CHAPTER XIX TRADE RIGHTS DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI-THE FIFTH CONVENTION Kentucky had now gone through with four conventions, and was apparently no closer to statehood than when she began. The flames of reckless discontent that had been growing for some time now finding much to feed on burst out anew and with great intensity. Many people began to think less on statehood and more on absolute independence. Before another convention should assemble the people were destined to pass through such provocations and excitement as to almost destroy their faith in the American Union or desire to become a part of it. Clark's expedition against the Indians up the Wabash carried with it a train of evil consequences. In the first place it aroused the anger of Governor Edmund Randolph, who had succeeded Patrick Henry in December of 1786, and who had none of that popularity that Henry had enjoyed with the Kentuckians. One of his first official acts was to offer strong provocations to the Kentuckians in the attitude he took toward Clark's expedition. He declared that he had information from Kentucky that Clark "had undertaken without authority to raise recruits, nominate officers, and impress provisions in the District of Kentucky for the defence of the Post of Vincennes, and had for that purpose also seized the property of Spanish subjects contrary to the laws of nations." 1 Randolph demanded that Harry Innes, the attorney general of the District, institute prosecutions. It seemed to the Kentuckians bad enough to be left defenceless by Virginia and the Confederation as they believed, but to be prosecuted for defending themselves was filling their cup to overflowing. Innes replied to Randolph that Virginia and the national government had grossly neglected their defence and that it would be wise not to drive a people to desperation. He refused to make any prosecutions, taking advantage of a technicality he was able to discover. Clark's expedition had been a failure, largely to his mismanagement. The lustre of his name was rapidly tarnishing, and this expedition almost effaced it. Mutiny, disobedience, and disorder marked its course. While in Vincennes he had forcibly taken merchandise and provisions from some Spanish merchants there for the use of his army. Reports were scattered and gained credence that Clark would not stop with robbing Spanish merchants in Vincennes, but would march his army to Natchez and seize the city. This was an echo of the land speculations in the western domain of Georgia around that city that were agitating certain minds in the West. Thomas Green wrote the Georgia Governor in December, 1786 from the Falls of the Ohio [Louisville] that Clark was ready "to raise troops suufficient, and go with me to the Natchez to take possession, and settle the lands. *"2 He asked Georgia's permission, claiming there were hundreds of families ready to go and wrest the country from Spain. Another letter written at the Falls of the Ohio earlier in the same month found wide circualtion. It told of the stagnant conditions of commerce in the West due to Spain's control of * * 1 Brown, Political Beginnings of Kentucky, 82, 83. 2 T. M. Green, The Spanish Conspiracy [Cincinnati, 1891], 385, 386. the Mississippi and hinted that Clark's actions against the Spanish merchants was only the beginning of the movement; that if the Spaniards would not let the Americans trade down the river, then, the Americans would not permit the Spaniards to trade up; and that the people were getting ready to drive out the Spaniards and side with England.3 These rumors connected with Clark's Vincennes troubles created considerable excitement among a certain class. They were anxious for an investigation of Clark's conduct. In 1787 the Secretary of War ordered such an investigation. A report was made to Clark's discredit; but nothing further was done more than disown his treatment of the merchants.1 Added to this excitement was a report of certain transactions of vastly more importance to the Kentuckians. This was the intelligence that John Jay was on the point of bartering away to the Spaniards the claim of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi River for certain commercial concessions which would benefit the East only. In order to get the proper setting of this question at this time, it is necessary to give a short account of its status. By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, ending the French and Indian War, England was given the right to navigate the Mississippi throughout its whole length. The treaty of independence in 1783 conveyed that right to the United States. But during the peace negotiations, both France and Spain looked with little sympathy on the Americans extending their boundaries west of the Alleghanies, much less to be willing to guarantee to them the right to navigate the Mississippi from its source to its mouth. Due principally to the tenacity of Jay and John Adams, the freedom of this great river was secured. Spain never became reconciled to this grant of so important a right to strengthen a rising young republic, in whom some of her diplomats saw the future menace to the whole fabric of Spanish possessions in the New World. The jealousy of Spain was intensified by the dispute that soon arose over the southern boundary of the United States.5 During the Revolutionary war Spain had thrown the river open to the struggling colonies, as a blow against her great rival. In 1779 she entered the war against England. Considerable use was made of the river during the struggle. As early as 1776 a trip was made by the western settlers to New Orleans for powder; and they succeeded in bringing back up the river 136 kegs which were used on the Wheeling and Pittsburg frontier. In 1779 a party of seventy-two men conveying munitions of war up the Ohio from New Orleans were attacked by Indians and all but twenty slain. George Rodgers Clark's famous expedition against the Northwest was supplied to a considerable extent by munitions and provisions brought up the Mississippi. The Kentuckians were thus taught the necessity and value of this great highway; and when peace came they doubly expected to continue its use, since it was guaranteed to them by treaty. But this was not to be. For the first few years after peace, the Kentuckians had no great use for the river, as they had not yet begun to produce much more than they consumed. But as these regions south of the Ohio immediately became the destination of extraordinary numbers 8 Green, The Spanish Conspiracy, 387; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, I, 381-383. 4 Ezra Mattingly, "George Rodgers Clark-A soldier of the Early West" in Magazine of Western History, Vol. 14, 561, 572. Carl Russell Fish, American Diplomacy [New York, 1915], 70, 71, passim. Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 518; Butler, History of Kentucky, 156. 7 Ibid., 102; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 20; W. R. Shepherd, "Wilkinson and the Beginnings of the Spanish Conspiracy" in American Historical Review, IX, 491, 492. of settlers, they soon began to produce an abundance of tobacco, beef, pork, lard and like products. The whole economic fabric soon came to depend absolutely on a market. Now the river became the very life. blood of the people, since it was the only highway on which they could reach a market. Soon after the war, Thomas Amis, a North Carolinian, tested out the freedom of navigation by loading flat boats on the Ohio and attempting to float down to the markets in New Orleans. When he reached Natchez his goods were seized by the Spaniards and it was with great difficulty that he was able to get back to Kentucky.8 Other attempts to use the river met with like difficulties. However, no one thought of giving up the claim to that right or to cease making efforts to use it. Congress had pursued a vacillating course. In 1779, it had made the freedom of the Mississippi a Sine qua non to any treaty with Spain; while in 1781 in the tortuous course of the negotiations it had given its representatives permission to waive this right; but by 1784 it had returned to its former position. In 1786 John Jay, the secretary for foreign affairs, as the secretary of state was called under the Confederation, suggested to Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, the possibility of giving up the right for twenty-five years of navigating the Spanish end of the Mississippi in return for certain commercial rights, which from their very nature could have no value for the western settlers. A sectional aspect was immediately given to these proceedings; and an acrimonious debate ushered it into Congress. It was the commercial North against the agricultural South. The Virginia legislature by a unanimous vote instructed her representatives in Congress to oppose the Jay proposals; and also took occasion to re-affirm that the free use of the western waters belonged to the people living thereon "by the laws of God and nature as well as compact" and strongly deprecated Congress or any other power bartering such rights away.10 The Southern states lined up solidly against the North. The vote resulted in seven states out of the thirteen standing in favor of the Jay proposals; but as a vote of nine was required by the Articles of Confederation for the passage of important legislation, it ended in failure. But the mischief was done, the proposals had been seriously considered by Congress, and this was almost as strong a provocation to the West as if the proposals had passed. The Kentuckians, agitated as they were through the course of their many conventions, were in no mood to receive intelligence of the Jay proposals. In July, 1786, Washington had written Henry Lee of the unrest in the West: "At this moment it is formidable, and the population is rapidly increasing. There are many ambitious and turbulent spirits among its inhabitants, who, from the present difficulties in their intercourse with the Atlantic States, have turned their eyes to New Orleans, and may become riotous and ungovernable, if the hope of traffic with it is cut off by treaty." 11 In the early part of 1787 rumors of Jay's doings had begun to filter across the mountains into Kentucky. Marshall, Kentucky's agent in Richmond, was doubtless the first to send an exact account of the affair.12 About the same time a number of citizens in and around Pittsburg, signing themselves as a "Committee of Correspondence," addressed a communication to the people of Kentucky, informing them "that John Jay, the American secretary for foreign affairs, had made a proposition to Don Gardoqui, the Spanish minister, near the United States, to cede the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain for twenty years, in consideration of commercial advantages to be enjoyed 8 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, I, 372-383. • Fish, American Diplomacy, 71, 72; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 265. 10 Brown, Political Beginnings of Kentucky, 78-81; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, I, 389. 11 Writings of Washington, IX, 180. 12 Brown, Political Beginnings of Kentucky, 80, 81. Vol. I-20 by the eastern States alone." 13 It came to be a current report in Kentucky that Jay had said "that the Western people had nothing to export, & therefore the cession of the Mississippi would be no injury to them."14 Needless to say that in the West, Jay became the most unpopular man in the whole country, a reputation he confirmed with Kentuckians when eight years later he negotiated with England the Famous Jay Treaty. The extreme party gained much through these reports. They could now point to Congress as unwilling to help the West, even if she were able. It was also now evident that the East cared nothing for the welfare of the West, and was willing to sell them in bondage to a foreign power, in order to enhance its own greedy interests. Not only would it do this, but also through a designed neglect of defense against the Indians, it would allow the savages to exterminate the Kentuckians. Should they attempt to defend themselves, the result was chidings and investigations by the national authorities. Events were thus playing directly into the hands of the extremists, who were being led and urged on by Wilkinson. The iron was now hot; they would strike. On March 29 [1787] a circular letter signed by Harry Innes, George Muter, Benjamin Sebastian, and John Brown and addressed to the people of Kentucky called on the people to elect delegates to a meeting to be held in Danville in the following May to take into consideration the action of Congress with regard to the navigation of the Mississippi. The people readily complied in an inflamed state of mind. For a time there was danger of rash acts being taken, which might land Kentucky out of the Union. The convention met according to call, but ended in a fiasco. The reasons were these: When the call went out, there was no exact knowledge of the status of the Jay proposals in Congress and the attitude of Virginia was not yet known. When the Virginia resolutions of opposition became known, and when it was learned that Congress had not agreed with Jay, a better feeling was shown, and the convention adjourned without action.15 About the time the call went out for the Danville convention, which was a move of the extremists, a memorial was sent up to the Virginia General Assembly by the more moderate element, begging the authorities to intercede with Congress not to sell out the West for the benefit of the East. The memorialists declared they had as much right to the Mississippi as to the James or the Potomac. The memorial continued: "Born and educated under our common gov't and attached to it by the strongest Ties of Interest & affection, having equally participated in the hardships & dangers of the Revolution and being equally entitled to its benefits, they cannot but receive with horror the Idea of their being thus sacrificed, and their interests sold by those whom they have considered as their brethren, friends & Fellow-citizens." 16 This memorial was dignified and temperate throughout. It was signed by many who had been soldiers in the Revolution. It bore the names of John Breckenridge, Francis Preston, and John Campbell; but not those of James Wilkinson, George Muter, Harry Innes, George Nicholas, or Caleb Wallace.17 It was thus with mingled feelings that the people approached the subject of the election and meeting of the fifth convention. According to the Second Enabling Act, the election was to take place in August and in September the convention should convene. On August 11, 1787, there 13 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 264; McElroy, Kentucky in the Nation's History, 132. 14 Harry Innes to John Brown, December 7, 1787, in the Innes MS, Vol. 28. This MS collection is in the Library of Congress. 15 Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 264. 16 Green, Spanish Conspiracy, 389-391. 17 The absence of these names is not held condemnatory, but rather as interesting. 19 appeared in Lexington a force which was destined to play an important part in the future discussions of the District and the state. This was the printing press with its product, the Kentucke Gazette, edited by John Bradford. Efforts of the second convention to have a newspaper started were thus rewarded two years later, in time for it to play a part in shaping affairs for the fifth convention. The people seized with avidity this opportunity to give expression to their pent-up feelings.18 The question of separation naturally came in for much discussion. Here the persistent few who strove against the inundation of separation-feeling could seem as big and shine as bright as their opponents. In the third issue appeared a long poem, a paraphrase of Hamlet's Soliloquy, beginning "To sever or not to sever, that is the question.' This was followed in the next issue by thoughtful observation on both sides of the question. If separation is voted, it was asked how the new state expected to pay the expenses of running the new government, while the Mississippi remained closed. It was clearly inferred that the Kentuckians must expect to pay for the privilege of having their own state government, and that taxes must necessarily be higher than they were at that time. Also "Will not separation lessen our importance in the opinion of the savages and cause them to fall on us with greater vigour?" But on the other hand, if separation were not obtained, how could they defend themselves against the Indians, how could they pay the taxes demanded by Virginia, how as a remnant of Virginia could they establish and maintain a policy that would promote manufactures, and how could they properly encourage learning? Also a state government could more easily restrain the lawless and the licentious as well as put a stop to "the abuses of power practiced of late by some of those in Authority." 20 These observations were highly stimulating, attracting considerable discussion on both sides of the question. Furthermore, if they should become a state they would automatically be vested with valuable commercial power, which they believed might be used against Spain with telling effect. Under the Articles of Confederation the states possessed the power to pass tariff laws against foreign countries as well as against each other. Armed with this club the Kentuckians could threaten to exclude absolutely every species of Spanish commerce from the state and otherwise threaten Spanish trade. Virginia had erected a port of entry on the Ohio, whose policy Kentuckians had no control over. From every angle the advantages of statehood seemed to protrude. Ten days before the fifth convention met, an article appeared in the Kentucke Gazette 21 strongly urging opposition to the erection of a new state. Besides giving the stock arguments against separation, it argued that taxes would be greatly increased and that a part of the national debt would be saddled on Kentucky. All talk about the new state officials being willing to accept small salaries, it declared, was designed to lull the people; "Ambition would always carve out offices, and avarice would require larger salaries." Defence against the savages would be much more difficult, as Virginia's supply of munitions of war would 18 The people with this new-found means of expression did not confine their discussions to matters of public interest. Private quarrels and grudges were aired out in some issues of the Gazette to the almost exclusion of matters of a general interest. This led "Monitor" to write the editor: "Your paper is a scene of war, a vehicle of scandal, in Consequence of every private quarrel. * *It will be your duty * to advise those wrathful Gentlemen to determine disputes some other way, and not as all other earthly blessings to men, pervert the important usefulness of your press, by the imperfections of human nature." Humphrey Marshall and others had by this time entered into their heated personal quarrels. Kentucky Gazette, April 12, 1788. 19 Kentucke Gazette, August 25, 1787. 20 Kentucke Gazette, August 18, 1787. 21 The spelling of the name Kentucke was soon changed to Kentucky. |