by it. More than half the perplexities I have experienced in the course of my command, and almost the whole of the difficulties and distress of the army, have had their origin here. But still, the prejudices of some, the designs of others, and the mere machinery of the majority, make address and management necessary to give weight to opinions which are to combat the doctrines of those different classes of men in the field of politics.” *

Upon official information from Franklin and Adams, congress on the eleventh of April made proclamation for the cessation of hostilities. In announcing the great event to the army, Washington did especial honor to the men who had enlisted for the war, and added: "Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter who have contributed anything in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire; who have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions." The proclamation of congress that war was at an end was published to the army on the nineteenth, exactly eight years from the day when the embattled farmers of Concord "fired the shot heard round the world."

* Sparks's Washington, viii., 409, 410, 411. Washington to Hamilton, 31 March 1783. + Sparks, viii., 568.

CHAPTER VII.

DISBANDING THE ARMY.

MARCH-JULY 1783.

WASHINGTON presented the rightful claims of the "patriot army" with a warmth and energy which never but this once appear in his communications to congress; and his words gained intenser power from his disinterestedness. To a committee on which were Bland and Hamilton, he enforced, by every consideration of gratitude, justice, honor, and national pride, the "universal" expectations of the army, that, before their disbanding, they should receive pay for at least one month in hand, with an absolute assurance in a short time of pay for two months more. "The financier will take his own measures, but this sum must be procured. The soldier is willing to risk the hard-earned remainder due him for four, five, perhaps six years upon the same basis of security with the general mass of other public creditors." +

"The expectations of the army," answered Hamilton, "are moderation itself." But, after a week's reflection, Morris, who had already written to congress "our public credit is gone," ,"# replied to the committee that the amount of three months' pay was more than all the receipts from all the states since 1781; that there was no resource but the issue of paper notes in anticipation of revenue. ||

846.

* Washington to congress, 18 March 1783. Sparks, viii., 396–399. Washington to Bland, 4 April 1783.

Hamilton to Washington, 11 April 1783. Letters to Washington, iv., 17. # Diplomatic Correspondence, xii., 342.

R. Morris to Hamilton, 14 April 1783. Diplomatic Correspondence, xii.,

A sharp admonition from Vergennes to the United States speedily to meet their engagements in France and Holland,* and the representations of Washington, quickened the determination of congress. In preparing the plan for a revenue, Madison was assisted by Jefferson, who passed a large part of the winter in Philadelphia.

One

The national debt of Great Britain at the beginning of the war with America amounted to one hundred and thirty-six millions of pounds; at the close of it, including deficiencies that were still to be funded, it amounted to twice that sum. The debt of the United States did not much exceed forty-two millions of dollars; the annual interest on that debt was not far from two and a half millions, and to fund it successfully there was need of a yearly revenue of at least that sum. million was hoped for from specific duties on enumerated imports, and a duty of five per cent on the value of all others. A million and a half dollars more were to be raised by requisitions of congress, apportioned on the states according to population. This more convenient method had hitherto failed from conflicts on the rule for counting slaves. The South had insisted on the ratio of two for one freeman. Williamson of

North Carolina said: "I am principled against slavery. I think slaves an incumbrance to society instead of increasing its ability to pay taxes."+ To effect an agreement, Madison, seconded by John Rutledge, offered that slaves should be rated as five to three, and this compromise, which then affected taxation only and not representation, was accepted almost with unanimity. +

In the beginning of April, Hamilton had declared in congress that he wished to strengthen the federal constitution through a general convention, and should soon, in pursuance of instructions from his constituents, propose a plan for that purpose. In the mean time, he remained inflexible in the opinion that an attempt to obtain revenue by an application to the several states would be futile, because an agreement could never be arrived at through partial deliberations. The

* Luzerne to R. Morris, 15 March 1783. Diplomatic Correspondence, xi., 157, 158. + Gilpin, 423; Elliot, 79.

Gilpin, 423, 424; Elliot, 79.

#

Gilpin, 429, 430; Elliot, 81.

vote on the report of the new financial measure, which he opposed as inadequate, was taken on the eighteenth of April. Georgia alone was absent; eleven states were fully represented; New Hampshire by a single delegate. Hamilton and the two representatives of Rhode Island, alone and for the most opposite reasons, gave their votes in the negative. New York being divided, nine states and a half against one, twenty-five delegates against three, recorded their votes for the adoption of the report.

To the relentless exigencies of the moment the financial proposition of the eighteenth of April offered no relief, nor could it take effect until it should be accepted by every one of the thirteen states. To win this unanimous assent, congress, in the words of Madison, enforced the peculiar nature of their obligations to France, to members of the republic of Holland, and to the army. Moreover, "the citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of government, be the fruits of our unadulterated forms of republican government, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed; and an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights of mankind." New York, North and South Carolina, and Massachusetts were following the example of Virginia, and repealing their revenue acts of former years; when the address went forth, accompanied by the letter of congress to the governor of Rhode Island which Hamilton had drafted, and by various papers showing the amount and the character of the debt of the United States.

Then, on the twenty-eighth, and so far as the records show never till then, congress appointed a committee on the New York resolutions of the preceding July in favor of a general convention. Its choice fell on Ellsworth, Carroll, Wilson, Gorham, Hamilton, Peters, McHenry, Izard, and Duane.*

*

Madison, on whom we depend for a report of the debates of congress of that period, was absent from Saturday, April the twenty-sixth, to Tuesday, May sixth. So details are wanting. That Clinton's letter and the New York resolutions were committed on the twenty-eighth of April, we know from a MS. memorandum by Charles Thomson.

In October 1780, congress provided for forming new states out of the north-western territory.* A most elaborate report, read in November 1781, recommended that the lands for settlements "should be laid out into townships of about six miles square." Early in 1783 Rufus Putnam, with other officers. and soldiers of the army in New England, engaged heartily in a plan to form a state westward of the Ohio, and Timothy Pickering, who had framed a complete plan for settling lands in Ohio, proposed to them that "the total exclusion of slavery from the state should form an essential and irrevocable part of the constitution." To "unite the thirteen states in one great political interest," Bland, a man of culture, who had served with credit as a colonel of dragoons, and had been a member of congress from Virginia since 1780, now, on the fifth of June. 1783, brought forward an "ordinance" to accept conditionally the cession of Virginia, divide it into districts of two degrees of latitude by three degrees of longitude, and subdivide each district into townships of a fixed number of miles square; each district to be received into the union as a "sovereign" state, so soon as it could count twenty thousand inhabitants. In these embryo states, every one who had enlisted for the war or had served for three years was to receive the bounty lands promised him, and thirty acres more for each dollar due to him from the United States. One tenth part of the soil was to be reserved for "the payment of the civil list of the United States, the erecting of frontier posts, and the founding of seminaries of learning; the surplus to be appropriated to the building and equipping a navy, and to no other purpose whatever." This pioneer ordinance for colonizing the territory north-west of the Ohio was seconded by Hamilton, and referred to a grand committee.#

From the moment when it became officially known that a

* Laws relating to Public Lands, 338; Journals of Congress, iii., 535.

+ Endorsement on the original report in the state department is: "Read in congress 3 November 1781."

Pickering's Pickering, i., 546.

#Papers of Old Congress, xxxvi. MS. The ordinance is in the handwriting of Theodorick Bland, and indorsed by Charles Thomson: "Motion of Mr. Bland seconded by Mr. Hamilton. June 5, 1783. Referred to the grand committee of 30 May 1783."