for all the great purposes of union, could alone lead from the danger of anarchy to national happiness and glory. * In June the general assembly of Delaware complied with all parts of the recommendation of congress, coupling the impost with the state's quota of the federal requisition.† To Washington, Nicholas Van Dyke, the governor, on receiving the circular, reported this proof of their zeal for establishing the credit of the union, adding: "The state which declines a similar conduct must be blind to the united interest with which that of the individual states is inseparably connected." + Pennsylvania, linking together the North and the South, never hesitated; then and ever after, it made the reasoning and the hopefulness of Washington its own. At a festival in Philadelphia, held near the middle of July, with Dickinson, the president of the state, in the chair, the leading toast was: "New strength to the union;" and, when "Honor and immortality to the principles in Washington's circular letter" was proposed, the company rose twice and manifested their approbation by nine huzzas. A month later, Dickinson and the council of Pennsylvania sent to the general assembly the valedictory of the commanderin-chief, quoting and enforcing his words, saying: "We most earnestly recommend that the confederation be strengthened and improved. To advance the dignity of the union is the best way to advance the interest of each state. A federal supremacy, with a competent national revenue, to govern firmly general and relative concerns," can alone "ensure the respect, tranquillity, and safety, that are naturally attached to an extensive and well-established empire. All the authorities before mentioned may be vested in a federal council, not only without the least danger to liberty, but liberty will be thereby better secured." # The house on the twenty-fifth, joining together the impost and the quota of the state, unanimously ordered the grant of them both, and at a later session thanked Washington specially for his final "circular letter, the inestimable legacy bequeathed to his country." *Stuart's Trumbull, 604-608. + Papers of Old Congress, lxxv. MS. Nicholas Van Dyke to Washington, 2 July 1783. # Colonial Records, xiii., 648, 649. | Papers of Old Congress, lxxv. MS. In March, during a session of the legislature of South Carolina, Greene, who had received the suggestions of Gouverneur Morris, addressed a letter to the state through Guerard, the governor, representing the sufferings and mutinous temper of the army, and the need of a revenue for congress, and saying: "Independence can only prove a blessing under congressional influence. More is to be dreaded from the members of congress exercising too little than too much power. The financier says his department is on the brink of ruin. To the northward, to the southward, the eyes of the army are turned upon the states, whose measures will determine their conduct. They will not be satisfied with general promises; nothing short of permanent and certain revenue will keep them subject to authority." "No dictation by a Cromwell!" cried impatient members who could scarcely wait to hear the conclusion of the letter. To mark independence of congress and resistance to the requisitions of "its swordsmen," South Carolina revoked its grant to the United States of power to levy a five per cent duty on imports.* Greene consoled himself with the thought that "he had done his duty, and would await events;" but he was made wiser by the rebuff. While he perceived that without more effectual support the power of congress must expire, he saw that the movement of soldiers without civil authority is pregnant with danger, and would naturally fall under the "direction of the Clodiuses and Catilines in America." The appeal of congress in April exercised little counteracting influence; but, when the circular of Washington arrived, the force and affection with which it was written produced an alteration of sentiment in more than one quarter of the members. "Washington was admired before; now he was little less than adored." The continental impost act was adopted, though not without a clause reserving the collection of the duties to the officers of the state, and appropriating them to the payment of the federal quota of South Carolina.# 252. * Johnson's Life of Greene, ii., 387, 388. + Greene to G. Morris, 3 April 1783. Sparks' Life of G. Morris, i., 251, Greene to Washington, 8 August 1788. Letters to Washington, iv., 38. #Statute No. 1,190, passed 13 August 1783, in Statutes at Large of South Carolina, iv., 570. * In October, Clinton, the governor of New York, responded to Washington: "Unless the powers of the national council are enlarged, and that body better supported than at present, all its measures will discover such feebleness and want of energy as will stain us with disgrace and expose us to the worst of evils." And in the following January, holding up to the legislature the last circular of the commander-in-chief, he charged them to "be attentive to every measure which has a tendency to cement the union and to give to the national councils that energy which may be necessary for the general welfare." + The circular reached Massachusetts just when the legislature was complaining of the half-pay and of excessively large salaries to civil officers. The senate and the house dispatched a most affectionate joint address to Washington, attributing to the guidance of an all-wise Providence his selection as commander-in-chief, adding: “While patriots shall not cease to applaud your sacred attachment to the rights of citizens, your military virtue and achievements will make the brightest pages in the history of mankind." To congress the legislature gave assurances that "it could not without horror entertain the most distant idea of the dissolution of the union;" though "the extraordinary grants of congress to civil and military officers had produced in the commonwealth effects of a threatening aspect." # John Hancock, the popular governor, commending Washington's circular, looked to him as the statesman "of wisdom and experience," teaching them how to improve to the happiest purposes the advantages gained by arms. As president of the senate, Samuel Adams officially signed the remonstrance of Massachusetts against half-pay; as a citizen, he frankly and boldly, in his own state and in Connecticut, defended the advice of Washington: "In resisting encroachments on our rights, an army became necessary. Congress were and ought to be the sole judge of the means of supporting that army; they had an undoubted right in the very nature of their appointment to make the grant of half * Clinton to Washington, 14 October 1783. Letters to Washington, iv., 48. # Journals of Congress, iv., 276 pay; and, as it was made in behalf of the United States, each state is bound in justice to comply with it, even though it should seem to them to have been an ill-judged measure. States as well as individual persons are equally bound to fulfil their engagements, and it is one part of the description given to us in the sacred scriptures of an honest man, that, though 'he sweareth to his own hurt, he changeth not.'"* In like spirit congress replied to the protest against halfpay. 'The measure was the result of a deliberate judgment framed on a general view of the interests of the union, and pledged the national faith to carry it into effect. If a state every way so important as Massachusetts should withhold her solid support to constitutional measures of the confederacy, the result must be a dissolution of the union; and then she must hold herself as alone responsible for the anarchy and domestic confusion that may succeed." + At the opening of the autumn session, Hancock, recalling the attention of the legislature to the words of Washington, said: "How to strengthen and improve this union, so as to render it more completely adequate, demands the immediate attention of these states. Our very existence as a free nation is suspended upon it." + On the ninth of October he cited to the general court extracts of letters from John Adams confirming the sentiments of Washington. Near forty towns in the state had instructed their representatives against granting the impost recommended by congress. And yet it was carried in the house by seventytwo against sixty-five; a proviso that it should not be used to discharge half-pay or its commutation was rejected by a majority of ten; and the bill passed the senate almost unanimously. Some of the towns still murmured, but Boston in *Samuel Adams to a friend in Connecticut. Boston, 25 September 1783. Same to Noah Webster, 30 April 1784. MS. + Journals of Congress, iv., 277, 278. Congress, on which Washington was then in attendance, would surely have consulted him on the half-pay of which he was the author. The original papers prove that the congressional reply to Massachusetts was prepared after much consultation, and here and there show traces of his mind. Salem Gazette of 2 October 1783. #Samuel Cooper to Franklin, 16 October 1783. Works of Franklin, x., 25. Salem Gazette, 30 October 1783. town-meeting answered: "The commutation is wisely blended with the national debt. With respect to the impost, if we ever mean to be a nation, we must give power to congress, and funds, too." But Washington's letter achieved its greatest victory in his own state. Mercer had said in congress that, sooner than reinstate the impost, he would "crawl to Richmond on his bare knees."* The legislature, which was in session when the communication from congress arrived, ordered a bill to grant the impost. Jefferson was hoping that Henry would speak for the grant, but he remained mute in his place.† Richard Henry Lee and Thurston spoke of congress as "lusting for power.' The extent of the implied powers which Hamilton had asserted in the letter of congress to Rhode Island was "reprobated as alarming and of dangerous tendency;"‡ and on the eleventh of June the proposition of congress was pronounced to be inadmissible, because the revenue-officers were not to be amenable to the commonwealth; because the power of collecting a revenue by penal laws could not be delegated without danger; and because the moneys to be raised from citizens of Virginia were to go into the general treasury. So the proposition of congress was left without any support. Virginia, to discharge her continental debt, preferred to establish a customhouse of her own, appropriating its income to congress for five-and-twenty years, and making good the deficiency by taxes on land, negroes, and polls. "The state," said Arthur Lee, "is resolved not to suffer the exercise of any foreign power or influence within it." # But, when the words of Washington were read, the house gave leave to the advocates for a continental impost to provide for it by a bill which was to have its first reading at the opening of the next session. These events did but render Richard Henry Lee more obdurate. Placing himself directly in the way of Washington and Madison, he wrote to a friend at the North: "The late * Madison to Randolph, 18 February 1783. Gilpin, 506. + Jefferson to Madison, 7 May, 1 June, 17 June 1783. Joseph Jones of King George to Madison, 14 June 1783, MS.; in part in Rives's Madison, i., 436. * Arthur Lee to Theodorick Bland, 13 June 1783. Bland Papers, ii., 110. |