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CONGRESS APPOINTS DAY FOR ELECTIONS.

It required all the wisdom, the patriotism, and the genius of our best statesmen, to overcome the objections, which, from various causes, were arrayed against it. The history of those times is full of melancholy instruction, at once to admonish us of the dangers, through which we have passed, and of the necessity of incessant vigilance, to guard and preserve, what has been thus hardly earned. The Constitution was adopted unanimously in New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia. It was supported by large majorities in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina. In the remaining states, it was carried by small majorities; and especially in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, by little more than a mere preponderating vote. What a humiliating lesson is this, after all our sufferings and sacrifices, and after our long and sad experience of the evils of disunited councils, and of the pernicious influence of state jealousies, and local interests! It teaches us, how slowly even adversity brings the mind to a due sense of what political wisdom requires. It teaches us, how liberty itself may be lost, when men are found ready to hazard its permanent blessings, rather than submit to the wholesome restraints, which its permanent security demands.

"To those great men, who thus framed the Constitution, and secured the adoption of it, we owe a debt of gratitude, which can scarcely be repaid. It was not then, as it is now, looked upon, from the blessings, which, under the guidance of Divine Providence, it has bestowed, with general favor and affection. On the contrary, many of those pure and disinterested patriots, who stood forth, the firm advocates of its principles, did so at the expense of their existing popularity. They felt, that they had a higher duty to perform, than to flatter the prejudices of the people, or to subserve selfish, or sectional, or local interests. Many of them went to their graves, without the soothing consolation, that their services and their sacrifices were duly appreciated. They scorned every attempt to rise to power and influence by the common arts of demagogues; and they were content to trust their characters, and their conduct, to the deliberate judgment of posterity.

"If, upon a close survey of their labors, as developed in the actual structure of the Constitution, we shall have reason to admire their wisdom and forecast, to observe their profound love of liberty, and to trace their deep sense of the value of political responsibility, and their anxiety above all things, to give perpetuity, as well as energy to the republican institutions of their country; then, indeed, will our gratitude kindle into a holier reverence, and their memories will

be cherished among those of the noblest benefactors of mankind." *

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Meanwhile the ratification of New Hampshire being the ninth in order the Constitution became the law of the land. The New Hampshire ratification was laid before Congress July 2, 1788, whereupon it was ordered that the ratifications of the Constitution of the United States, transmitted to Congress, be referred to a committee, to examine the same, and report an act to Congress, for putting the said Constitution into operation, in pursuance of the resolutions of the late Federal Convention." On July 14 this committee reported such an act, but because of a division of opinion as to the place where Congress would meet, it did not pass without dispute. Finally, however, on September 13, it was "Resolved, That the first Wednesday in January next be the day for appointing electors in the several states, which, before the said day, shall have ratified the said Constitution; that the first Wednesday in February next be the day for the electors. to assemble in their respective states, and vote for a president; and that the first Wednesday in March next be the time, and the present seat of Congress [New York] the place, for commencing proceedings under the said Constitution." t

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SERIES SEVEN

LECTURES TWENTY-TWO TO TWENTY-FIVE

Social and Economic Conditions During the Revolutionary Era, 1764-1789

22. Land Systems, Wealth, Real and Personal Property Values

23. Industries, Agriculture, Labor

24. Commerce, Transportation, Banking and Currency

25. Education, Religion, Literature, Art

THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER I.

1764-1789.

LAND SYSTEMS: WEALTH: REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY VALUES.

Systems of land ownerships in various colonies Grants in the West-Importance of the public domain · The crown lands - The question of the disposition of western lands- Territory embraced in cessions by States The ordinance of 1784-The ordinance of 1787 Public lands a source of revenue Pecuniary condition of emigrants- Sources of wealth - Wealth in the various colonies Total value of real and personal property in 1770 - Material development slow during war - Confiscation of Loyalist estates Estates of the rich - Amounts of specie in colonies Value and distribution of real estate after Revolution Assessed value of property by States in 1788.

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Land Systems.

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in the first years of the colonial period, so the principles of land tenure remained practically changed until after the Revolution. New England developed more and more strongly along the line of township divisions, village communities and individual ownership in fee simple. In New York the manorial system still prevailed, although it had been gradually shorn of some of its pronounced feudal characteristics, the lord proprietors having become little more than the owners of large estates divided into lease-hold farms. The granting of extensive tracts of wilderness in the western part of the State to royal favorites or in recognition of military service had attained to considerable proportions and was developing a condition des

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tined, in the next century, to be the cause of grave disturbance in the commonwealth. In the South the colonists held to their big plantations and their successes in the cultivation of tobacco, rice and indigo had operated to convince them more than ever of the economic value of that system in their section of the country. Maryland held to the manor system and to grants under quit-rent until the Revolution. In 1767 there was a record in that colony of the sale of 227 manors, embracing 100,000 acres.

In Pennsylvania a mixed system of land ownership prevailed throughout the colonial period. Those who purchased land held it immediately of the proprietor and not from the king. Land was divided into commonage, proprietory manors and private estates. Various conditions and concessions attached to the sale and

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GROWTH OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

bound the purchasers or grantees. Quit-rents were annually collected from the common and manorial lands and from lots in the city of Philadelphia, which ranged in value from a peppercorn, a red rose or an Indian arrow to several shillings per hundred acres. From the beginning, however, the payment of these quitrents was often refused and the agents of the proprietor were powerless to enforce collections. By the middle of the Eighteenth century the tide of emigration had pushed the frontier far to the westward, thousands of acres being taken up by squatters whom it was impossible to dislodge. To encourage frontier settlement, many free grants of land and some fraudulent entries were made by officials and speculators. In 1765, in order to overcome these evils, the proprietors made new regulations governing their land office, but land speculation continued despite all their their efforts. In November, 1779, the estates of the proprietors were confiscated by the commonwealth.*

But while all these matters of land tenure in the individual colonies were gradually working to satisfactory solutions, the seed was planted, in this generation, of another land question more momentous than any that had preceded it. The history of the public domain of the future United

*William R. Shepherd, Land System of Provincial Pennsylvania, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1895, p. 117.

States began in 1763, although there were perhaps few if any. who then recognized that fact or realized the infinite results of big and strong nationality that were inherent in it.

By the treaty of Paris in 1763 Great Britain secured undisputed possession of a great territory on the American continent west and north of its colonies, which up to that time had been claimed and to some extent occupied by the French. This territory was divided into four provinces, Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Granada (the latter comprising islands of the West Indies). By royal proclamation of 1763 all the western. lands not included in these provinces were set apart from the colonial territories and designated as crown lands. From time to time settlers invaded these lands, attracted by reports of their fertility and natural resources, and royal grants were made to companies who wished to exploit the territory, before as well as after the French had been dislodged, in 1748, 1749, 1757, 1766, 1769 and 1775. In all these transactions the companies petitioned directly petitioned directly to the British crown and not to any colonial government. The ownership of these lands, whether crown or colonial, was one of the most serious questions which demanded solution from the republic in its earliest years.

When the independence of the colonies was recognized by the treaty of 1783, the territory of the new nation extended from the Atlantic to the Mis

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