The Growth of Cities

fully fourteen hundred miles from the Atlanticat Prairie du Chien, St. Louis, and Natchez, on the Spanish frontier. In twenty-five years population had so increased that, evenly distributed over the country, there would have been seventeen persons to the square mile. Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati were only hamlets. Nine cities could boast, each, more than eight thousand people. Of these Charleston had eighteen thousand; Boston, twentyfive; Baltimore, twenty-six; Philadelphia, forty; and New York, sixty. The commonwealths were agricultural, and twenty-nine people in thirty lived in the country. For this reason the constitutions made slight provision for local government. Four of the large cities caused difficulties in the apportionment of representation, and were the subject of special constitutional provisions.* Otherwise the States were governed as rural communities. America had not yet entered the manufacturing age. Public interests were homogeneous, and, largely for this reason, few limitations were placed on the powers of the Legislatures. As yet the population was chiefly native-born. About onefifth of it was slave, almost wholly in Southern States. Forming so large a proportion, one might

* Constitutions of Maryland, 1776, Art. vi., and Amendment of 1799; 1851, iii., Secs. 2, 3. Of South Carolina, 1776, xi.; 1778, xii., xiii., xxiv.; 1790, i., Secs. 3, 7, and Amendment of 1808. Of Pennsylvania, 1776, Sec. 19; 1790, i., Secs. 4, 5, 7; Amendment of 1857, i., Secs. 2, 4. Of New York, 1777, iv., vii., xii.; Amendment of 1801, iii., iv.; of 1821, i., Sec. 4, and Amendment of 1833; 1846, iii., Secs. 3, 5; vi., Sec. 14; x.; of 1894, iii., Secs. 4, 5.

expect to find slavery a larger element in the constitutions of the South. With the exception of the provisions in two States* requiring merciful treatment of slaves and regulating their emancipation, the laws and constitutions of the commonwealths, North and South, were almost alike in excluding them from the basis of apportionment, and also in excluding free negroes from the franchise.

Looking backward, we detect little in the civil institutions of the commonwealths then that presaged the America of our own times. Individualism dominated the life of the people. Democracy was yet many years in the future. The masses were controlled by a small party of men, leaders in opinion. Savagery lay close to civilization. There were not a hundred men of great wealth in the country. Yet life was clean, robust, and, for most of the population, comfortable by their standard, but meagre, narrow, and colorless by ours. The State was not yet conceived as having those functions which are now commonly called "duties." The constitutions of the eighteenth century lacked the features which distinguish those of to-day. Fundamental to them all was the idea that the basis of government is property.t

* Kentucky, 1792, ix.; 1799, vii.; Georgia, 1798, iv., Sec. 2. The most complete record of the debate on the "Basis of Government-Property or Persons?" is found in the Journal of Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of Delegates Chosen to Revise the Constitution of Massachusetts, Begun and Holden at Boston, November 15, 1820, and Continued by Adjournment to January 9, 1821. Reported for the Boston Daily Advertiser,

Early Constitutional Basis of Government

Boston, 1821, 8vo, 292 pp. Among the delegates were Daniel Webster, Joseph Story, Levi Lincoln, ex-President John Adams, Josiah Quincy, and Joseph B. Varnum. See Webster's speech on the subject, a week later, December 15, repeated and elaborated in his "Plymouth Oration."

Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Convention of 1829-30. Richmond, 1830, 8vo, 919 pp. See, especially, the speeches of Madison and Monroe in re " Property the Basis of Government." Among the delegates were John Marshall, Philip P. Barbour, Abel P. Upshur, Governor William B. Giles, William P. Taylor.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIRST STRUGGLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY

No American constitution has defined sovereignty. Intentionally or not, the idea has been left to develop through administration. Throughout colonial times there raged a struggle between Assemblies and royal Governors, precipitated chiefly by the independence of the Governors and the obligation imposed on the Assemblies to grant them supplies. Before a pacific compromise was worked out, American independence made the legislative and the executive alike responsible to the electorate. For a time, while the colonies were inchoate States, the executive was almost in abeyance. The Assemblies took the initiative and organized new governments. Thus it came to pass that most of the early constitutions were the work of Legislatures. It has already been pointed out that in these new governments the function of the executive was military rather than civil. The legislative, the Lower House in particular, was the depositary of authority. The States began with a weak executive.

Meanwhile another Legislature, and ultimately another executive, were exercising a quasi-continental authority. New-born enthusiasm called the

Efforts to Formulate the Union

Congress of the Confederation into being, and for about eight years supported it. Its members were delegates from the States, chosen by their Legislatures, and responsible to them only. They were subject to recall, and were paid by vote of the Legislatures, if paid at all. From the relation thus established sprang the idea that the Continental Congress was the agent of the States. For a time it exercised authority as if it were original; and, under the pressure of war, was sustained by public opinion. But as the struggle became a drain on the resources of the people, it was less enthusiastically supported. Congress had no popular constituency. It was the creature of the States. The sentiment of union which had flickered for more than a century and a quarter burned for a time with brighter light when the colonies decided to declare their independence.

On the day when the committee was appointed. to prepare a Declaration of Independence, another was named to report Articles of Confederation. In twenty-three days the first committee completed its work. It was unanimously adopted and given to the world. On the 8th of July the second committee reported a plan of union; it was destined to a different reception and a far different fate. For a year Congress discussed it, in desultory fashion, and then sent it to the Legislatures, before whom it dragged along, under more or less hostile discussion, for nearly five years. It was not adopted by the requisite number of States until the 1st of March, 1781. The Decla