passed through a complete change in their relations with Europe. As late as 191 3, they still beHeved that the west- ern hemisphere .and the eastern were separate worlds. The War of the Nations opened their eyes. The first effect of that war, in America, was a ruinous collapse of prices. Cotton, espe- cially, sank to next to nothing. It rose, later, to a price all but incredible, only to go down again with a suddenness that caused financial disaster. Every fluctuation of the war, every rumor of peace, had its effect on American business. Whole lines of business disappeared and new ones sprang into existence. The cost of hving rapidly increased. 796. War with Germany. The American people had reached a crisis more momentous than any they had faced xvi MIERICAN HISTORY since 1861. We must not fail to understand the issue. It was nothing less than our right to act as an independent, sover- eign power, in our dealings with the rest of the world. As long as we remain independent, we need ask no one's per- mission for our citizens to exercise, under international law, these rights: (i) to sail with immunity as passengers on merchant ships of belligerent countries (sections 782-783) ; (2) to trade in munitions without interference from their own government (section 785) ; (3) to sail where they choose on the high seas, subject only to the recognized restrictions of international law (sections 781, 782). Of these three, Ger- many denounced us for not giving up the second, and com- manded us, purely in her own interest, to give up altogether the first and third. In other words, she proposed to degrade us to the position of a dependent state that dared not exercise its sovereign rights, but should wait upon the pleasure of the Emperor at Berlin. This demand brought the whole nation to its feet ready to fight for its independence. Furthermore, in the course of the war Americans, gradually but very generally, had come to regard it as at bottom a struggle between monarchy and democracy for the control of the world. This idea was greatly emphasized by an event of March, 191 7, which is likely to prove the greatest single event since the French Revolution. The people of Russia rose against the Romanoff dynasty, compelled the Czar to abdicate, and set about forming a republic. Their motive, in part, was the belief that the ruling class in Russia secretly sympathized with Germany and was afraid that the defeat of monarchial Germany (section 777) would be followed by the downfall of the monarchy in Russia. The American people sympathized with the Russian people. Our govern- ment was the first to recognize the new republic. In this month of crisis, as in the previous month, Germany carried out her threat to wage submarine war without re- straint. German submarines sank ships of all sorts wherever met in the " prohibited zone " — ships of belligerents and READJUSTMENT OF POLICIES xvii ships of neutrals; trading ships, hospital ships, even relief ships carrying food to the starving Belgians (section 779). Among these were several flying the American flag. Though, in some cases, the crews escaped in their boats, a number of American sailors lost their lives. Early in the month. President Wilson called Congress to meet in special session in April. About the same time, the attorney-general advised the President that he might arm merchant ships, under an old law that had been overlooked, without waiting for further action by Congress. On March 14, the President announced his intention to do so, and the arming of ships at once began. The day Congress met (April 3) news was received that an armed American ship, the Aztec, had been sunk by the Germans. In his speech to Congress the President denounced " the Prussian Autocracy " as a government that had lost its sense of right and wrong, that had undertaken to wage war against all mankind. He insisted that our quarrel was not with the German people but with their despotic rulers. Speaking of the revolution in Russia, he described the world war as a gigantic struggle between democracy and absolutism. After reviewing the indignities our country had endured in the vain hope of preserving peace, he called upon Congress to declare that the Imperial German Government was making war on the government and people of the United States, to provide for raising an army of 500,000 men, and to authorize him to prosecute the war in conjunction with the other free peoples that were battling against the tyranny of the Hohenzollerns. A joint resolution passed by overwhelming majorities — in the Senate, April 5, in the House April 6, — declared that the Imperial German Government and the United States were at war. Selections from the Sources. There are various annual publications that are valuable, such as the Statesman's Yearbook, International Year Book, and the admirable World Almanac which costs only thirty-five cents. Among magazines which should be mentioned are the World's xviii AMERICAN HISTORY Work, Review of Revie^vs, the Outlook, the Independent, the Literary Digest, Current Opinion, and Current History. AH these make a specialty of contemporaneous events, month by month. Documentary history of the questions of blockade, continuous voyage, and contraband (munitions, etc.) will be found in Moore, Digest of International Law (see Index). Secondary Accounts. It is too early for satisfactory secondary ac- counts. The numerous critical articles found in the publications named under Sources should not be taken as definitive history. But in many cases they are very suggestive. Topics for Special Reports, i. The Federal Reserve Act. 2. Re- cent wars in ^Ic.xico. 3. Commercial Progress of South America. 4. Recent European Alliances. 5. Continuous Voyage. 6. The Law of Contraband. 7. Unpreparedness in the War of Secession. (See official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume I and Series IV, Volume I.) 8. The Danish West Indies. 9. Our case against Germany. CHAPTER XXXIII THE WORLD AT WAR 797. America's Response to the German Challenge : The New Army. Never has a peaceful nation transformed itself more suddenly, more completely into a military nation than did the United States in 191 7. A passion of patriotic service swept the country. The first of many stirring evidences of this spirit was the universal acclaim of a national conscription act signed by the President May 18, 191 7. On one day, under this law, every male citizen between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one was enrolled in the national forces, which were increased that day by ten million men. In this " selective draft," as it was called, each man was assigned a number drawn by lot. Subsequently, the men were called to the colors in the order of their numbers as occasion demanded. Enormous camps of instruction sprang up as if at the com- mand of a wizard. These were not the old-style tented camps of tradition. They were cities of streets, with houses, hos- pitals, huge administrative buildings, and a population of forty or fifty thousand men. To equip this gigantic new army, all the industrial resources of the country were pressed into service.^ Fortunately, there were already many great plants that had adapted themselves to the production of munitions, and had worked at high speed supplying England and France during the early part of the war. Meanwhile England and France had built new plants of their own. Thus the output of our own workshops could now be absorbed by our own army without imperiling our Allies. In all this immense endeavor there was enthusiastic cooperation with 1 See " America's Munitions 1917-1918 " (report of the Director of Munitions), Government Printing Office. XX AMERICAN HISTORY the government. The need of an improved light engine for aircraft led to a conference of engineers representing all the most successful makers of automobiles. Their combined experience was expressed in a design that was named the Liberty Motor.^ 798. Civilian Organizations behind the Army. The United States profited in many ways by the experience of England and France since 1914. The chief lesson of that experience was the necessity to combine all the energies of the nation in just one all-engrossing purpose — the maintenance of the army. Practically the entire nation realized this obligation. Great and small, rich and poor — all but a few disloyals who secretly wished our enemies to succeed — conceived of themselves, their business, their abilities as part of the national military estab- lishment. " What can I do to help win the war? " was the one universal question. It was answered in a thousand ways. People of means gave their services as government workers without pay. Among these were many of the most noted experts in many lines of endeavor. People who despite the nation's peril must still work for the support of their families found innumerable things to do, in extra hours, sharing the gigantic task of caring for the army. Everywhere local societies were formed for the purpose of raising funds, or making army clothes, or caring for the welfare of the men in hospitals or when off duty. Women knitted socks for the army. They carried their knitting around with them and * Inventions played a great part in this war. The first successes of the Germans were due in part to their movable heavy guns whose existence had been kept a secret. Later they invented a " super gun " which could fire an incredible distance but did not prove to be altogether practical. The French field piece, the "75-millimetre gun" was a masterstroke. Most important of all was the British invention nicknamed " the tank." It was an armored motor car, based on the idea of the American farm tractor. For crashing through barbed wire entanglements and scattering machine gunners, it was invaluable. The Germans introduced the use of poisonous gas, which compelled the Allies to invent gas masks. Finally, the British invented a new sort of mine, the "depth charge," which was the main weapon of the destroyers against the submarine. (See section 803.) THE WORLD AT WAR xxi worked at it in every odd minute. Tliere was a time when you could hardly go into a street car without seeing a row of women busy with their long steel needles. The Red Cross Society formed Chapters in every town and village. These Chapters kept their members at work making surgical dressings and preparing countless articles for the use of the army medical service. Women were conspicuous in all these undertakings. They also formed associations for service as volunteer auto- mobile drivers. The government recognized their value by enrolling them as part of the national forces. Such organi- zations as the Motor Corps of America and the National League for Women's Service trained their members as ambulance drivers, and formed an invaluable adjunct to the great military hospitals, especially when, in the heavy fighting of 1918, shiploads of wounded came home from France.^ 799. The Money for the War. Behind all these stirring activities lay the grim and cheerless duty to pay for the war. While the young men of the nation were being enrolled in the army, subscriptions began for the first of four Liberty Loans. The government asked, in this first loan, for two billion dollars. During May and June, 191 7, the nation over- subscribed the loan by a billion. The second Liberty Loan in the autumn of 191 7 was similarly oversubscribed. The third and fourth loans — the third for three billion, the fourth for six — in 1918 demonstrated in the same way that the patriotism of the country, measured in dollars and cents, ran ahead of the demands of the government. The four loans called for fourteen billions ; eighteen billions were offered. The loans were supplemented by War Savings Stamps, which were virtually loans in very small sums. The smallest War Savings Stamp had a value of twenty-five cents. Two ^ These organizations were also of the greatest value during the epidemic of influenza which began in the autumn of igi8 and continued through the winter. As a large proportion both of nurses and doctors had gone with the army to France the American situation became extremely grave. The women's motor corps took up the work of bringing stricken and helpless victims of influenza to the hospitals. xxii AMERICAN HISTORY billion dollars in these stamps were loaned to the govern- ment in 1 91 8. 800. Privations. In a great number of ways, some direct, some indirect, the nation was called upon to submit to pri- vation in order to carry the burden of this enormous war. Food was the first subject of concern. A singular fatality was the relative failure of the cereal crops in 191 7. To meet the needs of all the Allied countries, there was utmost need of economy and cooperation. In America a Food Commission was created and a Food Administrator appointed. A system of rationing was established, especially in the use of flour and sugar. Bakers were required to mix other flours with wheat flour in making bread. Quite as serious was the problem, of fuel. The Germans were using the coal mines seized from the French and Belgians. To make up for this loss to our great continental Ally, to pro- vide transportation for men and supplies, to keep the vast munition plants going at full speed, there was needed from America a vast quantity of fuel. A Fuel Administrator regulated the distribution. Industries necessary to the war were given full supply ; others were reduced. All unnecessary use of fuel and the products of fuel, light and power, were forbidden. Ornamental electric signs disappeared. Street cars were required to make less frequent stops. During the winter of 1917-1918, one day each week was a " heatless day," when heat was shut off in many classes of buildings. Similarly, there were " gaslcss Sundays," when no automobiles were used for private purposes. To lessen the use of artificial light, Congress adopted a "daylight saving" plan, which was already in use abroad and had been under discussion here. From the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October all clocks were required to be set forward one hour. The use of intoxicating liquors was very generally given up " for the duration of the war," ' so as to encourage temperance ' At the same time the prohibition movement acquired new momentum. There was an increase of interest in the proposed amendment to the National THE WORLD AT WAR xxiii among the soldiers and also to release the maximum quantity of grain for food and of alcohol for use in munition making. 801. Nationalization of Business. The same cheerful acceptance of whatever burden the war imposed characterized American business. Though no people had had more of traditional hostility to governmental control of business, the Americans made no complaint when, in December, 191 7, the President took possession of the railways, gave orders for a single consohdated management of them all, and appointed the secretary of the treasury, William G. McAdoo, director general. Subsequently, the government also took over, for the dura- tion of the war, the telephone and telegraph lines. These were placed under the control of the postmaster general. Among a number of boards and commissions, all intended to make the production of war necessities as swift and economical as possible, none was more notable than the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, commonly called the " Shipping Board." Its purpose was to rush through the construction of ships, great numbers of which were now in instant demand. Partly by utilizing the existing shipyards in all parts of the country, partly by building new yards, the Board succeeded in turning out ships with wonderful rapidity.' And yet, when the final crisis arrived in the spring of the next year, — so terrible and unforeseen were the events of 191 7! — American shipping was inadequate for carrying our reenforcements to France. For a moment it looked as if the war would be lost through this inadequacy. 802. The German Plan of 1917. This situation was exactly what the Germans had carefully schemed to bring about. They had attacked us because they wanted to shift the theater Constitution, making the manufacture of alcoholic beverages illegal. Pro- posed in 191 7, it was ratified by a sufficient number of states in 1919 to go into force in 1920. 1 The American navy was also increased by the confiscation of German ships interned in American waters. xxiv AMERICAN HISTORY of their submarine warfare (sections 782, 791) from the British territorial waters to the Atlantic. There were from the beginning two vital points in the system of allied communi- cation. One was the British Channel. Across that narrow sea, in the course of the war, the British na\'y moved twenty million men. For a long time Germany cherished the hope that her submarines would cut this floating bridge between England and France. Her attempt was a total failure. As long as there was hope of separating England and France, Germany preferred to have the United States neutral in order to be able to resume trade with us promptly when she had crushed the Allies. The moment she gave up hope of cutting her way through the Channel, she determined on war with the United States. That is, she aimed at the other vital point in the Allied communications. Across the Atlantic came the food and a large part of the munitions that made possible the heroic battle of the French and British lines. England's fleet, for all its vastness, was unable to guard the " sea-lanes " followed by the supply ships across the ocean. There was absolute need for the British navy to discharge three other obligations: (i) to keep the powerful German battle fleet shut up in its home port ; (2) to keep the Channel absolutely safe for Allied transports and hospital ships ; (3) to keep the Mediterranean free of submarines and thus prevent a separation of the eastern from the western Allied armies, as well as to prevent the blockade and starvation of Italy. Doing all this, England had left only fifteen destroyers. These were the whole force she could use for the enormous task of policing the Atlantic. Under international law, American ships, being neutrals (sections 781-784), did not need protection. Therefore, the cynical German government made war on the United States, seeking a free hand to destroy our ships. In April, 191 7, the Germans were perfectly con- fident that their submarines could do this ; that our entrance into the war would be followed by the swift obliteration of THE WORLD AT WAR xxv our commerce ; that England would be quickly starved out ; that the German conquest of the world had begun in earnest. 803. The Battle of the Atlantic. It was a piece of interna- tional good fortune that one of the clearest-sighted American seamen, Admiral W. S. Sims, was sent to England imme- diately' upon our entrance into the war. He perceived at once the gravity of the situation. His urgent dispatches to Washington were, perhaps, the cause of a line of policy that characterized the American government in all its subse- quent course. " I early took the stand," says Admiral Sims, " that our forces should be considered chiefly in the light of reenforcements to the Allied navies, and that, ignoring all question of national pride and even what at first might super- ficially seem to be national interest, we should exert such ofi"ensive power as we possessed in the way that would best assist the AlHes in defeating the submarine." Hitherto there had not been sufficient unity of action among the Allies. Broadly speaking, each nation had conducted its own war, as it thought best. The United States led the way in demanding closer cooperation. The first fruit of this new policy was the formation of a joint Anglo-American fleet of destroyers, with its base at Queenstown, for an ocean-wide battle with the submarines. During the summer of 191 7 — in many respects the darkest summer of the war — the most crucial event was the slow, tremendous Battle of the Atlantic. 804. The Grand Fleet. However, the destroyers, for all their immense importance, were not the whole — not even the backbone — of the Alhed naval defense. Throughout the war, a large fleet of battleships — the Grand Fleet, it was called — lay somewhere off the British coast, ready at any moment to strike the German battle fleet, should it venture out to sea. Twice, before our entrance into the war, the Germans had attacked the Grand Fleet, and had been driven back to their home ports. Though stronger than the German fleet, the Grand Fleet was not overwhelmingly so. How best to reenforce it by an American contingent was one of the xxvi AMERICAN HISTORY first thoughts of the American navy. For a time, this could not be done. The super-dreadnaughts burn oil. In 191 7 there was a dangerous shortage in the supply of fuel oil. The Grand Fleet, unreenforced, was barely able to supply itself with oil. Under the conditions of the moment, our ships could not have been fueled in European waters. Not until the oil situation had improved could Admiral Hugh Rodman join the Grand Fleet with an American battle squadron. Admiral Rodman's reenforcement made the Grand Fleet overwhelmingly powerful. 805. The American Expeditionary Force. Meanwhile, when the Battle of the Atlantic had scarcely begun, such veterans as we had were hurried to France. June 26, 191 7, is a memorable day in American history. On that day, for the first time, troops of the United States set foot on the continent of Europe, as belligerents. Of this American Expeditionary Force, the commander was General John J. Pershing. It was General Pershing who expressed the American sentiment toward France, as he stood at the tomb of that brilliant Frenchman, who was once a member of the American army — " Lafayette, we are here." 806. The Collapse of Russia. In the early days of the Battle of the Atlantic, before there was any certainty that it would be won, all the Allied nations were staggered by the news from Russia. The Revolution (section 796) took a startling turn that threatened to upset all the Allied plans. In those plans, an essential factor was the Russian army, by which a great part of the German army was held on the Eastern battle front. The wise and temperate leaders of the Revolu- tion, in its first stage, were eager to see Russia do her full share in crushing the German autocracy. But the Revolution now passed, with bewildering suddenness, into a second stage. New leaders appeared. New ideas were put forth. Extreme socialists began preaching the doctrine of peace-at-any-price. A violent party of ultra-extremists, the Bolsheviki, denounced the revolutionary government as no better than the old THE WORLD AT WAR xxvii imperial government, clamored for the abolition of all law, of all authority, for the nationalization of property, and for immediate peace. It is possible that these fanatics believed all they said. But it is known to-day that some, at least, of their leaders were in collusion with the Germans, and that their movement was financed by German money. The ra- pidity with which the ideas of the Bolsheviki made their way through the Russian army astounded the world. Almost before the danger was realized, the Russian army had lost its striking force. To be sure, Alexander Kerensky, one of the new leaders who was not a Bolshevist, seemed for a moment about to bring the Revolution back to sanity. For a moment, he restored the fighting spirit in the army. But he was not equal to his terrible opportunity ; his hold on the army did not last ; before the end of the summer the Russians were giving up the fight. Two sinister figures, Nicolai Lenin and Leon Trotzky, who are supposed to have been secret agents of Ger- many, now emerged as leaders of the Bolsheviki. They headed a rebelHon, drove Kerensky from power, and declared for an immediate peace. 807. The " Peace Drive " of 1917. Germany, making every effort to corrupt the Russian Revolutionaries, saw quicker than the Allies that the latter part of 191 7 might prove a turning point — one of those " psychological moments " when men pass through changes of heart. There- upon she began what was known as the " peace drive." She meant to use the dismay created by the collapse of Russia as a means to intimidating the Allies into negotiating peace. She had not given up hope of getting aid from that small group of American visionaries who thought a shameful peace more honorable than a valiant war, who were willing to play into the hands of the still smaller group of American disloyals. But the United States proved a barren field for such propa- ganda. A prime mistake of the German sympathizers and the no-war fanatics was their attempt to create a peace-at- any-price sentiment among American workingmen. Practically xxviii AMERICAN HISTORY the whole body of American labor was impervious to the arguments, and scornful of the trickery that had deceived the Russians. Their attitude was the death of the last German hope in America! Their chief spokesman, Samuel Gompers, denounced with equal severity the Germans and the Bolshe- viki. 808. The Pope's Proposal. A very different appeal for peace was made that same summer (August i). The Pope besought the warring nations to put an end to their conflict. In refusing to consider this appeal, President Wilson paid a tribute to the " generous motives that prompted it," but added that " our response must be based on stern facts and nothing else." The Pope had proposed that all nations return to the status quo before the war, that they should all disarm and settle all their differences by arbitration. President Wilson pronounced the proposal impractical because " we can- not take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure," and because " no man, no nation, could now depend on " any promises they might make. 809. The Reorganization of the Allies. Autumn had now come. At Petrograd Lenin and Trotzky were in control. It was plain that they were working for Germany, that all the German forces in Russia would soon be released for service elsewhere. A new conviction took possession of all the Allies : they must reorganize their relations ; they must make better use of their resources. In all the Allied countries momentous changes swiftly followed. In France, for example, there was a change of ministry, and one of the boldest of men became Premier, Georges Clemenceau. When that happened (Novem- ber 1 8), the Austrians were conducting a great drive into Italy and the Italians were in full retreat. The military situation of the Allies seemed extremely dark. But there was not the slight- est wavering of their spirit. In the dreary days of the great Italian retreat, a momentous step was taken toward unity of Allied command. In conference at Repallo, representatives THE WORLD AT WAR xxix of Italy, France, and England drew up a tentative scheme for a Supreme War Council. A war mission from the United States, headed by Colonel E. M. House, was then upon the sea. Immediately upon their arrival, the Americans heartily concurred in this plan. President Wilson cabled his approval. Thereafter, the Allied military policy was directed by this Supreme Council, sitting generally at Versailles. 810. Renewed Allied Confidence. In spite of the Russian collapse, in spite of the Italian disaster, in spite of the sub- marines, the spirit of the Americans, as of all the Allies, was more determined than ever. Shortly after joining the Supreme War Council, when all northwestern Italy was overrun and the conquerors had almost reached Venice, we declared war upon Austria (December 7, 191 7). In the first week of the new year President Wilson delivered a speech destined to become famous as " the speech of the Fourteen Points." He laid down fourteen propositions as a basis on which peace might be discussed. Several of them reached far out into the future, and touched the world that was to come at the war's end. Five dealt with immediate conditions in a way to serve notice to Germany of what she might expect. These were : Russia to be freed from German domination ; Belgium to be completely restored ; France to have complete restitution for losses both in the present war and in the Franco-Prussian War ; the Austrian Empire to be broken up ; Poland to be restored. So widely was the speech applauded that it may be con- sidered the Allied challenge to Germany at the opening of the fateful year 1918. 811. The Allied Control of the Seas. A change of in- calculable significance had taken place since the previous April. The Battle of the Atlantic had been won. Gradually, with superb audacity, the Anglo-American Destroyer Fleet had mastered the submarine. They had made the Atlantic almost as safe for Allied ships as the Channel. The Germans, horrified by the reversal of their expectations, nevertheless XX AMERICAN HISTORY lad to admit the fact. As early as November, 191 7, a noted jerman naval critic, Captain Persius, pronounced the sub- narine campaign a failure. As the new year began, with Ulied destroyers in control of the Atlantic, with the Grand "leet holding the German battle fleet in its ports, the Allies v^ere masters of the sea. 812. The Final Policy of the Germans. The Germans did lot deceive themselves as to what had happened. They saw hat all their boasting of a year previous was vain. Their lopes upon the sea were gone. To starve England was now mpossible. To keep American reenforcements from reaching "ranee was also impossible. But still Germany had one ast chance. Even at the close of 191 7, the Allies were doing hings slowly. They had not yet learned to be swift and sure n all their movements — as Germany was. The Americans vere sending over their men in driblets. Three months later, >n the anniversary of our entrance into the war, we had only ibout a quarter of a million men in France. From all this, jermany drew two conclusions : first, the war, now that the ubmarine had failed her, must be decided on land. Second, he must take advantage of the slowness of the movement of American reenforcements, gather all her strength on the western front, hurl it against the French and British, and crush )oth armies before the Americans in adequate number should ome to their aid. Of course, the possibility of such a western concentration vsis due to Russia ; Lenin and Trotzky, now in full control >f the Revolutionary Government, were brazenly serving Germany's ends. While the eastern German armies were )eing shifted to the west, the German government dictated erms of peace to the Russians. Though Lenin and Trotzky nade a great pretense of protest, they promptly demobilized he Russian armies, and on March 3, 1918, consented to the ^eace of Brest-Litovsk. Russia was dismembered, and )ractically all her industrial and economic life was placed mder German domination. THE WORLD AT WAR xxxi Though the AUies knew what was happening in Russia and guessed what Germany was about, there was no adequate preparation for the blow that was impending. The Supreme War Council did not prove to be particularly useful. There was no material quickening in the movement of American reenforcements. At nightfall, on March 20, the Allies seemed still to have had no adequate realization that there was a possibility they might yet lose the war. 813. March 21, 1917. By what happened in the next twenty-four hours, the whole Allied world was stunned, horrified. A tempest of artillery fire, the most terrible yet known, burst upon the British hne at its point of juncture with the French, and tore it apart as if before the lava streams of a volcano. Into the breaches thus made, dense masses of " shock " troops were poured in successive waves. By night- fall, March 21, parts of the British front line were gone; others were wavering. At these points the assailants out- numbered the defenders three to one. On the 2 2d, the Ger- man torrent of lire and steel, pouring through the gaps of the front, was surging onward against the British reserves. On the 23d the magnitude of this disaster became known through- out America. A gloom not to be exaggerated settled upon the country. But it was not the gloom of fear. The ex- pression heard on every side was, " If only we were there ! " The drive of March 21 began the battle of Picardy, one of the fiercest ever known. The German purpose was to capture Amiens, and thus separate the British and French armies. On the part of the Allies the battle was a miracle of defensive fighting. Though the British and French lines bent far back, surrendering precious territory to the Germans, they did not break. To the anxious watchers in America it was some consolation to know that Americans took part in the splendid last stand that brought the invaders to a halt a few miles east of Amiens (April i). The knowledge that the Americans were but a few thousand in a battle employing over a million, tilled the country with a fury to be up and doing. xxxii AMERICAN HISTORY 814. Foch. There was immediate recognition of the need for a single supreme commander of all the AUies. General Pershing, like Admiral Sims, had always believed this. The Americans were very influential in bringing about the appoint- ment of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, of the French Army, as Allied Generalissimo. A congratulatory cablegram from President Wilson at once informed all the world that we heartily accepted him as our super-commander. General Pershing instantly placed at his disposal all the American forces in France to be used wherever, in whatever capacity, he thought best. 815. The Dark Days of 1918. During three and a half months under the skillful leadership of this great soldier, we played our part in a sternly retreating defense. During those terrible months — perhaps the darkest days of the whole war — the Germans made four other terrific drives. They had an immense superiority in numbers. They also had the " interior Hnc." ' Each drive gained additional territory. When the last was checked in the middle of July, the Germans were dangerously close to Paris. But while the Allied line bent and retreated, it never broke. This one fact, that all the fury of the onslaught with superior numbers never quite broke the line, was the sole consolation of the anxious Americans during those appalling months of the final crisis. Meanwhile they had stirring news of their countrymen who had been hurried into the front line and who did valiant service now here, now there : at Seicheprey, in our first serious clash with the Germans (April 20) ; at Can- tigny, in a brilliant counter attack (May 28) ; at Chateau Thierry — the first battle of Chateau Thierry — where we helped materially in stopping the third German drive (June i) ; in an homeric combat which cleared Belleau Wood of Germans (June 11) and led the French government to give the place a new name, " The Wood of the Marine Brigade " ; the storming of Vaux (July i) ; above all, in our second battle ' See Section 642. THE WORLD AT WAR xxxiii of Chateau Thierry (July 15), where with furious hand-to- hand fighting we did our full share " stone- walling " the last German rush.^ 816. What Foch Waited For. Foch had maintained his long defensive battle, despite the agony of hope deferred among the Allied nations, because he had not reserves sufhcient to justify an attack. The possibility of defeating Germany was now a question of reserves. Where were they to come from? England and France had put their last men into the field. In England alone, sixty per cent of the male population were soldiers. No reserves could be called up except from America. The United States had two million men in camp, but they were four thousand miles from the field of battle, and the Shipping Board, though it had done well, had not done well enough. .It was unable to provide ships to rush these men to France ; and yet Foch's one chance to assume the offensive lay in these men, four thousand miles away. At this crisis, the British Merchant Marine came to the rescue. '' We'll find the ships," said the English, " if America will find the men." It was agreed. The largest number of Americans sent to France in any one month previous to March, 1918, was about 50,000. In April, we sent over 117,000; in May, 224,000; in June, 276,000. On the Fourth of July appeared a statement of the secretary of war, Newton D. Baker, informing the Ameri- can people that our "First Million" was on French soil. The situation during the Dark Days when the Germans were thundering against Foch's lines, and the American War Department was speeding reenforcements across the Atlantic, was tersely summed up by the British Premier, Lloyd George, '' It is a race," said he, " between Field Marshal Von Hinden- burg and President Wilson." 1 In all this heavy fighting great honor was won by America's "four pioneer divisions," the First, Second, Twenty-sixth, and Forty-second. The Third Division is especially associated with Chateau-Thierry. The Twenty-eighth was heroic in its first battle, July 15. xxxiv AMERICAN HISTORY 817. Second Battle of the Marae. On the eighteenth of July, Foch at last had sulVicient power for a counter offensive. He massed his forces along the Marne, where the Germans had driven a huge wedge into the Allied line with its point at Chateau-Thierry, only 44 miles from Paris. In the attacking army were nearly 300,000 Americans.^ Dispensing with the bombardment that usually preceded a battle, — the " artillery preparation " in technical language, — the Franco-American army burst upon the Germans with such suddenness, such irresistible fury, that in one day the relation of the combatants was reversed. The Germans were thrown upon the defensive. The Allies were tearing gaps in their front line much as the Germans had done in the Allied line three and a half months before. Only swift retreat back toward their position of early March — the famous ** Hindenburg line " — saved the Germans of the IMarne region from destruction. 818. The Joyful Summer. The news of this great victory dispelled the cloud that had hung over the Allied world since March. But there was no reaction to overconfidence. The lesson of the Dark Days had been learned. The war might last a long time ; the utmost power of the Allies must be organized and brought into action. Among many new plans formulated that summer, three, in America, deserve partic- ular attention. A new draft was decided upon. The age of service was extended to include all males from eighteen to forty-five. When the enrollment took place under this law (September 12) about fourteen million men were added to the national forces. Ever since the war began, all the great welfare associations of the country had worked zealously, looking after the good of the soldiers. A unique arrangement was now decided upon. The same principle of voluntary acceptance of unified com- mand — the principle that was saving the cause at the front — was now to be applied at home. For the first time, ' The diN-isions engaged were I, II, III, IV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXXII, XLII, LVI, LXXVII. THE WORLD AT WAR xxxv Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, came together in a cordial cooperation under a really joint organization. Seven associations, representing all phases of American religious belief, with the hearty support of the government, undertook a United War Work Campaign. Their aim was to raise, by voluntary subscription, 120 million dollars, to be expended behind the lines in France. Each Association was to receive a stipulated percentage of the sum raised, and all were to work together raising it.^ The success of this cooperative movement was a further evidence of the basal idea for which the Allies stood — tolerant liberty, both for men and for nations. It culminated in a great meeting in New York, presided over by a distinguished Baptist, Charles E. Hughes, with religious exercises in which took part a Roman Catholic archbishop, a Protestant Episcopal bishop, and a Jewish rabbi. The third innovation of the summer of 1918 was the Student Army Training Corps. Under the new draft, all college students were enrolled in the army. The colleges, almost without exception, combined with the government in the creation of the most enormous Military Academy ever known. Temporarily they became part of the War Department. Their ordinary courses were suspended. New courses were laid out designed to educate officers. It was this immense body of college students in training to become officers that formed the Student Army Training Corps. 819. " America in France." No part of our achievement in the war was more remarkable than the welfare work behind the hues in France. To keep up the morale of the soldiers under fire, to supply them with opportunity for recuperation when they were withdrawn from the firing line, was the duty of great numbers of workers, both men and women. Time and again the last person whom the soldier left behind as he 1 The seven associations with the percentages they were to receive were as follows : Y. M. C. A., 58.65 ; Knights of ColumDus, 17.60; Y. W. C. A., 8.80; War Camp Community Service, 8. 80 ; Jewish Welfare Board, 2.05 ; American Library Association, 2.05; Salvation Army, 2.05, xxxvi AMERICAN HISTORY started forward to go " over the top " was some brave woman volunteer who had come from America to assist in keeping " the boys " cheerful amid the hardships of the trenches. The government formed recreation centers at various places in France and Switzerland, to which were sent the exhausted men who came from the inferno of the firing line, and where their shattered nerves were restored. The government went still further. It planned an educational system for the fighting men ; and when the war closed it was estabhshing an enormous army university. However, the most remarkable American exploit in France was, perhaps, the work of our service of supply, — the S. 0. S. France, already overburdened in caring for her own army, could not be expected to transport ours. American engineers, American architects, American railway men, American administrators of all sorts, were hurried to France, on our entrance into the war. When the time came to flood the country with American reenforcements, these men had con- structed gigantic docks so as to receive American ships without congesting the French docks ; they had built railroads to carry the extra traffic that might have jammed the existing roads ; in certain " training areas," they had created little American cities from which the American host was to be supplied. The impression of seriousness, efficiency, capability, which they made on the observant French, created a new respect for the American nation. " America in France," says Frederick Palmer, " was America at its best." 820. Our World-wide War. Having fully committed itself to the idea of a unified war, the United States govern- ment, in the autumn of igi8,did not hesitate to send its soldiers to the ends of the earth. Literally, from the American point of view, that was what happened when American soldiers were dispatched to Siberia. There, some Russians who despised Lenin and Trotzky were fighting the Bolsheviki. To their aid went Allied forces, partly American. Other Russians, not debauched by German gold, were fighting the Bolsheviki THE WORLD AT WAR xxxvii on the Arctic coast in the vicinity of Archangel. To them, an Anglo-American force brought vital assistance. One of the dramatic events of the war was the arrival of the American dehverers at Archangel. Italy formed another distant field where, in this turn of the tide, American aid was a factor. French and British forces helped stiffen the Italian hne after the disaster of the previous year. Americans now contributed to the complete recovery of Italy's power to strike.^ 821. The Battle of St. Mihiel. Meanwhile, our Gen- eralissimo was perfecting his vast design which eventually brought the war to an end. As a preparatory step, he assigned to the Americans a great undertaking.- The Germans were still westward of their Hindenburg Line and the coming death grapple would be an effort to shatter that line. First of all, a long German salient southeast of Verdun that thrust itself westward beyond the town of St. Mihiel must be blotted out. This salient, roughly speaking, formed a right-angled triangle, the base running eastward from St. Mihiel, the altitude north from St. Mihiel, the hypothenuse starting at Pont-a-Mousson and running north- west nearly to Verdun. Swiftly, with utmost secrecy, moving only by night, the bulk of the First American army was assembled along the southern side of the salient. Theirs was 1 For complete understanding of our share in the war, the entire military history of 1917 and 1918 is desirable as a background. However, it can hardly be incorporated in a text of American history, but it should be considered in special reports. Such matters as the British occupation of Palestine, late in 1917, the Italian attack on Austria in 1918, and the great Balkan offensive, 1918, are of especial importance. It must not be forgotten that after March, 191 8, all Allied movements were part of Foch's plan of campaign. - Hitherto the Americans had formed parts of French or British commands. Though many of them were retained in such commands, there was now formed the "First American Army," General Pershing commanding, with no superior but Foch himself. With General Pershing was French artillery. One evidence of our great difficulty in raising an army on short notice is the fact that even at the end of the fighting our own artillery was not equipped with American field guns. It used guns supplied us by the French. Some American naval guns moved forward by rail reached the front. xxxviii AMERICAN HISTORY to be the main attack driving straight north parallel with the altitude of the sahent until they reached its hypothenuse. When they did that, their left wing was to touch the town of Vigneulles-les-Hattonchattel.^ There they were to be met by the Twenty-sixth American Division, which was to cut into the salient from the top of the west side. The nut of the saHent was to be cracked by a pair of pincers. And with brilliant daring it was accomplished exactly as planned. The attack began in a rainy dawn, September 12. Early in the morning of Septemxber 13, the advance guard of the Twenty-sixth entered Vigneulles from the west. Only a little later, the advance of the First Division entered from the south. The Americans, victorious in their first independent battle on European soil, drew the new Allied line along the hypothenuse of that German salient which they had obhterated. 822. The War in the Air. Among the events of the summer and autumn which stirred the blood of Americans, were the exploits of our " airmen." In this war, for the first time, the aviator played a leading part. The Germans used him to bomb peaceful towns far behind the battle line, and to destroy women and children. Along the front on both sides the flying men formed the " eyes " of the armies. That was why army movements had to take place at night. Part of the American plan of reenforcement was the construction of an enormous fleet of airplanes. This, however, could not be assembled upon the battle front before 1919. But many gallant feats were per- formed in British and French planes by airmen of the American army in iqi8. It was in one of these that the daring young Lieutenant Roosevelt, son of the ex-president, lost his hfe. 823. The Battle of the Hindenburg Lme. The time had now come for the execution of the grand design of the Generalissimo — the breaking of the Hindenburg Line. That line was a marvelous system of fortifications stretching across France and Belgium from Lorraine to the North Sea. Just 'The divisions in the main attack were the First, the Second, the Fifth, the Forty-second, the Eighty-second, the Eighty-ninth, the Ninetieth. THE WORLD AT WAR xxxix behind the Hne — its main artery of supply — lay the im- portant railway which links together Strasbourg, Metz, Sedan, and Lille. On the holding of this railroad the life of the Hindenburg Line depended. If the Line should be pene- trated so as to cut this railway, the portions would not be able to communicate except by roundabout routes far in the German rear. Foch's aim was to drive through the Line at several points, and cut the railway ; thus, he would make it impossible for the Germans in the different parts either to retreat with rapidity or be reenforced with rapidity ; he would then crush the parts separately. This gigantic design involved a whole system of battles all depending on each other, and forming in reality one battle — the greatest in history — in which were engaged some four million men. Foch paid the Americans the compliment of allowing us to open the battle. On September 26, along a front westward of Verdun, between the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest, began the largest action yet fought by an American army under its own command (The Battle of the Argonne). The same day the French struck on our left flank. The next day the British struck furiously in Belgium. While these attacks were grinding their way forward through some of the most terrific fighting of the war, another British attack was pressed in the region of Cambrai. Lastly, the supreme French attack struck the center of the line, in the valley of the Aisne. Though this battle series must be thought of as a whole, two episodes in it are, for Americans, inevitably, of sur- passing interest. In the South, our Battle of the Argonne was a sustained epic that gave imperishable renown to the American army.^ It developed into a drive straight through the German defenses, and on through the vital railway. On November 7 we entered Sedan. The American forces em- ployed, included twenty-one divisions, about 750,000 men. 1 The battle opened with a great rush by these divisions — Fourth, Twenty- eighth, Thirty-third, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-seventh, Seventy-seventh, Seventy- ninth, Eightieth, Ninety-first. xl AMERICAN HISTORY However, the American army in the South, having a long way to go, were not the first to cut the famous Line. That honor fell to members of the gallant army which struck the Line between St. Quentin and Cambrai. Though known as the British Fourth Army, and mainly English, it included Austrahans and Americans. On September 29, a column was sent forward, consisting of three divisions — the Twenty- seventh and Thirtieth, American, with the Forty-sixth, British. What these men had to do is best understood by this descrip- tion of " The Hindenburg Line," given by the Chief of Staff of the Thirtieth Division. " The Hindenburg Line, at this point, curves in front of the Tunnel St. Quentin. This was considered impregnable by the Germans for the following reasons : The Hindenburg Line, curving west of the tunnel, consisted of three main trench systems protected by vast fields of heavy barbed-wire entanglements, skillfully placed ; this wire was very heavy and had been damaged very little by artillery fire. The dominating ground enabled them to bring devastating machine-gun fire on all approaches. The lines had been strengthened with concrete machine-gun implacements. It contained at this point a large number of dugouts, lined with mining timbers, with wooden steps leading down to a depth of about thirty feet, with small rooms capable of holding from four to six men each. In many cases these dugouts were wired for electric lights. The large tunnel through which the canal ran was of sufficient capacity to shelter a division. This tunnel was electrically lighted and filled with barges. Connecting it with the Hindenburg trench system were numerous tunnels. In one case a direct tunnel ran from the main tunnel to the basement of a large stone building, which the enemy used for headquarters." Through these complicated defenses, the Anglo-American assault burst its way. The breaking of the Hindenburg Line was begun. During the next three weeks,' it was penetrated ' Perhaps the most furious fighting was done by the British Fourth Army, Americans still participating, early in October. THE WORLD AT WAR xli at several points. The vital railway was seized. Before the end of October, the defensive system of the Germans was dislocated. Foch had them at his mercy. 824. The Armistice. In the last days of this greatest battle in history, the men behind the armies in Germany and Austria saw that their cause was lost. They began to take thought how they might escape destruction. Austria led the way by withdrawing her regiments on the French front, and asking for terms of peace. The withdrawal of these regiments made slightly easier the advance of the victorious Americans to Sedan. The Austrian peace overtures, addressed to President Wilson, were rejected. The German government also addressed itself to the American President. The Germans, who had regarded pity as contemptible in connection with its enemies, now cited " The Fourteen Points," and appealed to the American generosity toward enemies. The President replied in sub- stance, that no one could trust the German government, and that no terms would be granted that diminished the " present military supremacy " of the Allies. The Hohenzollern despot, whose " shining sword " was to have terrified mankind, now showed himself the least heroic figure in this awful tragedy. Abandoning his army, he fled across the border into neutral Holland. Revolution had broken out in Germany. On November ii, the representatives of a new government, at Foch's head- quarters, signed an armistice. They agreed to the surrender of so much war material that the German army was thereby made incapable of further resistance ; to the withdrawal of all their forces beyond the Rhine ; to the surrender of the entire German Fleet ; to the occupation, by the Alhes, of portions of the east bank of the Rhine. ^ 1 These comprised three bridgeheads with half circles beyond, having a radius of 30 kilometers. The bridgehead of Coblenz with adjoining area was given in charge to an American army of occupation. For many months, the "Stars and Stripes" flew over conquered German territory along the historic Rhine. xlii AMERICAN HISTORY 825. The Concluding Triumph. The final event of the war is without parallel. In the later hours of a bright moonlit night, the Grand Fleet left its anchorage off the coast of Scotland, and steamed forth into the North Sea. At eight o'clock, on the morning of November 21, it was drawn up in two lines, three miles apart, forming a majestic avenue. The ships flanking that avenue were all in battle trim. All of their mighty guns were shotted ; every gun crew was in position ; every commander, sweeping the horizon with his binoculars, was prepared to give the word to fire. They were expecting the vanquished German fleet, and no man knew what the German promise to surrender was worth. Said Admiral Rodman, whose American dreadnaughts formed a part of the waiting fleet : " There is not the slightest possibility of any trouble, but we are overlooking no chances." Presently, a little British cruiser which had been sent out to meet the Germans was sighted to the eastward ; then, behind her, in squadron after squadron, the enemy ships. On they came, following their pilot, — great dreadnaughts, powerful battle cruisers, destroyers in columns, five abreast. They passed along that avenue of the Allied triumph, while from the ships of the victors not a sound was heard. When the last German ship had passed, the Grand Fleet closed up behind them. They were conducted to the Firth of Forth, where the formalities of surrender were completed. The close of what had truly become a " World War," was this order signaled from the Admiral of the Grand Fleet : " The German flag will be hauled down at 3.57 and is not to be hoisted again without permission." 826. The Peace Congress. And now arose the complicated problem of concluding a peace that would start the world over on a new basis. A Peace Congress was held at Ver- sailles. To it came representatives of all the Allied nations, all those among the free peoples that had taken part in the struggle for democracy against autocratic Germany. Russia, to be sure, was not officially represented, for Russia was still THE WORLD AT WAR xliii in the grip of Germany's henchmen, Lenin and Trotzky. Nevertheless, the assembly represented all the great races of mankind, all quarters of the globe. The Premier of France presided, but the hero of the hour was the President of the United States. 827. Problems of the Congress. So numerous and so difficult were the problems of the Congress that it is im- possible to discuss them briefly. A great many did not directly involve the United States. But indirectly, they involved all nations. The aim of the Congress was to remove the causes of future war. The Fourteen Points (section 8io) were generally regarded as a basis on which to begin re- adjusting the world. The principle of national freedom for the subject states of our enemies was at once accepted by all parties. The influence of the American delegation was thrown in favor of a free Poland ; of a free Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia) ; of the gathering together of all the Serbian race into the new state of Jugoslavia ; of the enlarge- ment of Greece and Roumania so that each should include all its kinsmen then under other governments. Many clashes of interest occurred, some of which had to be compromised — much to the disappointment of the Americans.^ Nevertheless after many compromises, a treaty was drawn up which the American delegation was willing to sign. 828. The Germans Sign the Treaty. Then for the first time, the Germans were called in. The treaty was delivered to them. They protested and demanded a joint discussion of it — which was refused. They were to accept it, or the war was to begin again. As the treaty involved an acknowledg- ment by the Germans of responsibihty for the war, the return 1 Chief among these, from the American point of view, was the question of Shantung. The Chinese province of Shantung had been virtually appropriated by the Germans. Japan during the war drove out the Germans and claimed that she was entitled to all the privileges Germany had held. The traditional American policy is friendship with China. But the Allies before our entrance into the war had made a secret agreement with Japan which tied their hands, and in which President Wilson eventually acquiesced. (See " China, the United States, and the War" — World Peace Foundation, issue of July, 1919.) xliv AMERICAN HISTORY of Alsace and Lorraine to France, and the payment of heaxy indemnities, there was loud threatening in Germany of a renewal of hostihties. But it was not genuine. On May 7, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors, in the Palace of Versailles, — the hall in which the robber Prussians completed the humilia- tion of France forty-eight years before — the delegates of the Allied nations and the delegates of Germany signed the document which it was hoped — at least among the Allies — would prove the foundation of a new world. 829. The League of Nations. Even before the treaty was signed strong opposition to some of its provisions had developed in America. To many Americans it seemed that some of its compromises had been unnecessary. But one issue immediately overshadowed all others. The treaty bound us to combine with our Allies in a permanent League of Nations,^ designed to preserve the peace of the world and incidentally to protect the new national governments that were created by the treaty. Was the time ripe for such a plan ? Were the American people prepared to enter any sort of international union? Was the particular form of union described in the treaty a desirable one? These questions were hotly discussed throughout America during the six months following the close of the Peace Congress.^ Fanatics on either side of the dispute lost all sense of propriety and denounced their opponents in unmeasured terms. To the ' The arguments for and against the League, together with a clear under- standing of the nature of the League, should be enlarged upon in special reports. See bibliography at the end of the chapter. For the pro-League argument see also the publications of the League to Enforce Peace (130 West 42d Street, New York City). For the anti-League argument, see chiefly the speeches in Congress, of Senators Lodge, Borah, and Johnson. ^ When the treaty came before the Senate for ratification, the abstract question of the desirability of the League was involved in bitter partisan antag- onism. This hinged upon an action of the President in the late Congressional elections. Though, in the support of the war, the party lines for the moment had broken dowTi ; though Republican votes in Congress had assisted the Presi- dent to secure some of his most important measures, he took part in the elections of 1918 with an appeal to the country to return a strictly Democratic Congress. In spite of that appeal, the Republicans had carried the elections. THE WORLD AT WAR xlv fanatical " leaguer," the opposition to the League was all, at bottom, pro-German. To the fanatical " anti-leaguer," belief in the League was a base desire to surrender the sover- eignty of the United States. Among temperate people, the argument was, on the one hand, that the proposed League was a safe experiment which would almost certainly work for peace, and on the other hand, that it was an ill-devised scheme which would almost certainly fail and thus discourage further attempt at international union. The extreme opposition demanded amendments to the treaty that would virtually reject it. The moderate opposi- tion called for " reservations " that would limit the treaty by stating how America interpreted it. The defenders of the treaty were also in two groups : those who demanded un- conditional acceptance, and those who were willing to meet the moderate opponents in a statement of reservations. Besides President Wilson, the chief leaders of the League forces were Ex-President Taft and President Lowell of Har- vard University. Chief among the enemies of the League were Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, Senator Borah of Idaho, and Senator Johnson of Cahfornia. Selections from the Sources. (See bibliography to Chapter XXXIII.) Every school library should contain the valuable pamphlets published by the National Committee on Public Information during the War, particularly, the "War Information Series," and the "Red, White, and Blue Series." No. i of the former series, "The War Message and Facts behind It," and of the latter series. No. 9, "War, Labor, and Peace," are particularly valuable. A number of documents have been printed in the bimonthly pamphlets of the World Peace Foundation (40 Mt. Vernon St., Boston), which may be had for the nominal sum of 25 cents a year. Most useful among many useful ones are, "The Supreme War Council" (October, 1918) and "China, the United States, and the War" (July, 1919). A series of monthly pamphlets issued at the same nominal price by the American Association for International Conciliation (407 West 1 1 7th Street, New York City) includes the full text of the Treaty of Peace (No. 142). Two histories of the war that are almost documentary have been prepared (i) by the New York Times, based on its Magazine Current xlvi AMERICAN HISTORY History, and (2) by The Literary Digest. Of American magazines for 1917 and 1918, with those mentioned already, The Independent, The Atlantic, and The Historical Outlook arc especially useful. It should be unnecessary to mention the Annual Reports of the War and Navy De- partments. Secondary Accounts. Perhaps the most readable general narrative of the war is that of Frank H. Simonds. Frederick Palmer, a noted war correspondent, who was given a commission and attached to American headquarters, has published "America in France." It is semiofficial and gives a most interesting survey of the life and adventures of the American Expeditionary Force. ]\Iore e.xact and scientific is "The American Army in Conflict," by two French officers, translated by Madame de Cham- brun. The Story of the Navy, and of the Battle of the Atlantic, are admirably told in the ]\lemoirs of Admiral Sims. As a compact manual of the problems confronting the Peace Congress, "The Roots of the War," by Davis, Anderson, and Tyler, is excellent. Good things in the same connection are "The New Map of Europe," by H. A. Gibbons; "From Isolation to Leadership," by J. H. Latane ; "The Stakes of the War," by S. Stoddard and G. Frank; "The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson," by Robinson and Beard; "The League of Nations," edited by S. P. Duggan. For the contrast of ideals, see "Conquest and Kultur " by Notestein and StoU (issued by Committee on Public Information) ; "American and Allied Ideals" (,War Information Series No. 12); Gauss, "The German Emperor as shown in his Public Utterances" ; "The German War Code contrasted with the War Manuals of the United States, Great Britain, and France" (War Information Series No. 11) ; Giese, " German Autocracy and Militarism" (University of Wisconsin War Pamphlet No. 15) ; and a remarkable Danish book by J. P. Bang, translated by Jessie Brochner, "Hurrah and Hallelujah." Already the histories of particular divisions and regiments have begun to appear. Of individual experiences there is no end. By way of explaining modern methods of warfare, there is the "National Service Library," edited by Major Charles E. Kilbourne. Bibliographies. So prodigal has been the output of war literature, that what Ijoth teacher and pupil will need most is rcUable bibliographical aid. Of first quality is " Collected Materials for the Study of the Waf," by A. E. McKinley and others. Very useful is the "Handbook of the War," issued by The National Security League. "The United States at War, Organizations and Literature," compiled by H. H. B. Meyer, is an invaluable government publication. Excellent is the "War Cyclopedia" compiled by Paxon, Corwin,and Harding, "Red, White, and Blue Scries." Every teacher should have "History and the Great War : THE WORLD AT WAR xlvii Opportunities for History Teachers" (Circular of the Bureau of Educa- tion, September, 1917, prepared by The National Board for Historical Service). A bibliography to be recommended is "Peace and Re- construction" (World Peace Foundation, Vol. 11, Special Number). Subject for Special Reports, i. Contrast of German and American Ideals. 2. The Mihtary Situation in March, iQi 7. 3. The Submarine in this War. 4. Decisive Inventions of the War. 5. Modern Military Methods. 6. Trenches. 7. American Preparations in 191 7. 8. Con- scription in America. 9. American War Finance. 10. American Food Problems. 11. Welfare Organizations. 12. Life in the Trenches. 13. Life behind the Trenches. 14. The War in 1917. 15. The Russian Collapse. 16. The Italian Defeat. 17. The Supreme War Council. 18. The German Attack in 1918. 19. Shipping Our Army to France. 20. Foch's Strategy. 21. An American Action in France (detailed study of some one event, such as Belleau Wood). 22. A Problem of the Peace Congress (detailed study of some one issue, such as Shantung). 23. The Nature of the League of Nations. 24, President Wilson as a Diplomat.