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CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE ability displayed by Hamilton on this occasion, his liberal views and distinguished probity, gathered around him the enthusiastic confidence and affection of the better part of his fellow-citizens; and at a time when the judicial character of the State was to be formed, and, from the disturbed situation of the community, professional trusts were of the most important and extensive influence, he was foremost in endeavouring to secure to the laws an honest and enlightened administration.

This was not an easy task. The general relaxation of morals, an usual and most lamentable concomitant of war, was attended with a prevailing disregard of, and disposition to question, the decisions of the courts. In the political speculations to which the revolution had given rise, the sovereignty of the popular will, which was recognised as the basis of every proceeding, was pushed to the utmost extremes in its application; and wherever the operations

of the laws bore hard, in the then unsettled relations of society, to recur to the elementary principles of government, and resolve every rule by its apparent adaptation to individual convenience, was the prevailing tendency of public opinion. The course of the contest, the means by which it had been conducted, the extravagant schemes it had engendered, gave every citizen a strong personal interest in its results, and, long before its termination, had divided the population into the opposite and hostile classes of debtors and creditors; each of which being compelled to unite, either for the common purpose of delaying or enforcing justice, acquired the dangerous, disorganizing, and formidable character of an intestine party.

The laxity of the national faith, as it sprung from, also confirmed this distinction. The loose opinions which had gradually led on to an unjust discrimination between the public creditors of different descriptions, soon took possession of the popular mind, induced preferences equally unjust in private affairs, and ultimately prostrated all respect for the obligations of contracts, and for the tribunals by which they were to be expounded and enforced. This lawless spirit which pervaded the country, was principally shown in questions growing out of the claims of two classes of creditors, whose situation, though totally different, it was sought to confound,-those of British merchants, for debts incurred previous to the revolution, and the claims of the tories, either for money due to them, or for lands of which possession had been taken as enemies' property.

The animosity natural to the combatants in a civil conflict; the enormities committed by the refugees, when the scale of war seemed to incline in their favour, or where they could continue their molestations with impunity; the harassing inroads and depredations which they had made

on private property, and on the persons of non-combat

ants, and the harsh and cruel councils of which they were too often the authors, appeared to the people at large to sanction every species of retaliation, and to place the tories beyond the pale of humanity.

This was merely the popular feeling. The governments of the United States, and of the individual states, with few exceptions, resisted these attempts, and sought to instil a spirit of moderation and forbearance, becoming the victorious party. In the progress of the conflict, and particularly in its earliest periods, attainder and confiscation had been resorted to generally, throughout the continent, as a means of war. But it is a fact important to the history of the revolting colonies, that the acts prescribing penalties, usually offered to the persons against whom they were directed the option of avoiding them, by acknowledging their allegiance to the existing govern

ments.

It was a preventive, not a vindictive policy. In the same humane spirit, as the contest approached its close, and the necessity of these severities diminished, many of the states passed laws offering pardons to those who had been disfranchised, and restoring them to the enjoyment of their property; with such restrictions only as were necessary for the protection of their own citizens. In others, different councils unfortunately prevailed. In NewJersey, meetings were held urging a non-compliance with the treaty, in consequence of the non-fulfilment by England of the seventh article, stipulating the return of the negroes and the restoration of the posts.

*

In Virginia, the house of delegates resolved,† "That

* Almon's Remembrancer, p. 92, v. 10, 2d part.

† December 17th, 1782.

confiscation laws, being founded on legal principles, were strongly dictated by that principle of common justice which demands that if virtuous citizens, in defence of their natural rights, risk their life, liberty, and property on their success; vicious citizens, who side with tyranny and oppression, or cloak themselves under the mask of neutrality, should at least hazard their property, and not enjoy the labours and dangers of those whose destruction they wished. And it was unanimously declared, that all demands and requests of the British court for the restitution of property confiscated by this state, being neither supported by law, equity, or policy, are wholly inadmissible ; and that our delegates be instructed to move congress that they may direct their delegates, who shall represent these states in a general congress for adjusting a peace or truce, neither to agree to any such restitution, nor submit that the laws made by any independent state of this union, be subject to the adjudication of any power or powers on earth."

A proclamation was subsequently issued by its governor, enjoining all those who had adhered to the enemy since the nineteenth April, seventeen hundred and seventyfive, or had been expelled by an act of the legislature, or who had borne arms against the commonwealth, to leave the state. And an address from the county of Caroline was presented to the legislature, stating, "they see the impolicy, injustice, and oppression of paying British debts!"

In Massachusetts, a committee of the legislature of which Samuel Adams was chairman, reported that no person who had borne arms against the United States, or lent money to the enemy to carry on the war, should ever be permitted to return to the state.* Resolutions of an in

* Report on the files of the general court of Massachusetts, March 16th, 1784.

temperate character were also brought forward at public meetings in Maryland; and a bill containing many objectionable features was introduced in the popular branch of its legislature, but it was resisted with great eloquence, admirable sense, and unyielding firmness in the senate by two respected individuals, Charles Carroll and Robert Goldsborough, and was essentially modified.

In New-York, the division of public sentiment at the opening of the revolution being very great, each party viewed the other with the most jealous eyes, and felt more seriously the importance of individual exertions. The first act of hostility invited retaliation. Instead of looking to general results, the people of that state were driven to desperation by their continued uncertainty and alarm from dangers which menaced their double frontier.

The laws which were passed for their protection, for the apprehension of persons of "equivocal character," early in the warfare, were soon followed by the establishment of a board of commissioners of sequestration. An institution which, though at first confided to safe hands, was unavoidably entrusted with powers that naturally led to abuse, and ultimately became the organ of many harsh and oppressive proceedings.

Civil discord striking at the root of each social relation, furnished pretexts for the indulgence of malignant passions; and the public good, that oft-abused pretext, was interposed as a shield to cover offences which there were no laws to restrain.

The frequency of abuse, created a party interested both in its continuance and exemption from punishment, which at last became so strong, that it rendered the legislature of the state subservient to its views, and induced the enactment of laws attainting almost every individual whose connections subjected him to suspicion, who had

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