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 1783. 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 legisla ture 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 Letters to Washington, iv., 48. * Clinton to Washington, 14 October 1783. # 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. address of congress to the states on the impost I think a too early and too strong attempt to overleap those fences established by the confederation to secure the liberties of the respective states. Give the purse to an aristocratic assembly, the sword will follow, and liberty become an empty name. As for increasing the power of congress, I would answer as the discerning men of old, with the change of a word only: 'Nolumus leges confederationis mutari-we forbid change in the laws of the confederation."" But, in the time afforded for reflection, Washington's valedictory letter, which Jefferson describes as "deservedly applauded by the world," + gained more and more power; at the adjourned session, the legislature of Virginia, with absolute unanimity, reversed its decision and granted by law the continental impost. "Everything will come right at last," said Washington, as he heard the gladdening news.# "Never," said George Mason, "have I heard one single man deny the necessity and propriety of the union. No object can be lost when the mind of every man in the country is strongly attached to it." || "I do not believe," witnesses Jefferson, "there has ever been a moment when a single whig in any one state would not have shuddered at the very idea of a separation of their state from the confederacy." A A proposition had been made in June to revoke the release to the United States of the territory north-west of the river Ohio. Patrick Henry was for bounding the state reasonably enough, but, instead of ceding the parts lopped off, he was for forming them into small republics ◊ under the direction of Virginia. Nevertheless, the legislature, guided by the sincerity and perseverance of Joseph Jones of King George county, conformed to the wishes of congress, and, on the nineteenth and twentieth of December, cheerfully amended and confirmed their former cession. The last legislature to address Washington in his public *R. H. Lee to William Whipple, 1 July 1783. Hening, xi., 313. Jefferson's Works, ix., 266. # Sparks, ix., 5. George Mason in the Virginia Convention, 11 June 1788. A Jefferson, ix., 251. Journals of House of Delegates, 71, 79. Jefferson to Madison, 17 June 1783. |