dertook to drive them to decisive action. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth, the day on which the report was taken up, he sent to them his resignation of office in these words: "The funding the public debts on solid revenues, I fear, will never be made. If before the end of May effectual measures to make permanent provision for the public debts of every kind are not taken, congress will be pleased to appoint some other man to be the superintendent of their finances: I will never be the minister of injustice." The design of Robert Morris required the immediate publication of his letter, that, by uniting the army with all other creditors, congress and the states might be coerced into an efficient system; but congress reasoned that this authoritative statement of the financial ruin of the country would encourage the enemy, annihilate foreign and domestic credit, and provoke the army to mutiny. They therefore placed the communication under the injunction of secrecy.* Resuming the consideration of the report of their grand committee on the memorial from the army, they referred a present payment to the discretion of the superintendent of finance; and, on the fifth of February, he issued a warrant, out of which the officers received one month's pay in notes and the private soldiers one month's pay in weekly instalments of half a dollar. + The annual amount of the half-pay promised to the officers for life was nearly five hundred thousand dollars. The validity of the engagement was questioned. The grant was disliked by the common soldiers; it found no favor in the legis lature of Massachusetts; the delegates of Connecticut and Rhode Island were instructed to oppose it altogether. To avoid defeat, this article was laid over till there should be a fuller representation. + Delegates from the states in which the domestic debt was chiefly held hoped for efficient cooperation from the army. Pennsylvania was the largest creditor; Massachusetts ranked next; South Carolina, Georgia, and * Diplomatic Correspondence, xii., 325-328. Report of the deputies in Sparks, viii., 552. pay was 253,232.86 dollars. Old account-books book D, Ledger B. MS. Gilpin, 274, 275; Elliot, 29. Delaware were the lowest; Virginia was but the ninth, holding less than New Hampshire and not half so much as Rhode Island. The zeal for the equal support of all classes of public creditors culminated in those states whose citizens originally owned nearly four times as much as those of all the six southern states, and by transfers were constantly acquiring more.* Adopting unanimously a resolution which Hamilton had prepared, congress pledged itself to consider immediately the most likely mode of obtaining revenues adequate to the funding of the whole debt of the United States. Encouraged by this seeming heartiness, Wilson of Pennsylvania, on the twenty-seventh, proposed "the establishment of general funds to be collected by congress." To the dismay of the friends of a general revenue, Theodorick Bland of Virginia interposed and officially presented the act of his state repealing the grant of the impost, and a resolution of both its houses declaring its present inability to pay more than fifty thousand pounds Virginia currency toward the demands of congress for 1782.# The debate, nevertheless, went on. Gorham of Massachusetts suggested polls and commerce as most proper objects of taxation. Hamilton, discussing the subject in a comprehensive manner, spoke for permanent sources of revenue which should extend uniformly throughout the United States, and be collected by the authority of congress. Dyer strongly disliked the appointment of collectors by congress; the states would never consent to it. Ramsay of South Carolina supported Gorham and Hamilton. Again Bland placed himself in the way, saying: "The states are so averse to a general revenue in the hands of congress that, even if it were proper, it is unattainable." He therefore advised congress to pursue the rule of the confederation and ground requisitions on an actual valuation of houses and lands in the several states. At this stage of the discussion, an efficient reply could be made only by one who was of Virginia. To Randolph, then in Richmond, Madison had already written: "Virginia could never have cut off the impost at a more unlucky crisis than * Gilpin, 364, note; Elliot, 60. † Gilpin, 277, 280; Elliot, 30, 31. # Resolution of 28 December 1782, in Journal of the Delegates, 80, 90. when she is protesting her inability to comply with the continental requisitions. Congress cannot abandon the plan as long as there is a spark of hope. Nay, other plans on a like principle must be added. Justice, gratitude, our reputation abroad and our tranquillity at home, require provision for a debt of not less than fifty millions of dollars; and this provision will not be adequately met by separate acts of the states. If there are not revenue laws which operate at the same time through all the states, and are exempt from the control of each, mutual jealousies will assuredly defraud both our foreign and domes tic creditors of their just claims." * Madison, on the twenty-eighth, presented a milder form of the resolution for a general revenue. Arthur Lee lost no time in confronting his colleague: "The states will never consent to a uniform tax, because it will be unequal; is repugnant to the articles of confederation; and, by placing the purse in the same hands with the sword, subverts the fundamental principles of liberty." Wilson explained: The articles of confederation have expressly provided for amendments; there is more of a centrifugal than centripetal force in the states; the funding of a common debt would invigorate the union. Ellsworth despaired of a continental revenue; condemned periodical requisitions from congress as inadequate; and inclined to the trial of permanent state funds. In reply, Hamilton showed that state funds would meet with even greater obstacles than a general revenue; but he lost the sympathy of the house by adding that the influence of federal collectors would assist in giving energy to the federal government. Rutledge thought that the prejudices of the people were opposed to a general tax, and seemed disinclined to it himself. Williamson was of opinion that continental funds, though desirable, were unattainable. "The idea," said Madison, "of erecting our national independence on the ruins of public faith and national honor must be horrid to every mind which retains either honesty or pride. Is a continental revenue indispensably necessary for doing complete justice to the public creditors? This is the question. * Madison to Randolph, 22 January 1783, in Gilpin, 111. The date is erroneously given as of 1782. "A punctual compliance by thirteen independent governments with periodical demands of money from congress can never be reckoned upon with certainty. The articles of confederation authorize congress to borrow money. To borrow money, permanent and certain provision is necessary; and, as this cannot be made in any other way, a general revenue is within the spirit of the confederation. Congress are already invested by the states with constitutional authority over the purse as well as the sword. A general revenue would only give this authority a more certain and equal efficacy. "The necessity and reasonableness of a general revenue have been gaining ground among the states. I am aware that one exception ought to be made. The state of Virginia, as appears by an act yesterday laid before congress, has withdrawn its assent once given to the scheme. This circumstance cannot but embarrass a representative of that state advocating it; one, too, whose principles are extremely unfavorable to a disregard of the sense of constituents. But, though the delegates who compose congress more immediately represent and are amenable to the states from which they come, yet they owe a fidelity to the collective interests of the whole. The part I take is the more fully justified to my own mind by my thorough persuasion that, with the same knowledge of public affairs which my station commands, the legislature of Virginia would not have repealed the law in favor of the impost, and would even now rescind the repeal." On the following day the proposition of Wilson and Madi son, with slight amendments, passed the committee of the whole without opposition. On the twelfth of February it was adopted in congress by seven states in the affirmative, and without the negative of any state. For methods of revenue, the choice of Madison was an impost, a poll-tax which should rate blacks somewhat lower than whites, and a moderate land-tax. To these Wilson wished to add a duty on salt and an excise on wine, imported spirits, and coffee. Hamilton, who held the attempt at a land-tax to be futile and impossible, suggested a house- and window-tax. Wolcott of Connecticut thought requisitions should be in proportion to the population of each state; but was willing to include in the enumeration those only of the blacks who were within sixteen and sixty years of age.* Just at this time Pelatiah Webster, a graduate of Yale college, in a dissertation published at Philadelphia, † proposed for the legislature of the United States a congress of two houses which should have ample authority for making laws "of general necessity and utility," and enforcing them as well on individuals as on states. He further suggested not only heads of executive departments, but judges of law and chancery. The tract was reprinted in Hartford, and called forth a reply. Plans of closer union offered only a remote solution of the difficulties under which the confederation was sinking. How the united demand of all public creditors could wrest immediately from congress and the states the grant of a general revenue and power for its collection employed the thoughts of Robert Morris and his friends. On Christmas eve 1781, Gouverneur Morris, the assistant financier, had written to Greene: "I have no expectation that the government will acquire force; and no hope that our union can subsist, except in the form of an absolute monarchy, and this does not seem to consist with the taste and temper of the people." To Jay, in January 1783, he wrote: "The army have swords in their hands. Good will arise from the situation to which we are hastening; much of convulsion will probably ensue, yet it must terminate in giving to government that power without which government is but a name." Hamilton held it as certain that the army had secretly determined not to lay down their arms until due provision and a satisfactory prospect should be afforded on the subject of their pay; that the commander-in-chief was already become extremely unpopular among all ranks from his known dislike to every unlawful proceeding; but, as from his virtue, his patriotism, and firmness, he would sooner suffer himself to be cut in pieces than yield to disloyal plans, Hamilton wished him * Gilpin, 300, 304-306, 331; Elliot, 38-40, 48. A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the thirteen United States of North America, dated 16 February 1783. In Pelatiah Webster's Political Essays, 228. Sparks's G. Morris, i., 240, 249. |