A Brief History of the United States
Date: 2004-11-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: United States -- History

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Title: A Brief History of the United States

Author: John Bach McMaster

Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6896]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES ***

Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

BY
JOHN BACH McMASTER

[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON. Painted by Rembrandt Peale.]

PREFACE

It is not too much to assert that most of our countrymen acquire at school all the knowledge they possess of the past history of their country. In view of this fact it is most desirable that a history of the United States for elementary schools should present not only the essential features of our country's progress which all should learn, but also many things of secondary consequence which it is well for every young American to know.

In this book the text proper consists of the essentials, and these are told in as few words as truth and fairness will permit. The notes, which form a large part of the book, include the matters of less fundamental importance: they may be included in the required lessons, or may be omitted, as the teacher thinks proper; however, they should at least be read. Some of the notes are outline biographies of men whose acts require mention in the text and who ought not to be mere names, nor appear suddenly without any statement of their earlier careers. Others are intended to be fuller statements of important events briefly described or narrated in the text, or relate to interesting events that are of only secondary importance. Still others call attention to the treatment of historical personages or events by our poets and novelists, or suggest passages in standard histories that may be read with profit. Such suggested readings have been chosen mostly from books that are likely to be found in all school libraries.

Much of the machinery sometimes used in history teaching—bibliographies, extensive collateral readings, judgment questions, and the like—have been omitted as out of place in a brief school history. Better results may be obtained by having the pupils write simple narratives in their own words, covering important periods and topics in our history: as, the discovery of America; the exploration of our coast and continent; the settlements that failed; the planting of the English colonies; the life of the colonists; the struggles for possession of the country; the causes of the Revolution; the material development of our country between certain dates; and other subjects that the teacher may suggest. The student who can take such broad views of our history, and put his knowledge in his own words, will acquire information that is not likely to be forgotten.

No trouble has been spared in the selection of interesting and authentic illustrations that will truly illustrate the text. Acknowledgment is due for permission to photograph many articles in museums and in the possession of various historical societies. The reproduction of part of Lincoln's proclamation on page 365 is inserted by courtesy of David McKay, publisher of Lossing's Civil War in America.

JOHN BACH McMASTER.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

[Illustration: U. S. BATTLESHIP.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION I. THE NEW WORLD FOUND II. THE ATLANTIC COAST AND THE PACIFIC DISCOVERED III. FRANCE AND ENGLAND ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA

THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA IV. THE ENGLISH ON THE CHESAPEAKE V. THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND VI. THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES VII. HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED

RIVALS OF THE ENGLISH VIII. THE INDIANS IX. THE FRENCH IN AMERICA X. WARS WITH THE FRENCH XI. THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION XII. THE QUARREL WITH THE MOTHER COUNTRY XIII. THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE BEGUN XIV. THE WAR IN THE MIDDLE STATES AND ON THE SEA XV. THE WAR IN THE WEST AND IN THE SOUTH

DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNION XVI. AFTER THE WAR XVII. OUR COUNTRY IN 1789 XVIII. THE NEW GOVERNMENT XIX. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY, 1789-1805 XX. THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE XXI. RISE OF THE WEST XXII. THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING XXIII. POLITICS FROM 1829 TO 1841 XXIV. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1820 TO 1840

THE LONG STRUGGLE AGAINST SLAVERY XXV. MORE TERRITORY ACQUIRED XXVI. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE SOIL XXVII. STATE OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1840 TO 1860 XXVIII. THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1863 XXIX. THE CIVIL WAR, 1863-1865 XXX. THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES XXXI. RECONSTRUCTION

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT XXXII. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1860 TO 1880 XXXIII. A QUARTER CENTURY OF STRUGGLE OVER INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS, 1872 TO 1897 XXXIV. THE WAR WITH SPAIN, AND LATER EVENTS

APPENDIX THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TABLE OF STATES TABLE OF PRESIDENTS INDEX

LIST OF COLORED MAPS

FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700 EASTERN NORTH AMERICA, 1754 BRITISH TERRITORY, 1764 NORTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION—SOUTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION THE UNITED STATES, ABOUT 1783, SHOWING STATE CLAIMS THE UNITED STATES, 1805 THE UNITED STATES, 1824 THE UNITED STATES, 1850 THE UNITED STATES, 1861 THE WEST IN 1870 (ALSO 1860 AND 1907) THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTLYING POSSESSIONS

[Illustration: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."]

COLUMBUS

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For, lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?"
"Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone,
Now speak, brave Admiral; speak and say"—
He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
He curls his lips, he lies in wait
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word;
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck—
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"

—Joaquin Miller.

Copyrighted and published by The Whitaker & Ray Wiggin Co. San Francisco,
California. Used by permission.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER I

THE NEW WORLD FOUND

The New World, of which our country is the most important part, was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. When that great man set sail from Spain on his voyage of discovery, he was seeking not only unknown lands, but a new way to eastern Asia. Such a new way was badly needed.

THE ROUTES OF TRADE.—Long before Columbus was born, the people of Europe had been trading with the far East. Spices, drugs, and precious stones, silks, and other articles of luxury were brought, partly by vessels and partly by camels, from India, the Spice Islands, and Cathay (China) by various routes to Constantinople and the cities in Egypt and along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. There they were traded for the copper, tin, and lead, coral, and woolens of Europe, and then carried to Venice and Genoa, whence merchants spread them over all Europe. [1] The merchants of Genoa traded chiefly with Constantinople, and those of Venice with Egypt.

THE TURKS SEIZE THE ROUTES OF TRADE.—While this trade was at its height, Asia Minor (from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean) was conquered by the Turks, the caravan routes across that country were seized, and when Constantinople was captured (in 1453), the trade of Genoa was ruined. Should the Turkish conquests be extended southward to Egypt (as later they were), the prosperity of Venice would likewise be destroyed, and all existing trade routes to the Orient would be in Turkish hands.

[Illustration: THE KNOWN WORLD IN 1490; ROUTES TO INDIA.]

THE PORTUGUESE SEEK A NEW ROUTE.—Clearly an ocean route to the East was needed, and on the discovery of such a route the Portuguese had long been hard at work. Fired by a desire to expand Portugal and add to the geographical knowledge of his day, Prince Henry "the Navigator" sent out explorer after explorer, who, pushing down the coast of Africa, had almost reached the equator before Prince Henry died. [2] His successors continued the good work, the equator was crossed, and in 1487 Dias passed the Cape of Good Hope and sailed eastward till his sailors mutinied. Ten years later Vasco da Gama sailed around the end of Africa, up the east coast, and on to India, and brought home a cargo of eastern products. A way to India by water was at last made known to Europe. [3]

[Illustration: A CARAVEL, A SHIP OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

COLUMBUS PLANS A ROUTE.—Meanwhile Christopher Columbus [4] planned what he thought would be a shorter ocean route to the East. He had studied all that was known of geography in his time. He had carefully noted the results of recent voyages of exploration. He had read the travels of Marco Polo [5] and had learned that off the coast of China was a rich and wonderful island which Polo called Cipango. He believed that the earth is a sphere, and that China and Cipango could be reached by sailing about 2500 miles due westward across the Atlantic.

COLUMBUS SEEKS AID.—To make others think so was a hard task, for nearly everybody believed the earth to be flat, and several sovereigns were appealed to before one was found bold enough to help him. He first applied to the king of Portugal, and when that failed, to the king and queen of Spain. [6] When they seemed deaf to his appeal, he sent his brother to England, and at last, wearied with waiting, set off for France. Then Queen Isabella of Spain was persuaded to act. Columbus was recalled, [7] ships were provided with which to make the voyage, and on Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, the Santa Maria (sahn'tah mah-ree'ah), the Pinta (peen'tah), and the Niña (neen'yah) set sail from Palos (pah'los), on one of the greatest voyages ever made by men. [8]

[Illustration: THE COUNCIL OF SALAMANCA.]

THE VOYAGE WESTWARD.—The little fleet went first to the Canary Islands and thence due west across the Sea of Darkness, as the Atlantic was called. The voyage was delightful, but every sight and sound was a source of new terror to the sailors. An eruption of a volcano at the Canaries was watched with dread as an omen of evil. They crossed the line of no magnetic variation, and when the needle of the compass began to change its usual direction, they were sure it was bewitched. They entered the great Sargasso Sea and were frightened out of their wits by the strange expanse of floating vegetation. They entered the zone of the trade winds, and as the breeze, day after day, steadily wafted them westward, the boldest feared it would be impossible to return. When a mirage and flights of strange birds raised hopes that were not promptly realized, the sailors were sure they had entered an enchanted realm. [9]

[Illustration: SEA MONSTERS DRAWN ON OLD MAPS.]

LAND DISCOVERED.—Columbus, who was above such fear, explained the unusual sights, calmed the fears of the sailors, hid from them the true distance sailed, [10] and steadily pursued his way till unmistakable signs of land were seen. A staff carved by hand and a branch with berries on it floated by. Excitement now rose high, and a reward was promised to the man who first saw land. At last, on the night of October 11, Columbus beheld a light moving as if carried by hand along a shore. A few hours later a sailor on the Pinta saw land distinctly, and soon all beheld, a few miles away, a long, low beach. [11]

[Illustration: ANCIENT VIKING SHIP FOUND BURIED IN NORWAY.]

THE VOYAGE AMONG THE ISLANDS.—Columbus thought he had found one of the islands of the Indies, as the southern and eastern parts of Asia were called. Dressed in scarlet and gold and followed by a band of his men bearing banners, he landed, fell on his knees, and having given thanks to God, took possession for Spain and called the island San Salvador (sahn sahl-va-dor'), which means Holy Savior. The day was October 12, 1492, and the island was one of the Bahamas. [12]

After giving red caps, beads, and trinkets to the natives who crowded about him, Columbus set sail to explore the group and presently came in sight of the coast of Cuba, which he at first thought was Cipango. Sailing eastward, landing now and then to seek for gold, he reached the eastern end of Cuba, and soon beheld the island of Haiti; this so reminded him of Spain that he called it Hispaniola, or Little Spain.

THE FIRST SPANISH COLONY IN THE NEW WORLD.—When off the Cuban shore, the Pinta deserted Columbus. On the coast of Haiti the Santa Maria was wrecked. To carry all his men back to Spain in the little Nina was impossible. Such, therefore, as were willing were left at Haiti, and founded La Navidad, the first colony of Europeans in the New World. [13] This done, Columbus sailed for home, taking with him ten natives, and specimens of the products of the lands he had discovered.

THE VOYAGE HOME.—The Pinta was overtaken off the Haitian coast, but a dreadful storm parted the ships once more, and neither again saw the other till the day when, but a few hours apart, they dropped anchor in the haven of Palos, whence they had sailed seven months before. As the news spread, the people went wild with joy. The journey of Columbus to Barcelona was a triumphal procession. At Barcelona he was received with great ceremony by the king and queen, and soon afterward was sent back with many ships and men to found a colony and make further explorations in the Indies.

[Illustration: THE WEST INDIES—SHOWING THE DISCOVERIES OF COLUMBUS.]

OTHER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.—In all Columbus made four voyages to the New World. On the second (1493) he discovered Porto Rico, Jamaica, and other islands. On the third (1498) he saw the mainland of South America at the mouth of the Orinoco River. [14] On the fourth (1502-4) he sailed along the shores of Central America. Returning to Spain, he died poor, neglected, and broken-hearted in 1506. [15]

COLUMBUS BELIEVED HE REACHED THE INDIES.—To his dying day Columbus was ignorant of the fact that he had led the way to a new continent. He supposed he had reached the Indies. The lands he discovered were therefore spoken of as the Indies, and their inhabitants were called Indians, a name given in time to the copper-colored natives of both North and South America.

SPAIN'S CLAIM TO NEW-FOUND LANDS.—One of the first results of the discoveries of Columbus was an appeal to the Pope for a bull securing to Spain the heathen lands discovered; for a bull had secured to Portugal the discoveries of her mariners along the coast of Africa. Pope Alexander VI accordingly drew a north and south line one hundred leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, and gave to Spain all she might discover to the west of it, reserving to Portugal all she might discover to the east. A year later (1494) Spain and Portugal by treaty moved the "Line of Demarcation" to three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands (map, p. 20), and on this agreement, approved by the Pope, Spain rested her claim to America.

SUMMARY

1. For many centuries before the discovery of America, Europe had been trading with the far East.

2. The routes of this trade were being closed by the Turks.

3. Columbus believed a new route could be found by sailing due westward from Europe.

4. After many years of fruitless effort to secure aid to test his plan, he obtained help from Spain.

5. On his first voyage westward Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands, Cuba, and Haiti; on his later voyages, various other lands about the Caribbean Sea.

6. In the belief that he had reached the Indies, the lands Columbus found were called the Indies, and their inhabitants Indians.

FOOTNOTES

[1] In the Middle Ages, when food was coarse and cookery poor, cinnamon and cloves, nutmeg and mace, allspice, ginger, and pepper were highly prized for spicing ale or seasoning food. But all these spices were very expensive in Europe because they had to be brought so far from the distant East. Even pepper, which is now used by every one, was then a fit gift from one king to another. Camphor and rhubarb, indigo, musk, sandalwood, Brazil wood, aloes wood, all came from the East. Muslin and damask bear the names of eastern cities whence they were first obtained. In the fifteenth century the churches, palaces, manor houses, and homes of rich merchants were adorned with the rugs and carpets of the East.

[2] Prince Henry was the fourth son of John I, king of Portugal. In 1419 he established his home on Cape St. Vincent, gathered about him a body of trained seamen, and during forty years sent out almost every year an exploring expedition. His pilots discovered the Azores and the Madeira Islands. He died in 1460. His great work was training seamen. Many men afterward famous as discoverers and navigators, as Dias (dee'ahss), Da Gama (dah gah'ma), Cabral (ca-brahl'), Magellan, and Columbus, served under Henry or his successors.

In those days there were neither steamships nor such sailing vessels as we have. For purposes of exploration the caravel was used. It was from 60 to 100 feet long, and from 18 to 25 feet broad, and had three masts from the heads of which were swung great sails. Much of the steering was done by turning these sails. Yet it was in such little vessels that some of the most famous voyages in history were made.

[3] These voyages were possible because of the great progress which had recently been made in the art of navigation. The magnetic compass enabled seamen to set their course when the sun and stars could not be seen. The astrolabe (picture, p. 35) made it possible roughly to estimate distances from the equator, or latitude. These instruments enabled mariners to go on long voyages far from land. Read the account of the Portuguese voyages in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 294-334.

[4] Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, Italy, where he was born about 1436. He was the son of a wool comber. At fourteen he began a seafaring life, and between voyages made charts and globes. About 1470 he wandered to Portugal, went on one or two voyages down the African coast, and on another (1477) went as far north as Iceland. Meantime (1473) he married a Portuguese woman and made his home at the Madeira Islands; and it was while living there that he formed the plan of finding a new route to the far East.

[5] In 1271 Marco Polo, then a lad of seventeen, was taken by his father and uncle from Venice to the coast of Persia, and thence overland to northwestern China, to a city where Kublai Khan held his court. They were well received, and Marco spent many years making journeys in the khan's service. In 1292 they were sent to escort a royal bride for the khan from Peking (in China) to Tabriz, a city in Persia. They sailed from China in 1292, reached the Persian coast in 1294, and arrived safely at Tabriz, whence they returned to Venice in 1295. In 1298 Marco was captured in a war with Genoa, and spent about a year in prison. While thus confined he prepared an account of his travels, one of the most famous books of the Middle Ages. He described China (or Cathay, as it was then called), with its great cities teeming with people, its manufactures, and its wealth, told of Tibet and Burma, the Indian Archipelago with its spice islands, of Java and Sumatra, of Hindustan,—all from personal knowledge. From hearsay he told of Japan. In the course of the next seventy-five years other travelers found their way to Cathay and wrote about it. Thus before 1400 Europe had learned of a great ocean to the east of Cathay, and of a wonderful island kingdom, Cipan'go (Japan), which lay off its coast. All this deeply interested Columbus, and his copy of Marco Polo may still be seen with its margins full of annotations.

[6] These sovereigns were just then engaged in the final struggle for the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, so they referred the appeal to the queen's confessor, who laid it before a body of learned men. This council of Salamanca made sport of the idea, and tried to prove that Columbus was wrong. If the world were round, they said, people on the other side must walk with their heads down, which was absurd. And if a ship should sail to the undermost part, how could it come back? Could a ship sail up hill?

[7] On the way to France Columbus stopped, by good luck, at the monastery of La Rabida (lah rah'bee-dah), and so interested the prior, Juan Perez (hoo-ahn' pa'rath), in his scheme, that a messenger was sent to beg an interview for Perez with the queen of Spain. It was granted, and so well did Perez plead the cause of his friend that Columbus was summoned to court. The reward Columbus demanded for any discoveries he might make seemed too great, and was refused. Thereupon, mounting his mule, he again set off for France. Scarcely had he started when the royal treasurer rushed into the presence of the queen and persuaded her to send a messenger to bring Columbus back. Then his terms were accepted. He was to be admiral of all the islands and countries he might discover, and have a part of all the gems, gold, and silver found in them.

[8] The vessels were no larger than modern yachts. The Santa Maria was single-decked and ninety feet long. The Pinta and Niña (picture, p. 11) were smaller caravels, and neither was decked amidships. In 1893 reproductions of the three vessels, full size and as exact as possible, were sent across the sea by Spain, and exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago.

[9] The ideas of geography held by the unlearned of those days are very curious to us. They believed that near the equator was a fiery zone where the sea boiled and no life existed; that hydras, gorgons, chimeras, and all sorts of horrid monsters inhabited the Sea of Darkness; and that in the Indian Ocean was a lodestone mountain that could draw nails out of ships. Because of the way in which ships disappeared below the horizon, it was believed that they went down hill, and that if they went too far they could never get back.

[10] The object of Columbus was not to let the sailors know how far they were from home.

[11] Columbus was not the first European to reach the New World. About six hundred years earlier, Vikings from Norway settled in Iceland, and from the Icelandic chronicles we learn that about 986 A.D. Eric the Red planted a colony in Greenland. His son, Leif Ericsson, about 1000 A.D., led a party south-westward to a stony country which was probably the coast of Labrador or Newfoundland. Going on southward, they came at last to a spot where wild grapes grew. To this spot, probably on the New England coast, Leif gave the name Vinland, spent the winter there, and in the spring went back to Greenland with a load of timber. The next year Leif's brother sailed to Vinland and passed two winters there. In later years others went, but none remained long, and the land was soon forgotten. Iceland and Greenland were looked upon as part of Europe; and the Vikings' discoveries had no influence on Columbus and the explorers who followed him. Read Fiske's Discovery of America Vol. I, pp. 148-255; and Longfellow's Skeleton in Armor.

[12] Nobody knows just which of the Bahamas Columbus discovered. Three of the group—Cat, Turks and Watling—each claim the honor. At present Watling is believed to have been San Salvador. A good account of the voyage is given in Irving's Life and Voyages of Columbus, Vol. I, Book iii, and in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 408-442.

[13] When Columbus on his second voyage returned to Hispaniola, he found that every one of the forty colonists had perished. They had been killed by the natives.

[14] Despite the great thing he did for Spain. Columbus lost favor at court. Evil men slandered him; his manner of governing the new lands was falsely represented to the king and queen; a new governor was sent out, and Columbus was brought back in chains. Though soon released, he was never restored to his rights.

[15] Columbus was buried at Valladolid, in Spain, but in 1513 his body was taken to a monastery at Seville. There it remained till 1536, when it was carried to Santo Domingo in Haiti. In 1796 it was removed and buried with imposing ceremonies at Havana in Cuba. In 1898, when Spain was driven from Cuba, his bones were carried back to Seville.

CHAPTER II

THE ATLANTIC COAST AND THE PACIFIC DISCOVERED

THE ATLANTIC COAST LINE EXPLORED.—Columbus having shown the way, English, Spanish, and Portuguese explorers followed. Some came in search of China or the Spice Islands; some were in quest of gold and pearls. The result was the exploration of the Atlantic coast line from Labrador to the end of South America.

SOME FAMOUS VOYAGES.—In 1497 John Cabot, sailing from England, reached
Newfoundland, which he believed to be part of China. [1] In 1498 John
Cabot and his son Sebastian, while in search of the Spice Islands, sailed
along the coast from Newfoundland to what is now South Carolina. [2]

[Illustration: RECORD OF PAYMENT OF JOHN CABOT'S PENSION FOR 1499. [3] Photographed from the original accounts of the Bristol customs collectors, now in Westminster Abbey, London.]

[Illustration: DISCOVERY ON THE EAST COAST OF AMERICA.]

Before 1500 Spaniards in search of gold, or pearls, or new lands had explored the coast line from Central America to Cape St. Roque. [4]

In 1500 Cabral, while on his way from Portugal to India by Da Gama's route (p. 11), sailed so far westward that he sighted the coast of the country now called Brazil. Cabral went on his way; but sent back a ship to the king of Portugal with the news that the new-found land lay east of the Line of Demarcation. The king dispatched (1501) an expedition which explored the coast southward nearly as far as the mouth of the Plata River.

SOME RESULTS OF THESE VOYAGES.—The results of these voyages were many and important. They furnished a better knowledge of the coast; they proved the existence of a great mass of land called the New World, but still supposed to be a part of Asia; they secured Brazil for Portugal, and led to the naming of our continent.

WHY THE NEW WORLD WAS CALLED AMERICA.—In the party sent by the king of Portugal to explore the coast of Brazil, was an Italian named Amerigo Vespucci (ah-ma'ree-go ves-poot'chee), or Americus Vespucius, who had twice before visited the coast of South America. Of these three voyages and of a fourth Vespucius wrote accounts, They were widely read, led to the belief that he had discovered a new or fourth part of the world, and caused a German professor of geography to suggest that this fourth part should be called America. The name was applied first to what is now Brazil, then to all South America, and finally also to North America, when it was found, long afterward, that North America was part of the new continent and not part of Asia.

[Illustration: THE FIRST PRINTED SUGGESTION OF THE NAME AMERICA. [5] Part of a page from Waldseemüller's book Cosmographie Introductio, printed in 1507, now in the Lenox Library, New York.]

BALBOA DISCOVERS THE PACIFIC.—The man who led the way to the discovery that America was not part of Asia was Balbo'a. [6] He came to the eastern border of Panama (1510) with a band of Spaniards seeking gold. There they founded the town of Darien and in time made Balboa their commander. He married the daughter of a chief, made friends with the Indians, and heard from them of a great body of water across the mountains. This he determined to see, and in 1513, with Indian guides and a party of Spaniards, made his way through dense and tangled forests and from the summit of a mountain looked down on the Pacific Ocean, which he called the South Sea. Four days later, standing on the shore, he waited till the rising tide came rolling in, and then rushing into the water, sword in hand, he took possession of the ocean in the name of Spain. [7]

[Illustration: SPANISH HELMET AND SHIRT OF MAIL FOUND IN MEXICO.
Now in Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

THE PACIFIC CROSSED; THE PHILIPPINES DISCOVERED.—The Portuguese meantime, by sailing around Africa, had reached the Spice Islands. So far beyond India were these islands that the Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan took up the old idea of Columbus, and maintained that they could be most easily reached by sailing west. To this proposition the king of Portugal would not listen; so Magellan persuaded the king of Spain to let him try; and in 1519 set sail with five small ships. He crossed the Atlantic to the mouth of the Plata, and went south till storms and cold drove him into winter quarters. [8] In August, 1520 (early spring in the southern hemisphere), he went on his way and entered the strait which now bears his name. One of the ships had been wrecked. In the strait another stole away and went home. The three remaining vessels passed safely through, and out into an ocean so quiet compared with the stormy Atlantic that Magellan called it the Pacific. Across this the explorers sailed for five months before they came to a group of islands which Magellan called the Ladrones (Spanish for robbers) because the natives were so thievish. [9] Ten days later they reached another group, afterward named the Philippines. [10]

On one of these islands Magellan and many of his men were slain. [11] Two of the ships then went southward to the Spice Islands, where they loaded with spices. One now started for Panama, but was forced to return. The other sailed around Africa, and in 1522 reached Spain in safety. It had sailed around the world. The surviving captain was greatly honored. The king ennobled him, and on his coat of arms was a globe with the motto "You first sailed around me."

[Illustration: MAGELLAN'S SHIP THAT SAILED AROUND THE WORLD.]

RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.—Of all the voyages ever made by man up to that time, this of Magellan and his men was the greatest. It gave positive proof that the earth is a sphere. It revealed the vast width of the Pacific. It showed that America was probably not a part of Asia, and changed the geographical ideas of the time. [12]

THE COAST OF FLORIDA EXPLORED.—What meantime had happened along the coast of North America? In 1513 Ponce de Leon [13] (pon'tha da la-on'), a Spaniard, sailed northwest from Porto Rico in search of an island which the Indians told him contained gold, and in which he believed was a fountain or stream whose waters would restore youth to the old. In the season of Easter, or Pascua Florida, he came upon a land which he called Florida. Ponce supposed he had found an island, and following the coast southward went round the peninsula and far up the west coast before going back to Porto Rico. [14]

[Illustration: SPANISH EXPLORATIONS IN NORTH AMERICA TO 1600.]

THE GULF COAST EXPLORED.—In 1519 another Spaniard, Pineda (pe-na'da), sailed along the Gulf coast from Florida to Mexico. On the way he entered the mouth of a broad river which he named River of the Holy Spirit. It was long supposed that this river was the Mississippi; but it is now claimed to have been the Mobile. Whatever it was, Pineda spent six weeks in its waters, saw many Indian towns on its banks, traded with the natives, and noticed that they wore gold ornaments.

THE EXPEDITION OF NARVAEZ.—Pineda's story of Indians with gold ornaments so excited Narvaez (nar-vah'eth) that he obtained leave to conquer the country, and sailed from Cuba with four hundred men. Landing on the west coast of Florida, he made a raid inland. When he returned to the coast the ships which were sailing about watching for him were nowhere to be seen. After marching westward for a month the Spaniards built five small boats, put to sea, and sailing near the shore came presently to where the waters of the Mississippi rush into the Gulf. Two boats were upset by the surging waters. The others reached the coast beyond, where all save four of the Spaniards perished.

FOUR SPANIARDS CROSS THE CONTINENT.—After suffering great hardships and meeting with all sorts of adventures among the Indians, the four survivors, led by Cabeza de Vaca (ca-ba'tha da vah'ca), walked across what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico to a little Spanish town near the Pacific coast. They had crossed the continent. [15]

NEW MEXICO EXPLORED.—Cabeza de Vaca had wonderful tales to relate of "hunchback cows," as he called the buffalo, and of cities in the interior where gold and silver were plentiful and where the doorways were studded with precious stones. [16] Excited by these tales, the Spanish viceroy of Mexico sent Fray Marcos to gather further information. [17] Aided by the Indians, Marcos made his way over the desert and came at last to the "cities," which were only the pueblos of the Zuñi (zoo'nyee) Indians in New Mexico. The pueblos were houses several stories high, built of stone or of sun-dried brick, and each large enough for several hundred Indians to live in. But Marcos merely saw them at a distance, for one of his followers who went in advance was killed by the Zuñi, whereupon Marcos fled back to Mexico.

[Illustration: PUEBLO, WOODEN PLOW, AND OX CART.]

THE SPANIARDS REACH KANSAS.—Marcos's reports about the seven cities of Cibola (see'bo-la), as he called them, aroused great interest, and Corona'do was sent with an army to conquer them. Marching up the east coast of the Gulf of California and across Arizona, Coronado came at last to the pueblos and captured them one by one. He found no gold, but did see doorways studded with the green stones of the Rocky Mountains. Much disappointed, he pushed on eastward, and during two years wandered about over the plains of our great Southwest and probably reached the center of what is now Kansas. [18]

DE SOTO ON THE MISSISSIPPI.—As Coronado was making his way home, an Indian woman escaped from his army, and while wandering about fell in with a band of Spaniards belonging to the army of De Soto. [19]

De Soto, as governor of Cuba, had been authorized to conquer and hold all the territory that had been discovered by Narvaez. He set out accordingly in 1539, landed an army at Tampa Bay, and spent three years in wandering over Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In the spring of 1542 he crossed the Mississippi River and entered Arkansas, and it was there that one of his bands met the Indian woman who escaped from Coronado's army. In Arkansas De Soto died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi River. His followers then built a few boats, floated down the river to the Gulf, and following the coast of Texas came finally to the Spanish settlements in Mexico.

THE FRENCH ON THE COAST.—Far to the northeast explorers of another European nation by this time were seeking a foothold. When John Cabot came home from his first voyage to the Newfoundland coast, he told such tales of cod fisheries thereabouts, that three small ships set sail from England to catch fish and trade with the natives of the new-found isle. Portuguese and Frenchmen followed, and year after year visited the Newfoundland fisheries. No serious attempt was made to settle the island. What Europe wanted was a direct westward passage through America to Cathay. This John Verrazano, an Italian sailing under the flag of France, attempted to find, and came to what is now the coast of North Carolina. There Verrazano turned northward, entered several bays along the coast, sailed by the rock-bound shores of Maine, and when off Newfoundland steered for France.

THE FRENCH ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.—Verrazano was followed (1534) by Jacques Cartier (zhak car-tya'), also in search of a passage to Cathay. Reaching Newfoundland (map, p. 114), Cartier passed through the strait to the north of it, and explored a part of the gulf to the west. A year later he came again, named the gulf St. Lawrence, and entered the St. Lawrence River, which he thought was a strait leading to China. Up this river he sailed till stopped by the rapids which he named Lachine (Chinese). Near by was a high hill which he called Mont Real (re-ahl'), or Mount Royal. At its base now stands the city of Montreal. [20] From this place the French went back to a steep cliff where now stands the city of Quebec, and, it is believed, spent the winter there. The winter was a terrible one, and when the ice left the river they returned to France (1536).

[Illustration: INDIAN LONG HOUSE.]

Not discouraged, Cartier (1541) came a third time to plant a colony on the river. But hunger, mutiny, and the severity of the winter brought the venture to naught. [21]

NO SETTLEMENTS IN OUR COUNTRY.—From the first voyage of Columbus to the expeditions of De Soto, Coronado, and Cartier, fifty years had passed. The coast of the new continent had been roughly explored as far north as Labrador on the east and California on the west. The Spaniards in quest of gold and silver mines had conquered and colonized the West Indies, Mexico, and parts of South America. Yet not a settlement had been made in our country. Many rivers and bays had been discovered; two great expeditions had gone into the interior; but there were no colonies on the mainland of what is now the United States.

SUMMARY

1. The voyage of Columbus led to many other voyages, prompted chiefly by a hope of finding gold. They resulted in the exploration of the coast of America, and may be grouped according to the parts explored, as follows:—

2. The Atlantic coast of North America was explored (1497-1535) by Cabot (for England)—from Newfoundland to South Carolina. Ponce de Leon (for Spain)—peninsula of Florida. Verrazano (for France)—from North Carolina to Newfoundland. Cartier (for France)—Gulf of St. Lawrence.

3. The Gulf and Caribbean coasts of North America were explored (1502- 1528) for Spain by Columbus—Central America. Ponce de Leon—west coast of Florida. Pineda—from Florida to Mexico. Narvaez expedition—from Florida to Texas.

4. The Atlantic coast of South America was explored (1498-1520) by Columbus—mouth of the Orinoco. Other explorers for Spain—whole northern coast. Cabral (for Portugal)—part of eastern coast. Vespucius (for Portugal)—eastern coast nearly to the Plata River. Magellan (for Spain)— to the Strait of Magellan.

5. The Pacific coast of America was explored (1513-1542) for Spain by Balboa—part of Panama. Magellan—part of the southwest coast. Pizarro (note, p. 23)—from Panama to Peru. Cabrillo (note, p. 28)—from Mexico up the coast of California.

6. The Spaniards early established colonies in the West Indies, South America, and Mexico; but fifty years after Columbus's discovery there was no settlement of Europeans in the mainland part of the United States. Several Spanish expeditions, however, had explored (1534-1542) large parts of the interior:—Cabeza de Vaca and his companions walked from Texas to western Mexico, Coronado wandered from Mexico to Kansas. De Soto wandered from Florida beyond the Mississippi River.

FOOTNOTES

[1] This discovery made a great stir in Bristol, the port from which Cabot sailed. A letter written at the time states, "Honors are heaped upon Cabot. He is called Grand Admiral, he is dressed in silk, and the English run after him like madmen." The king gave him £10 and a pension of £20 a year. A pound sterling in those days was in purchasing power quite the equal of fifty dollars in our time.

[2] These voyages of Cabot were not followed up at the time. But in the days of Queen Elizabeth, more than eighty years later, they were made the basis of the English claim to a part of North America.

[3] Bristoll—Arthurus Kemys et Ricardus ap. Meryke collectores custumarum et subsidiorum regis ibidem a festo Sancti Michaelis Archangeli anno XIIII mo Regis nunc usque idem festum Sancti Michaelis tunc proximo sequens reddunt computum de MCCCCXXIIII li. VII S. x d. quadr. De quibus…. Item in thesauro in una tallia pro Johanne Cabot, xx li. Translation: "Bristol —Arthur Kemys and Richard ap Meryke, collectors of the king's customs and subsidies there, from Michaelmas in the fourteenth year of this king's reign [Henry VII] till the same feast next following render their account of £1424 7_s._ 10-1/4_d._…. In the treasury is one tally for John Cabot, £20."

[4] On one of these voyages the Spaniards saw an Indian village built over the water on piles, with bridges joining the houses. This so reminded them of Venice that they called it Venezuela (little Venice), a name afterward applied to a vast extent of country.

[5] "But now these parts [Europe, Asia, and Africa] have been more widely explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius (as will appear in the following pages); so I do not see why any one should rightly object to calling it Amerige or America, i.e. land of Americus, after its discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious mind—since both Europe and Asia are named after women. Its situation and the ways of its people may be clearly understood from the four voyages of Americus which follow."

[6] Vasco Nuñez de Balboa had come from Spain to Haiti and settled down as a planter, but when (1510) an expedition was about to sail for South America to plant a colony near Panama, Balboa longed to join it. He was in debt; so lest his creditors should prevent his going, he had himself nailed up in a barrel and put on board one of the ships with the provisions.

[7] In the course of expeditions along the eastern coast of Mexico, the Spaniards heard of a mighty king, Montezuma, who ruled many cities in the interior and had great stores of gold. In 1519 Cor'tes landed with 450 men and a few horses, sank his ships, and began inland one of the most wonderful marches in all history. The account of the great things which he did, of the marvelous cities he conquered, of the strange and horrible sights he saw, reads like fiction. Six days after reaching the city of Mexico, he seized Montezuma and made himself the real ruler of the country; but later the Mexicans rose against him and he had to conquer them by hard fighting. Read the story of the conquest as briefly told in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. II, pp. 245-293.

The Spaniards also heard rumors of a golden kingdom to the southward where the Incas ruled. After preliminary voyages of exploration Francisco Pizarro sailed from Panama in 1531 with 200 men and 50 horses to conquer Peru. Landing on the coast he marched inland to the camp of the Inca, a young man who had just seized the throne. The sight of the white strangers clad in shining armor, wielding thunder and lightning (firearms), and riding unearthly beasts (horses were unknown to the Indians), caused wonder and dread in Peru as it had in Mexico. The Inca was made prisoner and hundreds of his followers were killed. He offered to fill his prison room with gold as high as he could reach if Pizarro would set him free; the offer was accepted and in 1533 some $15,000,000 in gold was divided among the conquerors. The Inca, however, was put to death, and the Spaniards took possession of the whole country.

[8] None of Magellan's vessels were as large as the Santa Maria, and three were smaller than the Niña. The sailors demanded that Magellan return to Spain. When he refused, the captains and crews of three ships mutinied, and were put down with difficulty.

[9] Guam, which now belongs to our country, is one of the Ladrones.

[10] The Spaniards took possession of the Philippines a few years later, and in 1571 founded Manila. The group was named after Philip II of Spain. In 1555 a Spanish navigator discovered the Hawaiian Islands; but though they were put down on the early Spanish charts, the Spaniards did not take possession of them. Indeed, these islands were practically forgotten, and two centuries passed before they were rediscovered by the English explorer, Captain Cook, in 1778.

[11] Magellan was a very religious man, and after making an alliance with the king of the island of Cebu, he set about converting the natives to Christianity. The king, greatly impressed by the wonders the white man did, consented. A bonfire was lighted, the idols were thrown in, a cross was set up, and the natives were baptized. This done, the king called on Magellan to help him attack the chief of a neighboring island; but in the attack Magellan was killed and his men put to flight. This defeat so angered the king that he invited thirty Spaniards to a feast, massacred them, cut down the cross, and again turned pagan.

[12] Read the account in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. II, pp. 190-211.

[13] Juan Ponce de Leon had sailed with Columbus on his second voyage, and had settled in Haiti. Hearing that there was gold in Porto Rico, he explored it for Spain, in 1509 was made its governor, and in 1511 founded the city of San Juan (sahn hoo-ahn'). After he was removed from the governorship, he obtained leave to search for the island of Bimini.

[14] He now obtained authority to colonize the supposed island; but several years passed before he was ready to make the attempt. He then set off with arms, tools, horses, and two hundred men, landed on the west coast of Florida, lost many men in a fight with the Indians, and received a wound of which he died soon after in Cuba.

[15] The story of this remarkable march across the continent is told in The Spanish Pioneers, by C. F. Lummis.

[16] There was a tradition in Europe that when the Arabs conquered Spain in the eighth century, a certain bishop with a goodly following fled to some islands far out in the Sea of Darkness and founded seven cities. When the Spaniards came in contact with the Indians of Mexico, they were told of seven caves from which the ancestors of the natives had issued, and jumped to the conclusion that the seven caves were the seven cities; and when Cabeza de Vaca came with his story of the wonderful cities of the north, it was believed that they were the towns built by the bishop.

[17] At an Indian village in Mexico, Marcos heard of a country to the northward where there were seven cities with houses of two, three, and four stories, and that of the chief with five. On the doorsills and lintels of the best houses, he was told, were turquoise stones.

[18] Read The Spanish Pioneers, by C. F. Lummis, pp. 77-88, 101-143. The year that Coronado returned to Mexico (1542) an expedition under Cabrillo (kah-breel'yo) coasted from Mexico along what is now California. Cabrillo died in San Diego harbor.

[19] Hernando de Soto was born about 1500 in Spain, and when of age went to Panama and thence to Peru with Pizarro. In the conquest of Peru he so distinguished himself that on returning to Spain he was made governor of Cuba.

[20] Landing on this spot, Cartier set forth to visit the great Indian village of Hochelaga. He found it surrounded with a palisade of tree trunks set in three rows. Entering the narrow gate, he beheld some fifty long houses of sapling frames covered with bark, each containing many fires, one for a family. From these houses came swarms of women and children, who crowded about the visitors, touched their beards, and patted their faces. Soon the warriors came and squatted row after row around the French, for whom mats were brought and laid on the ground. This done, the chief, a paralyzed old savage, was carried in, and Cartier was besought by signs to heal him, and when Cartier had touched him, all the sick, lame, and blind in the village were brought out for treatment. Read Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 187-193.

[21] As Cartier was on his way home he stopped at the harbor of St. Johns in Newfoundland, a harbor then frequented by fishermen from the Old World. There he was met by three ships and 200 colonists under Roberval, who ordered him to return. But one night Cartier slipped away in the darkness. Roberval went on to the site of Quebec and there planted his colony. What became of it is not known; but that it did not last long is certain, and many years passed before France repeated the attempt to gain a foothold on the great river of Canada.

CHAPTER III

FRANCE AND ENGLAND ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA

THE FRENCH IN SOUTH CAROLINA.—After the failure in Canada twenty years passed away before the French again attempted to colonize. Then (1562) Admiral Coligny (co-leen'ye), the leader of the Huguenots, or Protestants of France, sought to plant a colony in America for his persecuted countrymen, and sent forth an expedition under Ribaut (ree-bo'). These Frenchmen reached the coast of Florida, and turning northward came to a haven which they called Port Royal. Here they built a fort in what is now South Carolina. Leaving thirty men to hold it, Ribaut sailed for France. Famine, homesickness, ignorance of life in a wilderness, soon brought the colony to ruin. Unable to endure their hardships longer, the colonists built a crazy boat, [1] put to sea, and when off the French coast were rescued by an English vessel.

[Illustration: THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN THE SOUTH.]

THE FRENCH IN FLORIDA.—Two years later (1564) Coligny tried again, and sent forth a colony under Laudonnière (lo-do-ne-air'). It reached the coast of Florida, and a few miles up the St. Johns River built a fort called Caroline in honor of the French King Charles. The next year there came more colonists under Ribaut. [2]

[Illustration: FORT CAROLINE. From an old print.]

THE SPANIARDS FOUND ST. AUGUSTINE.—Now it so happened that just at this time a Spaniard named Menendez (ma-nen'deth) had obtained leave to conquer and settle Florida. Before he could set off, news came to Spain that the French were on the St. Johns River, and Menendez was sent with troops to drive them out. He landed in Florida in 1565 and built a fort which was the beginning of St. Augustine, the first permanent settlement on the mainland part of the United States. Ribaut at once sailed to attack it. But while he was at sea Menendez marched overland, took Fort Caroline, and put to death every man there, save a few who made good their escape. [3]

SPAIN HOLDS AMERICA.—More than seventy years had now parsed since Columbus made his great voyage of discovery. Yet, save some Portuguese settlements in Brazil, the only European colonies in America were Spanish. From St. Augustine, around the Gulf of Mexico, down South America to the Strait of Magellan and up the west coast to California, save the foothold of Portugal, island and mainland belonged to Spain. And all the rest of North America she claimed.

ENGLISH ATTACKS ON SPAIN IN THE NEW WORLD.—So far in the sixteenth century England had taken little or no part in the work of discovery, exploration, and settlement. Her fishermen came to the Banks of Newfoundland; but not till 1562, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, did the contact of England with the New World really begin. Then it was that Sir John Hawkins, one of England's great "sea kings," went to Africa, loaded his ships with negroes, sold them to planters in Haiti, and came home with hides and pearls. Such trade for one not a Spaniard was against the law of Spain. But Hawkins cared not, arid came again and again. When foul weather drove him into a Mexican port, the Spaniards sank most of his ships, but Hawkins escaped with two vessels, in one of which was Francis Drake. [4]

Smarting under defeat, Drake resolved to be avenged. Fitting out a little squadron at his own cost, without leave of the queen, Drake (1572) sailed to the Caribbean Sea, plundered Spanish towns along the coast, captured Spanish ships, and went home loaded with gold, silver, and merchandise. [5]

DRAKE SAILS AROUND THE GLOBE.—During this raid on the Spanish coast Drake marched across the Isthmus of Panama and looked down upon Balboa's great South Sea. As he looked, he resolved to sail on it, and in 1577 left England with five ships on what proved to be the greatest voyage since that of Magellan. He crossed the Atlantic, sailed down the coast of South America, and entered the Strait of Magellan. There four ships deserted, but Drake went on alone up the west coast, plundering towns and capturing Spanish vessels. To return the way he came would have been dangerous, for Spanish cruisers lay in wait. Drake, therefore, went on up the coast in search of a passage through the continent to the Atlantic. Coasting as far as southern Oregon and finding no passage, Drake turned southward, entered a harbor, repaired his ship, and then started westward across the Pacific. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, came home by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and won the glory of being the first Englishman to sail around the globe. [6]

[Illustration: DRAKE'S ASTROLABE. Now in Greenwich Hospital, London.]

THE ENGLISH IN THE FAR NORTH.—While Drake was on his voyage around the world, Martin Frob'isher discovered Hudson Strait, [7] and Sir Humphrey Gilbert failed in an attempt to plant a colony somewhere in America. The failure was disheartening. But the return of Drake laden with spoil aroused new interest in America, and (in 1583) Gilbert led a colony to Newfoundland. Disaster after disaster overtook him, and while he was on his way home with two vessels (all that were left of five), one with Gilbert on board went down at sea. [8]

THE ENGLISH ON ROANOKE ISLAND.—The work of colonization then passed to Sir Walter Raleigh, a half-brother of Gilbert. He began by sending out a party of explorers who sailed along the coast of North Carolina and brought back such a glowing description of the country that the queen named it Virginia and Raleigh chose it for the site of a colony. [9]

In 1585, accordingly, a party of men commanded by Ralph Lane were landed on Roanoke Island (map, p. 44). But the site proved to be ill chosen, and the Indians were hostile. The colonists were poorly fitted to live in a wilderness, and were almost starving when Drake, who stopped at Roanoke (1586) to see how they were getting on, carried them back to England. [10]

[Illustration: RALEIGH'S PIPES.]

THE LOST COLONY.—Not long after Drake sailed away with the colonists, a party of recruits arrived with supplies. Finding the island deserted, fifteen men remained to hold the place in the queen's name, and the rest returned to England. Not disheartened by these reverses, Raleigh summoned some men of influence to his aid, and (in 1587) sent out a third party of settlers, both men and women, in charge of John White. This party was to stop at Roanoke Island, pick up the fifteen men there, and then go on to Chesapeake Bay. But for some reason the settlers were left on the island by the convoy, and there they were forced to stay. [11]

[Illustration: INDIANS IN A DUGOUT CANOE. Part of a drawing by John
White.]

White very soon went back to England for help, in the only ship the colonists had. War with Spain prevented his return for several years, and then only the ruins of the settlement were found on the island. [12]

[Illustration: ENGLISH DRESS, SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Contemporary portrait of
Raleigh and his son, by Zuccaro.]

SPAIN ATTACKS ENGLAND.—The war which prevented White from promptly returning to Roanoke began in 1585. The next year, with twenty-five ships, Drake attacked the possessions of Spain in America, and burned and plundered several towns. In 1587 he "singed the beard of the king of Spain" by burning a hundred vessels in the harbor of the Spanish city of Cadiz.

Enraged by these defeats, King Philip II of Spain determined to invade England and destroy that nest of sea rovers. A great fleet known as the Invincible Armada, carrying thirty thousand men, was assembled and in 1588 swept into the English channel. There the English, led by Raleigh, [13] Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Lane, and all the other great sea kings, met the Armada, drove it into the North Sea, and captured, burned, and sank many of the ships. The rest fled around Scotland, on whose coast more were wrecked. Less than half the Armada returned to Spain. [14]

THE ENGLISH EXPLORE THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.—The war lasted sixteen years longer (till 1604). Though it delayed, it did not stop, attempts at colonization. In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold, with a colony of thirty-two men, sailed from England, saw the coast of Maine, turned southward, named Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands, [15] and after a short stay went home. The next year Martin Pring came with two vessels on an exploring and trading voyage; and in 1605 George Weymouth was sent out, visited the Kennebec River in Maine, and brought back a good report of the country.

THE VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1606.—Peace had now been made with Spain; England had not been forced to stop her attempts to colonize in America; the favorable reports of Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth led to the belief that colonies could be successfully planted; and in 1606 King James I chartered two commercial companies to colonize Virginia, as the Atlantic seaboard region was called.

To the first or London Company was granted the right to plant a colony anywhere along the coast between 34° and 41° of north latitude (between Cape Fear River and the Hudson). To the second or Plymouth Company was given the right to plant a colony anywhere between 38° and 45° (between the Potomac River and the Bay of Fundy). Each company was to have a tract of land one hundred miles square—fifty miles along the coast each way from the first settlement and one hundred miles inland; and to prevent overlapping, it was provided that the company last to settle should not locate within one hundred miles of the other company's settlement.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA.]

THE COLONY ON THE KENNEBEC.—The charter having been granted, each company set about securing emigrants. To get them was not difficult, for in England at that day there were many people whose condition was so desperate that they were glad to seek a new home beyond the sea. [16] In a few months, therefore, the Plymouth Company sent out its first party of colonists; but the ship was seized by the Spaniards. The next year (1607) the company sent out one hundred or more settlers in two ships. They landed in August at the mouth of the Kennebec River, and built a fort, a church, a storehouse, and fifteen log cabins. These men were wholly unfit for life in a wilderness, and in December about half went home in the ships in which they came. The others passed a dismal winter, and when a relief ship arrived in the spring, all went back, and the Plymouth Company's attempt to colonize ended in failure.

THE COLONY ON THE JAMES.—Meanwhile another band of Englishmen (one hundred and forty-three in number) had been sent out by the London Company to found a colony in what is now Virginia. They set sail in December, 1606, in three ships under Captain Newport, and in April, 1607, reached the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Sailing westward across the bay, the ships entered a river which was named the James in honor of the king, and on the bank of this river the party landed and founded Jamestown (map, p. 44). With this event began the permanent occupation of American soil by Englishmen. At this time, more than a hundred years after the voyages of Columbus, the only other European settlers on the Atlantic coast of the United States were the Spaniards in Florida.

[Illustration: RUINS AT JAMESTOWN. Church tower as it looks to-day.]

SUMMARY

1. The Huguenots tried to found French colonies on the coast of South Carolina (1562) and of Florida (1564); but both attempts failed.

2. In 1565 all America, save Brazil, either was in Spanish hands, or was claimed by Spain and not yet occupied.

3. During the next twenty years English sailors began to fight Spaniards, Drake sailed around the globe, Frobisher explored the far north, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert attempted to plant a colony in Newfoundland.

4. Gilbert's half-brother Raleigh then took up the work of colonization, but his attempts to plant a colony at Roanoke Island ended in failure.

5. The attacks of English buccaneers on the American colonies of Spain led to a war (1585-1604), in which the most memorable event was the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

6. After the war two companies were chartered to plant English colonies in America. The Plymouth Company's colony was a failure, but in 1607 the London Company founded Jamestown.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The forests supplied the trees for timbers. The seams were calked with the moss that hung in clusters from the branches, and then smeared with pitch from the pines. The Indians made them a rude sort of rope for cordage, and for sails they sewed together bedding and shirts. On the voyage home they ate their shoes and leather jerkins. Read Kirk Munroe's Flamingo Feather.

[2] These men were adventurers, not true colonists, and little disposed to endure the toil, hunger, and dreariness of a life in the wilderness. It was not long, therefore, before the boldest of them seized two little vessels and sailed away to plunder Spaniards in the West Indies. Famine drove them into Havana, where to save their necks they told what was going on in Florida. Sixty-six mutineers presently seized two other vessels and turned buccaneers. But the survivors were forced to return to Fort Caroline, where the leaders were put to death.

[3] Some of these and many others, who were shipwrecked with Ribaut, afterward surrendered and were killed. As Florida was considered Spanish territory the French had no right to settle there, so the French king did nothing more than protest to Spain. Read the story of the French in Florida as told by Parkman, in Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 28-162.

[4] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 19-20.

[5] Read Kingsley's Westward Ho! and Barnes's Drake and his Yeomen. On returning to England in 1573, Drake reached Plymouth on a Sunday, during church time. So great was the excitement that the people left the church during the sermon, in order to get sight of him.

[6] On his return in 1580 Queen Elizabeth knighted Drake on his own deck. A chair made from the timbers of his vessel (the Golden Hind) is now at Oxford. Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 26-28.

[7] In 1576 Frobisher, when in search of a northwest passage to China, made his way through Arctic ice to the bay which now bears his name. Two more voyages were made to the far north in search of gold.

[8] The ships were overtaken off the Azores by a furious gale. Gilbert's vessel was a very little one, so he was urged to come aboard his larger consort; but he refused to desert his companions, and replied, "Do not fear; heaven is as near by water as by land."

[9] Queen Elizabeth had declared she would recognize no Spanish claim to American territory not founded on discovery and settlement. Raleigh was authorized, therefore, to hold by homage heathen lands, not actually possessed and inhabited by Christian people, which he might discover within the next six years.

[10] The colonists took home some tobacco, which at that time was greatly prized in England. When Columbus reached the island of Cuba in 1492, two of his followers, sent on an errand into the interior, met natives who rolled certain dried leaves into tubes, and, lighting one end with a firebrand, drew the smoke into their bodies and puffed it out. This was the first time that Europeans had seen cigars smoked. The Spaniards carried tobacco to Europe, and its use spread rapidly. There is a story to the effect that a servant entering a room one morning and seeing smoke issuing from Raleigh's mouth, thought he was on fire and dashed water in his face.

[11] On Roanoke Island, August 18, 1587, a girl was born and named Virginia. She was the granddaughter of Governor White and the daughter of Eleanor and Ananias Dare, and the first child of English parents born on the soil of what is now the United States.

[12] The settlers had agreed that if they left Roanoke before White returned, the name of the place to which they went should be cut on a tree, and a cross added if they were in distress. When White returned the blockhouse was in ruins, and cut on a tree was the name of a near-by island. A storm prevented the ship going thither, and despite White's protests he was carried back to England. What became of the colony, no man knows.

[13] Raleigh was an important figure in English history for many years after the failure of his Roanoke colony. When Queen Elizabeth died (1603), he fell into disfavor with her successor, King James I. He was falsely accused of treason and thrown into prison, where he remained during twelve years. There he wrote his History of the World. After a short period of liberty, Raleigh was beheaded. As he stood on the scaffold he asked for the ax, and said, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases."

[14] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 33-38.

[15] The Elizabeth Islands are close to the south coast of Massachusetts. A few miles farther south Gosnold found another small island which he named Marthas Vineyard. Later explorers by mistake shifted the name Marthas Vineyard to a large island near by, and the little island which Gosnold found is now called No Mans Land (map, p. 59).

[16] The industrial condition of England was changing. The end of the long war with Spain had thrown thousands of soldiers out of employment; the turning of plow land into sheep farms left thousands of laborers without work; manufactures were still in too primitive a state to provide employment for all who needed it.

CHAPTER IV

THE ENGLISH ON THE CHESAPEAKE

LIFE AT JAMESTOWN.—The colonists who landed at Jamestown in 1607 were all men. While some of them were building a fort, Captain Newport, with Captain John Smith and others, explored the James River and visited the Powhatan, chief of a neighboring tribe of Indians. This done, Newport returned to England (June, 1607) with his three ships, leaving one hundred and five colonists to begin a struggle for life. Bad water, fever, hard labor, the intense heat of an American summer, and the scarcity of food caused such sickness that by September more than half the colonists were dead. [1] Indeed, had it not been for Smith, who got corn from the Indians and directed affairs in general, the fate of Jamestown might have been that of Roanoke. [2] As it was, but forty were alive when Newport returned In January, 1608, with the "first supply" of one hundred and twenty men.

[Illustration: SMITH IN SLAVERY. Picture in one of his books.]

[Illustration: POWHATAN'S COAT. Now in a museum at Oxford.]

THE COMPANY'S ORDERS.—Newport was ordered to bring back a cargo. So while some of the colonists cut down cedar and black walnut trees and made clapboards, others loaded the ship with glittering sand which they thought was gold dust. These labors drew the men away from agriculture, and only four acres were planted with corn.

In September Newport was back again with the "second supply" of seventy persons; two of them were women. This time he was ordered to crown the Powhatan, and to find a gold mine, discover a passage to the South Sea, or find Raleigh's lost colony. Smith laughed at these orders. But they had to be obeyed; so several parties went southward in search of the lost colony, but found it not; Newport went westward beyond the falls of the James in search of the passage; and the Powhatan was duly crowned and dressed in a crimson robe. [3] No gold mine could be found, so Newport sailed for England with a cargo of pitch, tar, and clapboards.

SMITH RULES THE COLONY.—By this time Smith had become president of the council for the government of the colony. He decreed that those who did not work should not eat; and by spring his men had dug a well, shingled the church, put up twenty cabins, and cleared and planted forty acres of corn. Yet, despite all he could do, the colony was on the verge of ruin when in August, 1609, seven ships landed some three hundred men, women, and children known as the "third supply." [4]

JAMESTOWN ABANDONED.—And now matters went from bad to worse. The leaders quarreled; Smith was injured and had to go back to England; the Indians became hostile; food became scarce; and when at last neither corn nor roots could be had, the colonists began to suffer the horrors of famine. During that awful winter, long known as "the starving time," cold, famine, and the Indians swept away more than four hundred. When Newport arrived in May, 1610, only sixty famishing creatures inhabited Jamestown. To continue the colony seemed hopeless; and going on board the ships (June, 1610), the colonists set sail for England and had gone well down the James when they met Lord Delaware with three well-provisioned ships coming up. [5]

JAMESTOWN RESETTLED.—Lord Delaware had come out as governor under a new charter granted to the London Company in 1609. This is of interest because it gave to the colony an immense domain of which we shall hear more after Virginia became a state. This domain extended from Point Comfort, two hundred miles up and two hundred miles down the coast, and then "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest."

After the meeting between the departing settlers and the newcomers under Delaware, the whole band returned to Jamestown and began once more the struggle for existence.

PROSPERITY BEGINS.—Delaware, who soon went back to England, left Sir Thomas Dale in command, and under him the colony began to prosper. Hitherto the colonists had lived as communists. The company owned all the land, and whatever food was raised was put into the public granary to be divided among the settlers, share and share alike. Dale changed this system, and the old planters were given land to cultivate for themselves. The effect was magical. Men who were lazy when toiling as servants of the company, become industrious when laboring for themselves, and prosperity began in earnest.

More settlers soon arrived with a number of cows, goats, and oxen, and the little colony began to expand. When Dale's term as acting governor ended in 1616, Virginia contained six little settlements besides Jamestown. The next governor, Yeardley, introduced the cultivation of tobacco, which was now much used in Europe and commanded a high price.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA (from 1609 to 1624).]

THE FIRST REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY.—Yeardley was succeeded (1617) by Argall, who for two years ruled Virginia with a rod of iron. So harsh was his rule that the company was forced to recall him and send back Yeardley. Yeardley came with instructions to summon a general assembly, and in July, 1619, the first legislative body in America met in the little church at Jamestown; eleven boroughs were represented. Each sent two burgesses, as they were called, and these twenty-two men made the first House of Burgesses, and had power to enact laws for the colony. [6]

SLAVERY INTRODUCED.—Another event which makes 1619 a memorable year in our history was the arrival at Jamestown of a Dutch ship with a cargo of African negroes for sale. Twenty were bought, and the institution of negro slavery was planted in Virginia. This seemed quite proper, for there were then in the colony many white slaves, or bond servants—men bound to service for a term of years. The difference between one of these and an African negro slave was that the white man served for a short time, and the negro during his life. [7]

A CARGO OF MAIDS.—Yet another event which makes 1619 a notable year in Virginian history was the arrival of a ship with ninety young women sent out by the company to become wives of the settlers. The early comers to Virginia had been "adventurers," that is, men seeking to better their fortunes, not intending to live and die in Virginia, but hoping to return to England in a few years rich, or at least prosperous. That the colony with such a shifting population could not prosper was certain. Virginia needed homes. The mass of the settlers were unmarried, and the company very wisely determined to supply them with wives. The ninety young women sent over in 1619, and others sent later, were free to choose their own husbands: but each man, on marrying one of them, had to pay one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco for her passage to Virginia.

[Illustration: THE MAIDS ARRIVE IN VIRGINIA.]

THE CHARTER TAKEN AWAY.—For Virginia the future now looked bright. Her tobacco found ready sale in England at a large profit. The right to make her own laws gave promise of good government. The founding of home ties could not fail to produce increased energy on the part of the settlers. But trouble was brewing for the London Company. The king was quarreling with a part of his people, and the company was in the hands of his opponents. Looking upon it as a "seminary of sedition," King James secured (1624) the destruction of the charter, and Virginia became a royal province. [8]

STATE OF THE COLONY IN 1624.—The colony of Virginia when deprived of its charter was a little community of some four thousand souls, scattered in plantations on and near the James River. Let us go back to those times and visit one of the plantations. The home of the planter is a wooden house with rough-hewn beams and unplaned boards, surrounded by a high stockade. Near by are the farm buildings and the cabins of his bond servants. His books, his furniture, his clothing and that of his family, have all come from England. So also have the farming implements and very likely the greater part of his cows and pigs. On his land are fields of wheat and barley and Indian corn; but the chief crop is tobacco. [9]

EFFECTS OF TOBACCO PLANTING.—As time passed and the Virginians found that the tobacco always brought a good price in England, they made it more and more the chief crop. This powerfully affected the whole character of the colony. It drew to Virginia a better class of settlers, who came over to grow rich as planters. It led the people to live almost exclusively on plantations, and prevented the growth of large towns. Tobacco became the currency of the colony, and salaries, wages, and debts were paid, and taxes levied, and wealth and income estimated, in pounds of tobacco.

FEW ROADS IN VIRGINIA.—As there were few towns, [10] so there were few roads. The great plantations lay along the river banks. It was easy, therefore, for a planter to go on visits of business or pleasure in a sailboat or in a barge rowed by his servants. The fine rivers and the location of the plantations along their banks enabled each planter to have his own wharf, to which came ships from England laden with tables, chairs, cutlery, tools, rich silks, and cloth, everything the planter needed for his house, his family, his servants, and his plantation, all to be paid for with casks of tobacco.

[Illustration: FOUNDATIONS AT JAMESTOWN.]

GOVERNOR BERKELEY.—Despite the change from rule by the company to rule by the king, Virginia grew and prospered. When Sir William Berkeley came over as governor (in 1642), her English population was nearly fifteen thousand and her slaves three hundred, and many of her planters were men of much wealth. Berkeley's first term as governor (1642-1652) covered the period of the Civil War in England.

CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND.—When King James died (in 1625) he was succeeded by Charles I, under whom the old quarrel between the king and the people, which had caused the downfall of the London Company, was pushed into civil war. In 1642 Charles I took the field, raised the royal standard, and called all loyal subjects to its defense. The Parliament of England likewise raised an army, and after varying fortunes the king was defeated, captured, tried for high treason, found guilty, and beheaded (1649). England then became a republic, called the Commonwealth.

THE CAVALIERS.—While the Civil War was raging in England, Virginia (largely because of the influence of Governor Berkeley) remained loyal to the king. As the war went on and the defeats of the royal army were followed by the capture of the king, numbers of his friends, the Cavaliers, fled to Virginia. After Charles I was beheaded, more than three hundred of the nobility, gentry, and clergy of England came over in one year. No wonder, then, that the General Assembly recognized the dead king's son as King Charles II, and made it treason to doubt his right to the throne. Because of this support of the royal cause, Parliament punished Virginia by cutting off her trade, and ordered that steps be taken to reduce her to submission. A fleet was accordingly dispatched, reached Virginia early in 1652, and forced Berkeley to hand over the government to three Parliamentary commissioners. One of them was then elected governor, and Virginia had almost complete self-government till 1660, when England again became a kingdom, under Charles II.

MARYLAND, THE FIRST PROPRIETARY COLONY.—When Virginia became crown property (1624), the king could do with it what he pleased. King Charles I accordingly cut off a piece and gave it to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore. [11] This Lord Baltimore was a Catholic who had tried in vain to found a settlement in Newfoundland. He died before the patent, or deed, was drawn for the land cut off from Virginia, so (1632) it was issued to his son Cecilius, the second Lord Baltimore. The province lay north of the Potomac River and was called Maryland.

[Illustration: MARYLAND BY THE ORIGINAL PATENT.]

By the terms of the grant Lord Baltimore was to pay the king each year two arrowheads in token of homage, and as rent was to give the king one fifth of all the gold and silver mined. This done, he was proprietor of Maryland. He might coin money, grant titles, make war and peace, establish courts, appoint judges, and pardon criminals. But he was not allowed to tax the people without their consent. He had to summon a legislature to assist him in making laws, but the laws when made did not need to be sent to the king for approval.

THE FIRST SETTLERS.—The first settlement was made by a company of about twenty gentlemen and three hundred artisans and laborers. They were led and accompanied by two of Lord Baltimore's brothers, and by two Catholic priests. They came over in 1634 in two ships, the Ark and the Dove, and not far from the mouth of the Potomac founded St. Marys. In February, 1635, they held their first Assembly. To it came all freemen, both landholders and artisans, and by them a body of laws was framed and sent to the proprietor (Lord Baltimore) for approval.

SELF-GOVERNMENT BEGUN.—This was refused, and in its place the proprietor sent over a code of laws, which the Assembly in its turn rejected. The Assembly then went on and framed another set of laws. Baltimore with rare good sense now yielded the point, and gave his brother authority to assent to the laws made by the people, but reserved the right to veto. Thus was free self-government established in Maryland. [12]

TROUBLE WITH CLAIBORNE.—Before Lord Baltimore obtained his grant, William Claiborne, of Virginia, had established an Indian trading post on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay. This fell within the limits given to Maryland; but Claiborne refused to acknowledge the authority of Baltimore, whereupon a vessel belonging to the Kent Island station was seized by the Marylanders for trading without a license. Claiborne then sent an armed boat with thirty men to capture any vessel belonging to St. Marys. This boat was itself captured, instead; but another fight soon occurred, in which Claiborne's forces beat the Marylanders. The struggle thus begun lasted for years. [13]

THE TOLERATION ACT.—The year 1649 is memorable for the passage of the Maryland Toleration Act, the first of its kind in our history. This provided that "no person or persons whatsoever within this province, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any ways troubled, molested, or discountenanced for, or in respect to, his or her religion."

END OF THE CLAIBORNE TROUBLE.—The nine years that followed formed a stormy period for Maryland. One of the parliamentary commissioners to reduce Virginia to obedience (1652, p. 49) was our old friend Claiborne. He and the new governor of Virginia forced Baltimore's governor to resign, and set up a Protestant government which repealed the Toleration Act and disfranchised Roman Catholics. Baltimore bade his deposed governor resume office. A battle followed, the Protestant forces won, and an attempt was made to destroy the rights of Baltimore; but the English government sustained him, the Virginians were forced to submit, and the quarrel of more than twenty years' standing came to an end. Thenceforth Virginia troubled Maryland no more.

GROWTH OF MARYLAND.—The population of the colony, meantime, grew rapidly. Pamphlets describing the colony and telling how to emigrate and acquire land were circulated in England. Many of the first comers wrote home and brought out more men, and were thus enabled to take up more land. Emigrants who came with ten or twenty settlers were given manors or plantations. Such as came alone received farms.

Most of the work on plantations was done by indented white servants, both convicts and redemptioners. [14] Negro slavery existed in Maryland from the beginning, but slaves were not numerous till after 1700.

[Illustration: HAND LOOM. [15]]

Food was abundant, for the rivers and bay abounded with geese and ducks, oysters and crabs, and the woods were full of deer, turkeys, and wild pigeons. Wheat was not plentiful, but corn was abundant, and from it were made pone, hominy, and hoe-cakes.

NO TOWNS.—As everybody could get land and therefore lived on manors, plantations, or farms, there were practically no towns in Maryland. Even St. Marys, so late as 1678, was not really a town, but a string of some thirty houses straggling for five miles along the shore. The bay with its innumerable creeks, inlets, coves, and river mouths, afforded fine water communication between the farms and plantations; and there were no roads. As in Virginia, there was no need of shipping ports. Vessels came direct to manor or plantation wharf, and exchanged English goods for tobacco or corn. Such farmers or planters as had no water communication packed their tobacco in a hogshead, with an axle through it, and with an ox or a horse in a pair of shafts, or with a party of negro slaves or white servants, rolled it to market.

SUMMARY

1. The struggle of the Jamestown colony for life was a desperate one. For two years it was preserved by Captain John Smith's skillful leadership, and the frequent reinforcements and supplies sent over by the London Company; but in 1610 the settlers started to leave the country.

2. The arrival of Lord Delaware saved the colony. He brought out news of a new charter (1609) which greatly extended the domain of the company.

3. The settlers were now given land of their own, tobacco was grown, more settlements were planted, and prosperity began.

4. In 1619 slavery was introduced; a shipload of young women arrived; and a representative government was established.

5. In 1624 Virginia became a royal colony.

6. During the Civil War in England many Cavaliers came to Virginia.

7. King Charles I cut off a part of Virginia to make (1632) the proprietary colony of Maryland. The new province was given to Lord Baltimore, who founded (1634) a colony at St. Marys.

8. Claiborne, a Virginian, denied the authority of Baltimore, and kept up a struggle against him for many years.

9. In both Maryland and Virginia the people lived on large plantations, and there were few towns. Travel was mostly by water, and there were no good roads.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 96-98.

[2] Captain John Smith was born in England in 1580. At an early age he was a soldier in France and in the Netherlands; then after a short stay in England he set off to fight the Turks. In France he was robbed and left for dead, but reached Marseilles and joined a party of pilgrims bound to the Levant. During a violent storm the pilgrims, believing he had caused it, threw him into the sea. But he swam to an island, and after many adventures was made a captain in the Venetian army. The Turks captured him and sold him into slavery, but he killed his master, escaped to a Russian fortress, made his way through Germany, France, Spain, and Morocco, and reached England in time to go out with the London Company's colony. His career in Virginia was as adventurous as in the Old World. While exploring the Chickahominy River he and his companions were taken by the Indians. Lest they should kill him at once Smith showed them a pocket compass with its quivering needle always pointing north. They could see, but could not touch it because of the glass. Supposing him a wizard, they took him to the Powhatan. According to Smith's account two stones were brought and Smith's head laid upon them, while warriors, club in hand, stood near by to beat out his brains. But suddenly the chief's little daughter, Pocahontas, rushed in and laid her head on Smith's to shield him. He was given his life and sent back to Jamestown.

[3] Smith and Newport visited the old chief at his village of Werowocomoco, took off the Powhatan's raccoon-skin coat, and put on the crimson robe. When they told him to kneel, he refused. Two men thereupon seized him by the shoulders and forced him to bend his knees, and the crown was clapped on his head. The Powhatan then took off his old moccasins and sent them, with his raccoon-skin coat, to his royal brother in London.

[4] They were part of a body of some five hundred in nine ships which left England in June. On the way over a storm scattered the fleet; one ship was lost, and another bearing the leaders of the expedition was wrecked on the Bermudas. The shipwrecked colonists spent ten months building two little vessels, in which they reached Jamestown in May, 1610.

[5] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 152-155.

[6] The governor, the council, and the House of Burgesses constituted the General Assembly. Any act of the Assembly might be vetoed by the governor, and no law was valid till approved by the "general court" of the company at London. Neither was any law made by the company for the colony valid till approved by the Assembly. After 1660 the House of Burgesses consisted of two delegates from each county, with one from Jamestown.

[7] For some years to come the slaves increased in numbers very slowly. So late as 1671, when the population of Virginia was 40,000, there were but 2000 slaves, while the bond servants numbered 6000. Some of these indentured servants, as they were called, were persons guilty of crime in England, who were sent over to Virginia and sold for a term of years as a punishment. Others—the "redemptioners"—were men who, in order to pay for their passage to Virginia, agreed to serve the owner or the captain of the ship for a certain time. On reaching Virginia the captain could sell them to the planters for the time specified; at the end of the time they became freemen.

[8] That is, the unoccupied land became royal domain again, and the king appointed the governors and controlled the colony through a committee of his privy council. One unhappy result of the downfall of the London Company was the defeat of a plan for establishing schools in Virginia. As early as 1621 some funds were raised for "a public free school," in Charles City. A tract of land was also set apart in the city of Henricus for a college, and a rector, or president, was sent out to start it. But he was killed by the Indians in 1622, and before the company had found a successor the charter was destroyed. Virginia's first college—William and Mary—was established at Williamsburg in 1693.

[9] Read the description of early Virginia in J. E. Cooke's Virginia (American Commonwealths Series), pp. 141-157; or Stories of the Old Dominion; or Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. I, pp. 223- 232.

[10] Jamestown was long the chief town of Virginia; but in its best days the houses did not number more than 75 or 80, and the population was not more than 250. In 1676 the church, the House of Burgesses, and the dwellings were burned during Bacon's Rebellion (p. 95). In 1679 the Burgesses ordered Jamestown "to be rebuilt and to be the metropolis of Virginia"; but in 1698 the House of Burgesses was again burned and in 1699 Williamsburg became the seat of government. The ruined church tower (p. 40) is the only structure still standing in Jamestown; but remains of the ancient graveyard, of a mansion built on the foundations of the old House of Burgesses, and some foundations of dwellings may also be seen. The site is cared for by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

[11] George Calvert was the son of a Yorkshire farmer, was educated at Oxford, and went to Parliament in 1604. Becoming a favorite of King James I, he was knighted in 1617, and two years later was made principal Secretary of State. He became a Roman Catholic, although Catholics were then bitterly persecuted in England. Just before the king died, he resigned office, and received the title of Lord Baltimore, the name referring to a town in Ireland. Finding all public offices closed to him because he was a Catholic, Baltimore resolved to seek a home in America.

[12] Baltimore ordered that any colonist who came in the Ark or Dove and brought five men with him should have 2000 acres of land, subject to an annual rent of 400 pounds of wheat. A settler who came in 1635 could have the same amount of land if he brought ten men, but had to pay 600 pounds of wheat a year as rent. Plantations of 1000 acres or more were manors, and the lord of the manor could hold courts.

[13] Claiborne's London partners took possession of Kent Island, and acknowledged the authority of Baltimore; but after the Civil War broke out in England, Claiborne joined forces with a half pirate named Ingle, and recovered the island. For two years Ingle and his crew lorded it over all Maryland, stealing corn, tobacco, cattle, and household goods. Not till 1646, when Calvert received aid from Virginia, was he able to drive out Claiborne and Ingle, and recover the province.

[14] The redemptioners, when their time was out and they became freemen, received a set of tools, clothes, and a year's provisions from their former masters, and fifty acres from the proprietor of the colony.

[15] On such looms skilled servants wove much of the cloth used on the plantation. Similar looms were used in all the colonies.

CHAPTER V

THE ENGLISH IN NEW ENGLAND

NEW ENGLAND NAMED.—While the London Company was planting its colony on the James River, the Plymouth Company sought to retrieve its failure on the Kennebec (p. 39). In 1614 Captain John Smith, who had returned to England from Jamestown, was sent over with two ships to explore. He made a map of the coast from Maine to Cape Cod, [1] and called the country New England. The next year Smith led out a colony; but a French fleet took him prisoner, no settlement was made, and five years passed before the first permanent English colony was planted in the Plymouth Company's grant—by the Separatists.

[Illustration: SMITH'S MAP OF THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.]

THE SEPARATISTS.—To understand who these people were, it must be remembered that during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Protestant Episcopal Church was the Established Church of England, and that severe laws were passed to force all the people to attend its services. But a sect arose which wished to "purify" the church by abolishing certain forms and ceremonies. These people were called Puritans, [2] and were divided into two sects:

1. Those Puritans who wished to purify the Church of England while they remained members of it.

2. The Independents, or Separatists, who wished to separate from that church and worship God in their own way.

The Separatists were cruelly persecuted during Queen Elizabeth's reign, and afterward. One band of them fled to Holland (in 1608), where they found peace; but time passed and it became necessary for them to decide whether they should stay in Holland and become Dutch, or find a home in some land where they might continue to remain Englishmen. They decided to leave Holland, formed a company, and finally obtained leave from the London Company to settle near the mouth of the Delaware River.

[Illustration: BREWSTER'S CHAIR. Now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.]

VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.—Led by Brewster, Bradford, and Standish, a party of Pilgrims sailed from Holland in July, 1620, in the ship Speedwell; were joined in England by a party from London in the Mayflower; and in August both vessels put to sea. But the Speedwell proved unseaworthy, and all put back to Plymouth in England, where some gave up the voyage. One hundred and two held fast to their purpose, and in September set sail in the Mayflower. The voyage was long and stormy, and November came before they sighted a sandy coast far to the northeastward of the Delaware. For a while they strove hard to go southward; but adverse winds drove them back, and they dropped anchor in Cape Cod Bay. [3]

THE LANDING.—The land here was within the territory of the Plymouth Company. The Pilgrims, however, decided to stay and get leave to settle, but this decision displeased some of them. A meeting, therefore, was held in the ship's cabin (November 21, 1620), and the "Mayflower compact," binding all who signed it to obey such government as might be established, was drawn up and signed by forty-one of the sixty-five men on the vessel.

This done, the work of choosing a site for their homes began, and for several weeks little parties explored the coast before one of them entered a harbor and selected a spot which John Smith had named Plymouth. [4] To this harbor the Mayflower was brought, and while the men were busy putting up rude cabins, the women and children remained on the ship.

THE FIRST WINTER was a dreadful one. The Pilgrims lived in crowded quarters, and the effects of the voyage and the severity of the winter sent half of them to their graves before spring. But the rest never faltered, and when the Mayflower returned to England in April, not one of the colonists went back in her. By the end of the first summer a fort had been built on a hill, seven houses had been erected along a village street leading down from the fort to the harbor, six and twenty acres had been cleared, and a bountiful harvest had been gathered. Other Pilgrims came over, the neighboring Indians kept the peace, and the colony was soon prosperous.

[Illustration: SITE OF THE FORT AT PLYMOUTH. In the old "burying ground."]

PLYMOUTH, OR THE OLD COLONY.—As soon as the colony was planted, steps were taken to buy the land on which it stood. The old Plymouth Company (pp. 38, 39), organized in 1606, was succeeded in 1620 by a new corporation called the Council for New England, which received a grant of all the land in America between 40° and 48° of north latitude. From this Council for New England, therefore, the Pilgrims bought as much land as they needed. The king, however, refused to give them a charter, so the people of Plymouth, or the Old Colony as it came to be called, managed their own affairs in their own way for seventy years. At first the men assembled in town meeting, made laws, and elected officers. But when the growth of the colony made such meetings unwieldy, representative government was set up, and each settlement sent two delegates to an assembly.

[Illustration: GRAVE OF MILES STANDISH, near Plymouth.]

THE SALEM COLONY.—Shortly after 1620, attempts were made to plant other colonies in New England. [5] Most of them failed, but some of the colonists made a settlement called Naumkeag. Among those who watched these attempts with great interest was John White, a Puritan rector in England. He believed that the time had come for the Puritans to do what the Separatists had done. The quarrel between the king and the Puritans was then becoming serious, and the time seemed at hand when men who wished to worship God according to their conscience would have to seek a home in America. White accordingly began to urge the planting of a Puritan colony in New England. So well did he succeed that an association was formed, a great tract of land was obtained from the Council for New England, and in 1628 sixty men, led by John Endicott, settled at Naumkeag and changed its name to Salem, which means "peace."

THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY.—The members of the association next secured from King Charles I a charter which made them a corporation, called this corporation The Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England, and gave it the right to govern colonies planted on its lands. More settlers with a great herd of cattle were now hurried to Salem, which thus became the largest colony in New England.

[Illustration: THE EARLY NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.]

THE GREAT PURITAN MIGRATION.—The same year (1629) that the charter was obtained, twelve leading Puritans signed an agreement to head an emigration to Massachusetts, provided the charter and government of the company were removed to New England. One of the signers was John Winthrop, and by him in 1630 nearly a thousand Puritans were led to Salem. Thence they soon removed to a little three-hilled peninsula where they founded the town of Boston. More emigrants followed, and before the end of 1630 seventeen ships with nearly fifteen hundred Puritans reached Massachusetts. They settled at Boston, Charlestown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Watertown, and Cambridge.

The charter was brought with them, the meetings of the company were now held in the colony, and so many of the colonists became members of the company that Massachusetts was practically self-governing. Before long a representative government was established in the colony, each town electing members of a legislature called the General Court. Every town also had its local government carried on by town meetings; but only church members were allowed to vote.

MAINE AND NEW HAMPSHIRE.—About two years after the founding of Plymouth, the Council for New England granted to John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges (gor'jess) a large tract of land between the rivers Merrimac and Kennebec. In it two settlements (now known as Portsmouth and Dover) were planted (1623) on the Piscat'aqua River, and some fishing stations on the coast farther north.

In 1629 the province was divided. Mason obtained a patent (or deed) for
the country between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua, and named it New
Hampshire. Gorges received the country between the Piscataqua and the
Kennebec, which was called Maine.

[Illustration: ENGLISH ARMOR. Now in Essex Hall, Salem.]

UNION WITH MASSACHUSETTS.—The towns on the Piscataqua were small fishing and fur-trading stations, and after Mason died (1635) they were left to look out for themselves. With two other New Hampshire towns (Exeter and Hampton) they became almost independent republics. They set up their own governments, made their own laws, and owed allegiance to nobody save the king. Massachusetts, however, claimed as her north boundary an east and west line three miles north of the source of the Merrimac River. [6] She therefore soon annexed the four New Hampshire towns, and gave them representation in her legislature.

If the claim of Massachusetts was valid in the case of the New Hampshire towns, it was equally so for those of Maine. But it was not till 1652, after Gorges was dead and the settlers in Maine (at York, Wells, and Kittery) had set up a government of their own, that these towns were brought under her authority. Later (1677), Massachusetts bought up the claim of the heirs of Gorges, and came into possession of the whole province.

[Illustration: ROGER WILLIAMS FLEES TO THE WOODS.]

RHODE ISLAND.—Among those who came to Salem in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was a Puritan minister named Roger Williams. [7] But he had not been long in the colony when he said things which angered the rulers. He held that all religions should be tolerated; that all laws requiring attendance at church should be repealed; that the land belonged to the Indians and not to the king; and that the settlers ought to buy it from the Indians and not from the king. For these and other sayings Williams was ordered back to England. But he fled to the woods, lived with the Indians for a winter, and in the following summer founded Providence (1636). [8]

And now another disturber appeared in Boston in the person of Anne Hutchinson, [9] and in a little while she and her followers were driven away. Some of them went to New Hampshire and founded Exeter (p. 60), while others with Anne herself went to Rhode Island in Narragansett Bay, and founded Portsmouth and Newport.

For a time each of the little towns, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, arranged its own affairs in its own way, but in 1643 Williams obtained from the English Parliament a charter which united them under the name of The Incorporation of Providence Plantations on the Narragansett Bay in New England.

CONNECTICUT FOUNDED.—Religious troubles did not end with the banishment of Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Many persons objected to the law forbidding any but church members to vote or hold office. So in 1635 and 1636 numbers of people, led by Thomas Hooker and others, went out (from Dorchester, Watertown, and Cambridge) and founded Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford in the Connecticut River valley. Later a party (from Roxbury) settled at Springfield. For a while these four towns were part of Massachusetts. But in 1639 Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield adopted a constitution [10] and founded a republic which they called Connecticut.

THE NEW HAVEN COLONY.—As the quarrel between the Puritans and the king was by this time very bitter, the Puritans continued to come to New England in large numbers. Some of them made settlements on Long Island Sound. A large band under John Davenport founded New Haven (1638). Next (in 1639) Milford and Guilford were started, and then (in 1640) Stamford. In 1643 the four towns joined in a sort of union and took the name New Haven Colony.

[Illustration: PURITAN DRESS.]

THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND.—Thus there were planted in New
England between 1620 and 1643 five distinct colonies, [11] namely: (1)
Plymouth, or the Old Colony, (2) Massachusetts Bay Colony, (3) Rhode
Island, or Providence Plantations, (4) Connecticut, and (5) the New Haven
Colony.

In 1643 four of them—Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven —united for defense against the Indians and the Dutch, [12] and called their league "The United Colonies of New England." This confederation maintained a successful existence for forty-one years.

EFFECT OF THE CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND.—When the New England confederation was formed, the king and the Puritans in old England had come to blows, and civil war was raging there. During the next twenty years no more English colonies were planted in America. War at once stopped the stream of emigrants. The Puritans in England remained to fight the king, and numbers went back from New England to join the Parliamentary army. For the next fifteen years population in New England increased slowly.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.—Life in the New England colonies was very unlike that in Virginia. People dwelt in villages, cultivated small farms, and were largely engaged in trade and commerce. They bartered corn and peas, woolen cloth, and wampum with the Indians for beaver skins, which they sent to England to pay for articles bought from the mother country. They salted cod, dried alewives and bass, made boards and staves for hogsheads, and sent all these to the West Indies to be exchanged for sugar, molasses, and other products of the tropics. They built ships in the seaports where lumber was cheap, and sold them abroad. They traded with Spain and Portugal, England, the Netherlands, and Virginia.

[Illustration: STONE HAND MILL. Brought from England in 1630 and used for grinding flour. Now in Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

SCARCITY OF MONEY.—The colonists brought little money with them, and much of what they brought went back to England to pay for supplies. Buying and trading in New England, therefore, had to be done largely without gold or silver. Beaver skins and wampum, bushels of corn, produce, cattle, and even bullets were used as money and passed at rates fixed by law. [13] In the hope of remedying the scarcity of money, the government of Massachusetts ordered that a mint should be set up, and in 1652 Spanish silver brought from the West Indies was melted and coined into Pine Tree currency. [14]

[Illustration: SPINNING WOOL.]

MANUFACTURES.—That less gold and silver might go abroad for supplies, home manufactures were encouraged by gifts of money, by exemptions of property from taxation, and by excusing workmen from military duty. The cultivation of flax was encouraged, children were taught to spin and weave, and glass works, salt works, and iron furnaces were started.

[Illustration: YARN REEL. [15] In Essex Hall, Salem, Mass.]

On the farms utensils and furniture were generally made in the household. Almost everything was made of wood, as spoons, tankards, pails, firkins, hinges for cupboard and closet doors, latches, plows, and harrows. Every boy learned to use his jack-knife, and could make brooms from birch trees, bowls and dippers and bottles from gourds, and butter paddles from red cherry. The women made soap and candles, carded wool, spun, wove, bleached or dyed the linen and woolen cloth, and made the garments for the family. They knit mittens and stockings, made straw hats and baskets, and plucked the feathers from live geese for beds and pillows.

THE HOUSES.—On the farms the houses of the early settlers were of logs, or were framed structures covered with shingles or clapboards. The tables, chairs, stools, and bedsteads were of the plainest sort, and were often made of puncheons, that is, of small tree trunks split in half. Sometimes the table would be a long board laid across two X supports. This was "the board," around which the family sat at meals. [16] In the better houses in the towns the furniture was of course very much finer.

THE VILLAGES.—The center of village life was the meetinghouse, or church. Near by was the house of the minister, the inn or tavern, and the dwellings of the inhabitants. In early times, if the village was on the frontier or exposed to Indian attack it was guarded by blockhouses surrounded by a high stockade. These "garrison houses," as they were called, were of stone or logs, with the second story projecting over the first, and had loopholes in place of windows. Most of them have long since disappeared, but a few still remain, turned into dwellings. Sometimes there were three or more blockhouses in a village, and to these when the Indians were troublesome the farmers and their families came each night to sleep.

SCHOOLS.-Among the acts passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in early days were several in regard to education. In 1636 four hundred pounds [17] was voted for a public school. Two years later, John Harvard, a former minister, left his library and half his fortune to this school, and in grateful remembrance it was called Harvard College. Thus started, the good work went on. Parents and masters were by law compelled to teach their children and apprentices to read English, know the important laws, and repeat the orthodox catechism. Another law required every town of fifty families to maintain a school for at least six months a year, and every town of two hundred householders a primary and a grammar school, wherein Latin should be taught.

[Illustration: FAIRBANKS HOUSE, NEAR BOSTON. As it looks to-day. Built partly in 1650.]

PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS.—Though the Puritans suffered persecution in the Old World, they had not learned to be tolerant. As we have seen, no man could vote in Massachusetts who was not a member of their church. They drove out Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, and again and again, in later times, banished, or fined, imprisoned, and flogged men and women who wished to worship God in their own way. When two Quaker women arrived (1656), they were sent away and a sharp law was made against their sect. [18] But in spite of all persecution, the Quakers kept coming. At last (in 1659-61) three men and a woman were hanged on Boston Common because they returned after having once been banished. Plymouth and Connecticut also enacted laws against the Quakers. [19]

CONNECTICUT CHARTERED (1662).—By this time the days of Puritan rule in old England were over. In 1660 King Charles II was placed upon the throne of his father. Connecticut promptly acknowledged him as king, and sent her governor, the younger John Winthrop, to London to obtain a charter. He easily secured one (in 1662) which spread the authority of Connecticut over the New Haven Colony, [20] gave her a domain stretching across the continent to the Pacific, and established a government so liberal that the charter was kept in force till 1818. New Haven Colony for a time resisted; but one by one the towns which formed the colony acknowledged the authority of Connecticut.

THE SECOND CHARTER OF RHODE ISLAND.—Rhode Island, likewise, proclaimed the king and sought a new charter. When obtained (in 1663), it defined her boundaries, and provided for a form of government quite as liberal as that of Connecticut. It remained in force one hundred and seventy-nine years.

THE NEW COLONIAL ERA.—From 1640 to 1660 the English colonies in America had been left much to themselves. No new colonies had been founded, and the old ones had managed their own affairs in their own way. But with Charles II a new era opens. Several new colonies were soon established; and though Rhode Island and Connecticut received liberal charters, all the colonies were soon to feel the king's control. As we shall see later, Massachusetts was deprived of her charter; but after a few years she received a new one (1691), which united the Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, and Maine in the one colony of Massachusetts Bay. New Hampshire, however, was made a separate royal province.

SUMMARY

1. In 1620 a body of Separatists reached Cape Cod and founded Plymouth, the first English settlement north of Virginia.

2. Two years later the Council for New England granted land to Gorges and Mason, from which grew Maine and New Hampshire.

3. Between 1628 and 1630 a great Puritan migration established the colony of Massachusetts Bay, which later absorbed Maine and New Hampshire.

4. Religious disputes led to the expulsion of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson from Massachusetts. They founded towns later united (1643) as Providence Plantations (Rhode Island).

5. Other religious disputes led to the migration of people who settled (1635-36) in the Connecticut valley and founded (1639) Connecticut.

6. Between 1638 and 1640 other towns were planted on Long Island Sound, and four of them united (1643) and formed the New Haven Colony.

7. Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven joined in a league —the United Colonies of New England (1643-84).

8. New Haven was united with Connecticut (1662), and Plymouth with Massachusetts (1691), while New Hampshire was made a separate province; so that after 1691 the New England colonies were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

9. The New England colonists lived largely in villages. They were engaged in farming, manufacturing, and commerce.

10. For twenty years, during the Civil War and the Puritan rule in England, the colonies were left to themselves; but in 1660 Charles II became king of England, and a new era began in colonial affairs.

[Illustration: THE CHARTER OAK, HARTFORD, CONN. From an old print.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] On his map Smith gave to Cape Ann, Cape Elizabeth, Charles River, and Plymouth the names they still retain. Cape Cod he called Cape James.

[2] The Puritans were important in history for many years. Most of the English people who quarreled and fought with King James and King Charles were Puritans. In Maryland it was a Puritan army that for a time overthrew Lord Baltimore's government (p. 52).

[3] Read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 79-82.

[4] The little boat or shallop in which they intended to sail along the coast needed to be repaired, and two weeks passed before it was ready. Meantime a party protected by steel caps and corselets went ashore to explore the country. A few Indians were seen in the distance, but they fled as the Pilgrims approached. In the ruins of a hut were found some corn and an iron kettle that had once belonged to a European ship. The corn they carried away in the kettle, to use as seed in the spring. Other exploring parties, after trips in the shallop, pushed on over hills and through valleys covered deep with snow, and found more deserted houses, corn, and many graves; for a pestilence had lately swept off the Indian population. On the last exploring voyage, the waves ran so high that the rudder was carried away and the explorers steered with an oar. As night came on, all sail was spread in hope of reaching shore before dark, but the mast broke and the sail went overboard. However, they floated to an island where they landed and spent the night. On the second day after, Monday, December 21, the explorers reached the mainland. On the beach, half in sand and half in water, was a large bowlder, and on this famous Plymouth Rock, it is said, the men stepped as they went ashore.

[5] As to the early settlements read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 90-95.

[6] The Massachusetts charter granted the land from within three miles south of the Charles River, to within three miles north of the Merrimac River, and all lands "of and within the breadth aforesaid" across the continent.

[7] Roger Williams was a Welshman, had been educated at Cambridge University in England, and had some reputation as a preacher before coming to Boston. There he was welcomed as "a godly minister," and in time was called to a church in Salem; but was soon forced out by the General Court. He then went to Plymouth, where he made the friendship of Mas'sasoit, chief of the Wam-pano'ags, and of Canon'icus, chief of the Narragansetts, and learned their language. In 1633 he returned to Salem, and was again made pastor of a church.

[8] The fate of John Endicott shows to what a result Williams's teaching was supposed to lead. The flag of the Salem militia bore the red cross of St. George. Endicott regarded it as a symbol of popery, and one day publicly cut out the cross from the flag. This was thought a defiance of royal authority, and Endicott was declared incapable of holding office for a year.

[9] Anne Hutchinson held certain religious views on which she lectured to the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church. Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit the colony.

[10] The first written constitution made in our country, and the first in the history of the world that was made by the people, for the people. Other towns were added later, among them Saybrook, which had grown up about an English fort built in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut.

[11] Besides New Hampshire, which in 1643 was practically part of Massachusetts; and Maine, which became so a few years later.

[12] The Dutch, as we shall see in the next chapter, had planted a colony in the Hudson valley, and disputed English possession of the Connecticut.

[13] Students at Harvard College for many years paid their term bills with produce, meat, and live stock. In 1649 a student paid his bill with "an old cow," and the steward of the college made separate credits for her hide, her "suet and inwards." On another occasion a goat was taken and valued at 30 shillings. Taxes also were paid in corn and cattle.

[14] The coins were the shilling, sixpence, threepence, and twopence. On one side of each coin was stamped a rude representation of a pine tree.

[15] On which the yarn was wound after it was spun. For a picture of the loom used in weaving, see p. 52.

[16] On the board were a saltcellar, wooden plates or trenchers, wooden or pewter spoons, and knives, but no china, no glass. Forks, it is said, were not known even in England till 1608, and the first ever seen in New England were at Governor Winthrop's table in 1632. Those who wished a drink of water drank from a single wooden tankard passed around the table; or they went to the bucket and used a gourd.

[17] This was a large sum in those days, and about as much as was raised by taxation in a year. The General Court which voted the money, it has been said, was "the first body in which the people, by their representatives, ever gave their own money to found a place of education."

[18] The Friends, or Quakers, lived pure, upright, simple lives. They protested against all forms and ceremonies, and against all church government. They refused to take any oaths, to use any titles, or to serve in war, because they thought these things wrong. They were much persecuted in England.

[19] Another incident which gives us an insight into the character of these early times is the witchcraft delusion of 1692. Nearly everybody in those days believed in witchcraft, and several persons in the colonies had been put to death as witches. When, therefore, in 1692, the children of a Salem minister began to behave queerly and said that an Indian slave woman had bewitched them, they were believed. But the delusion did not stop with the children. In a few weeks scores of people in Salem were accusing their neighbors of all sorts of crimes and witch orgies. Many declared that the witches stuck pins into them. Twenty persons were put to death as witches before the craze came to an end.

[20] The New Haven Colony was destroyed as a distinct colony because its people offended the king by sheltering Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two of the regicides, or judges who sat in the tribunal that condemned Charles I. When they fled to New England in 1660, a royal order for their arrest was sent over after them, and a hot pursuit began. For a month they lived in a cave, at other times in cellars in Milford, Guilford, and New Haven; and once they hid under a bridge while their pursuers galloped past overhead. After hiding in these ways about New Haven for three years they went to Hadley in Massachusetts, where all trace of them disappears.

CHAPTER VI

THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN COLONIES

THE COMING OF THE DUTCH.—We have now seen how English colonies were planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the country lying between, there came in 1609 an intruder in the form of a little Dutch ship called the Half-Moon. The Dutch East India Company had fitted her out and sent Captain Henry Hudson in her to seek a northeasterly passage to China. Driven back by ice in his attempt to sail north of Europe, Hudson turned westward, and came at last to Delaware Bay. Up this the Half-Moon went a little way, but, grounding on the shoals, Hudson turned about, followed the coast northward, and sailed up the river now called by his name. He went as far as the site of Albany; then, finding that the Hudson was not a passage through the continent, he returned to Europe. [1]

[Illustration: LANDING OF HUDSON. From an old print.]

DISCOVERIES OF BLOCK AND MAY.—The discovery of the Hudson gave Holland or the Netherlands a claim to the country it drained, and year after year Dutch explorers visited the region. One of them, Adrien Block, (in 1614) went through Long Island Sound, ascended the Connecticut River as far as the site of Hartford, and sailed along the coast to a point beyond Cape Cod; Block Island now bears his name. Another, May, went southward, passed between two capes, [2] and explored Delaware Bay. The Dutch then claimed the country from the Delaware to Cape Cod; that is, as far as May and Block had explored.

[Illustration: NEW NETHERLAND.]

THE FUR TRADE.—Important as these discoveries were, they interested the Dutch far less than the prospect of a rich fur trade with the Indians, and in a few years Dutch traders had four little houses on Manhattan Island, and a little fort not far from the site of Albany. From it buyers went out among the Mohawk Indians and returned laden with the skins of beavers and other valuable furs; and to the fort by and by the Indians came to trade. So valuable was this traffic that those engaged in it formed a company, obtained from the Dutch government a charter, and for three years (1615- 18) enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade from the Delaware to the Hudson.

THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY.—When the three years expired the charter
was not renewed; but a new association called the Dutch West India Company
was chartered (1621) and given great political and commercial power over
New Netherland, as the Dutch possessions in North America were now called.
More settlers were sent out (in 1623), some to Fort Orange on the site of
Albany, some to Fort Nassau on the South or Delaware River, some to the
Fresh or Connecticut River, some to Long Island, and some to Manhattan
Island, where they founded the town of New Amsterdam.

[Illustration: DUTCH MERCHANT (1620).]

THE PATROONS.—All the little Dutch settlements were forts or strong buildings surrounded by palisades, and were centers of the fur trade. Very little farming was done. In order to encourage farming, the West India Company (in 1629) offered an immense tract of land to any member of the company who should take out a colony of fifty families. The estate of a Patroon, as such a man was called, was to extend sixteen miles along one bank or eight miles along both banks of a river, and back almost any distance into the country. [3] A number of these patroonships were established on the Hudson.

THE DUTCH ON THE CONNECTICUT.—The first attempt (in 1623) of the Dutch to build a fort on the Connecticut failed; for the company could not spare enough men to hold the valley. But later the Dutch returned, nailed the arms of Holland to a tree at the mouth of the river in token of ownership, and (1633) built Fort Good Hope where Hartford now stands. When the Indians informed the English of this, the governor of Massachusetts bade the Dutch begone; and when they would not go, built a fort higher up the river at Windsor (1633), and another (1635) at Saybrook at the river's mouth, so as to cut them off from New Amsterdam. The English colony of Connecticut was now established in the valley; but twenty years passed before Fort Good Hope was taken from the Dutch.

DUTCH AND SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE.—The Dutch settlers on the Delaware were driven off by Indians, but a garrison was sent back to hold Fort Nassau. Meantime the Swedes appeared on the Delaware. After the organization of the Dutch West India Company (1623), William Usselinex of Amsterdam went to Sweden and urged the king to charter a similar company of Swedish merchants. A company to trade with Asia, Africa, and America was accordingly formed. Some years later Queen Christina chartered the South Company, and in 1638 a colony was sent out by this company, the west bank of the Delaware from its mouth to the Schuylkill (skool'kill) was bought from the Indians, and a fort (Christina) was built on the site of Wilmington. The Dutch governor at New Amsterdam protested, but for a dozen years the Swedes remained unmolested, and scattered their settlements along the shores of Delaware River and Bay, and called their country New Sweden. Alarmed at this, Governor Peter Stuyvesant (sti've-sant) of New Netherland built a fort to cut off the Swedes from the sea. But a Swedish war vessel captured the Dutch fort; whereupon Stuyvesant sailed up the Delaware with a fleet and army, quietly took possession of New Sweden, and made it once more Dutch territory (1655).

DUTCH RULE.—The rulers of New Netherland were a director general, or governor, and five councilmen appointed by the West India Company. One of these governors, Peter Minuit, bought Manhattan (the island now covered by a part of New York city) from the Indians (1626) for 60 guilders, or about $24 of our money. [4]

DEMAND FOR POPULAR GOVERNMENT.—As population increased, the people began to demand a share in the government; they wished to elect four of the five councilmen. A long quarrel followed, but Governor Stuyvesant at last ordered the election of nine men to aid him when necessary. [5]

POPULATION AND CUSTOMS.—Though most of the New Netherlanders were Dutch, there were among them also Germans, French Huguenots, English, Scotch, Jews, Swedes, and as many religious sects as nationalities.

The Dutch of New Netherland were a jolly people, much given to bowling and holidays. They kept New Year's Day, St. Valentine's Day, Easter and Pinkster (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the seventh week after Easter), May Day, St. Nicholas Day (December 6), and Christmas. On Pinkster days the whole population, negro slaves included, went off to the woods on picnics. Kirmess, a sort of annual fair for each town, furnished additional holidays. The people rose at dawn, dined at noon, and supped at six. In no colony were the people better housed and fed.

[Illustration: DUTCH DOOR AND STOOP.]

THE HOUSES stood with their gable ends to the street, and often a beam projected from the gable, by means of which heavy articles might be raised to the attic. The door was divided into an upper and a lower half, and before it was a spacious stoop with seats, where the family gathered on warm evenings.

Within the house were huge fireplaces adorned with blue or pink tiles on which were Bible scenes or texts, a huge moon-faced clock, a Dutch Bible, spinning wheels, cupboards full of Delft plates and pewter dishes, rush- bottom chairs, great chests for linen and clothes, and four-posted bedsteads with curtains, feather beds, and dimity coverlets, and underneath a trundle-bed for the children. A warming pan was used to take the chill off the linen sheets on cold nights. In the houses of the humbler sort the furniture was plainer, and sand on the floors did duty for carpets.

[Illustration: FOUR-POSTED BED, AND STEPS USED IN GETTING INTO IT. In the
Van Cortland Mansion, New York city.]

TRADE AND COMMERCE.—The chief products of the colony were furs, lumber, wheat, and flour. The center of the fur trade was Fort Orange, from which great quantities of beaver and other skins purchased from the Indians were sent to New Amsterdam; and to this port came vessels from the West Indies, Portugal, and England, as well as from Holland. There was scarcely any manufacturing. The commercial spirit of the Dutch overshadowed everything else, and kept agriculture at a low stage.

THE ENGLISH SEIZE NEW NETHERLAND.—The English, who claimed the continent from Maine to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, regarded the Dutch as intruders. Soon after Charles II came to the throne, he granted the country from the Delaware to the Connecticut, with Long Island and some other territory, to his brother James, the Duke of York.

In 1664, accordingly, a fleet was sent to take possession of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant called out his troops and made ready to fight. But the people were tired of the arbitrary rule of the Dutch governors, and petitioned him to yield. At last he answered, "Well, let it be so, but I would rather be carried out dead."

NEW YORK.—The Dutch flag was then lowered, and New Netherland passed into English hands. New Amsterdam was promptly renamed New York; Fort Orange was called Albany; and the greater part of New Netherland became the province of New York. [6]

GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK.—The governor appointed by the Duke of York drew up a code of laws known later as the Duke's Laws. No provision was made for a legislature, nor for town meetings, nor for schools. [7] Government of this sort did not please the English on Long Island and elsewhere. Demands were at once made for a share in the lawmaking. Some of the people refused to pay taxes, and some towns to elect officers, and sent strong protests against taxation without their consent. But nearly twenty years passed before New York secured a representative legislature. [8]

EDUCATION.—In the schools established by the Dutch, the master was often the preacher or the sexton of the Dutch church. Many of the Long Island towns were founded by New Englanders, who long kept up their Puritan customs and methods of education. But outside of New York city and a few other large towns, there were no good schools during the early years of the New York colony.

[Illustration: NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, AND EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA.]

NEW JERSEY.—Before the Duke of York had possession of his province, he cut off the piece between the Delaware River and the lower Hudson and gave it to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley (1664). They named this land New Jersey, and divided it by the line shown on the map into East and West Jersey. Lord Berkeley sold his part—West Jersey—to some Quakers, and a Quaker colony was planted at Burlington. Carteret's portion—East Jersey— was sold after his death to William Penn [9] and other Quakers, who had acquired West Jersey also. In 1702, however, the proprietors gave up their right to govern, and the two colonies were united into the one royal province of New Jersey.

PENNSYLVANIA.—Penn had joined the Friends, or Quakers, when a very young man. The part he took in the settlement of New Jersey led him to think of founding a colony where not only the Quakers, but any others who were persecuted, might find a refuge, and where he might try a "holy experiment" in government after his own ideas. The king was therefore petitioned "for a tract of land in America lying north of Maryland," and in 1681 Penn received a large block of land, which was named Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woodland. [10]

[Illustration: CHARLES II AND PENN.]

PHILADELPHIA FOUNDED.—Having received his charter, Penn wrote an account of his province and circulated it in England, Ireland, Wales, Holland, and Germany. In the autumn of 1681 three shiploads of colonists were sent over. Penn himself came the next spring, and made his way to the spot chosen for the site of Philadelphia. The land belonged to three Swedish brothers; so Penn bought it, and began the work of marking out the streets and building houses. Before a year went by, Philadelphia was a town of eighty houses.

PENN AND THE INDIANS.—In dealing with the Indians the aim of Penn was to make them friends. Before coming over he sent letters to be read to them.. After his arrival he walked with them, sat with them to watch their young men dance, joined in their feasts, and, it is said, planned a sort of court or jury of six whites and six Indians to settle disputes with the natives. In June, 1683, Penn met the Indians and made a treaty which, unlike most other treaties, was kept by both parties.

THE GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA.—As proprietor of Pennsylvania it became the duty of Penn to provide a government for the settlers, which he did in the Frame of Government. This provided for a governor appointed by the proprietor, a legislature of two houses elected by the people, judges partly elected by the people, and a vote by ballot. [11] In 1701 Penn granted a new constitution which kept less power for his governor, and gave more power and rights to the legislature and the people. This was called the Charter of Privileges, and it remained in force as long as Pennsylvania was a colony.

THE "TERRITORIES," OR DELAWARE.—Pennsylvania had no frontage on the sea, and its boundaries were disputed by the neighboring colonies. [12] To secure an outlet to the sea, Penn applied to the Duke of York for a grant of the territory on the west bank of the Delaware River to its mouth, and was granted what is now Delaware. This region was also included in Lord Baltimore's grant of Maryland, and the dispute over it between the two proprietors was not settled till 1732, when the present boundary was agreed upon. Penn intended to add Delaware to Pennsylvania, but the people of these "territories," or "three lower counties," objected, and in 1703 secured a legislature of their own, though they remained under the governor of Pennsylvania.

[Illustration: PENN'S RAZOR, CASE, AND HOT WATER TANK. Now in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

THE PEOPLING OF PENNSYLVANIA.—The toleration and liberality of Penn proved so attractive to the people of the Old World that emigrants came over in large numbers. They came not only from England and Wales, but also from other parts of Europe. In later times thousands of Germans settled in the middle part of the colony, and many Scotch-Irish (people of Scottish descent from northern Ireland) on the western frontier and along the Maryland border.

As a consequence of this great migration Pennsylvania became one of the
most populous of the colonies. It had many flourishing towns, of which
Philadelphia was the largest. This was a fine specimen of a genuine
English town, and was one of the chief cities in English America.

Between the towns lay some of the richest farming regions in America. The Germans especially were fine farmers, raised great crops, bred fine horses, and owned farms whose size was the wonder of all travelers. The laborers were generally indentured servants or redemptioners.

[Illustration: CAROLINA BY THE GRANT OF 1665.]

CAROLINA.—When Charles II became king in 1660, there were only two southern colonies, Virginia and Maryland. Between the English settlements in Virginia and the Spanish settlements in Florida was a wide stretch of unoccupied land, which in 1663 he granted for a new colony called Carolina in his honor. [13]

Two groups of settlements were planted. One in the north, called the Albemarle Colony, was of people from Virginia; the other, in the south, the Carteret Colony, was of people from England, who founded Charleston (1670). John Locke, a famous English philosopher, at the request of the proprietors drew up a form of government, [14] but it was opposed by the colonists and never went into effect. Each colony, however, had its own governor, who was sent out by the proprietors till 1729, when the proprietors surrendered their rights to the king. The province of Carolina was then formally divided into two colonies known as North and South Carolina.

LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA.—The people of North Carolina lived on small farms and owned few slaves. In the towns were a few mechanics and storekeepers, in whose hands was all the commerce of the colony. They bought and sold everything, and supplied the farms and small plantations. In the northern part of the colony tobacco was grown, in the southern part rice and indigo; and in all parts lumber, tar, pitch, and turpentine were produced. Herds of cattle and hogs ran wild in the woods, bearing their owner's brands, to alter which was a crime.

There were no manufactures; all supplies were imported from England or the other colonies. There were few roads. There were no towns, but little villages such as Wilmington, Newbern, and Edenton, the largest of which did not have a population of five hundred souls. As in Virginia, the courthouses were the centers of social life, and court days the occasion of social amusements. Education was scanty and poor, and there was no printing press in the colony for a hundred years after its first settlement.

Much of the early population of North Carolina consisted of indented servants, who, having served out their term in Virginia, emigrated to Carolina, where land was easier to get. Later came Germans from the Rhine country, Scotch-Irish from the north of Ireland, and (after 1745) Scotchmen from the Highlands. [15]

SOUTH CAROLINA.—In South Carolina, also, the only important occupation was planting or farming. Rice, introduced about 1694, was the chief product, and next in importance was indigo. The plantations, as in Virginia, were large and lay along the coast and the banks of the rivers, from which the crops were floated to Charleston, where the planters generally lived. At Charleston the crops were bought by merchants who shipped them to the West Indies and to England, whence was brought almost every manufactured article the people used. Slaves were almost the only laborers, and formed about half the population. Bond servants were nearly unknown. Charleston, the one city, was well laid out and adorned with handsome churches, public buildings, and fine residences of rich merchants and planters.

[Illustration: CHARLESTON IN EARLY TIMES. From an old print.]

THE PIRATES.—During the early years of the two Carolinas the coast was infested with pirates, or, as they called themselves, "Brethren of the Coast." These buccaneers had formerly made their home in the West Indies, whence they sallied forth to prey on the commerce of the Spanish colonies. About the time Charleston was founded, Spain and England wished to put them down. But when the pirates were driven from their old haunts, they found new ones in the sounds and harbors of Carolina, and preyed on the commerce of Charleston till the planters turned against them and drove them off. [16]

GEORGIA CHARTERED.—The thirteenth and last of the English colonies in North America was chartered in 1732. At that time and long afterward, it was the custom in England and the colonies to imprison people for debt, and keep them in jail for life or until the debt was paid. The sufferings of these people greatly interested James Oglethorpe, a gallant English soldier, and led him to attempt something for their relief. His plan was to have them released, provided they would emigrate to America. Others aided him, and in 1732 a company was incorporated and given the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers from their mouths to their sources, and thence across the continent to the Pacific. The new colony was called Georgia, in honor of King George II.

The site of the new colony was chosen in order that Georgia might occupy and hold some disputed territory, [17] and serve as a "buffer colony" to protect Charleston from attacks by the Spaniards and the Indians.

[Illustration: SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER.]

THE SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA.—In 1732 Oglethorpe with one hundred and thirty colonists sailed for Charleston, and after a short stay started south and founded Savannah (1733). The colony was not settled entirely by released English debtors. To it in time came people from New England and the distressed of many lands, including Italians, Germans, and Scottish Highlanders. Oglethorpe's company controlled Georgia twenty years; but the colonists chafed under its rule, so that the company finally disbanded and gave the province back to the king (1752).

Under the proprietors the people were required to manufacture silk, plant vineyards, and produce oil. But the prosperity of Georgia began under the royal government, when the colony settled down to the production of rice, lumber, and indigo. Importation of slaves was forbidden by the proprietors, but under the royal government it was allowed. The towns were small, for almost everybody lived on a small farm or plantation.

SUMMARY

1. While the English were planting the Jamestown colony, the Dutch under
Hudson explored the Hudson River (1609), and a few years later the
Dutchmen May and Block explored also Delaware Bay and the Connecticut
River.

2. The Dutch fur trade was profitable, and in 1621 the Dutch West India Company was placed in control of New Netherland.

3. Settlements were soon attempted and patroonships created; but the chief industry of New Netherland was the fur trade.

4. In 1638 a Swedish colony, called New Sweden, was planted on the Delaware; but it was seized by the Dutch (1655).

5. The English by this time had begun to settle in New England. This led to disputes, and in 1664 New Netherland was seized by the English, arid became a possession of the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II.

6. Most of the province was called New York; but part of it was cut off and given to two noblemen, and became the province of New Jersey.

7. In 1663 and 1665 Charles II made some of his friends proprietors of Carolina, a province later divided into North and South Carolina.

8. In 1681 Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn as a proprietary colony.

9. In order to obtain the right of access to the sea, Penn secured from the Duke of York what is now Delaware.

10. The last of the colonies was Georgia, chartered in 1732.

11. Education scanty and poor. No printing presses for one hundred years after first settlement.

[Illustration: POUNDING CORN.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Henry Hudson was an English seaman who twice before had made voyages to the north and northeastward for an English trading company. Stopping in England on his return from America, Hudson sent a report of his discovery to the Dutch company and offered to go on another voyage to search for the northwest passage. He was ordered to come to Amsterdam, but the English authorities would not let him go. In 1610 he sailed again for the English and entered Hudson Bay, where during some months his ship was locked in the ice. The crew mutinied and put Hudson, his son, and seven sick men adrift in an open boat, and then sailed for England. There the crew were imprisoned. An expedition was sent in search of Hudson, but no trace of him was found.

[2] One of these, Cape May, now bears his name; the other, Cape Henlopen, is called after a town in Holland.

[3] The first patroonship was Swandale, in what is now the state of Delaware; but the Indians were troublesome, and the estate was abandoned. The second, granted to Michael Pauw, included Staten Island and much of what is now Jersey City; it was sold back to the company after a few years. The most successful patroonship was the Van Rensselaer (ren'se-ler) estate on the Hudson near Albany. It extended twenty-four miles along both banks of the river and ran back into the country twenty-four miles from each bank. The family still occupies a small part of the estate.

[4] New Amsterdam was then a cluster of some thirty one-story log houses with bark roofs, and two hundred population engaged in the fur trade. The town at first grew slowly. There were no such persecution and distress in Holland as in England, and therefore little inducement for men to migrate. Minuit was succeeded as governor by Van Twiller (1633), and he by Kieft (1638), during whose term all monopolies of trade were abandoned. The fur trade, heretofore limited to agents of the company, was opened to the world, and new inducements were offered to immigrants. Any farmer who would go to New Netherland was carried free with his family, and was given a farm, with a house, barn, horses, cows, sheep, swine, and tools, for a small annual rent.

[5] From these nine men in time came an appeal to the Dutch government to turn out the company and give the people a government of their own. The first demand was refused, but the second was partly granted; for in 1653 New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city with a popular government.

[6] Read Fiske's Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Vol. I, pp. 286-291. In 1673, England and Holland being at war, a Dutch fleet recaptured New York and named it New Orange, and held it for a few months. When peace was made (1674) the city was restored to the English, and Dutch rule in North America was over forever.

[7] Each town was to elect a constable and eight overseers, with limited powers. Several towns were grouped into a "riding," over which presided a sheriff appointed by the governor. In 1683 the ridings became counties, and in 1703 it was ordered that the people of each town should elect members of a board of supervisors.

[8] In 1683 Thomas Dongan came out as governor, with authority to call an assembly to aid in making laws and levying taxes. Seventeen representatives met in New York, enacted some laws, and framed a Charter of Franchises and Privileges. The duke signed this as proprietor in 1684; but revoked it as King James II.

[9] William Penn was the son of Sir William Penn, an admiral in the navy of the Commonwealth and a friend of Charles II. At Oxford young William Penn was known as an athlete and a scholar and a linguist, a reputation he maintained in after life by learning to speak Latin, French, German, Dutch, and Italian. After becoming a Quaker, he was taken from Oxford and traveled in France, Italy, and Ireland, where he was imprisoned for attending a Quaker meeting. The father at first was bitterly opposed to the religious views of the son, but in the end became reconciled, and on the death of the admiral (in 1670), William Penn inherited a fortune. Thenceforth all his time, means, and energy were devoted to the interests of the Quakers. For a short account of Penn, read Fiske's Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Vol. II, pp. 114-118, 129-130.

[10] Penn intended to call his tract New Wales, but to please the king changed it to Sylvania, before which the king put the name Penn, in honor of Penn's father. The king owed Penn's father £16,000, and considered the debt paid by the land grant.

[11] All laws were to be proposed by the governor and the upper house; but the lower house might reject any of them. At the first meeting of the Assembly Penn offered a series of laws called The Great Law. These provided that all religions should be tolerated; that all landholders and taxpayers might vote and be eligible to membership in the Assembly; that every child of twelve should be taught some useful trade; and that the prisons should be made houses of industry and education.

[12] Pennsylvania extended five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware. The south boundary was to be "a circle drawn at twelve miles' distance from Newcastle northward and westward unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line westward." This was an impossible line, as a circle so drawn would meet neither the thirty-ninth nor the fortieth parallel. Maryland, moreover, was to extend "unto that part of Delaware Bay on the north which lieth under the fortieth degree of north latitude."

Penn held that the words of his grant "beginning of the fortieth degree" meant the thirty-ninth parallel. The Baltimores denied this and claimed to the fortieth. The dispute was finally settled by a compromise line which was partly located (1763-67) by two surveyors, Mason and Dixon. In later days this Mason and Dixon's line became the boundary between the seaboard free and slave-holding states. The north boundary of Pennsylvania was to be "the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude," which, according to Penn's argument in the Maryland case, meant the forty- second parallel, and on this New York insisted.

[13] The grant extended from the 31st to the 36th degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the South Sea; it was given to eight noblemen, friends of the king. In 1665 strips were added on the north and on the south, and Carolina then extended from the parallel of 29 degrees to that of 36 degrees 30 minutes.

[14] This plan, the Grand Model, as it was called, was intended to introduce a queer sort of nobility or landed aristocracy into America. At the head of the state was to be a "palatine." Below him in rank were "proprietaries," "landgraves," "caciques," and the "leetmen" or plain people. Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 271-276.

[15] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 310-319.

[16] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 361-369.

[17] Ever since the early voyages of discovery Spain had claimed the whole of North America, and all of South America west of the Line of Demarcation. But in 1670 Spain, by treaty, acknowledged the right of England to the territory she then possessed in North America. No boundaries were mentioned, so the region between St. Augustine and the Savannah River was left to be contended for in the future. England, in the charter to the proprietors of Carolina (1665), asserted her claim to the coast as far south as 29°. But this was absurd; for the parallel of 29° was south of St. Augustine, where Spain for a hundred years had maintained a strong fort and settlement. The possessions of England really stopped at the Savannah River, and sixty-two years passed after the treaty with Spain (1670) before any colony was planted south of that river.

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE COLONIES WERE GOVERNED

GROUPS OF COLONIES.—It has long been customary to group the colonies in two ways—according to their geographical location, and according to their form of government.

Geographically considered, there were three groups: (1) the Eastern Colonies, or New England—New Hampshire, Massachusetts (including Plymouth and Maine), Rhode Island, and Connecticut; (2) the Middle Colonies—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; and (3) the Southern Colonies—Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. (Map, p. 134.)

Politically considered, there were three groups also—the charter, the royal, and the proprietary. (1) The charter colonies were those whose organization was described in a charter; namely, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. (2) The royal colonies were under the immediate authority of the king and subject to his will and pleasure—New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. [1] (3) In the proprietary colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, authority was vested in a proprietor or proprietaries, who owned the land, appointed the governors, and established the legislatures.

[Illustration: COLONIAL CHAIR. In the possession of the Concord
Antiquarian Society.]

THE FIRST NAVIGATION ACT.—It was from the king that the land grants, the charters, and the powers of government were obtained, and it was to him that the colonists owed allegiance. Not till the passage of the Navigation Acts did Parliament concern itself with the colonies.

The first of these acts, the ordinance of 1651, was intended to cut off the trade of Holland with the colonies. It provided that none but English or colonial ships could trade between England and her colonies, or trade along the coast from port to port, or engage in the foreign trade of the plantations.

THE SECOND NAVIGATION ACT was passed in 1660. It provided (1) that no goods should be imported or exported save in English or colonial ships, and (2) that certain goods [2] should not be sent from the colonies anywhere except to an English port. A third act, passed in 1663, required all European goods destined for the colonies to be first landed in England. The purpose of these acts was to favor English merchants.

THE LORDS OF TRADE.—That the king in person should attend to all the trade affairs of his colonies was impossible. From a very early time, therefore, the management of trade matters was intrusted to a committee appointed by the king, or by Parliament during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. After the restoration of the monarchy (in 1660) this body was known first as the Committee for Foreign Plantations, then as the Lords of Trade, and finally (after 1696) as the Lords of the Board of Trade and Plantations. It was their duty to correspond with the governors, make recommendations, enforce the Navigation Acts, examine all colonial laws and advise the king as to which he should veto or disallow, write the king's proclamations, listen to complaints of merchants,—in short, attend to everything concerning the trade and government of the colonies.

THE COLONIAL GOVERNOR.—The most important colonial official was the governor. In Connecticut and Rhode Island the governor was elected by the people; in the royal colonies and in Massachusetts (after 1684) he was appointed by the king, and in the proprietary colonies by the proprietor with the approval of the king. Each governor appointed by the king recommended legislation to the assemblies, informed the king as to the condition of the colony, sent home copies of the laws, and by his veto prevented the passage of laws injurious to the interests of the crown. From time to time he received instructions as to what the king wished done. He was commander of the militia, and could assemble, prorogue (adjourn), and dismiss the legislature of the colony.

[Illustration: COLONIAL PARLOR (RESTORATION).]

THE COUNCIL.—Associated with the governor in every colony was a Council of from three to twenty-eight men [3] who acted as a board of advisers to the governor, usually served as the upper house of the legislature, and sometimes acted as the highest or supreme court of the colony.

THE LOWER HOUSE of the legislature, or the Assembly,—called by different names in some colonies, as House of Delegates, or House of Commons,—was chosen by such of the people as could vote. With the governor and Council it made the laws, [4] levied the taxes, and appointed certain officers; but (except in Rhode Island and Connecticut) the laws could be vetoed by the governor, or disallowed by the king or the proprietor.

There were many disputes between governor and Assembly, each trying to gain more power and influence in the government. If the governor vetoed many laws, the Assembly might refuse to vote him any salary. If the Assembly would not levy taxes and pass laws as requested by the governor, he might dismiss it and call for the election of a new one.

[Illustration: COLONIAL PEWTER DISHES.]

THE LAWS.—Many of the laws of colonial times seem to us cruel and severe. A large number of crimes were then punishable with death. For less serious offenses men and women had letters branded on their foreheads or cheeks or hands, or sewed on their outer garments in plain sight; or were flogged through the streets, ducked, stood under the gallows, stood in the pillory, or put in the stocks. In New England it was an offense to travel or cook food or walk about the town on the Sabbath day, or to buy any cloth with lace on it.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT was of three systems: the town (township) in New England; the county in the Southern Colonies; and in the Middle Colonies a mixture of both.

TOWN MEETING.—The affairs of a New England town were regulated at town meeting, to which from time to time the freemen were "warned," or summoned, by the constable. To be a freeman in Massachusetts and Connecticut a man had to own a certain amount of property and be a member of a recognized church. If a newcomer, he had to be formally admitted to freemanship at a town meeting. These meetings were presided over by a moderator chosen for the occasion, and at them taxes were levied, laws enacted, and once a year officers were elected. [5] The principal town officers were the selectmen who managed the town's affairs between town meetings, the constables, overseers of the poor, assessors, the town clerk, and the treasurer.

THE COUNTY.—In the South, where plantations were numerous and where there were no towns of the New England kind, county government prevailed. The officers were appointed by the royal governor, formed a board called the court of quarter sessions, and levied local taxes, made local laws, and as a court administered justice.

In the Middle Colonies there were both town and county governments. In New York, each town (after 1703) elected a supervisor, and county affairs were managed by a board consisting of the supervisors of all the towns in the county. In Pennsylvania the county officers were elected by the voters of the whole county.

NO REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT.—The colonies sent no representatives to Parliament. In certain matters that body legislated for the colonies, as in the case of the Navigation Acts. But unless expressly stated in the act, no law of Parliament applied to the colonies. Having no representation in Parliament, the colonies often sent special agents to London to look after their affairs, and in later times kept agents there regularly, one man acting for several colonies. [6]

A UNION OF THE COLONIES.—The idea of uniting the colonies for purposes of general welfare and common defense was proposed very early in their history. In 1697 Penn suggested a congress of delegates from each colony. A little later Robert Livingston of New York urged the grouping of the colonies into three provinces, from each of which delegates should be sent to Albany to consider measures for defense. As yet, however, the colonies were not ready for anything of this sort.

THE CHARTERS ATTACKED.—The king, on the other hand, had attempted to unite some of the colonies in a very different way—by destroying the charters of the northern colonies and putting them under one governor. The first attack was made by King Charles II, on Massachusetts, and after a long struggle her charter (p. 58) was taken away by the English courts in 1684. The charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were next annulled, and King James II [7] sent over Edmund Andros as governor of New England.

CONNECTICUT SAVES HER CHARTER.—Andros reached Boston in 1686, and assumed the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. [8] He next ordered Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to submit and accept annexation. Plymouth and Rhode Island did so, but Connecticut resisted. Andros therefore came to Hartford (1687), dissolved the colonial government, and demanded the Connecticut charter. Tradition says that the Assembly met him, and debated the question till dusk; candles were then lighted and the charter brought in and laid on the table; this done, the candles were suddenly blown out, and when they were relighted, the charter could not be found; Captain Wadsworth of Hartford had carried it off and hidden it in an oak tree thereafter known as the Charter Oak.

But Andros ruled Connecticut, and in the following year New York and East and West Jersey also were placed under his authority. Andros thus became ruler of all the provinces lying north and east of the Delaware River. [9] His rule was tyrannical: he abolished the legislatures, and with the aid of appointed councilmen he made laws and levied taxes as he pleased.

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1689.—In 1689 King James II was driven from his throne, William and Mary became king and queen of England, and war broke out with France. News of these events caused an upheaval in the colonies. The people in Boston promptly seized Andros and put him in jail; Connecticut and Rhode Island resumed their charter governments; the Protestants in Maryland overthrew the government of the proprietor and set up a new one in the name of William and Mary [10]; and in New York Leisler raised a rebellion.

MASSACHUSETTS RECHARTERED.—Massachusetts sent agents to London to ask for the restoration of her old charter; but instead William granted a new charter in 1691, which provided that the governor should be appointed by the king. Plymouth and Maine were united with Massachusetts, but New Hampshire was made a separate royal colony. The charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut were confirmed, so that they continued to elect their own governors.

[Illustration: THE FORT AT NEW YORK.]

LEISLER'S REBELLION.—Andros had ruled New York through a deputy named Nicholson, who tried to remain in control. A rich merchant named Jacob Leisler denied the right of Nicholson to act, refused to pay duty on some wine he had imported, and, aided by the people, seized the fort and set up a temporary government. A convention was then called, a committee of safety appointed, and Leisler was made commander in chief. Later he assumed the office of lieutenant governor. When King William heard of these things, he appointed a new governor, and early in 1691 three ships with some soldiers reached New York. Leisler at first refused to give up the fort; but was soon forced to surrender, and was finally hanged for rebellion. [11]

BACON'S REBELLION.—Massachusetts and New York were not the first colonies in which bad government led to uprisings against a royal governor. In Virginia, during the reign of Charles II, the rule of Governor Berkeley was selfish and tyrannical. In 1676 the planters on the frontier asked for protection against Indian attacks, but the governor, who was engaged in Indian trade, refused to send soldiers; and when Nathaniel Bacon led a force of planters against the Indians, Berkeley declared him a rebel, raised a force of men, and marched after him. While Berkeley was away, the people in Jamestown rose and demanded a new Assembly and certain reforms. Berkeley yielded to the demands, and was also compelled to give Bacon a commission to fight the Indians; but when Bacon was well on his way, Berkeley again proclaimed him a rebel, and fled from Jamestown.

Bacon, supported by most of the people, now seized the government and sent a force to capture Berkeley. The governor and his followers defeated this force and occupied Jamestown. Bacon, who was again on the frontier, returned, drove Berkeley away, burned Jamestown lest it should be again occupied, and a month later died. The popular uprising then subsided rapidly, and when the king's forces arrived (1677) to restore order, Berkeley was in control. [12]

GROWTH OF POPULATION.—During the century which followed the restoration of monarchy (1660) the colonies grew not only in number but also in population and in wealth. In 1660 there were probably 200,000 people in the English colonies; by 1760 there were nearly 2,000,000—all east of the Appalachian watershed. The three great centers were Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Sparse as the population seems to us, the great march across the continent had begun. [13]

CITIES AND TOWNS.—The century (1660-1760) had seen the rise of but one real city in the South—Charleston. Annapolis was a village, Baltimore a hamlet of a hundred souls, Williamsburg and Norfolk were but towns, and no place in North Carolina was more than a country village. Philadelphia, which did not exist in 1660, had become a place of 16,000 people in 1760, neat, well-built, and prosperous. Near by was German town, and further west Lancaster, the largest inland town in all the colonies. Between Philadelphia and New York there were no places larger than small villages. New York had a population of some 12,000 souls; Boston, the chief city in the colonies, some 20,000; and in New England were several other towns of importance.

LIFE IN THE CITIES.—In the cities and large towns from Boston to Charleston in 1760 were many fine houses. Every family of wealth had costly furniture, plenty of silver, china, glass, and tapestry, and every comfort that money could then buy. The men wore broadcloth, lace ruffles, silk stockings, and silver shoe buckles, powdered their hair, and carried swords. The women dressed more elaborately in silks and brocades, and wore towering head-dresses and ostrich plumes. Shopkeepers wore homespun, workingmen and mechanics leather aprons.

[Illustration: COLONIAL SIDEBOARD, WITH KNIFE CASES, CANDLESTICK,
PITCHERS, AND DECANTER. In the possession of the Concord Antiquarian
Society.]

THINGS NOT IN USE IN 1660.—Should we make a list of what are to us the everyday conveniences of life and strike from the list the things not known in 1660, very few would remain. A business man in one of our large cities, let us suppose, sets off for his place of business on a rainy day. He puts on a pair of rubbers, takes an umbrella, buys a morning newspaper, boards a trolley car, and when his place of business is reached, is carried by an elevator to his office floor, and enters a steam-heated, electric-lighted room. In 1660 and for many years after, there was not in any of the colonies a pair of rubbers, an umbrella, a trolley car, a morning newspaper, an elevator, a steam-heated room, [14] an electric light.

[Illustration: COLONIAL FOOT STOVE.]

The man of business sits down in a revolving chair before a rolltop desk. In front of him are steel pens, India rubber eraser, blotting paper, rubber bands, a telephone. He takes up a bundle of typewritten letters, dictates answers to a stenographer, sends a telegram to some one a thousand miles away, and before returning home has received an answer. In 1660 there was not in all the land a stenographer, or any of the articles mentioned; no telephone, no telegraph, not even a post office.

TRAVEL AND COMMUNICATION.—If business calls him from home, he travels in comfort in a steamboat or a railway car, and goes farther in one hour than in 1660 he could have gone in two days, for at that time there was not a steamboat, nor a railroad, nor even a stagecoach, in North America. Men went from one colony to another by sailing vessel; overland they traveled on horseback; and if a wife went with her husband, she rode behind him on a pillion. The produce of the farms was drawn to the village market by ox teams.

[Illustration: TRAVELING IN 1660.]

NEWSPAPERS AND PRINTING.—In 1660 no newspaper or magazine of any sort was published in the colonies. The first printing press in English America was set up at Cambridge in 1630, and was long the only one. The first newspaper in our country was the Boston News Letter, printed in 1704, and there was none in Pennsylvania till 1719, and none south of the Potomac till 1732.

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS did not exist. No book, pamphlet, or almanac could be printed without permission. In 1685, when a printer in Philadelphia printed something in his almanac which displeased the Council, he was forced to blot it out. Another Philadelphia printer, Bradford, offended the Quakers by putting into his almanac something "too light and airy for one that is a Christian," whereupon the almanac was suppressed; and for later offenses Bradford was thrown into jail and so harshly treated that he left the colony.

In New York (1725) Bradford started the first newspaper in that colony. One of his old apprentices, John Peter Zenger, started the second (1733), and soon called down the wrath of the governor because of some sharp attacks on his conduct. Copies of the newspaper were burned before the pillory, Zenger was put in jail, and what began as a trial for libel ended in a great struggle for liberty of the press; Zenger's acquittal was the cause of great public rejoicings. [15]

CHANGES BETWEEN 1660 AND 1760.—By 1760 the conditions of life in the colonies had changed for the better in many respects. Stagecoaches had come in, and a line ran regularly between New York and Philadelphia. Post offices had been established. There were printing presses and newspapers in most of the colonies, there were public subscription libraries in Charleston and Philadelphia, and six colleges scattered over the colonies from Virginia to Massachusetts.

EDUCATION.—What we know as the public school system, however, did not yet exist. Children generally attended private schools kept by wandering teachers who were boarded around among the farmers or village folk; and learned only to read, write, and cipher. But a few went to the Latin school or to college, for which they were often prepared by clergymen.

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.—Amusements in colonial days varied somewhat with the section of the country and the character of the people who had settled it. Corn huskings, quilting parties, and spinning bees were common in many colonies. A house raising or a log-rolling (a piling bee) was a great occasion for frolic. Picnics, tea parties, and dances were common everywhere; the men often competed in foot races, wrestling matches, and shooting at a mark. In New England the great day for such sports was training day, which came four times a year, when young and old gathered on the village green to see the militia company drill.

In New York there were also fishing parties and tavern parties, and much skating and coasting, horse racing, bull baiting, bowling on the greens, and in New York city balls, concerts, and private theatricals. In Pennsylvania vendues (auctions), fairs, and cider pressing (besides husking bees and house raisings) were occasions for social gatherings and dances. South of the Potomac horse racing, fox hunting, cock fighting, and cudgeling were common sports. At the fairs there were sack and hogshead races, bull baiting, barbecues, and dancing. There was a theater at Williamsburg and another in Charleston.

[Illustration: A MILL OF 1691. The power was furnished by the great undershot water wheel.]

MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE.—Little manufacturing was done in 1760, save for the household. A few branches of manufactures—woolen goods, felt hats, steel—which seemed likely to flourish in the colonies were checked by acts of Parliament, lest they should compete with industries in England. But shipbuilding was not molested, and in New England and Pennsylvania many ships were built and sold.

Land commerce in 1760 was still confined almost entirely to the Indian fur trade. In sea-going commerce New England led, her vessels trading not only with Great Britain and the West Indies, but carrying on most of the coasting trade. In general the Navigation Acts were obeyed; but the Molasses Act (1733), which levied a heavy duty on sugar or molasses from a foreign colony, was boldly evaded. The law required that all European goods must come by way of England; but this too was evaded, and smuggling of European goods was very common. Tobacco from Virginia and North Carolina often found its way in New England ships to forbidden ports.

SUMMARY

1. The English colonies were of three sorts—charter, royal, and proprietary; but before 1660 each managed its affairs much as it pleased.

2. Charles II and later kings tried to rule the colonies for the benefit of the crown and of the mother country. They acted through the Lords of Trade in England and through colonial governors in America.

3. In 1676 Bacon led an uprising in Virginia against Governor Berkeley's arbitrary rule.

4. In 1684 Massachusetts was deprived of her charter, and within a few years all the New England colonies, with New York and New Jersey, were put under the tyrannical rule of Governor Andros.

5. When James II lost his throne, Andros was deposed, and Massachusetts was given a new charter (1691).

6. The government of each colony was managed by (1) a governor elected by the people (Rhode Island, Connecticut) or appointed by the king or by the proprietor; (2) by an appointed Council; and (3) by an Assembly or lower house elected by the colonists.

7. Local government was of three sorts: in New England the township system prevailed; in the Southern Colonies the county system; and in the Middle Colonies a mixture of the two.

8. In 1660-1760 the population increased nearly tenfold; stagecoaches, post offices, and newspapers were introduced; commerce increased, but little manufacturing was done.

FOOTNOTES

[1] New Hampshire after 1679, New York after 1685 (when the Duke of York became king), New Jersey after 1702, Virginia after 1624, North and South Carolina after 1729, Georgia after 1752.

[2] These goods were products of the colonies and were named in the act— such as tobacco, sugar, indigo, and furs. There was a long list of such "enumerated goods," as they were called.

[3] In the royal colonies they were appointed by the crown; in Massachusetts, by the General Court; in the proprietary colonies, by the proprietor.

[4] In Massachusetts as early as 1634 the General Court consisted of the governor, the assistants, and two deputies from each town. During ten years they all met in one room; but a quarrel between the assistants and the deputies led to their meeting as separate bodies. For an account of this curious quarrel see Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 106-108. In Connecticut and Rhode Island also the towns elected deputies. Outside of New England the delegates to the lower branch of the legislature were usually elected from counties, but sometimes from important cities or towns.

[5] The first government of Plymouth Colony was practically a town meeting. The first town to set up a local government in Massachusetts was Dorchester (1633). Thus started, the system spread over all New England. Nothing was too petty to be acted on by the town meeting. For example, "It is ordered that all dogs, for the space of three weeks after the publishing hereof, shall have one leg tied up…. If a man refuse to tye up his dogs leg and he be found scraping up fish [used for fertilizer] in the corn field, the owner shall pay l2_s._, besides whatever damage the dog doth." The proceedings of several town meetings at Providence are given in Hart's American History told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, pp. 214-219.

[6] Penn's charter required him to keep an agent in or near London.

[7] Charles II died in 1685 and was succeeded by his brother, the Duke of York (proprietor of the colony of New York), who reigned as James II.

[8] New Hampshire, which had been annexed by Massachusetts in 1641, was made a separate province in 1679; but during the governorship of Andros it was again annexed.

[9] These were Massachusetts (including Maine), New Hampshire, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey—eight in all. The only other colonies then in existence were Pennsylvania (including Delaware), Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina. For an account of the attack on the New England charters, read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 265-268.

[10] The Protestant Episcopal Church of England was established in the colony (1692), and sharp laws were made against Catholics. From 1691 till 1715 Maryland was governed as a royal province; but then it was given back to the fifth Lord Baltimore, who was a Protestant.

[11] Read Fiske's Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Vol. II, pp. 199-208. In Leisler's Times, by Elbridge Brooks, and The Segum's Daughter, by Edwin L. Bynner, are two interesting stories based on the events of Leisler's time.

[12] Berkeley put so many men to death for the part they bore in the rebellion that King Charles said, "The old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father." Berkeley was recalled. Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 44-95; or the Century Magazine for July, 1890.

[13] In New Hampshire settlers had moved up the valley of the Merrimac to Concord. In Massachusetts they had crossed the Connecticut River and were well on toward the New York border (map, p. 59). In New York settlement was still confined to Long Island, the valley of the Hudson, and a few German settlements in the Mohawk valley. In Pennsylvania Germans and Scotch-Irish had pressed into the Susquehanna valley; Reading had been founded on the upper Schuylkill, and Bethlehem in the valley of the Lehigh (map, p. 78). In Virginia population had gone westward up the York, the Rappahannock, and the James rivers to the foot of the Blue Ridge; and Germans and Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania had entered the Great Valley (map, p. 50). In North Carolina and South Carolina Germans, Swiss, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish were likewise moving toward the mountains.

[14] Houses were warmed by means of open fireplaces. Churches were not warmed, even in the coldest days of winter. People would bring foot stoves with them, and men would sit with their hats, greatcoats, and mittens on.

[15] Read Fiske's Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Vol. II, pp. 248-257.

CHAPTER VIII

THE INDIANS

Wherever the early explorers and settlers touched our coast, they found the country sparsely inhabited by a race of men they called Indians. These people, like their descendants now living in the West, were a race with copper-colored skins, straight, jet-black hair, black eyes, beardless faces, and high cheek bones.

MOUNDS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS.—Who the Indians were originally, where they came from, how they reached our continent, nobody knows. Long before the Europeans came, the country was inhabited by a people, probably the same as the Indians, known as mound builders. Their mounds, of many sizes and shapes and intended for many purposes, are scattered over the Ohio and Mississippi valleys in great numbers. Some are in the shape of animals, as the famous serpent mound in Ohio. Some were for defense, some were village sites, and others were for burial purposes.

[Illustrations: RUINS OF CLIFF DWELLINGS.]

In the far West and Southwest, where the rivers had cut deep beds, were the cliff dwellers. In hollow places in the rocky cliffs which form the walls of these rivers, in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, are found to- day the remains of these cliff homes. They are high above the river and difficult to reach, and could easily be defended. [1]

[Illustration: TOTEM POLE IN ALASKA.]

TRIBES AND CLANS.—The Indians were divided into hundreds of tribes, each with its own language or dialect and generally living by itself. Each tribe was subdivided into clans. Members of a clan were those who traced descent from some imaginary ancestor, usually an animal, as the wolf, the fox, the bear, the eagle. [2] An Indian inherited his right to be a wolf or a bear from his mother. Whatever clan she belonged to, that was his also, and no man could marry a woman of his own clan. The civil head of a clan was a "sachem"; the military heads were "chiefs." The sachem and the chiefs were elected or deposed, and the affairs of the clan regulated, by a council of all the men and women. The affairs of a tribe were regulated by a council of the sachems and chiefs of the clans. [3]

CONFEDERACIES.—As a few clans were united in each tribe, so some tribes united to form confederacies. The greatest and most powerful of these was the league of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in central New York. [4] It was composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida (o-ni'da), and Mohawk tribes. Each managed its own tribal affairs, but a council of sachems elected from the clans had charge of the affairs of the confederacy. So great was the power of the league that it practically ruled all the tribes from Hudson Bay to North Carolina, and westward as far as Lake Michigan. Other confederacies of less power were: the Dakota and Blackfeet, west of the Mississippi; the Powhatan, in Virginia; and the Creek, the Chickasaw, and the Cherokee, in the South.

[Illustration: INDIAN HATCHET AND ARROWHEAD, MADE OF STONE.]

HUNTING.—One of the chief occupations of an Indian man was hunting. He devised traps with great skill. His weapons were bows and arrows with stone heads, stone hatchets or tomahawks, flint spears, and knives and clubs. To use such weapons he had to get close to the animal, and to do this disguises of animal heads and skins were generally adopted. The Indians hunted and trapped nearly all kinds of American animals.

ANIMALS AND IMPLEMENTS UNKNOWN TO THE INDIANS.—Before the coming of the Europeans the Indians had never seen horses or cows, sheep, hogs, or poultry. The dog was their only domesticated animal, and in many cases the so-called dog was really a domesticated wolf. Neither had the Indians ever seen firearms, or gunpowder, or swords, nails, or steel knives, or metal pots or kettles, glass, wheat, flour, or many other articles in common use among the whites.

[Illustration: INDIANS IN FULL DRESS.]

CLOTHING.—Their clothing was of the simplest kind, and varied, of course, with the climate. The men usually wore a strip of deerskin around the waist, a hunting shirt, leggings, moccasins on the feet, and sometimes a deerskin over the shoulders. Very often they wore nothing but the strip about the waist and the moccasins. These garments of deerskin were cut with much care, sewed with fish-bone needles and sinew thread, and ornamented with shells and quills.

Painting the face and body was a universal custom. For this purpose red and yellow ocher, colored earths, juices of plants, and charcoal were used. What may be called Indian jewelry consisted of necklaces of teeth and claws of bears, claws of eagles and hawks, and strings of sea shells, colored feathers, and wampum. Wampum consisted of strings of beads made from sea shells, and was highly prized and used not only for ornament, but as Indian money.

[Illustration: WAMPUM.]

HOUSES.—The dwelling of many Eastern Indians was a wigwam, or tent-shaped lodge. It was formed of saplings set upright in the ground in the form of a circle and bent together at their tops. Branches wound and twisted among the saplings completed the frame, which was covered with brush, bark, and leaves. A group of such wigwams made a village, which was often surrounded with a stockade of tree trunks put upright in the ground and touching one another.

On the Western plains the buffalo-hunting Indian lived during the summer in tepees, or circular lodges made of poles tied together at the small ends and covered with buffalo skins laced together. The upper end of the tepee was left open to let out the smoke of a fire built inside. In winter these plains Indians lived in earth lodges.

FOOD.—For food the Eastern Indians had fish from river, lake, or sea, wild turkeys, wild pigeons, deer and bear meat, corn, squashes, pumpkins, beans, berries, fruits, and maple sugar (which they taught the whites to make). In the West the Indians killed buffaloes, antelopes, and mountain sheep, cut their flesh into strips, and dried it in the sun. [5]

[Illustration: INDIAN JAR, OF BAKED CLAY.]

Fish and meat were cooked by laying the fish on a framework of sticks built over a fire, and hanging the meat on sticks before the fire. Corn and squashes were roasted in the ashes. Dried corn was also ground between stones, mixed with water, and baked in the ashes. Such as knew how to make clay pots could boil meat and vegetables. [6]

CANOES.—In moving from place to place the Indians of the East traveled on foot or used canoes. In the northern parts where birch trees were plentiful, the canoe was of birch bark stretched over a light wooden frame, sewed with strips of deerskin, and smeared at the joints with spruce gum to make it watertight. In the South tree trunks hollowed out by fire and called dugouts were used. In the West there were "bull boats" made of skins stretched over wooden frames. For winter travel the Northern and Western Indians used snowshoes.

[Illustration: MAKING A DUGOUT.]

After the Spaniards brought horses to the Southwest, herds of wild horses roamed the southwestern plains, and in later times gave the plains Indians a means of travel the Eastern Indians did not have.

INDIAN TRAILS.—The Eastern Indians nevertheless often made long journeys for purposes of war or trade, and had many well-defined trails which answered as roads. Thus one great trail led from the site of Boston by way of what is now the city of Springfield to the site of Albany. Another in Pennsylvania led from where Philadelphia stands to the Susquehanna, then up the Juniata, over the mountains, and to the Allegheny River. There were thousands of such trails scattered over the country. As the Indians always traveled in single file, these trails were narrow paths; they were worn to the depth of a foot or more, and wound in and out among the trees and around great rocks. As they followed watercourses and natural grades, many of them became in after times routes used by the white man for roads and railroads.

Along the seaboard the Indians lived in villages and wandered about but little. Hunting and war parties traveled great distances, but each tribe had its home. On the great plains the Indians wandered long distances with their women, children, and belongings.

[Illustrations: WESTERN INDIANS TRAVELING.]

WORK AND PLAY.—The women did most of the work. They built the wigwam, cut the wood, planted the corn, dressed the skins, made the clothing, and when the band traveled, carried the household goods. The brave made bows and arrows, built the canoe, hunted, fished, and fought.

Till a child, or papoose, was able to run about, it was carefully wrapped in skins and tied to a framework of wicker which could be carried on the mother's back, or hung on the branch of a tree out of harm's way. When able to go about, the boys were taught to shoot, fish, and make arrows and stone implements, and the girls to weave or make baskets, and do all the things they would have to do as squaws.

For amusement, the Indians ran foot races, played football [7] and lacrosse, held corn huskings, and had dances for all sorts of occasions, some of them religious in character. Some dances occurred once a year, as the corn dance, the thanksgiving of the Eastern tribes; the sun dance of the plains Indians; and the fish dance by the Indians of the Columbia River country at the opening of the salmon-fishing season. The departure of a war party, the return of such a party, the end of a successful hunt, were always occasions for dances. [8]

INDIAN RELIGION.—The Indians believed that every person, every animal, every thing had a soul, or spirit, or manitou. The ceremonies used to get the good will of certain manitous formed the religious rites. On the plains it was the buffalo manitou, in the East the manitou of corn, or sun, or rain, that was most feared. Everywhere there was a mythology, or collection of tales of heroes who did wonderful things for the Indians. Hiawatha was such a hero, who gave them fire, corn, the canoe, and other things. [9]

WARFARE.—An Indian war was generally a raid by a small party led by a warrior of renown. Such a chief, standing beside the war post in his village, would publicly announce the raid and call for volunteers. No one was forced to go; but those who were willing would step forward and strike the post with their tomahawks. Among the plains Indians a pipe was passed around, and all who smoked it stood pledged to go.

The weapons used in war were like those used in the hunt. Though the Indians were brave they delighted to fight from behind trees, to creep through the tall grass and fall upon their enemy unawares, or to wait for him in ambush. The dead and wounded were scalped. Captive men were generally put to death with torture; but captive women and children were usually adopted into the tribe.

INDIAN WARS IN VIRGINIA.—The first Europeans who came to our shores were looked on by the Indians as superior beings, as men from the clouds. But before the settlers arrived this veneration was dispelled, and hostility took its place. Thus the founders of Jamestown had scarcely touched land when they were attacked. But Smith brought about an alliance with the Powhatan, and till after his death there was peace.

Then (1622), under the lead of Opekan'kano, an attack was made along the whole line of settlements in Virginia, and in one day more than three hundred whites were massacred, their houses burned, and much property destroyed. The blow was a terrible one; but the colonists rallied and waged such a war against the enemy that for more than twenty years there was no great uprising.

But in 1644 Opekankano (then an old and grizzled warrior) again led forth his tribes, and in two days killed several hundred whites. Once more the settlers rallied, swept the Indian country, captured Opekankano, and drew a boundary across which no Indian could come without permission. If he did, he might be shot on sight. [10]

EARLY INDIAN WARS IN NEW ENGLAND.—In New England the experience of the early settlers was much the same. Murders by the Pequot Indians having become unendurable, a little fleet was sent (1686) against them. Block Island was ravaged, and Pequots on the mainland were killed and their corn destroyed. Sassacus, sachem of the Pequots, thereupon sought to join the Narragansetts with him in an attempt to drive the English from the country; but Roger Williams persuaded the Narragansetts to form an alliance with the English, and the Pequots began the war alone. In the winter (1636-37) the Connecticut River settlements were attacked, several men killed, and two girls carried off.

DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.—In May, 1637, a force of seventy-seven colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts, led by John Mason and John Underhill, marched to the Pequot village in what is now the southeast corner of Connecticut. Some Mohicans and Narragansetts went along; but when they came in sight of the village, they refused to join in the attack. The village was a cluster of wigwams surrounded by a stockade, with two narrow openings for entrance. While some of the English guarded them, the rest attacked the stockade, flung torches over it, and set the wigwams on fire. Of the four hundred or more Indians in the village, but five escaped.

[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOTS.]

KING PHILIP'S WAR.—For thirty-eight years the memory of the destruction of the Pequots kept peace in New England. Then Philip, a chief of the Wampanoags, took the warpath (1675) and, joined by the Nipmucks and Narragansetts, sought to drive the white men from New England. The war began in Rhode Island, but spread into Massachusetts, where town after town was attacked, and men, women, and children massacred. Roused to fury by these deeds, a little band of men from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut in the dead of winter stormed the great swamp fortress of the Narragansetts, destroyed a thousand Indians, and burned the wigwams and winter supply of corn. The power of the Narragansetts was broken; but the war went on, and before midsummer (1676) twenty villages had been attacked by the Nipmucks. But they, too, were doomed; their fighting strength was destroyed in two victories by the colonists. In August Philip was shot in a swamp. These victories ended the war in the south, but it broke out almost immediately in the northeast, and raged till the summer of 1678.

During these three years of war New England suffered terribly. Twelve towns had been utterly destroyed, forty had been partly burned, and a thousand men, besides scores of women and children, had perished. As for the New England Indians, their power was gone forever. [11]

INDIAN WARS IN NEW NETHERLAND.—The Dutch in New Netherland were on friendly terms with the Iroquois, to whom they sold fire-arms; but the Tappans, Raritans, and other Algonquin tribes round about New Amsterdam were enemies of the Iroquois, and with these the Dutch had several wars. One (1641) was brought on by Governor Kieft's attempt to tax the Indians; another (1643-45) by the slaughter, one night, of more than a hundred Indians who had asked the Dutch for shelter from their Mohawk enemies. Many Dutch farmers were murdered, and a great Indian stronghold in Connecticut was stormed one winter night and seven hundred Indians killed. [12] After ten years of peace the Indians rose again, killed men in the streets of New Amsterdam, and harried Staten Island; and again, after an outbreak at Esopus, there were several years of war (1658-64).

IN NORTH CAROLINA some Algonquin tribes conspired with the Tuscarora tribe of Iroquois to drive the white men from the country, and began horrid massacres (1711). Help came from South Carolina, and the Tuscaroras were badly beaten. But the war was renewed next year, and then another force of white men and Indians from South Carolina stormed the Tuscaroras' fort and broke their power. The Tuscaroras migrated to New York and were admitted to the great Iroquois confederacy of the Five Nations, which thenceforth was known as the Six Nations. [13]

IN SOUTH CAROLINA.—Among the Indians who marched to the relief of North Carolina were men of the Yam'assee tribe. That they should turn against the people of South Carolina was not to be expected. But the Spaniards at St. Augustine bought them with gifts, and, joined by Creeks, Cherokees, and others, they began (in 1715) a war which lasted nearly a year and cost the lives of four hundred white men. They, too, in the end were beaten, and the Yamassees fled to Florida.

The story of these Indian wars has been told not because they were wars, but because they were the beginnings of that long and desperate struggle of the Indian with the white man which continued down almost to our own time. The march of the white man across the continent has been contested by the Indian at every step, and to-day there is not a state in the Union whose soil has not at some time been reddened by the blood of both.

WHAT WE OWE TO THE INDIAN.—The contact of the two races has greatly influenced our language, literature, and customs. Five and twenty of our states, and hundreds of counties, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, and bays, bear names derived from Indian languages. Chipmunk and coyote, moose, opossum, raccoon, skunk, woodchuck, tarpon, are all of Indian origin. We still use such expressions as Indian summer, Indian file, Indian corn; bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe of peace. To the Indians we owe the canoe, the snowshoe, the toboggan, lacrosse. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn in hills, just as it is planted to-day, and long before the white man came, the Indians ate hominy, mush, and succotash, planted pumpkins and squashes, and made maple sugar.

SUMMARY

1. The Indians were divided into tribes, and the tribes into clans.

2. Each tribe had its own language or dialect, and usually lived by itself.

3. Members of a clan traced descent from some common imaginary ancestor, usually an animal. The civil head of a clan was the sachem; the military heads were the chiefs.

4. As the clans were united into tribes, so the tribes were in some places joined in confederacies.

5. The chief occupations of Indian men were hunting and waging war.

6. Their ways of life varied greatly with the locality in which they lived: as in the wooded regions of the East or on the great plains of the West; in the cold country of the North or in the warmer South.

7. The growth of white settlements, crowding back the Indians, led to
several notable wars in early colonial times, in all of which the Indians
were beaten:—
In Virginia: uprisings in 1622 and in 1644; border war in 1676.
In New England: Pequot War, 1636-37; King Philip's War, 1675-78.
In New Netherland: several wars with Algonquin tribes.
In North Carolina: Algonquin-Tuscarora uprising, 1711-13.
In South Carolina: Yamassee uprising, 1715-16.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Read Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 85-94, 141-146.

[2] The sign or emblem of this ancestor, called the totem, was often painted on the clothing, or tattooed on the body. On the northwest coast, it was carved on a tall pole, made of a tree trunk, which was set up before the dwelling.

[3] Scientists have grouped the North American tribes into fifty or more distinct families or groups, each consisting of tribes whose languages were probably developed from a common tongue. East of the Mississippi most of the land was occupied by three groups: (1) Between the Tennessee River and the Gulf of Mexico lived the Muskho'gees (or Maskoki), including the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes. (2) The Iroquois (ir-o-kwoi'), Cherokee', and related tribes occupied a large area surrounding Lakes Erie and Ontario, and smaller areas in the southern Appalachians and south of the lower James River. (3) The Algonquins and related tribes occupied most of the country around Lakes Superior and Michigan, most of the Ohio valley, and the Atlantic seaboard north of the James River, besides much of Canada.

[4] Read Fiske's Discovery of America, vol. I, pp. 72-78.

[5] The manner of drying was called "jerking." Jerked meat would keep for months and was cooked as needed. Sometimes it was pounded between stones and mixed with fat, and was then called pemmican.

[6] Fire for cooking and warming was started by pressing a pointed stick against a piece of wood and turning the stick around rapidly. Sometimes this was done by twirling it between the palms of the hands, sometimes by wrapping the string of a little bow around the stick and moving the bow back and forth as if fiddling. The revolving stick would form a fine dust which the heat caused by friction would set on fire.

[7] A game of football is thus described: "Likewise they have the exercise of football, in which they only forcibly encounter with the foot to carry the ball the one from the other, and spurn it to the goal with a kind of dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honor of it. But they never strike up one another's heels, as we do, not accounting that praiseworthy to purchase a goal by such an advantage."

[8] One who was with Smith in Virginia has left us this account of what took place when the Powhatan was crowned (p. 42): "In a fair plain field they made a fire before which (we were) sitting upon a mat (when) suddenly amongst the woods was heard … a hideous noise and shouting. Then presently … thirty young women came out of the woods … their bodies painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all differing. Their leader had a fair pair of buck's horns on her head, and an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows at her back, a bow and arrows in her hand. The next had in her hand a sword, another a club … all horned alike…. These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing…. Having spent near one hour on this masquerade, as they entered in like manner they departed."

[9] Read Longfellow's Hiawatha.

[10] Thirty-one years later another outbreak occurred, and for months burning and scalping went on along the border, till the Indians were beaten by the men under Nathaniel Bacon (p. 94).

[11] Read Fiske's Beginnings of New England, pp. 128-133, 211-226, 235-236.

[12] Read Fiske's Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Vol. I, pp. 177-180, 183-188.

[13] Read Fiske's Old Virginia and her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 298-304.

CHAPTER IX

THE FRENCH IN AMERICA

While English, Dutch, and Swedes were settling on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, the French took possession of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. Though the attempt of Cartier to plant a colony on the St. Lawrence failed (p. 30), the French never lost interest in that part of the world, and new attempts were made to plant colonies.

[Illustration: CANADA (NEW FRANCE) AND ACADIA.]

THE FRENCH IN NOVA SCOTIA.—All failed till De Monts (d'mawng) and Champlain (sham-plan') [1] came over in 1604 with two shiploads of colonists. Some landed on the shore of what is now Nova Scotia and founded Port Royal. The others, led by De Monts, explored the Bay of Fundy, and on an island at the mouth of a river planted a colony called St. Croix. The name St. Croix (croy) in time was given to the river which is now part of the eastern boundary of Maine. One winter in that climate was enough, and in the spring (1605) the coast from Maine to Massachusetts was explored in search of a better site for the colony. None suited, and, returning to St. Croix, De Monts moved the settlers to Port Royal.

QUEBEC FOUNDED.—This too was abandoned for a time, and in 1607 the colonists were back in France. Champlain, however, longed to be again in the New World, and soon persuaded De Monts once more to attempt colonization. In 1608, therefore, Champlain with two ships sailed up the St. Lawrence and founded Quebec. Here, as was so often the case, the first winter was a struggle for life; when spring came, only eight of the colonists were alive. But help soon reached them, and France at last had secured a permanent foothold in America. The drainage basin of the St. Lawrence was called New France (or Canada); the lands near Port Royal became another French colony, called Acadia.

EXPLORATION OF NEW FRANCE.—Champlain at once made friends with the Indians, and in 1609 went with a party of Hurons to help fight their enemies, the Iroquois Indians who dwelt in central New York. [2] The way was up the St. Lawrence and up a branch of that river to the lake which now bears the name of Champlain. On its western shore the expected fight took place, and a victory, due to the fire-arms of Champlain and his companions, was won for the Hurons. [3] Later Champlain explored the Ottawa River, saw the waters of Lake Huron, and crossed Lake Ontario. But the real work of French discovery and exploration in the interior was done by Catholic priests and missionaries.

THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES.—With crucifixes and portable altars strapped on their backs, these brave men pushed boldly into the Indian country. Guided by the Indians, they walked through the dense forests, paddled in birch-bark canoes, and penetrated a wilderness where no white man had ever been. They built little chapels of bark near the Indian villages, and labored hard to convert the red men to Christianity. It was no easy task. Often and often their lives were in danger. Some were drowned. Some were burned at the stake. Others were tomahawked. But neither cold nor hunger, nor the dangers and hardships of life in the wilderness, could turn the priests from their good work. One of them toiled for ten years among the Indians on the Niagara River and the shores of Lake Huron; two others reached the outlet of Lake Superior; a fourth paddled in a canoe along its south shore.

[Illustration: FRENCH PRIEST AND INDIANS IN BIRCH-BARK CANOE.]

THE KING'S MAIDENS.—For fifty years after the founding of Quebec few settlers came to Canada. Then the French king sent over each year a hundred or more young women who were to become wives of the settlers. [4] Besides encouraging farming, the government tried to induce the men to engage in cod fishing and whaling; but the only business that really nourished in Canada was trading with the Indians for furs.

THE FUR TRADE.—Each year a great fair was held outside the stockade of Montreal, to which hundreds of Indians came from the far western lakes. They brought canoe loads of beaver skins and furs of small animals, and exchanged them for bright-colored cloth, beads, blankets, kettles, and knives.

[Illustration: INDIAN AND FUR TRADER.]

This great trade was a monopoly. Its profits could not be enjoyed by everybody. Numbers of hardy young men, therefore, took to the woods and traded with the Indians far beyond the reach of the king's officers. By so doing these wood rangers (coureurs de bois), as they were called, became outlaws, and if caught, might be flogged and branded with a hot iron. They built trading posts at many places in the West, and often married Indian women, which went a long way to make the Indians friends of the French. [5]

THE MISSISSIPPI.—When the priests and traders reached the country about Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, they heard from the Indians of a great river called the Mississippi—that is, "Big Water" or "Father of Waters." Might not this, it was asked, be the long-sought northwest passage to the Indies? In hopes that it was, Father Marquette (mar-ket'), a priest who had founded a mission on the Strait of Mackinac (mack'i-naw) between Lakes Huron and Michigan, and Joliet (zho-le-a'), a trapper and soldier, were sent to find the river and follow it to the sea.

[Illustration: FRENCH CLAIMS, MISSIONS, AND TRADING POSTS IN MISSISSIPPI
VALLEY IN 1700]

They started in the spring of 1673 with five companions in two canoes. Their way was from the Strait of Mackinac to Green Bay in Wisconsin, up the Fox River, across a portage to the Wisconsin River, and down this to the Mississippi, on whose waters they floated and paddled to a place probably below the mouth of the Arkansas. There the travelers stopped, and turned back toward Canada, convinced that the great river [6] must flow not to the Pacific, but to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Illustration: MARQUETTE AND JOLIET AT A PORTAGE.]

LA SALLE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, 1682.—The voyage of Marquette and Joliet was of the greatest importance to France. Yet the only man who seems to have been fully awake to its importance was La Salle. If the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, a new and boundless Indian trade lay open to Frenchmen. But did it flow into the Gulf? That was a question La Salle proposed to settle; but three heroic attempts were made, and two failures, which to other men would have been disheartening, were endured, before he passed down the river to its mouth in 1682. [7]

LOUISIANA.—Standing on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, La Salle put up a rude cross, nailed to it the arms of France, and, in the name of the French king, Louis XIV, took formal possession of all the region drained by the Mississippi and its branches. He named the country Louisiana.

La Salle knew little of the extent of the region he thus added to the possessions of France in the New World. But the claim was valid, and Louisiana stretched from the unknown sources of the Ohio River and the Appalachian Mountains on the east, to the unknown Rocky Mountains on the west, and from the watershed of the Great Lakes on the north, to the Gulf of Mexico on the south.

LA SALLE ATTEMPTS TO OCCUPY LOUISIANA, 1682.—But the great work La Salle had planned was yet to be done. Louisiana had to be occupied.

A fort was needed far up the valley of the Mississippi to overawe the
Indians and secure the fur trade. Hurrying back to the Illinois River, La
Salle, in December, 1682, on the top of a steep cliff, built a stockade
and named it Fort St. Louis.

A fort and city also needed to be built at the mouth of the Mississippi to keep out the Spaniards and afford a place whence furs floated down the river might be shipped to France. This required the aid of the king. Hurrying to Paris, La Salle persuaded Louis XIV to help him, and was sent back with four ships to found the city.

LA SALLE IN TEXAS, 1684.—But the little fleet missed the mouth of the river and reached the coast of Texas. There the men landed and built Fort St. Louis of Texas. Well knowing that he had passed the river, La Salle left some men at the fort, and with the rest started on foot to find the Mississippi—but never reached it. He was murdered on the way by his own men.

[Illustration: LA SALLE'S HOUSE (CANADA) IN 1900.]

Of the men left in Texas the Indians killed some, and the Spaniards killed or captured the rest, and the plans of this great explorer failed utterly. [8]

BILOXI.—La Salle's scheme of founding a city near the mouth of the Mississippi, however, was carried out by other men. Fear that the English would seize the mouth of the river led the French to act, and in 1699 a gallant soldier named Iberville (e-ber-veel') built a small stockade and planted a colony at Bilox'i on the coast of what is now Mississippi.

NEW ORLEANS FOUNDED.—During fifteen years and more the little colony, which was soon moved from Biloxi to the vicinity of Mobile (map, p. 134), struggled on as best it could; then steps were taken to plant a settlement on the banks of the Mississippi, and (1718) Bienville (be-an-veel') laid the foundation of a city he called New Orleans.

SUMMARY

1. After many failures, a French colony was planted at Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia) in 1601; but this was abandoned for a time, and the first permanent French colony was planted by Champlain at Quebec in 1608.

2. From these settlements grew up the two French colonies called Acadia and New France or Canada.

3. New France was explored by Champlain, and by many brave priests.

4. Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi and explored it from the Wisconsin to the Arkansas (1673).

5. Their unfinished work was taken up by La Salle, who went down the Mississippi to the Gulf (1682), and formally claimed for France all the region drained by the river and its tributaries—a vast area which he called Louisiana.

6. Occupation of the Mississippi valley by the French followed; forts and trading posts were built, and in 1718 New Orleans was founded.

[Illustration: AN INDIAN VILLAGE.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Samuel de Champlain (born in 1567) had been a captain in the royal navy, and had visited the West Indies, Mexico, and the Isthmus of Panama, across which he suggested a canal should be cut. In 1603 he was offered a command in a company of adventurers to New France. On this voyage Champlain went up the St. Lawrence to the site of the Indian town called Hochelaga by Cartier (p. 30); but the village had disappeared. Returning to France, he joined the party of De Monts (1604).

[2] The year 1609 is important in our history. Then it was that Champlain fought the Iroquois; that the second Virginia charter was granted; and that Hudson's expedition gave the Dutch a claim to territory in the New World.

[3] The fight with the Iroquois took place not far from Ticonderoga. When the two parties approached, Champlain advanced and fired his musket. The woods rang with the report, and a chief fell dead. "There arose," says Champlain," a yell like a thunderclap and the air was full of arrows." But when another and another gun shot came from the bushes, the Iroquois broke and fled like deer. The victory was won; but it made the Iroquois the lasting enemies of the French. Read Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 310-324.

[4] About 1000 came in eight years. When married, they received each "an ox, a cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in money." Read Parkman's Old Regime in Canada, pp. 219-225.

[5] The fur trade, which was the life blood of Canada, is finely described in Parkman's Old Regime in Canada, pp. 302-315.

[6] Marquette named the river Immaculate Conception. He noted the abundance of fish in its waters, the broad prairies on which grazed herds of buffalo, and the flocks of wild turkeys in the woods. On his way home he ascended the Illinois River, and crossed to Lake Michigan, passing over the site where Chicago now stands. Read Mary Hartwell Catherwood's Heroes of the Middle West; also Parkman's La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, pp. 48-71; and Hart's American History as told by Contemporaries, Vol. I, pp. 136-140.

[7] In the first attempt he left Fort Frontenac, coasted along the north shore of Lake Ontario, crossed over and went up the Niagara River, and around the Falls to Lake Erie. There he built a vessel called the Griffin, which was sailed through the lakes to the northern part of Lake Michigan (1679). Thence he went in canoes along the shore of Lake Michigan to the river St. Joseph, where he built a fort (Fort St. Joseph), and then pushed on to the Illinois River and (near the present city of Peoria) built another called Fort Crèvecoeur (crav'ker). There he left Henri de Tonty in charge of a party to build another ship, and went back to Canada.

When he returned to the Illinois in 1680, on his second trip, Crèvecoeur was in ruins, and Tonty and his men gone. In hope of finding them La Salle went down the Illinois to the Mississippi, but he turned back and passed the winter on the river St. Joseph. (Read Parkman's description of the great town of the Illinois and its capture by the Iroquois, in La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, pp. 205-215.)

From the St. Joseph, after another trip to Canada, La Salle (with Tonty) started westward for the third time (late in 1681), crossed the lake to where Chicago now is, went down the Illinois and the Mississippi, and in April, 1682, floated out on the waters of the Gulf.

On his first expedition La Salle was accompanied by Father Hennepin, whom he sent down the Illinois and up the Mississippi. But the Sioux (soo) Indians captured Father Hennepin, and took him up the Mississippi to the falls which he named St. Anthony, now in the city of Minneapolis.

[8] Read Parkman's La Salle, pp. 275-288, 350-355, 396-405.

CHAPTER X

WARS WITH THE FRENCH

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.—When James II was driven from his throne (p. 93), he fled to France. His quarrel with King William was taken up by Louis XIV, and in 1689 war began between France and England. The strife thus started in the Old World soon spread to the New, and during eight years the frontier of New England and New York was the scene of French and Indian raids, massacres, and burning towns.

[Illustration: SCENE OF THE EARLY WARS WITH THE FRENCH.]

THE FRONTIER.—The frontier of English settlement consisted of a string of little towns close to the coast in Maine and New Hampshire, and some sixty miles back from the coast in Massachusetts; of a second string of towns up the Connecticut valley to central Massachusetts; and of a third up the Hudson to the Mohawk and up the Mohawk to Schenec'tady. Most of Maine and New Hampshire, all of what is now Vermont, and all New York north and west of the Mohawk was a wilderness pierced by streams which afforded the French and Indians easy ways of reaching the English frontier.

The French frontier consisted of a few fishing towns scattered along the shores of Acadia (what is now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and eastern Maine), arid a few settlements along the St. Lawrence to Fort Frontenac, just where the river leaves Lake Ontario.

Between these frontiers in Maine and New Hampshire were the Abenaki (ab- nahk'ee) Indians, close allies of the French and bitter enemies of the English; and in New York the Iroquois, allies of the English and enemies of the French since the day in 1609 when Champlain defeated them (p. 115). [1]

THE FRENCH ATTACK THE ENGLISH FRONTIER.—The governor of New France was Count Frontenac, a man of action, keen, fiery, and daring, a splendid executive, an able commander, and well called the Father of New France. Gathering his Frenchmen and Indians as quickly as possible, Frontenac formed three war parties on the St. Lawrence in the winter of 1689-90: that at Montreal was to march against Albany; that at Three Rivers was to ravage the frontier of New Hampshire, and that at Quebec the frontier of Maine. The Montreal party was ready first, and made its way on snowshoes to the little palisaded village of Schenectady, passed through the open gates [2] in a blinding storm of snow, and in the darkness of night massacred threescore men, women, and children, took captive as many more, and left the place in ashes.

[Illustration: THE ATTACK AT SCHENECTADY.]

The second war party of French and Indians left the St. Lawrence in January, 1690, spent three months struggling through the wilderness, and in March fell upon the village of Salmon Falls, laid it in ashes, ravaged the farms near by, massacred some thirty men, women, and children, and carried off some fifty prisoners. This deed done, the party hurried eastward and fell in with the third party, from Quebec. The two then attacked and captured Fort Loyal (where Portland now stands), and massacred or captured most of the inhabitants.

END OF KING WILLIAM'S WAR.—Smarting under the attacks of the French and Indians, New England struck back. Its fleet, with a few hundred militia under William Phips, captured and pillaged Port Royal, and for a time held Acadia. A little army of troops from Connecticut and New York marched against Montreal, and a fleet and army under Phips sailed for Quebec. But the one went no farther than Lake Champlain, and Phips, after failing in an attack on Quebec, returned to Boston. [3]

For seven years more the French and Indians ravaged the frontier [4] before the treaty of Ryswick (riz'wick) put an end to the war in 1697.

QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.—In the short interval of peace which followed, the French made a settlement at Biloxi, as we have seen, and founded Detroit (1701). In Europe the French king (Louis XIV) placed his grandson on the throne of Spain and, on the death of James II, recognized James's young son as King James III of England. For this, war was declared by England in 1701. The struggle which followed was known abroad as the War of the Spanish Succession, but in our country as Queen Anne's War. [5]

Again the frontier from Maine to Massachusetts was the scene of Indian raids and massacres. Haverhill was laid waste a second time, [6] and Deerfield in the Connecticut valley was burned.

THE ATTACK ON DEERFIELD was a typical Indian raid. The village, consisting of forty-one houses strung along a road, stood on the extreme northwestern frontier of Massachusetts. In the center of the place was a square wooden meetinghouse which, with some of the houses, was surrounded by a stockade eight feet high flanked on two corners by blockhouses. [7] Late in February, 1704, a band of French and Indians from Canada reached the town, hid in the woods two miles away, and just before dawn moved quietly across the frozen snow, rushed into the village, and, raising the warwhoop, beat in the house doors with ax and hatchet. A few of the wretched inmates escaped half-clad to the next village, but nine and forty men, women, and children were massacred, and one hundred more were led away captives. [8]

END OF QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.—As the war went on, the English colonists twice attacked Port Royal in vain, but on the third attack in 1710 the place was captured. This time the English took permanent possession and renamed it Annapolis in honor of the queen. To Acadia was given the name Nova Scotia. Encouraged by the success at Port Royal, the greatest fleet ever seen, up to that time, in American waters was sent against Quebec, and an army of twenty-three hundred men marched by way of Lake Champlain to attack Montreal.

But the fleet, having lost nine ships and a thousand men in the fog at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, returned to Boston, and the commander of the army, hearing of this, marched back to Albany. When peace was made by the treaty of Utrecht (u'trekt) in 1713, France was forced to give up to Great Britain [9] Acadia, Newfoundland, and all claim to the territory drained by the rivers that flow into Hudson Bay (map, p. 131).

THE FRENCH BUILD FORTS IN LOUISIANA.—Thirty-one years now passed before France and Great Britain were again at war, and in this period France took armed possession of the Mississippi valley, constructed a chain of forts from New Orleans to the Ohio, and built Forts Niagara and Crown Point.

This meant that the French were determined to keep the British out of Louisiana and New France and confine them to the seacoast. But the French were also determined to regain Acadia, and on the island of Cape Breton they built Louisburg, the strongest fortress in America. [10]

KING GEORGE'S WAR.—Such was the state of affairs when in 1744 Great Britain and France again went to war. As George II was then king of Great Britain, the colonists called the strife King George's War. The French now rushed down on Nova Scotia and attacked Annapolis. It seemed as if the whole of Nova Scotia would be conquered; but instead the people of New England sent out a fleet and army and captured Louisburg. [11]

[Illustration: PLAN OF LOUISBURG, 1745.]

When peace was made (1748), after two years more of fighting, Great
Britain gave Louisburg back to France.

THE FRENCH IN THE OHIO VALLEY.—The war ended and no territory lost, the French at once laid plans to shut the British out of the Ohio valley, which France claimed because the Ohio River and its tributaries flowed into the Mississippi. In 1749, therefore, a party of Frenchmen under Céloron (sa-lo-rawng') were sent to take formal possession of that region. [12]

[Illustration: ONE OF THE LEAD PLATES BURIED BY CÉLORON. In the possession of the Virginia Historical Society.]

THE BURIED PLATES.—Paddling up the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, these men carried their canoes around Niagara Falls, coasted along Lake Erie to a place near Chautauqua Lake, and going overland to the lake went down its outlet to the Allegheny River. There the men were drawn up, the French king was proclaimed owner of all the region drained by the Ohio, and a lead plate was buried at the foot of a tree. The inscription on the plate declared that the Ohio and all the streams that entered it and the land on both sides of them belonged to France.

The party then passed down the Allegheny to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to the Miami, burying plates from time to time. [13]

THE FRENCH FORTS.—Formal possession having been taken, the next step of the French was to build a log fort at Presque Isle (on Lake Erie where the city of Erie now is), and also Forts Le Boeuf and Venango, on a branch of the Allegheny.

THE OHIO COMPANY.—But the English colonists likewise claimed the Mississippi valley, by virtue of the old "sea to sea" grants, and the same year that Céloron came down the Allegheny, they also prepared to take possession of the Ohio valley in a much more serious way. The French were burying plates and about to build forts; the English were about to plant towns and make settlements.

Already in Pennsylvania and Virginia population was pushing rapidly westward. Already English traders crossed the mountains and with their goods packed on horses followed the trails down the Ohio valley, going from village to village of the Indians and exchanging their wares for furs.

[Illustration: EARLY FORDS IN THE OHIO VALLEY.]

Convinced that the westward movement of trade and population was favorable for a speculation in land, some prominent men in Virginia [14] formed the Ohio Company, and obtained from the British king a grant of five hundred thousand acres in the Ohio valley on condition that within seven years a hundred families should be settled on it and a fort built and garrisoned.

GOVERNOR DINWIDDIE ALARMED—When, therefore, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia heard that the French were building forts on the Allegheny, he became greatly alarmed, and sent a messenger to demand their withdrawal. But the envoy, becoming frightened, soon turned back. Clearly a man was wanted, and Dinwiddie selected George Washington, [15] a young man of twenty-one and an officer in the Virginia militia.

WASHINGTON'S FIRST PUBLIC SERVICE.—Washington was to find out the whereabouts of the French, proceed to the French post, deliver a letter to the officer in command, and demand an answer. He was also to find out how many forts the French had built, how far apart they were, how well garrisoned, and whether they were likely to be supported from Quebec.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT FORT LE BOEUF.]

Having received these instructions, Washington made his way in the depth of winter to Fort Le Boeuf, delivered the governor's letter, and brought back the refusal of the French officer to withdraw. [16]

FORT DUQUESNE (1754)—Dinwiddie now realized that the French held the Allegheny, and that if they were to be shut out of the Ohio valley, something had to be done at once. He therefore sent a party of backwoodsmen to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio (where Pittsburg now is). While they were at work, the French came down the Allegheny, captured the half-built fort, and in place of it erected a larger one which they named Duquesne (doo-kan').

GREAT MEADOWS.—Meantime Washington had been sent with some soldiers to Wills Creek in western Maryland. When he heard of the capture of the fort, he started westward, cutting a road for wagons and cannon as he went, and camped for a time at Great Meadows, in southwestern Pennsylvania. There, one night, he received word from Half King, a friendly Indian encamped with his band six miles away, that a French force was hidden near at hand. Washington with some forty men set off at once for the Indian camp, and reached it at daylight. A plan of attack was agreed on, and the march begun. On Washington's approach, the French flew to arms, and a sharp fight ensued in which the French commander Jumonville [17] and nine of his men were killed.

FORT NECESSITY.—At Great Meadows Washington now threw up an intrenchment called Fort Necessity. Some more men having reached him, he left a few at the fort and went on westward again. But he had not gone far when word came that the French were coming to avenge the death of Jumonville. Washington therefore fell back to the fort, where he was attacked and on July 4, 1754, was forced to surrender, but was allowed to return to Virginia with his men.

All previous wars between France and England had begun in the Old World, but now a great struggle had begun in the New.

SUMMARY

1. When William and Mary became king and queen of England, war with France followed. In the colonies this was called King William's War (1689-97).

2. The French from Canada ravaged the New England frontier and burned Schenectady in New York. The English colonists captured Port Royal, but failed to take Montreal and Quebec.

3. After four years of peace (1697-1701), war between France and England was renewed. This was called Queen Anne's War (1701-13).

4. The great event of the war was the conquest of Acadia. Port Royal was named Annapolis; Acadia was called Nova Scotia.

5. Thirty-one years of peace followed. During this time the French occupied the Mississippi valley, and built the fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island.

6. During King George's War (1744-48), Louisburg was captured, but it was returned by the treaty of peace.

7. France now proceeded to occupy the Ohio valley, and built forts on a branch of the Allegheny.

8. The British also claimed the Ohio valley, and started to build a fort on the site of Pittsburg, but were driven off by the French.

9. Troops under George Washington, on their way toward the fort, defeated a small French force, but were themselves captured by the French at Fort Necessity (July 4, 1754).

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was only a few years after this defeat that the Dutch planted their trading posts on the upper Hudson. They made friends of the Iroquois, and when the English succeeded the Dutch, they followed the same wise policy, encouraged the old hatred of the Indians for the French, and inspired more than one of their raids into Canada. The Iroquois thus became a barrier against the French and prevented them from coming down the Hudson and so cutting off New England from the Middle Colonies.

[2] The inhabitants, mostly Dutch, had been advised to be on their guard, but they laughed at the advice, kept their gates open, and, it is said, at one of them put two snow men as mock sentinels.

[3] It was expected that the plunder of Quebec would pay the cost of the expedition. Failure added to the debt of Massachusetts, and forced the colony to issue paper money or "bills of credit." This was the first time such money was issued by any of the colonies. (For picture of a bill of credit, see p. 204.)

[4] They captured, plundered, and burned York, were beaten in an attack on Wells, burned houses and tomahawked a hundred people at Durham, and burned the farmhouses near Haverhill.

[5] Queen Mary died in 1694, and King William in 1702. The crown then passed to Anne, sister of Mary. The war, therefore, was fought mostly during her reign.

[6] Read Whittier's poem Pentucket, and his account in prose called The Border War of 1708.

[7] Formidable as was the fort, the snow of a severe winter had been suffered to pile in drifts against the stockade till in places it nearly reached the top, so that the stockade was no longer an obstacle to the French and Indians.

[8] Read Parkman's Half-Century of Conflict, Vol. I, pp. 52-66.

[9] Ever since the accession of King James I (1603) England and Scotland had been under the same king, but otherwise had been independent, each having its own Parliament. Now, in Queen Anne's reign, the two countries were united (1707) and made the one country of Great Britain, with one Parliament.

[10] It was during these years of peace that Georgia was planted. The Spaniards at St. Augustine considered this an intrusion into their territory, and protested vigorously when Oglethorpe established a line of military posts from the Altamaha to the St. Johns River. When word came that Great Britain and Spain were at war, Oglethorpe, aided by British ships, (1740) attacked St. Augustine. He failed to capture the city, and the Spaniards (1742) invaded Georgia. Oglethorpe, though greatly outnumbered, made a gallant defense, forced the Spaniards to withdraw, and (1743) a second time attacked St. Augustine, but failed to take it.

[11] The expedition was undertaken without authority from the king. The army was a body of raw recruits from the farms, the shops, lumber camps, and fishing villages. The commander—Pepperell—was chosen because of his popularity, and knew no more about attacking a fortress than the humblest man in the ranks. Of cannon suitable to reduce a fortress the army had none. Nevertheless, by dint of hard work and good luck, and largely by means of many cannon captured from the French, the garrison was forced to surrender. Read Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair, Part ii, Chap. vii; also Chaps. viii and ix.

[12] Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, pp. 20-34, for a comparison of the French and English colonies in America.

[13] One of these plates was soon found by the Indians and sent to the governor of Pennsylvania. Two more in recent years were found projecting from the banks of the Ohio by boys while bathing or at play.

[14] Among the members of the company were Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, and two brothers of George Washington.

[15] George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Bridges Creek, in Virginia. At fourteen he thought seriously of going to sea, but became a surveyor, and at sixteen was sent to survey part of the vast estate of Lord Fairfax which lay beyond the Blue Ridge. He lived the life of a frontiersman, slept in tents, in cabins, in the open, and did his work so well that he was made a public surveyor. This position gave him steady occupation for three years, and a knowledge of woodcraft and men that stood him in good stead in time to come. When he was nineteen, his brother Lawrence procured him an appointment as an adjutant general of Virginia with the rank of major, a post he held in October, 1753, when Dinwiddie sent him, accompanied by a famous frontiersman, Christopher Gist, to find the French.

[16] On the way home Washington left his men in charge of the horses and baggage, put on Indian walking dress, and with Christopher Gist set off by the nearest way through the woods on foot. "The following day," says Washington, in his account of the journey, "just after we had passed a place called Murdering town, … we fell in with a party of French Indians, who had lain in wait for us. One of them fired at Mr. Gist or me, not fifteen steps off, but fortunately missed." The next day they came to a river. "There was no way of getting over but on a raft, … but before we were half over we were jammed in the ice…. I put out my setting pole to try and stop the raft that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of the stream threw it with such force against the pole, that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold of one of the raft logs." They were forced to swim to an island, and next day crossed on the ice. Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, pp. 132-136.

[17] The French claimed that Jumonville was the bearer of a dispatch from the commander at the Ohio, that after the Virginians fired twice he made a sign that he was the bearer of a letter, that the firing ceased, that they gathered about him and while he was reading killed him and his companions. Jumonville's death has therefore been called an "assassination" by French writers. The story rested on false statements made by Indians friendly to the French. In reality, there is ample proof that Jumonville made no attempt to deliver any message to Washington.

[Illustration: EASTERN NORTH AMERICA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FRENCH AND
INDIAN WAR.]

CHAPTER XI

THE FRENCH DRIVEN FROM AMERICA

THE SITUATION IN 1754.—The French were now in armed possession of the Ohio valley. Their chain of forts bounded the British colonies from Lake Champlain to Fort Duquesne. Unless they were dislodged, all hope of colonial expansion westward was ended. To dislodge them meant war, and the certainty of war led to a serious attempt to unite the colonies.

By order of the Lords of Trade, a convention of delegates from the colonies [1] was held at Albany to secure by treaty and presents the friendship of the Six Nations of Indians; it would not do to let those powerful tribes go over to the French in the coming war. After treating with the Indians, the convention proceeded to consider the question whether all the colonies could not be united for defense and for the protection of their interests.

[Illustration: JOIN, OR DIE.]

FRANKLIN'S PLAN OF UNION.—One of the delegates was Benjamin Franklin. In his newspaper, the Philadelphia Gazette, he had urged union, and he had put this device [2] at the top of an account of the capture of the Ohio fort (afterward Duquesne) by the French. At the convention he submitted a plan of union calling for a president general and a grand council of representatives from the colonies to meet each year. They were to make treaties with the Indians, regulate the affairs of the colonies as a whole, levy taxes, build forts, and raise armies. The convention adopted the plan, but both the colonial legislatures and the Lords of Trade in London rejected it. [3]

[Illustration: FRANKLIN, AT THE AGE OF 70.]

THE FIVE POINTS OF ATTACK.—The French held five strongholds, which shut the British out of New France and Louisiana, and threatened the English colonies.

1. Louisburg threatened New England and Nova Scotia.

2. Quebec controlled the St. Lawrence.

3. Crown Point (and later Ticonderoga), on Lake Champlain, guarded the water route to New York and threatened the Hudson valley.

4. Niagara guarded the portage between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and threatened New York on the west.

5. Fort Duquesne controlled the Ohio and threatened Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The plan of the British was to strengthen their hold on Nova Scotia
(Acadia), and to attack three of the French strongholds—Crown Point,
Niagara, and Fort Duquesne—at the same time.

ACADIA.—Late in May, 1755, therefore, an expedition set sail from Boston, made its way up the Bay of Fundy, captured the French forts at the head of that bay, reduced all Acadia to British rule, and tendered the oath of allegiance to the French Acadians. This they refused to take, whereupon they were driven on board ships at the point of the bayonet and carried off and distributed among the colonies. [4]

[Illustration: FORTS IN NORTHERN NEW YORK.]

CROWN POINT.—The army against Crown Point, composed of troops from the four New England colonies and New York, gathered at Albany, and Forts in northern New York, under command of William Johnson [5] marched to the head of Lake George, where it beat the French under Dieskau (dees'kou), and built Fort William Henry; but it did not reach Crown Point.

NIAGARA.—A third army, under General Shirley of Massachusetts, likewise set out from Albany, and pushing across New York reached Oswego, when all thought of attacking Niagara was abandoned. News had come of the crushing defeat of Braddock.

BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.—Under the belief that neither colonial officers nor colonial troops were of much account, the mother country at the opening of the war sent over Edward Braddock, one of her best officers, and two regiments of regulars. Brad-dock came to Virginia, appointed Washington one of his aids, and having gathered some provincial troops, set off from Fort Cumberland in Maryland for Fort Duquesne. The country to be traversed was a wilderness. No road led through the woods, so the troops were forced to cut one as they went slowly westward (map, p. 144).

On July 9, 1755, when some eight miles from Fort Duquesne, those in the van suddenly beheld what seemed to be an Indian coming toward them, but was really a French officer with a band of French and Indians at his back. The moment he saw the British he stopped and waved his hat in the air, whereupon his followers disappeared in the bushes and opened fire. The British returned the fire and stood their ground manfully, but as they could not see their foe, while their scarlet coats afforded a fine target, they were shot down by scores, lost heart, huddled together, and when at last Brad-dock was forced to order a retreat, broke and fled. [6]

Braddock was wounded just as the retreat began, and died as the army was hurrying back to Fort Cumberland, and lest the Indians should find his grave, he was buried in the road, and all traces of the grave were obliterated by the troops and wagons passing over it. From Fort Cumberland the British marched to Philadelphia, and the whole frontier was left to the mercy of the French and Indians.

FRENCH VICTORIES.—War parties were sent out from Fort Duquesne in every direction, settlement after settlement was sacked, and before November the Indians were burning, plundering, massacring, scalping within eighty miles of Philadelphia. During the two following years (1756-57), the French were all energy and activity, and the British were hard pressed. [7] Oswego and Fort William Henry were captured, [8] and the New York frontier was ravaged by the French.

BRITISH VICTORIES (1758).—And now the tide turned. William Pitt, one of the great Englishmen of his day, was placed at the head of public affairs in Great Britain, and devoted himself with all his energy to the conduct of the war. He chose better commanders, infused enthusiasm into men and officers alike, and the result was a series of victories. A fleet of frigates and battleships, with an army of ten thousand men, captured Louisburg. Three thousand provincials in open boats crossed Lake Ontario, took Fort Frontenac, and thus cut communication between Quebec and the Ohio. A third expedition, under Forbes and Washington, marched slowly across Pennsylvania, to find Fort Duquesne in ruins and the French gone. [9]

[Illustration: LETTER WRITTEN BY WASHINGTON'S MOTHER. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society]

VICTORIES OF 1759.—Two of the five strongholds (Louisburg and Fort Duquesne) were now under the British flag, and the next year (1759) the three others met a like fate. An expedition under Prideaux (prid'o) and Sir William Johnson captured Fort Niagara; an army under Amherst took Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and a fleet and army led by Wolfe, a young officer distinguished at Louisburg, took Quebec.

QUEBEC, 1759.—The victory at Quebec was the greatest of the war. The fortress was the strongest in America, and stood on the crest of a high cliff which rose from the waters of the St. Lawrence. The French commander, Montcalm, was a brave and able soldier. But one night in September, 1759, the British general, Wolfe, led his army up the steep cliff west of the city, and in the morning formed in battle array on the Plains of Abraham. A great battle followed. Both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed; but the British won, and Quebec has ever since been under their flag. Montreal fell the next year (1760), and Canada was conquered. [10]

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF QUEBEC]

SPAIN CEDES FLORIDA TO GREAT BRITAIN.—In the spring of 1761, France made proposals of peace; but while the negotiation was under way, Spain allied herself with France, and was soon dragged into the war. The British thereupon captured Havana and Manila (1762), and thus became for a short time masters of Cuba and the Philippines. A few weeks later preliminary articles of peace were signed (November, 1762), and the final (or definitive) treaty in 1763. Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in return for Cuba. News of the capture of the Philippines was not received till after the preliminary treaty was signed; the islands were therefore returned without any equivalent. [11]

THE FRENCH QUIT AMERICA.—By the treaties of 1762 and 1763 France withdrew from America.

To Great Britain were ceded (1) all of New France (or Canada), Cape Breton
Island, and all the near-by islands save two small ones near Newfoundland,
and (2) all of Louisiana east of the Mississippi save the city of New
Orleans and a little territory above and below the city.

[Illustration: THE BRITISH TERRITORY AT THE END OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN
WAR.]

To recompense Spain for her loss in the war, France ceded to her New
Orleans and the neighboring territory, and all of Louisiana west of the
Mississippi.

THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.—The acquisition of New France made it necessary for Great Britain to provide for its government. To do this she drew a line about the part inhabited by whites, and established the province of Quebec. The south boundary of the new province should be carefully observed, for it became the northern boundary of New York and New England.

THE PROCLAMATION LINE.—The proclamation which created the province of Quebec also drew a line "beyond the sources of the rivers which flow into the Atlantic from the west and northwest": beyond this line no governor of any of the colonies was to grant land. This meant that the king cut off the claims to western lands set forth in the charters of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. The territory so cut off was for the present to be reserved for the Indians.

THE PROVINCES OF EAST AND WEST FLORIDA.—The proclamation of 1763 also created two other provinces. One called East Florida was so much of the present state of Florida as lies east of the Apalachicola River. West Florida was all the territory received from Spain west of the Apalachicola. [12]

To Georgia was annexed the territory between the St. Marys River, the proclamation line, and the Altamaha.

THE FRONTIER.—British settlements did not yet reach the Allegheny
Mountains. In New York they extended a short distance up the Mohawk River.
In Pennsylvania the little town of Bedford, in Maryland Fort Cumberland,
and in Virginia the Allegheny Mountains marked the frontier (p. 144).

THE WILDERNESS ROUTES AND FORTS.—Through the wilderness lying beyond the frontier ran several lines of forts intended to protect routes of communication. Thus in New York the route up the Mohawk to Oneida Lake and down Oswego River to Lake Ontario was protected by Forts Stanwix, Brewerton, and Oswego. From Fort Oswego the route continued by water to Fort Niagara at the mouth of the river of that name, then along the Niagara River and by Lake Erie to Presque Isle, then by land to Fort Le Boeuf, then by river to Fort Pitt.

[Illustration: WILDERNESS ROUTES AND FORTS.]

From Fort Pitt two roads led back to the frontier. One leading to the Potomac valley was that cut from Fort Cumberland by Braddock (in 1755) and known as Braddock's Road. The other to Bedford on the Pennsylvania frontier was cut by General Forbes (in 1758).

Along the shores of the Great Lakes were a few forts built by the French and now held by the British. These were Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw, and St. Joseph.

[Illustration: OLD FORT NIAGARA.]

PONTIAC'S WAR.—Between this chain of forts and the Mississippi River, in the region given up by France, lived many tribes of Indians, old friends of the French and bitter enemies of the British. The old enmity was kept aflame by the French Canadians, who still carried on the fur trade with the Indians. [13]

When, therefore, Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas, in 1762 sent out among the Indian nations ambassadors with the war belt of wampum, and tomahawks stained red in token of war, the tribes everywhere responded to the call. [14] From the Ohio and its tributaries to the upper lakes, and southward to the mouth of the Mississippi, they banded against the British, and early in 1763, led by Pontiac, swept down on the frontier forts. Detroit was attacked, Presque Isle was captured, Le Boeuf and Venango were burned to the ground, Fort Pitt was besieged, and the frontier of Pennsylvania laid waste. Of fourteen posts from Mackinaw to Oswego, all but four were taken by the Indians. It seemed that not a settler would be left west of the Susquehanna; but a little army under Colonel Bouquet beat the Indians, cleared the Pennsylvania frontier, and relieved Fort Pitt in 1763; another army in 1764 passed along the lake shore to Detroit and quieted the Indians in that region, while Bouquet (1764) invaded the Ohio country, forced the tribes to submit, and released two hundred white prisoners.

SUMMARY

1. The war which followed the defeat of Washington is known as the French and Indian War.

2. Fearing that the French Acadians in Nova Scotia would become troublesome, the British dispersed them among the colonies.

3. The strongholds of the French were Louisburg, Quebec, Crown Point, Niagara, and Fort Duquesne.

4. The first expedition against Fort Duquesne ended in Braddock's defeat; expeditions against other strongholds came to naught, and during the early years of the war the French carried everything before them.

5. But when Pitt rose to power in England, the tide turned: Louisburg and Fort Duquesne were captured (in 1758); Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Quebec were taken (in 1759); and Montreal fell in 1760.

6. Spain now joined in the war, whereupon Great Britain seized Cuba and the Philippines.

7. Peace was made in 1762-63: the conquests from Spain were restored to her, but Florida was ceded to Great Britain; and France gave up her possessions in North America.

8. Canada, Cape Breton, and all Louisiana east of the Mississippi, save New Orleans and vicinity, went to Great Britain.

9. New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi went to Spain.

10. Great Britain then established the new provinces of Quebec and East and West Florida, and drew the Proclamation Line.

11. A great Indian uprising, known as Pontiac's War, followed the peace, but was quickly put down.

FOOTNOTES

[1] New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were the only colonies represented.

[2] There was an old superstition that if a snake were cut into pieces and the pieces allowed to touch, they would join and the snake would not die. Franklin meant that unless the separate colonies joined they would be conquered.

[3] Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, the youngest son in a family of seventeen children. He went to work in his father's candle shop when ten years old. He was fond of reading, and by saving what little money he could secure, bought a few books and read them thoroughly. When twelve, he was bound apprentice to a brother who was a printer. At seventeen he ran away to Philadelphia, where he found work in a printing office, and in 1729 owned a newspaper of his own, which soon became the best and most entertaining in the colonies. His most famous publication is Poor Richard's Almanac. To this day the proverbs and common sense sayings of Poor Richard are constantly quoted. Franklin was a good citizen: he took part in the founding of the first public library in Philadelphia, the formation of the first fire engine company, and the organization of the first militia, and he persuaded the authorities to light and pave streets and to establish a night watch. He is regarded as the founder of the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin was also a man of science. He discovered that lightning is electricity, invented the lightning rod, and wrote many scientific papers. He served in the legislature of Pennsylvania, and was made postmaster general for the colonies. All these things occurred before 1754.

[4] About six thousand were carried off. Nowhere were they welcome. Some who were taken to Boston made their way to Canada. Such as reached South Carolina and Georgia were given leave to return; but seven little boatloads were stopped at Boston. Others reached Louisiana, where their descendants still live. A few succeeded in returning to Acadia. Do not fail to read Longfellow's poem Evangeline, a beautiful story founded on this removal of the Acadians. Was it necessary to remove the Acadians? Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, pp. 234-241, 256-266, 276- 284; read also "The Old French War," Part ii, Chap, viii, in Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair.

[5] William Johnson was born in Ireland in 1715, and came to America in 1738 to take charge of his uncle's property in the Mohawk valley. He settled about twenty miles west of Schenectady, and engaged in the Indian trade. He dealt honestly with the Indians, learned their language, attended their feasts, and, tomahawk in hand, danced their dances in Indian dress. He even took as his wife a sister of Brant, a Mohawk chief. So great was his influence with the Indians that in 1746 he was made Commissary of New York for Indian Affairs. In 1750 he was made a member of the provincial Council, went to the Albany convention in 1754, and later was appointed a major general. After the expedition against Crown Point he was knighted and made Superintendent of Indian Affairs in North America. He died in 1774.

[6] It is sometimes said that Braddock fell into an ambuscade. This is a mistake. He was surprised because he did not send scouts ahead of his army; but the Indians were not in ambush. Braddock would not permit the troops to fight in Indian fashion from behind trees and bushes, but forced his men to form in platoons. A part of the regulars who tried to fight behind trees Braddock beat with his sword and forced into line. Some Virginians who sought shelter behind a huge fallen tree were mistaken for the enemy and fired on. In the fight and after it Washington was most prominent. Twice a horse was shot under him. Four bullets passed through his clothes. When the retreat began, he rallied the fugitives, and brought off the wounded Braddock.

[7] War between France and Great Britain was declared in May, 1756. In Europe it was known as the Seven Years' War; in America as the French and Indian. On the side of France were Russia and Austria. On the side of Great Britain was Frederick the Great of Prussia. The fighting went on not only in America, but in the West Indies, on the European Continent, in the Mediterranean, and in India.

[8] When the colonial troops surrendered Fort William Henry, the French commander, Montcalm, agreed that they should return to their homes in safety. But the Indians, maddened by liquor, massacred a large number, and carried off some six hundred prisoners. Montcalm finally secured the release of some four hundred. Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans treats of the war about Lake George.

[9] Instead of using the road cut by Braddock, Forbes chose another route, (map, p. 144), and spent much time in road making. Late in September he was still fifty miles from Fort Duquesne, and decided to go into winter quarters. But the French attacked Forbes and were beaten; and from some prisoners Forbes learned that the garrison at Fort Duquesne was weak. A picked force of men, with Washington and his Virginians in the lead, then hurried forward, and reached the fort to find it abandoned. A new stockade was built near by, and named Fort Pitt, and the place was named Pittsburg.

[10] Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. II, pp. 280-297. The fall of Quebec is treated in fiction in Gilbert Parker's Seats of the Mighty.

[11] When Manila was captured, all private property was saved from plunder by the promise of a ransom of £1,000,000. One half was paid in money, and the rest in bills on the Spanish treasury. Spain never paid these bills.

[12] The north boundary was the parallel of 31°; but in 1764 West Florida was enlarged, and the north boundary became the parallel of latitude that passes through the mouth of the Yazoo River.

[13] They told the Indians that the British would soon be driven out, and that the Mississippi River and Canada would again be in French hands; that the British were trying to destroy the Indian race, and for this purpose were building forts and making settlements.

[14] Read Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac; Kirk Munroe's At War with Pontiac.

CHAPTER XII

THE QUARREL WITH THE MOTHER COUNTRY

The French and Indian War gave the colonists valuable training as soldiers, freed them from the danger of attack by their French neighbors, and so made them less dependent on Great Britain for protection. But the mother country took no account of this, and at once began to do things which in ten years' time drove the colonies into rebellion.

CAUSES OF THE QUARREL.—We are often told that taxation without representation was the cause of the Revolution. It was indeed one cause, and a very important one, but not the only one by any means. The causes of the Revolution, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, were many, and arose chiefly from an attempt of the mother country to (1) enforce the laws concerning trade, (2) quarter royal troops in the colonies, [1] and (3) support the troops by taxes imposed without consent of the colonies.

THE TRADE LAWS were enacted by Parliament between 1650 and 1764 for the purpose of giving Great Britain a monopoly of colonial trade. By their provisions—

1. No goods were to be carried from any port in Europe to America unless first landed in England.

2. Many articles of colonial production, as tobacco, cotton, silk, indigo, furs, rice, sugar, could not be sent to any country save England; but lumber, salt fish, and provisions could be sent also to France, Spain, or other foreign countries.

3. To help English wool manufacture, the colonists were forbidden to send their woolen goods or hats to any country whatever, or even from colony to colony.

4. To help English iron manufacture, the colonists were forbidden to make steel.

5. To help the British West Indies, a heavy duty was laid (in 1733) on sugar or molasses imported from any other than a British possession.

SMUGGLING.—Had these laws been rigidly enforced they would have been severe indeed, but they could not be rigidly enforced. They were openly violated, and smuggling became so common in every colony [2] that the cost of collecting the revenue was much more than the amount gathered.

This smuggling the British government now determined to end. Accordingly, in 1764, the colonies were ordered to stop all unlawful trade, naval vessels were stationed off the coast to seize smugglers, and new courts, called vice-admiralty courts, were set up in which smugglers when caught were to be tried without a jury. [3]

A STANDING ARMY.—It was further proposed to send over ten thousand regular soldiers to defend the colonies against the Indians and against any attack that might be made by France or Spain. The colonists objected to the troops on the ground that they had not asked for soldiers and did not need any.

[Illustration: BRITISH SOLDIER.]

THE STAMP ACT.—As the cost of keeping the troops would be very great, it was decided to raise part of the money needed by a stamp tax which Parliament enacted in 1765. The Stamp Act applied not only to the thirteen colonies, but also to Canada, Florida, and the West Indies, and was to take effect on and after November 1, 1765. [4]

1. Every piece of vellum or paper on which was written any legal document for use in any court was to be charged with a stamp duty of from three pence to ten pounds.

2. Many kinds of documents not used in court, and newspapers, almanacs, etc., were to be written or printed only on stamped paper made in England and sold at prices fixed by law.

The money raised by the stamp tax was not to be taken to Great Britain, but was to be spent in the colonies in the purchase of food and supplies for the troops.

THE COLONIES DENY THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENT TO TAX THEM.—But the colonists cared not for what use the money was intended. "No taxation without representation," was their cry. They cast no votes for a member of Parliament; therefore, they said, they were not represented in Parliament. Not being represented, they could not be taxed by Parliament, because taxes could lawfully be laid on them only by their chosen representatives. [5]

In the opinion of the British people the colonists were represented in Parliament. British subjects in America, it was held, were just as much represented in the House of Commons as were the people of Manchester or Birmingham, neither of which sent a member to the House. Each member of the House represented not merely the few men who elected him, but all the subjects of the British crown everywhere. [6]

THE COLONIES RESIST.—Resistance to the Stamp Act began in Virginia, where the House of Burgesses passed a set of resolutions written by Patrick Henry. [7] In substance they declared that the colonists were British subjects and were not bound to obey any law taxing them without the consent of their own legislatures.

[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY. From an old print.]

Massachusetts came next with a call for a congress of delegates from the colonies, to meet at New York in October.

THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS, 1765.—Nine of the colonies sent delegates, and after a session of twenty days the representatives of six signed a declaration of rights and grievances.

The declaration of rights set forth that a British subject could not be taxed unless he was represented in the legislature that imposed the tax; that Americans were not represented in Parliament; and that therefore the stamp tax was an attack on the rights of Englishmen and the liberty of self-government. The grievances complained of were trial without jury, restrictions on trade, taxation without representation, and especially the stamp tax.

THE STAMP DISTRIBUTERS.—In August, 1765, the names of the men in America chosen to be the distributers or sellers of the stamps and stamped paper were made public, and then the people began to act. Demands were made that the distributers should resign. When they refused, the people rose and by force compelled them to resign, and riots occurred in the chief seaboard towns from New Hampshire to Maryland. At Boston the people broke into the house of the lieutenant governor and destroyed his fine library and papers.

[Illustration: THE PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL AND WEEKLY ADVERTISER]

On November 1, 1765, the Stamp Act went into force, but not a stamp or a piece of stamped paper could be had in any of the thirteen colonies. Some of the newspapers ceased to be printed, the last issues appearing with black borders, death's heads, and obituary notices. But soon all were regularly issued without stamps, and even the courts disregarded the law. [8]

[Illustration: LANTERN USED AT CELEBRATION OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT.
In the Old Statehouse, Boston.]

THE STAMP ACT REPEALED, 1766.—Meantime the merchants had been signing agreements not to import, and the people not to buy, any British goods for some months to come. American trade with the mother country was thus cut off, thousands of workmen in Great Britain were thrown out of employment, and Parliament was beset with petitions from British merchants praying for a repeal of the stamp tax. To enforce the act without bloodshed was impossible. In March, 1766, therefore, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. [9] But at the same time it enacted another, known as the Declaratory Act, in which it declared that it had power to "legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever."

THE TOWNSHEND ACTS, 1767.—In their joy over the repeal of the Stamp Act, the colonists gave no heed to the Declaratory Act. But the very next year Charles Townshend, then minister of finance, persuaded Parliament to pass several laws since known as the Townshend Acts. One of these forbade the legislature of New York to pass any more laws until it had made provision for the royal troops quartered in New York city. Another laid taxes on all paints, paper, tea, and certain other articles imported into the colonies. [10]

THE COLONIES AGAIN RESIST.—None of the new taxes were heavy, but again the case was one of taxation without representation, so the legislature of Massachusetts sent a letter to the other colonial legislatures asking them to unite and consult for the protection of their rights. This letter gave so great offense to the mother country that Massachusetts was ordered to rescind her act, and the governors of the other colonies to see that no notice was taken of it. [11] And now the royal troops for the defense of the colonies began to arrive. But Massachusetts, North Carolina, and South Carolina refused to find them quarters, and for such refusal the legislature of North Carolina was dissolved.

[Illustration: BOSTON MASSACRE MONUMENT. In Boston Common.]

THE BOSTON MASSACRE.—At Boston the troops were received with every mark of hatred and disgust, and for three years were subjected to every sort of insult and indignity, which they repaid in kind. The troops led riotous lives, raced horses on Sunday on the Common, played "Yankee Doodle" before the church doors, and more than once exchanged blows with the citizens. In one encounter the troops fired on the crowd, killing five and wounding six. This was the famous "Boston Massacre," and produced over all the land a deep impression. [12]

TOWNSHEND ACTS REPEALED, 1770.—Once more the resistance of the colonies— chiefly through refusing to buy British goods—was successful, and Parliament took off all the Townshend taxes except that on tea. This import tax of three pence a pound on tea was retained in order that the right of Parliament to tax the colonies might be asserted. But the colonists stood firm; they refused to buy tea shipped from Great Britain, but smuggled it from Holland. [13]

TEA TAX JUGGLE.—By 1773 the refusal to buy tea from the mother country was severely felt by the East India Company, which had brought far more tea to Great Britain than it could dispose of. Parliament then removed the export duty of twelve pence a pound which had formerly been paid in Great Britain on all tea shipped to the colonies. Thus after paying the three- pence tax at the American customhouses, the tea could be sold nine pence a pound cheaper than before.

THE TEA NOT ALLOWED TO BE SOLD.—The East India Company now quickly selected agents in the chief seaports of the colonies, and sent shiploads of tea consigned to them for sale. [14] But the colonists were tempted by cheap tea; they were determined that Parliament would not tax them. They therefore forced the agents to resign their commissions, and when the tea ships arrived, took possession of them. At Philadelphia the ships were sent back to London. At Charleston the tea was landed and stored for three years and then seized and sold by the state of South Carolina. At Annapolis the people forced the owner of a tea ship to go on board and set fire to his ship; vessel and cargo were thus consumed. At Boston the people wished the tea sent back to London, and when the authorities refused to allow this, a party of men disguised as Indians boarded the ships and threw the tea into the water. [15]

[Illustration: THROWING THE TEA OVERBOARD, BOSTON.]

THE INTOLERABLE ACTS.—Parliament now determined to punish the colonies, and for this purpose enacted five laws called by the colonists the Intolerable Acts:—

1. The port of Boston was shut to trade and commerce till the colony should pay for the tea destroyed.

2. The charter of Massachusetts was altered.

3. Persons who were accused of murder done in executing the laws might be taken for trial to another colony or to Great Britain.

4. The quartering of troops on the people was authorized.

5. The boundaries of the province of Quebec were extended to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. As Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia claimed parts of this territory, they regarded the Quebec Act as another act of tyranny. [16]

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.—Because of the passage of these laws, a Congress suggested by Virginia and called by Massachusetts met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia in September, 1774, and issued a declaration of rights and grievances, a petition to the king, and addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the people of Canada, and to the people of the colonies. It also called a second Congress to meet on May 10, 1775, and take action on the result of the petition to the king.

SUMMARY

1. After the French and Indian War Great Britain determined to enforce the laws of trade.

2. It also decided that the colonies should bear a part of the cost of their defense, and for this purpose a stamp tax was levied.

3. The right of Parliament to levy such a tax was denied by the colonists on the ground that they were not represented in Parliament.

4. The attempt to enforce the tax led to resistance, and a congress of the colonies (1765) issued a declaration of rights and grievances.

5. The tax was repealed in 1766, but Parliament at the same time asserted its right to tax.

6. The Townshend Acts (1767) tried to raise a revenue by import duties on goods brought into the colonies. At the same time the arrival of the troops for defense of the colonies caused new trouble; in Boston the people and the troops came to blows (1770).

7. The refusal of the colonists to buy the taxed articles led to the repeal of all the taxes except that on tea (1770).

8. The colonists still refused to buy taxed tea, whereupon Parliament enabled the East India Company to send over tea for sale at a lower price than before.

9. The tea was not allowed to be sold. In Boston it was destroyed.

10. As a punishment Parliament enacted the five Intolerable Acts.

11. The First Continental Congress (1774) thereupon petitioned for redress, and called a second Congress to meet the next year.

FOOTNOTES

[1] That is, compel the colonists to furnish quarters—rooms or houses— for the troops to live in. Read Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. I, pp. 439-440.

[2] In order to detect and seize smugglers the crown had resorted to "writs of assistance." The law required that every ship bringing goods to America should come to some established port and that her cargo should be reported at the customhouse. Instead, the smugglers would secretly land goods elsewhere. If a customs officer suspected this, he could go to court and ask for a search warrant, stating the goods for which he was to seek and the place to be searched. But this would give the smugglers warning and they could remove the goods. What the officers wanted was a general warrant good for any goods in any place. This writ of assistance, as it was called, was common in England, and was issued in the colonies about 1754. In 1760 King George II died, and all writs issued in his name expired. In 1761, therefore, application was made to the Superior Court of Massachusetts for a new writ of assistance to run in the name of King George III. Sixty merchants opposed the issue, and James Otis and Oxenbridge Thacher appeared for the merchants. The speech of Otis was a famous plea, sometimes called the beginning of colonial resistance; but the court granted the writ.

[3] These acts are complained of in the Declaration of Independence. The king is blamed "For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world," that is, enforcing the trade laws; again, "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people," that is to say, the vice-admiralty judges and naval officers sworn to act as customhouse officers and seize smugglers. In doing this duty these officers did "harass our people."

[4] While the Stamp Act was under debate in Parliament, Colonel Barré, who fought under Wolfe at Louisburg, opposed it. A member had spoken of the colonists as "children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, and protected by our arms." "They planted by your care!" said Barré. "No, your oppression planted them in America. Nourished by your indulgence! They grew up by your neglect of them. They protected by your arms! These Sons of Liberty have nobly taken up arms in your defense." The words "Sons of Liberty" were at once seized on, and used in our country to designate the opponents of the stamp tax. Read "The Stamp Act" in Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair.

[5] The colonists did not deny the right of Parliament to regulate the trade of the whole British Empire, and to lay "external taxes"—customs duties—for the purpose of regulating trade. But this stamp tax was an "internal tax" for the purpose of raising revenue.

[6] Parliament was divided then, as now, into two houses—the Lords, consisting of nobles and clergy, and the Commons, consisting then of two members elected by each county and two elected by each of certain towns. Some change was made in the list of towns thus represented in Parliament before the sixteenth century, but no change had been made since, though many of them had lost all or most of their population. Thus Old Sarum had become a green mound; its population had all drifted away to Salisbury. A member of the Commons, so the story runs, once said: "I am the member from Ludgesshall. I am also the population of Ludgesshall. When the sheriff's writ comes, I announce the election, attend the poll, deposit my vote for myself, sign the return, and here I am." When a town disappeared, the landowner of the soil on which it once stood appointed the two members. Such towns were called "rotten boroughs," "pocket boroughs," "nomination boroughs."

[7] Patrick Henry was born in Virginia in 1736. As a youth he was dull and indolent and gave no sign of coming greatness. After two failures as a storekeeper and one as a farmer he turned in desperation to law, read a few books, and with difficulty passed the examination necessary for admittance to the bar. Henry had now found his true vocation. Business came to him, and one day in 1763 he argued the weak (but popular) side of a case with such eloquence that he carried court and jury with him, and it is said was carried out of the courthouse on the shoulders of the people. He was now famous, and in 1765 was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses to represent the county in which he had lived, just in time to take part in the proceedings on the Stamp Act. His part was to move the resolutions and support them in a fiery and eloquent speech, of which one passage has been preserved. Recalling the fate of tyrants of other times, he exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—." "Treason! treason!" shouted the Speaker. "Treason! treason!" shouted the members. To which Henry answered, "and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

[8] In Canada and the West Indies the stamp tax was not resisted, and there stamps were used.

[9] When Parliament was considering the repeal, Benjamin Franklin, then in London as agent for Pennsylvania and other colonies, was called before a committee and examined as to the state of colonial affairs; read his answers in Hart's American History told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, pp. 407-411. Pitt in a great speech declared, "The kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies, because they are unrepresented in Parliament. I rejoice that America has resisted." Edmund Burke, one of the greatest of Irish orators, took the same view.

[10] In the Declaration of Independence the king is charged with giving his assent to acts of Parliament "For suspending our own legislatures," and "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us," and "For imposing taxes on us without our consent."

[11] For refusing to obey, the legislature of Massachusetts was dissolved, as were the assemblies of Maryland and Georgia for having approved it, and that of New York for refusing supplies to the royal troops, and that of Virginia for complaining of the treatment of New York. Read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 28-36, 39-52.

[12] The two regiments of British troops in Boston were now removed, on demand of the people, to a fort in the harbor. The soldiers who fired the shots were tried for murder and acquitted, save two who received light sentences.

[13] One of the vessels sent to stop smuggling was the schooner Gaspee. Having run aground in Narragansett Bay (June, 1772), she was boarded by a party of men in eight boats and burned. The Virginia legislature appointed a "committee of correspondence," to find out the facts regarding the destruction of the Gaspee and "to maintain a correspondence with our sister colonies." This plan of a committee to inform the other colonies what was happening in Virginia, and obtain from them accurate information as to what they were doing, was at once taken up by Massachusetts and other colonies, each of which appointed a similar committee. Such committees afterward proved to be the means of revolutionary organization. Read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 76-80.

[14] Parliament had given the company permission to do this. The company had long possessed the monopoly of trade with the East Indies, and the sole right to bring tea from China to Great Britain. Before 1773, however, it was obliged to sell the tea in Great Britain, and the business of exporting tea to the colonies had been carried on by merchants who bought from the company.

[15] Read "The Tea Party" in Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair.

[16] All the Intolerable Acts are referred to in the Declaration of Independence. See if you can find the references.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE BEGUN

LEXINGTON, 1775.—When the second Continental Congress met (May 10, 1775), the mother country and her colonies had come to blows.

The people of Massachusetts, fearing that this might happen, had begun to collect and hide arms, cannon, and powder. General Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and commander of the British troops in Boston, was told that military supplies were concealed at Concord, a town some twenty miles from Boston (map, p. 168). Now it happened that in April, 1775, two active patriots, Samuel Adams [1] and John Hancock, were at Lexington, a town on the road from Boston to Concord. Gage determined to strike a double blow at the patriots by sending troops to arrest Adams and Hancock and destroy the military stores. On the evening of April 18, accordingly, eight hundred regulars left Boston as quietly as possible. Gage hoped to keep the expedition a secret, but the patriots in Boston, suspecting where the troops were going, sent off Paul Revere [2] and William Dawes to ride by different routes to Lexington, rousing the countryside as they went. As the British advanced, alarm bells, signal guns, and lights in the villages gave proof that their secret was out.

[Illustration: JOHN HANCOCK'S BIBLE. Now in the Old Statehouse, Boston.]

[Illustration: ONE OF THE LANTERNS HUNG IN THE BELFRY. Now in the possession of the Concord Antiquarian Society.]

The sun was rising as the first of the British, under Major Pitcairn, entered Lexington and saw drawn up across the village green some fifty minutemen [3] under Captain John Parker. "Disperse, ye villains," cried Pitcairn; "ye rebels, disperse!" Not a man moved, whereupon the order to fire was given; the troops hesitated to obey; Pitcairn fired his pistol, and a moment later a volley from the British killed or wounded sixteen minutemen. [4] Parker then gave the order to retire.

[Illustration: STONE ON VILLAGE GREEN AT LEXINGTON.]

THE CONCORD FIGHT.—From Lexington the British went on to Concord, set the courthouse on fire, spiked some cannon, cut down the liberty pole, and destroyed some flour. Meantime the minutemen, having assembled beyond the village, came toward the North Bridge, and the British who were guarding it fell back. Shots were exchanged, and six minutemen were killed. [5] But the Americans crossed the bridge, drove back the British, and then dispersed.

[Illustration: BOSTON, CHARLESTON, ETC.]

About noon the British started for Boston, with hundreds of minutemen, who had come from all quarters, hanging on their flanks and rear, pouring in a galling fire from behind trees and stone fences and every bit of rising ground. The retreat became a flight, and the flight would have become a rout had not reinforcements met them near Lexington. Protected by this force, the defeated British entered Boston by sundown. By morning the hills from Charlestown to Roxbury were black with minutemen, and Boston was in a state of siege.

When the Green Mountain Boys heard of the fight, they took arms, and under Ethan Allen [6] surprised and captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain (map, p. 168).

THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.—On the day that Fort Ticonderoga was captured (May 10, 1775), the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia. It had been created, not to govern the colonies, nor to conduct a war, but merely to consult concerning the public welfare, and advise what the colonies should do. But war had begun, Congress was forced to become a governing body, and after a month's delay it adopted the band of patriots gathered about Boston, made it the Continental army, and appointed George Washington (then a delegate to Congress from Virginia) commander in chief.

Washington accepted the trust, and left Philadelphia June 21, but had not gone twenty miles when he was met by news of the battle of Bunker Hill.

BUNKER HILL, JUNE 17,1775.—Since the fight at Lexington and Concord in April, troops under General Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and General Burgoyne had arrived at Boston and raised the number there to ten thousand. Gage now felt strong enough to seize the hills near Boston, lest the Americans should occupy them and command the town. Learning of this, the patriots determined to forestall him, and on the night of June 16 twelve hundred men under Prescott were sent to fortify Bunker Hill in Charlestown. Prescott thought best to go beyond Bunker Hill, and during the night threw up a rude intrenchment on Breeds Hill instead.

[Illustration: DRUM USED AT BUNKER HILL. Now in the possession of the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, Boston.]

To allow batteries to be planted there would never do, so Gage dispatched Howe with nearly three thousand regulars to drive away the Americans and hold the hill. Coming over from Boston in boats, the British landed and marched up the hill till thirty yards from the works, when a deadly volley mowed down the front rank and sent the rest down the hill in disorder.

A little time elapsed before the regulars were seen again ascending, only to be met by a series of volleys at short range. The British fought stubbornly, but were once more forced to retreat, leaving the hillside covered with dead and wounded. Their loss was dreadful, but Howe could not bear to give up the fight, and a third time the British were led up the hill. The powder of the Americans was spent, and the fight was hand to hand with stones, butts of muskets, anything that would serve as a weapon, till the bayonet charges of the British forced the Americans to retreat. [7]

WASHINGTON IN COMMAND.—Two weeks later Washington reached Cambridge and took formal command of the army. For eight months he kept the British shut up in Boston, while he gathered guns, powder, and cannon, and trained the men.

To the Continental army mean time came troops from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and of course from the four New England colonies, commanded by men who were destined to rise to high positions during the war. There was Daniel Morgan of Virginia, with a splendid band of sharpshooters, and Israel Putnam of Connecticut, John Stark and John Sullivan of New Hampshire, Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island, Henry Knox of Boston, Horatio Gates of Virginia, and Benedict Arnold and Charles Lee who later turned traitors.

THE HESSIANS.—When King George III heard of the fight at Bunker Hill, he issued a proclamation declaring the colonists rebels, closed their ports to trade and commerce, [8] and sought to hire troops from Russia and Holland. Both refused, whereupon he turned to some petty German states and hired many thousand soldiers who in our country were called Hessians. [9]

[Illustration: HESSIAN HAT. Now in Essex Hall, Salem.]

CANADA INVADED.—Now that the war was really under way, Congress turned its attention to Canada. It was feared that the British governor there might take Ticonderoga, enter New York, and perhaps induce the Indians to harry the New England frontier as they did in the old French wars. In the summer of 1775, therefore, two expeditions were sent against Canada. One under Richard Montgomery went down Lake Champlain from Ticonderoga and captured Montreal. Another under Benedict Arnold sailed from Massachusetts to the mouth of the Kennebec River, arid forced its way through the dense woods of Maine to Quebec. There Montgomery joined Arnold, and on the night of December 31, 1775, the American army in a blinding snowstorm assaulted the town. Montgomery fell dead while leading the attack on one side of Quebec, Arnold was wounded during the attack on the other side, and Morgan, who took Arnold's place and led his men far into the town, was cut off and captured. Though the attack on Quebec failed, the Americans besieged the place till spring, when they were forced to leave Canada and find shelter at Crown Point.

BOSTON EVACUATED.—During the winter of 1775-76, some heavy guns were dragged over the snow on sledges from Ticonderoga to Boston. A captured British vessel provided powder, and in March, 1776, Washington seized Dorchester Heights, fortified them, and by so doing forced Howe, who had succeeded Gage in command, to evacuate Boston, March 17.

WHIGS AND TORIES.—During the excitement over the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the tea tax, the people were divided into three parties. Those who resisted and—finally rebelled were called Whigs, or Patriots, or "Sons of Liberty." Those who supported king and Parliament were called Tories or Loyalists. [10] Between these two extremes were the great mass of the population who cared little which way the struggle ended. In New York, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas the Tories were numerous and active, and when the war opened, they raised regiments and fought for the king.

FIGHTING IN THE CAROLINAS.—In January, 1776, Sir Henry Clinton sailed from Boston to attack North Carolina, and a force of sixteen hundred Tories marched toward the coast to aid. But North Carolina had its minutemen as well as Massachusetts. A body of them under Colonel Caswell met and beat the Tories at Moores Creek (February 27) and so large a force of patriots had assembled when Clinton arrived that he did not make the attack.

The next attempt was against South Carolina. Late in June, Clinton with his fleet appeared before Charleston, and while the fleet opened fire on Fort Moultrie (mol'try) from the water, Clinton marched to attack it by land. But the land attack failed, the fleet was badly damaged by shot from the fort, and the expedition sailed away to New York. [11]

INDEPENDENCE NECESSARY.—Prior to 1776 many of the colonies denied any desire for independence, [12] but the events of this year caused a change. After the battle of Moores Creek, North Carolina bade her delegates in Congress vote for independence. Virginia, in May, ordered her delegates to propose that the United Colonies be declared free and independent. South Carolina and Georgia instructed their delegates to assent to any measure for the good of America. Rhode Island dropped the king's name from state documents and sheriffs' writs, and town after town in Massachusetts voted to uphold Congress in a declaration of independence.

Thus encouraged, Congress, in May, resolved that royal authority must be suppressed, and advised all the colonies to establish independent governments. Some had already done so; the rest one by one framed written constitutions of government, and became states. [13]

INDEPENDENCE DECLARED.—To pretend allegiance to the king any longer was a farce. Congress, therefore, appointed Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to write a declaration of independence, and on July 2, 1776, resolved: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." [14] This is the Declaration of Independence. The document we call the Declaration contains the reasons why independence was declared. It was written by Jefferson, and after some changes by Congress was adopted on July 4, 1776, [15] and copied were ordered to be sent to the states.

[Illustration: THE COMMITTEE ON DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. From an old print.]

SUMMARY

1. Governor Gage, hearing that the people of Massachusetts were gathering military stores, sent troops to destroy the stores.

2. The battles at Lexington and Concord followed, and Boston was besieged.

3. The militia from the neighboring colonies gathered about Boston. They were formed into a Continental army by Congress, and Washington was appointed commander in chief.

4. The battle of Bunker Hill, meantime, took place (June, 1775).

5. King George III now declared the colonists rebels, shut their ports, and sent troops from Germany to subdue them.

6. An expedition of the patriots for the conquest of Canada failed (1775- 76).

7. But the British were forced to leave Boston (March, 1776).

8. British attacks on North Carolina and South Carolina came to naught.

9. July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Samuel Adams was born in Boston in 1722, graduated from Harvard College, and took so active a part in town politics that he has been called "the Man of the Town Meeting." From 1765 to 1774 he was a member of the Massachusetts Assembly, and for some years its clerk. He was a member of the committee sent to demand the removal of the soldiers after the massacre of 1770, and of that sent to demand the resignations of the men appointed to receive the tea, and presided over the town meeting that demanded the return of the tea ships to England. He was a member of the Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of Independence. After the Revolution he was lieutenant governor and then governor of Massachusetts, and died in 1803.

[2] Revere went by way of Charlestown (map, p. 160), first crossing the river from Boston in a rowboat. As there was danger that his boat might be stopped by the British warships, two lanterns were shown from the belfry of the North Church as a signal to his friends in Charlestown; and when he landed there at midnight, he found the patriots astir, ready to give the alarm if he had not appeared. Read "Paul Revere's Ride" in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn.

[3] In 1774 the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts ordered one quarter of all the militiamen to be enlisted for emergency service. They came to be known as minutemen, and in 1775 the Continental Congress recommended "that one fourth part of the militia in every colony, be selected for minutemen … to be ready on the shortest notice, to march to any place where their assistance may be required."

[4] Just before the fight began Adams and Hancock left Lexington and set out to attend the Congress at Philadelphia.

[5] Read Emerson's Concord Hymn; also Cooper's admirable description of the day's fighting in Lionel Lincoln.

[6] Ethan Allen was born in Connecticut in 1737, and went to Vermont about 1769. Vermont was then claimed by New York and New Hampshire, and when New York tried to enforce her authority, the settlers in "New Hampshire Grants" resisted, and organized as the "Green Mountain Boys" with Allen as leader. At Fort Ticonderoga Allen found the garrison asleep. The British commandant, awakened by the noise at his door, came out and was ordered to surrender the fort. "By what authority?" he asked. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," said Allen.

[7] Read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 136-146, and Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill. The British lost 1054 and the Americans 449. Among the British dead was Pitcairn, who began the war at Lexington. Among the American dead was Dr. Warren, an able leader of the Boston patriots. While the battle was raging, Charlestown was shelled and set on fire and four hundred houses burned. Later, in October, a British fleet entered the harbor of Falmouth (now Portland in Maine), and burned three fourths of the houses. January 1, 1776, Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, set fire to Norfolk, the chief city of Virginia. The fire raged for three days and reduced the place to ashes. These acts are charged against the king in the Declaration of Independence: "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

[8] This is made a charge against the king in the Declaration: "He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us." And again, "For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world."

[9] The Duke of Brunswick, the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and four other princes furnished the men. Their generals were Riedesel (ree'de-zel), Knyp-hausen (knip'hou-zen), Von Heister, and Donop. The employment of these troops furnishes another charge against the king in the Declaration: "He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny." The first detachment of German troops landed on Staten Island in New York Bay on August 15, 1776. Before the war ended, the six petty German princes furnished 29,867, of whom 12,550 never returned. Some 5000 of these deserted.

[10] Before fighting began, the Tories were denounced and held up as enemies to their country; later their leaders were mobbed, and if they held office, were forced to resign. After the battle of Bunker Hill, laws of great severity were enacted against them. They were disarmed, forced to take an oath of allegiance, proclaimed traitors, driven into exile, and their estates and property were confiscated. At the close of the war, fearing the anger of the Whigs, thousands of Tories fled from our country to Jamaica, Bermuda, Halifax in Nova Scotia, and Canada. Some 30,000 went from New York city in 1782-83, and upward of 60,000 left our country during and after the war.

[11] While the battle was hottest, a shot carried away the flagstaff of Fort Moultrie. The staff and flag fell outside the fort. Instantly Sergeant William Jasper leaped down, fastened the flag to the ramrod of a cannon, climbed back, and planted this new staff firmly on the fort. A fine monument now commemorates his bravery.

[12] However, many leaders in New England, as Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Elbridge Gerry; in Pennsylvania, as Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin; in Delaware, as Thomas McKean; as Chase of Maryland; Lee, Henry, Jefferson, Washington, of Virginia; and Gadsden of South Carolina, favored independence. In this state of affairs Thomas Paine, in January, 1776, wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense, in which independence was strongly urged. The effect was wonderful. Edition after edition was printed in many places. "Common Sense," says one writer, "is read to all ranks; and as many as read, so many become converted."

[13] Rhode Island and Connecticut did not abandon their charters, for in these colonies the people had always elected their governors and had always been practically independent of the king. Connecticut did not make a constitution till 1818, and Rhode Island not till 1842.

[14] This resolution had been introduced in Congress, in June, by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. For a fine description of the debate on independence read Webster's Oration on Adams and Jefferson. Why did John Dickinson oppose a declaration of independence? Read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 190-192.

[15] A few copies signed by Hancock, president of Congress, and Thomson, the secretary, were made public on July 5; and on July 8 one of these was read to a crowd of people in the Statehouse yard at Philadelphia. The common idea that the Declaration was signed at one time is erroneous. The signing did not begin till August 2. Of those who signed then and afterward, seven were not members of Congress on July 4, 1776. Of those signers who were members on July 4, it is known that five were absent on that day. Seven men who were members of Congress on July 4 were not members on August 2, and never signed.

[Illustration: THE NORTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION]

CHAPTER XIV

THE WAR IN THE MIDDLE STATES AND ON THE SEA

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND.—When Howe sailed from Boston (in March, 1776), he went to Halifax in Nova Scotia. But Washington was sure New York would be attacked, so he moved the Continental army to that city and took position on the hills back of Brooklyn on Long Island.

He was not mistaken, for to New York harbor in June came General Howe, and in July Clinton from his defeat at Charleston, and Admiral Howe [1] with troops from England. Thus reinforced, General Howe landed on Long Island in August, and drove the Americans from their outposts, back to Brooklyn. [2] Washington now expected an assault, but Howe remembered Bunker Hill and made ready to besiege the Americans, whereupon two nights after the battle Washington crossed with the army to Manhattan Island. [3]

WASHINGTON'S RETREAT.—Washington left a strong force under Putnam in the heart of New York city, and stationed his main army along Harlem Heights. Howe crossed to Manhattan and landed behind Putnam, [4] who was thus forced to leave his guns and tents, and flee to Harlem Heights, where Howe attacked Washington the next day and was repulsed.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS. Tablet on a Columbia College building, New York city.]

So matters stood for nearly a month, when Howe attempted to go around the east end of Washington's line, and thus forced him to retreat to White Plains. Baffled in an attack at this place, Howe went back to New York and carried Fort Washington by storm, taking many prisoners.

Washington meantime had crossed the Hudson to New Jersey, leaving General
Charles Lee with seven thousand men in New York state. He now ordered Lee
to join him [5]; but Lee disobeyed, and Washington, closely pursued by the
British, retreated across New Jersey.

THE VICTORY AT TRENTON, DECEMBER 26, 1776.—On the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, Washington turned at bay, and having at last received some reënforcements, he recrossed the Delaware on Christmas night in a blinding snowstorm, marched nine miles to Trenton, surprised a body of Hessians, captured a thousand prisoners, and went back to Pennsylvania.

Washington now proposed to follow up this victory with other attacks. But a new difficulty arose, for the time of service of many of the Eastern troops would expire on January 1. These men were therefore asked to serve six weeks longer, and were offered a bounty of ten dollars a man.

[Illustration: MORRIS'S STRONG BOX. Now in the possession of the
Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

ROBERT MORRIS SENDS MONEY.—Many agreed to serve, but the paymaster had no money. Washington therefore pledged his own fortune, and appealed to Robert Morris at Philadelphia. [6] "If it be possible, Sir," he wrote, "to give us assistance, do it; borrow money while it can be done, we are doing it upon our private credit." Morris responded at once, and on New Year's morning, 1777, went from house to house, roused his friends from their beds to borrow money from them, and early in the day sent fifty thousand dollars.

BATTLE OF PRINCETON, JANUARY 3, 1777.—Washington crossed again to Trenton, whereupon Lord Cornwallis hurried up with a British army, and shut in the Americans between his forces and the Delaware. But Washington slipped out, went around Cornwallis, and the next morning attacked three British regiments at Princeton and beat them. He then took possession of the hills at Morristown, where he spent the rest of the winter.

THE ATTEMPT TO CUT OFF NEW ENGLAND.—The British plan for the campaign of 1777 was to seize Lake Champlain and the Hudson River and so cut off New England from the Middle States. To carry out this plan, (1) General Burgoyne was to come down from Canada, (2) Howe was to go up the Hudson from New York and join Burgoyne at Albany, and (3) St. Leger was to go from Lake Ontario down the Mohawk to Albany. [7]

ORISKANY.—Hearing of the approach of St. Leger, General Herkimer of the New York militia gathered eight hundred men and hurried to the relief of Fort Stanwix. Near Oriskany, about six miles from the fort, he fell into an ambuscade of British and Indians, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued, till the Indians fled and the British, forced to follow, left the Americans in possession of the field, too weak to pursue.

Just at this time the garrison of the fort made a sortie against part of the British army, captured their camp, and carried a quantity of supplies and their flags [8] back to the fort.

[Illustration: THE FIRST NATIONAL FLAG.]

When news of Oriskany reached Schuyler, the patriot general commanding in the north, he called for a volunteer to lead a force to relieve Fort Stanwix. Arnold responded, and with twelve hundred men hurried westward, and by a clever ruse [9] forced St. Leger to raise the siege and flee to Montreal.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF BENNINGTON. From an old print.]

BENNINGTON.—Burgoyne set out in June, captured Ticonderoga, and advanced to the upper Hudson. As he came southward, the sturdy farmers of Vermont and New York began to gather on his flank, and collected at Bennington many horses and large stores of food and ammunition. As Burgoyne needed horses, he sent a force of Hessians to attack Bennington. But Stark, with his Green Mountain Boys and New Hampshire militia, met the Hessians six miles from town, surrounded them on all sides, beat them, and took seven hundred prisoners and quantities of guns and some cannon (August 16).

SARATOGA.—These defeats were serious blows to Burgoyne, around whose army the Americans had been gathering. He decided, however, to fight, crossed the Hudson, and about the middle of September attacked the Americans at Bemis Heights, and again on the same ground early in October. [10] He was beaten in both battles and on October 17 was forced to surrender at Saratoga.

BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE.—What, meantime, had Howe been doing? He should have pushed up the Hudson to join Burgoyne. But he decided to capture Philadelphia before going north, and having put his army on board a fleet, he started for that city by sea. Not venturing to enter the Delaware, he sailed up Chesapeake Bay and two weeks after landing found Washington awaiting him on Brandywine Creek, where (September 11, 1777) a battle was fought and won by the British. Among the wounded was Marquis de Lafayette, [11] who earlier in the year had come from France to offer his services to Congress.

PHILADELPHIA OCCUPIED.—Two weeks later Howe entered Philadelphia in
triumph. [12] Congress had fled to Lancaster, and later went to York,
Pennsylvania. Washington now attacked Howe at Germantown (just north of
Philadelphia), but was defeated and went into winter quarters at Valley
Forge, where the patriots suffered greatly from cold and hunger. [13]

[Illustration: AT VALLEY FORGE.]

RESULT OF THE CAMPAIGN.—The year's campaign was far from a failure. [14] The surprise at Trenton and the victory at Princeton showed that Washington was a general of the first rank. The defeats at Brandywine and Germantown did not dishearten the army. The victory at Saratoga was one of the decisive campaigns of the world's history; for it ruined the plans of the British [15] and secured us the aid of France.

HELP FROM FRANCE, 1778.—In 1776 Congress commissioned Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Lee, and Silas Deane to go to France and seek her help. France, smarting under the loss of Louisiana and Canada (1763), would gladly have helped us; but not till the victories at Trenton, Princeton, Oriskany, and Saratoga could she feel sure of the ability of the Americans to fight. Then the French king recognized our independence, and in February, 1778, made with us a treaty of alliance and went to war with Great Britain.

The effect of the French alliance was immediate. France began to fit out a fleet and army to help us. Hearing of this, Clinton, who had succeeded Howe in command at Philadelphia, left that city with his army and started for New York.

[Illustration: CHURCH NEAR MONMOUTH BATTLEFIELD, BUILT IN 1752.]

MONMOUTH, JUNE 28, 1778.—Washington decided to pursue, and as Clinton, hampered by an immense train of baggage, moved slowly across New Jersey, he was overtaken by the Americans at Monmouth. Charles Lee [16] was to begin the attack, and Washington, coming up a little later, was to complete the defeat of the enemy. But Lee was a traitor, and having attacked the British, began a retreat which would have lost the day had not Washington come up just in time to lead a new attack. The battle raged till nightfall, and in the darkness Clinton slipped away and went on to New York.

Washington now crossed the Hudson, encamped at White Plains, and during three years remained in that neighborhood, constantly threatening the British in New York. [17]

BEGINNING OF THE NAVY.—More than three years had now passed since the fight at Lexington, and here let us stop and review what the Americans had been doing at sea. At the outset, the colonists had no warships at all. Congress therefore (in December, 1775) ordered thirteen armed vessels to be built at once, bought merchant ships to serve as cruisers, and thus created a navy of thirty vessels before the 4th of July, 1776. [18]

Eight of the cruisers were quickly assembled at Philadelphia, and early in January, 1776, Esek Hopkins, commander in chief, stepped on board of one of them and took command. As he did so, Lieutenant John Paul Jones hoisted a yellow silk flag on which was the device of a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake and the motto "Don't tread on me." This was the first flag ever displayed on an American man-of-war. Ice delayed the departure of the squadron; but in February it put to sea, went to the Bahama Islands, captured the forts on the island of New Providence, and carried off a quantity of powder and cannon.

CAPTAIN BARRY.—Soon afterward another cruiser, the sixteen-gun brig Lexington, Captain John Barry, [19] fell in with a British armed vessel off the coast of Virginia, and after a sharp engagement captured her. She was the first prize brought in by a commissioned officer of the American navy.

THE CRUISERS IN EUROPE.—In 1777 the cruisers carried the war into British ports and waters, across the Atlantic. The Reprisal (which had carried Franklin to France), under Captain Wilkes, in company with two other vessels, sailed twice around Ireland, made fifteen prizes, and alarmed the whole coast. [20] Another cruiser, the Revenge, scoured British waters, and when in need of repairs boldly entered a British port in disguise and refitted.

In 1778 John Paul Jones, [21] in the Ranger, sailed to the Irish Channel, destroyed four vessels, set fire to the shipping in a British port, fought and captured a British armed schooner, sailed around Ireland with her, and reached France in safety.

The next year (1779) Jones, in the Bonhomme Richard (bo-nom' re-shar'), fell in with the British frigate Serapis off the east coast of Great Britain, and on a moonlight night fought one of the most desperate battles in naval history and won it.

[Illustration: GOLD MEDAL GIVEN TO JONES. [22]]

THE FRIGATES.—Of the thirteen frigates ordered by Congress in 1775, only four remained by the end of 1778. Some were captured at sea, some were destroyed to prevent their falling into British hands, and one blew up while gallantly fighting. Of the cruisers bought in 1775, only one remained. Other purchases at home and abroad were made, but three frigates were captured and destroyed at Charleston in 1779, and by the end of the year our navy was reduced to six vessels. During the war 24 vessels of the navy were lost by capture, wreck, or destruction. The British navy lost 102.

THE PRIVATEERS.—So far we have considered only the American navy—the warships owned by the government. Congress also (March, 1776) issued letters of marque, or licenses to citizens to fit out armed vessels and make war on British ships armed or unarmed; and the sea soon swarmed with privateers fitted out, not only by citizens but also by the states. The privateers were active throughout the war, and took hundreds of prizes.

SUMMARY

1. After the British left Boston, Washington moved his army to Long Island, where he was attacked by the British and driven up the Hudson to White Plains.

2. Later in the year (1776), Washington crossed the Hudson and retreated through New Jersey to Pennsylvania; then he turned about, won the battles of Trenton (December 26, 1776) and Princeton (January 3, 1777), and spent the rest of the winter in New Jersey.

3. The British plan for the campaign of 1777 was to cut off New England from the Middle States; Burgoyne was to come down from Canada and meet Howe, who was to move up the Hudson.

4. Burgoyne lost several battles, and was forced to surrender at Saratoga (October 17, 1777).

5. Howe put off going up the Hudson till too late; instead, he defeated Washington at Brandywine Creek (September 11, 1777), and captured Philadelphia. Washington then attacked Howe at Germantown, was defeated, and spent the winter at Valley Forge.

6. After Burgoyne's surrender, France recognized our independence (February, 1778) and joined us in the war.

7. Fearing a French attack on New York, the British left Philadelphia (June, 1778); Washington followed and fought the battle of Monmouth; but the British went on to New York, and for three years Washington remained near that city.

8. Congress, in December, 1775, created a little navy; but some of these vessels never got to sea; others under Hopkins and Barry won victories during 1776.

9. In 1777 the cruisers were sent to British waters and under Wilkes and others harried British coasts.

10. In 1778 Paul Jones sailed around Ireland and in 1779 he won his great victory in the Bonhomme Richard.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Admiral Howe now wrote to Washington, offering pardon to all persons who should desist from rebellion; he addressed the letter to "George Washington, Esq.," and sent it under flag of truce. The messenger was told there was no one in the army with that title. A week later another messenger came with a paper addressed "George Washington, Esq. etc. etc." This time he was received; and when Washington declined to receive the letter, explained that "etc. etc." meant everything. "Indeed," said Washington, "they might mean anything." He was determined that Howe should recognize him as commander in chief of the Continental army, and not treat him as the leader of rebels.

[2] Many of the prisoners taken in this and other battles were put on board ships anchored near Brooklyn. Their sufferings in these "Jersey prison ships" were terrible, and many died and were buried on the beach. From these rude graves their bones from time to time were washed out. At last in 1808 they were taken up and decently buried near the Brooklyn navy yard, and in 1873 were put in a vault in Washington Park, Brooklyn.

[3] While Washington was near New York, a young man named Nathan Hale volunteered to enter the British lines on Long Island to procure information greatly needed. As he was returning he was recognized by a Tory kinsman, was captured, tried as a spy, and hanged. His last words were: "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

[4] When Howe, marching across Manhattan Island, reached Murray Hill, Mrs. Lindley Murray sent a servant to invite him to luncheon. The army was halted, and Mrs. Murray entertained Howe and his officers for two hours. It was this delay that enabled Putnam to escape.

[5] Charles Lee was in general command at Charleston during the attack on Fort Moultrie, and when he joined Washington at New York, was thought a great officer. Lee was jealous, hoped to be made commander in chief, and purposely left Washington to his fate. Later Lee crossed to New Jersey and took up his quarters at Basking Ridge, not far from Morristown, where the British captured him (December 13, 1776).

[6] Robert Morris was born at Liverpool, England, but came to Philadelphia as a lad and entered on a business career, and when the Revolution opened, was a man of means and influence. He signed the non-importation agreement of 1765, and signed the Declaration of Independence, and at this time (December, 1776) was a leading member of Congress. A year later, when the army was at Valley Forge, he sent it as a gift a large quantity of food and clothing. In 1781 Morris was made Superintendent of Finance, and in order to supply the army in the movement against Yorktown, lent his notes to the amount of $1,400,000. In 1781 he founded the Bank of North America, which is now the oldest bank in our country. After the war Morris was a senator from Pennsylvania. He speculated largely in Western lands, lost his fortune, and from 1798 to 1802 was a prisoner for debt. He died in 1806.

[7] Read the story of Jane McCrea in Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 277-279.

[8] These flags were hoisted on the fort and over them was raised the first flag of stars and stripes ever flung to the breeze. Congress on June 14, 1777, had adopted our national flag. The flag at Fort Stanwix was made of pieces of a white shirt, a blue jacket, and strips of red flannel. The day was August 6.

[9] The story runs that several Tory spies were captured and condemned to death, but one named Cuyler was spared by Arnold on condition that he should go to the camp of St. Leger and say that Burgoyne was captured and a great American army was coming to relieve Fort Stanwix. Cuyler agreed, and having cut what seemed bullet holes in his clothes, rushed into the British camp, crying out that a large American army was at hand, and that he had barely escaped with life. The Indians at once began to desert, the panic spread to the British, and the next day St. Leger was fleeing toward Lake Ontario.

[10] The second battle is often called the battle of Stillwater. Shortly before this Congress removed Schuyler from command and gave it to Gates, who thus reaped the glory of the whole campaign. In both battles Arnold greatly distinguished himself. He won the first fight and was wounded in the second.

[11] Lafayette was a young French nobleman who, fired by accounts of the war in America, fitted out a vessel, and despite the orders of the French king escaped and came to Philadelphia, and offered his services to Congress. With him were De Kalb and eleven other officers. Two gallant Polish officers, Pulaski and Kosciusko, had come over before this time. Kosciusko had been recommended to Washington by Franklin, then in France; he was made a colonel in the engineer corps and superintended the building of the American fortifications at Bemis Heights. After the war he returned to Poland, and long afterward led the Poles in their struggle for liberty.

[12] An interesting novel on this period of the war is Dr. S. W. Mitchell's Hugh Wynne.

[13] At Valley Forge Baron Steuben joined the army. He was an able German officer who had seen service under Frederick the Great of Prussia, and had been persuaded by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to come to America and help to organize and discipline the army. He landed in New Hampshire late in 1777, and spent the dreadful winter at Valley Forge in drilling the troops, teaching them the use of the bayonet, and organizing the army on the European plan. After the war New York presented Steuben with a farm of 16,000 acres not far from Fort Stanwix. There he died in 1794.

[14] Certain officers and members of Congress plotted during 1777 to have Washington removed from the command of the army. For an account of this Conway Cabal read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 34-43.

[15] Great Britain now sent over commissioners to offer liberal terms of peace,—no taxes by Parliament, no restrictions on trade, no troops in America without consent of the colonial assemblies, even representation in Parliament,—but the offer was rejected. Why did the commissioners fail? Read Fiske's American Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 4-17, 22-24.

[16] Lee had been exchanged for a captured British general, and came to Valley Forge in May. From papers found after his death we know that while a prisoner he advised Howe as to the best means of conquering the states. For his conduct in the battle and insolence to Washington after it, Lee was suspended from the army for one year, but when he wrote an insolent letter to Congress, he was dismissed from the army.

[17] A French fleet of twelve ships, under Count d'Estaing, soon arrived near New York. It might perhaps have captured the British fleet in the harbor; but without making the attempt D'Estaing went on to Newport to attempt the capture of a British force which had held that place since December, 1776. Washington sent Greene and Lafayette with troops to assist him, the New England militia turned out by thousands, and all seemed ready for the attack, when a British fleet appeared and D'Estaing went out to meet it. A storm scattered the vessels of the two squadrons, and D'Estaing went to Boston for repairs, and then to the West Indies.

[18] Six of the thirty never got to sea, but were captured or destroyed when the British took New York and Philadelphia. Our navy, therefore, may be considered at the outset to have consisted of 24 vessels, mounting 422 guns. Great Britain at that time had 112 war vessels, carrying 3714 guns, and 78 of these vessels were stationed on or near our coast.

[19] John Barry was a native of Ireland. He came to America at thirteen, and at twenty-five was captain of a ship. At the opening of the war he offered his services to Congress, and in February, 1776, was given command of the Lexington. After his victory Barry was transferred to the 28-gun frigate Effingham, and in 1777 (while blockaded in the Delaware), with 27 men in four boats captured and destroyed a 10-gun schooner and four transports. For this he was thanked by Washington. When the British captured Philadelphia, Barry took the Effingham up the river to save her; but she was burned by the British. At different times Barry commanded several other ships, and in 1782, in the Alliance, fought the last action of the war. In 1794 he was senior captain of the navy, with the title of commodore. He died in 1803.

[20] When these ships returned to France with the prizes, the British government protested so vigorously that the Reprisal and the Lexington were seized and held till security was given that they would leave France. The prizes were ordered out of port, were taken into the offing, and then quietly sold to French merchants. The Reprisal on her way home was lost at sea. The Lexington was captured and her men thrown into prison. They escaped by digging a hole under the wall, and were on board a vessel in London bound for France, when they were discovered and sent back to prison. A year later one of them, Richard Dale, escaped by walking past the guards in daylight, dressed in a British uniform. He never would tell how he got the uniform.

[21] John Paul, Jr., was born in Scotland in 1747. He began a seafaring life when twelve years old and followed it till 1773, when he fell heir to a plantation in Virginia on condition that he should take the name of Jones. Thereafter he was known as John Paul Jones. In 1775 Jones offered his services to Congress, assisted in founding our navy, and in December, 1775, was commissioned lieutenant. He died in Paris in 1792, but the whereabouts of his grave was long unknown. In 1905, however, the United States ambassador to France (Horace Porter) discovered the body of Jones, which was brought with due honors to the United States and deposited at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Porter's account of how the body was found may be read in the Century Magazine for October, 1905. Jones is the hero of Cooper's novel called The Pilot.

[22] The wording on the medal may be translated as follows: "The American Congress to John Paul Jones, fleet commander—for the capture or defeat of the enemy's ships off the coast of Scotland, Sept. 23, 1779."

CHAPTER XV

THE WAR IN THE WEST AND IN THE SOUTH

THE WEST.—After Great Britain obtained from France the country between the mountains and the Mississippi, the British king, as we have seen (p. 143), forbade settlement west of the mountains. But the westward movement of population was not to be stopped by a proclamation. The hardy frontiersmen gave it no heed, and, passing over the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, they hunted, trapped, and made settlements in the forbidden land.

[Illustration: THE WEST DURING THE REVOLUTION.]

TENNESSEE.—Thus, in 1769, William Bean of North Carolina built a cabin on the banks of the Watauga Creek and began the settlement of what is now Tennessee. The next year James Robertson and many others followed and dotted the valleys of the Holston and the Clinch with clearings and log cabins. These men at first were without government of any sort, so they formed an association and for some years governed themselves; but in 1776 their delegates were seated in the legislature of North Carolina, and next year their settlements were organized as Washington county in that state. Robertson soon (1779) led a colony further west and on the banks of the Cumberland founded Nashboro, now called Nashville.

[Illustration: INDIAN ATTACKING A FRONTIERSMAN.]

KENTUCKY.—The year (1769) that Bean went into Tennessee, Daniel Boone, one of the great men of frontier history, entered what is now Kentucky. Others followed, and despite Indian wars and massacres, Boonesboro, Harrodsburg, and Lexington were founded before 1777. These backwoodsmen also were for a time without any government; but in December, 1776, Virginia organized the region as a county with the present boundaries of Kentucky. [1]

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.—In the country north of the Ohio were a few old French towns,—Detroit, Kaskaskia, Vincennes,—and a few forts built by the French and garrisoned by the British, from whom the Indians obtained guns and powder to attack the frontier. Against these forts and villages George Rogers Clark, a young Virginian, planned an expedition which was approved by Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia. Henry could give him little aid, but Clark was determined to go; and in 1778, with one hundred and eighty men, left Pittsburg in boats, floated down the Ohio to its mouth, marched across the swamps and prairies of south-western Illinois, and took Kaskaskia.

Vincennes [2] thereupon surrendered; but was soon recaptured by the British general at Detroit with a band of Indians. But Clark, after a dreadful march across country in midwinter, attacked the fort in the dead of night, captured it, and then conquered the country near the Wabash and Illinois rivers, and held it for Virginia. [3]

SPAIN IN THE WEST.—The conquest was most timely; for in 1779 Spain joined in the war against Great Britain, seized towns and British forts in Florida, and in January, 1781, sent out from St. Louis a band of Spaniards and Indians who marched across Illinois and took possession of Fort St. Joseph in what is now southwestern Michigan, occupied it, and claimed the Northwest for Spain.

THE SOUTH INVADED.—Near the end of 1778, the British armies held strong positions at New York and Newport, and the French fleet under D'Estaing was in the West Indies. The British therefore felt free to strike a blow at the South. A fleet and army accordingly sailed from New York and (December 29, 1778) captured Savannah. Georgia was then overrun, was declared conquered, and the royal governor was reestablished in office. [4]

[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION]

THE AMERICANS REPULSED AT SAVANNAH.—Governor Rutledge of South Carolina now appealed to D'Estaing, who at once brought his fleet from the West Indies; and Savannah was besieged by the American forces under Lincoln and the French under D'Estaing. After a long siege, an assault was made on the British defenses (October, 1779), in which the brave Pulaski was slain and D'Estaing was wounded. The French then sailed away, and Lincoln fell back into South Carolina.

BRITISH CAPTURE CHARLESTON.—Hearing of this, Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis sailed with British troops from New York (December, 1779) to Savannah. Thence the British marched overland to Charleston. Lincoln did all he could to defend the city, but in May, 1780, was compelled to surrender. South Carolina was then overrun by the British, and Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis in command.

PARTISAN LEADERS.—South Carolina now became the seat of a bitter partisan war. The Tories there clamored for revenge. That no man should be neutral, Cornwallis ordered everyone to declare for or against the king, and sent officers with troops about the state to enroll the royalists in the militia. The whole population was thus arrayed in two hostile parties. The patriots could not offer organized opposition; but little bands of them found refuge in the woods, swamps, and mountain valleys, whence they issued to attack the British troops and the Tories. Led by Andrew Pickens, Thomas Sumter, and Francis Marion whom the British called the Swamp Fox, they won many desperate fights. [5]

CAMDEN.—Congress, however, had not abandoned the South. Two thousand men under De Kalb were marching south before the surrender of Charleston. After it, a call for troops was made on all the states south of Pennsylvania, and General Gates, then called "the Hero of Saratoga," was sent to join De Kalb and take command. The most important point in the interior of South Carolina was Camden, and against this Gates marched his troops. But he managed matters so badly that near Camden the American army was beaten, routed, and cut to pieces by the British under Cornwallis (August 16, 1780). [6]

[Illustration: WAYNE'S CAMP KETTLE. Now in possession of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society.]

THE WAR IN THE NORTH.—What meantime had happened in the North? The main armies near New York had done little fighting; but the British had made a number of sudden raids on the coast. In 1779 Norfolk and Portsmouth in Virginia, and New Haven and several other towns in Connecticut had been attacked, and ships and houses burned. In New York, Clinton captured Stony Point; but Anthony Wayne led a force of Americans against the fort, and at dead of night, by one of the most brilliant assaults in the world's military history, recaptured it (July, 1779). [7]

[Illustration: AT WEST POINT: LOOKING UP THE HUDSON.]

TREASON OF ARNOLD.—Stony Point was one of several forts built by order of Washington to defend the Hudson. The chief fort was at West Point, the command of which, in July, 1780, was given to Arnold. When the British left Philadelphia in 1778, Arnold was made military commander there, and so conducted himself that he was sentenced by court-martial to be reprimanded by Washington. This censure, added to previous unfair treatment by Congress, led him to seek revenge in the ruin of his country. To bring this about he asked for the command of West Point, and having received it, offered to surrender the fort to the British.

Clinton's agent in the matter was Major John André (an'dra), who one day in September, 1780, came up the river in the British ship Vulture, went ashore, and at night met Arnold near Stony Point. Morning came before the terms [8] of surrender were arranged, and the Vulture having been fired on dropped down the river out of range.

WEST POINT SAVED.—Thus left within the American lines, André crossed the river to the east shore, and started for New York by land, but was stopped by three Americans, [9] searched, and papers of great importance were found in his stockings. Despite an offer of his watch and money for his release, André was delivered to the nearest American officer, was later tried by court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged as a spy.

The American officer to whom André was delivered, not suspecting Arnold, sent the news to him as well as to Washington. Arnold received the message first; knowing that Washington was at hand, he at once procured a boat, was rowed down the river to the Vulture, and escaped. From then till the end of the war he served as an officer in the British army.

The disasters at Charleston and Camden, and the narrow escape from disaster at West Point, made 1780 the most disheartening year of the war.

KINGS MOUNTAIN.—But the tide quickly turned. After his victory at Camden, Cornwallis began to invade North Carolina, and sent Colonel Ferguson into the South Carolina highlands to enlist all the Tories he could find. As Ferguson advanced into the hill country, the backwoodsmen and mountaineers rallied from all sides, and led by Sevier, Shelby, and Williams, surrounded him and forced him to make a stand on the summit of Kings Mountain, October 7, 1780. Fighting in true Indian fashion from behind every tree and rock, they shot Ferguson's army to pieces, killed him, and forced the few survivors to surrender. This victory forced Cornwallis to put off his conquest of North Carolina.

COWPENS.—General Greene was now sent to replace Gates in command of the patriot army in the South. He was too weak to attack Cornwallis, but by dividing his army and securing the aid of the partisan bands he hoped to annoy the British with raids. Morgan, who commanded one of these divisions, was so successful that Cornwallis sent Tarleton with a thousand men against him. Morgan offered battle on the grounds known as the Cowpens, and there Tarleton was routed and three fourths of his men were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE COWPENS.]

THE GREAT RETREAT.—This victory won, Morgan set off to join Greene, with Cornwallis himself in hot pursuit. When Greene heard the news, he determined to draw the British general far northward and then fight him wherever he would be at most disadvantage. [10] The retreat of the American army was therefore continued to the border of Virginia.

GUILFORD COURT HOUSE.—Having received reinforcements, Greene turned southward and offered battle at Guilford Court House (March 15, 1781). A desperate fight ensued, and when night came, Greene retired, leaving the British unable to follow him. Cornwallis had lost one quarter of his army in killed and wounded. He was in the midst of a hostile country, too weak to stay, and unwilling to confess defeat by retreating to South Carolina. Thus outgeneraled he hurried to Wilmington, where he could be aided by the British fleet.

[Illustration: LAFAYETTE MONUMENT. Washington, D.C.]

Greene followed for a time, and then turned into South Carolina, drove the
British out of Camden, and by the 4th of July had reconquered half of
South Carolina. Late in August, he forced the British back to Eutaw
Springs, where (September 8, 1781) a desperate battle was fought. [11] The
British troops held their ground, but on the following night they set off
for. Charleston, where they remained until the end of the war. [12]

YORKTOWN.—From Wilmington Cornwallis marched to southeastern Virginia, where a British force under Benedict Arnold joined him. He then set off to capture Lafayette, who had been sent to defend Virginia from Arnold. But Lafayette retreated to the back country, till reinforcements came. When Cornwallis could drive him no farther, the British army retreated to the coast, and fortified itself at Yorktown.

In August Washington received word that a large French fleet under De Grasse was about to sail from the West Indies to Chesapeake Bay. He saw that the supreme moment had come. Laying aside his plan for an attack on New York, he hurried southward, marched his army to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and then took it by ships to Yorktown. [13] The French fleet was already in the bay. Some French troops had joined Lafayette, and Cornwallis was already surrounded when Washington arrived. The siege was now pressed with overwhelming force, and Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781.

END OF THE WAR.—Swift couriers carried the news to Philadelphia, where, at the dead of night, the people were roused from sleep by the watchman crying in the street, "Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken." In the morning Congress received the dispatches and went in solemn procession to a church to give thanks to God.

When the British prime minister, Lord North, heard the news, he exclaimed, "All is over; all is over!" The king alone remained stubborn, and for a while insisted on holding Georgia, Charleston, and New York. But his advisers in time persuaded him to yield, and (November 30, 1782) a preliminary treaty, acknowledging the independence of the United States, was signed at Paris. [14] The final treaty was not signed till September 3, 1783. [15]

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURGH. From an old print.]

In November the Continental army was disbanded, and in December, at Annapolis, where Congress was sitting, Washington formally surrendered his command, and went home to Mount Vernon. [16]

SUMMARY

1. Despite the king's proclamation in 1763, frontiersmen soon crossed the mountains and settled in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee.

2. In the region north of the Ohio were a few British forts, some of which George Rogers Clark captured in 1778 and 1779; but Fort St. Joseph in Michigan was captured by the Spanish.

3. At the end of 1778 the British began an attack on the Southern states by capturing Savannah.

4. Georgia was then overrun. The Americans, aided by a French fleet, attacked Savannah and were repulsed (1779).

5. In 1780, reënforced by a fleet and army from New York, the British captured Charleston and overran South Carolina. The Americans under Gates were badly beaten at Camden; but a British force was destroyed at Kings Mountain.

6. In the same year Benedict Arnold turned traitor, and sought in vain to deliver West Point to the British.

7. In the following year (1781) our arms were generally victorious. Morgan won the battle of the Cowpens; Greene outgeneraled Cornwallis and then reconquered South Carolina. At the end of the year Charleston and Savannah were the only Southern towns held by the British.

8. Cornwallis marched into Virginia, and fortified himself at Yorktown. There Washington, aided by a French army and fleet, forced him to surrender (1781).

9. Peace was made next year, our independence was acknowledged, and by the end of 1783 the last British soldiers had left the country.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE AT MOUNT VERNON.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] About this time the settlers on the upper Ohio River (in what is now West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania) became eager for statehood. Both Virginia and Pennsylvania claimed their allegiance. They asked Congress, therefore, for recognition as the state of Westsylvania, the fourteenth province of the American Confederacy. Congress did not grant their prayer.

[2] Read Thompson's Alice of Old Vincennes.

[3] Farther east, meantime, a band of savages led by Colonel John Butler swept down from Fort Niagara, entered Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, near the site of Wilkes-Barre, and perpetrated one of the most awful massacres in history (July 4, 1778). (Read Campbell's poem Gertrude of Wyoming). A little later another band, led by a son of Butler, burned the village of Cherry Valley in New York, and murdered many of the inhabitants—men, women, and children. Cruelties of this sort could not go unpunished. In the summer of 1779, therefore, General Sullivan with an army invaded the Indian country in central New York, burned forty Indian villages, destroyed their crops, cut down their fruit trees, and brought the Indians to the verge of famine.

[4] Congress now put Lincoln in command in the South; but when he marched into Georgia, the British set off to attack Charleston, sacking houses and slaughtering cattle as they went. This move forced Lincoln to follow them, and having been joined by Pulaski, he compelled the British to retreat.

[5] Four novels by Simms,—The Partisan, Mellichampe, Katharine Walton, and The Scout,—and Horseshoe Robinson, by Kennedy, are famous stories relating to the Revolution in the South. Read Bryant's Song of Marion's Men.

[6] A large number of men were killed, and a thousand taken prisoners. Among the dead was De Kalb. Among the living was Gates, who fled among the first and made such haste to escape that he covered two hundred miles in four days.

[7] The purpose of the attack on Stony Point was to draw the British from Connecticut. The capture had the desired result, and Stony Point was then abandoned. The fort stood on a rocky promontory with the water of the Hudson River on three sides. On the fourth was a morass crossed by a narrow road which at high tide was under water. The country between the British forces in New York and the American army on the highlands of the Hudson was known as the neutral ground, and is the scene of Cooper's great novel The Spy.

[8] The British were to come up the river and attack West Point. Arnold was to man the defenses in such a way that they could easily be taken, one at a time, and so afford an excuse for surrendering them, with the three thousand men under Arnold's command.

[9] The names of André's captors were John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. Congress gave each a medal and a pension for life.

[10] To accomplish this Greene sent the greater part of his army northward under General Huger, while he with a small guard hurried across country, and took command of Morgan's army. And now a most exciting chase began. Cornwallis destroyed his heavy baggage that he might move as rapidly as possible, and vainly strove to get near enough to Greene to make him fight. Greene with great skill kept just out of reach and for ten days lured the British farther and farther north. At Guilford Court House Greene and Morgan were joined by the main army. Cornwallis then proclaimed North Carolina conquered, and called on all Loyalists to join him.

[11] Two good works relating to these events are The Forayers and Eutaw, by Simms.

[12] While these things were happening in the South, a French army of 6000 men under Rochambeau arrived at Newport (1780), from which the British had withdrawn in 1779. There, for a while, the French fleet was blockaded by the British, and the troops remained to aid the fleet in case of necessity. The next year, however, this army marched across Connecticut and joined Washington's forces (July, 1781), and preparations were begun for an attack on New York.

[13] When Clinton realized that Washington was on the way to Yorktown, he sent Arnold on a raid into Connecticut, in hope of forcing Washington to return. Early in September Arnold attacked New London, carried one of its forts by storm, and set tire to the town, but was driven off by the minutemen.

[14] Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin (our minister in France), John Adams (in Holland), John Jay (in Spain), Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens to negotiate the treaty. Jefferson's appointment came too late for him to serve; the other four signed the treaty of 1782, and Franklin, Adams, and Jay signed the treaty of 1783.

[15] After the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington returned with his army to the Hudson and made his headquarters at Newburgh. In April, 1783, a cessation of war on land and sea was formally proclaimed, and the British prepared to leave New York. Charleston and Savannah were evacuated in 1782, but November 25, 1783, came before the last British soldier left New York. When the troops under Washington entered New York city, they found a British flag nailed to the staff, the halyards gone, and the staff soaped. A sailor climbed the pole by nailing on cleats, pulled down the British flag, and reeved new halyards. The stars and stripes were then raised and saluted with thirteen guns.

[16] Washington refused to be paid for his services. Actual expenses during the war were all he would take, and these amounted to about $70,000.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES ABOUT 1783 SHOWING STATE CLAIMS TO
WESTERN LANDS]

CHAPTER XVI

AFTER THE WAR

OUR BOUNDARIES.—By the treaty of 1783 our country was bounded on the
north by a line (very much as at present) from the mouth of the St. Croix
River in Maine to the Lake of the Woods; on the west by the Mississippi
River; and on the south by the parallel of 31° north latitude from the
Mississippi to the Apalachicola, and then by the present south boundary of
Georgia to the sea. [1]

But our flag did not as yet wave over every part of the country within these bounds. Great Britain, claiming that certain provisions in the treaty had been violated, held the forts from Lake Champlain to Lake Michigan and would not withdraw her troops. [2] Spain, having received the Floridas back from Great Britain by a treaty of 1783, held the forts at Memphis, Baton Rouge, and Vicksburg, and much of what is now Alabama and Mississippi. [3]

A CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.—From 1775 to 1781 the states were governed, so far as they had any general government, by the Continental Congress. During these years there was no written document fixing the powers of Congress and limiting the powers of the states. While the war was going on, Congress submitted a plan for a general government, called Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union; but nearly four years passed before all the states accepted it. The delay was caused by the refusal of Maryland to approve the Articles unless the states having sea-to-sea charters would give to Congress, for the public good, the lands they claimed beyond the mountains. [4]

Congress therefore appealed to the states to cede their Western lands. If they would do this, Congress promised to sell the lands, use the money to pay the debts of the United States, and cut the region into states and admit them into the Union at the proper time. New York, Connecticut, and Virginia at last agreed to give up their lands northwest of the Ohio River, and on March 1, 1781, the Maryland delegates signed the Articles and by so doing put them in force. [5]

THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.—In the government set up by the Articles of Confederation there was no President of the United States, no Supreme Court, no Senate. Congress consisted of a single body to which each state sent at least two delegates, and might send any number up to seven. The members were elected annually, were paid by the states they represented, could not serve more than three years in six, and might be recalled at any time. Each state cast one vote, and nine affirmative votes were necessary to carry any important measure. Congress could make war and peace, enter into treaties with foreign powers, coin money, contract debts in the name of the United States, and call upon each state for its share of the general expenses.

THE STATES CEDE LANDS.—Although three states had tendered their Western lands when Maryland signed the Articles, the conditions of cession were not at once accepted by Congress, and some time passed before the deeds were delivered. By the year 1786, however, the claims northwest of the Ohio had been ceded by New York, Virginia, [6] Massachusetts, and Connecticut. [7] South of the Ohio, what is now West Virginia and Kentucky still belonged to Virginia. North Carolina offered what is now Tennessee to Congress in 1784, [8] but the conditions were not then accepted, and that territory was not turned over to Congress till 1790. The long, narrow strip of western land owned by South Carolina was ceded to Congress in 1787. South of this was a strip owned by Georgia, and farther south lands long in dispute between Georgia and Spain and Congress. Georgia did not accept her present western limits till 1802.

MIGRATION WESTWARD.—Into the country west of the mountains the people were moving in three great streams. One from New England was pushing out along the Mohawk valley into central New York; another from Pennsylvania and Virginia was pouring its population into Kentucky; the third from North Carolina was overrunning Tennessee.

[Illustration: A SETTLER'S LOG CABIN.]

For this movement the hard times which followed the Revolution were largely the cause. Compared with our time, the means of making a livelihood were few and far less remunerative. Great mills and factories each employing thousands of persons had no existence. The imports from Great Britain far surpassed in value our exports; the difference was settled in specie (coin) taken from the country. The people were poor, and as land in the West was cheap, they left the East and went westward.

ROUTES TO THE OHIO VALLEY.—New England people bound to the Ohio valley went through Connecticut to Kingston, New York, on across New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania, and thence to Bedford, where they struck the road cut years before by the troops of General Forbes, and by it went to Pittsburg (p. 194). Settlers from Maryland and Virginia went generally to Fort Cumberland in Maryland, and then on by Brad dock's Road to Pittsburg, or turned off and reached the Monongahela at Redstone, or the Ohio at Wheeling (map, p. 201).

Such was the rush to the Ohio valley that each spring and summer hundreds of boats and arks left Pittsburg and Wheeling or Redstone, and floated down the Ohio to Maysville, Louisville, and other places in Kentucky. [9] The flatboat was usually twelve feet wide and forty feet long, with high sides and a flat or slightly arched top, and was steered, and when necessary was rowed, by long oars or sweeps. Some were arranged to carry cattle as well as household goods.

[Illustration: OHIO RIVER FLATBOAT OF ABOUT 1840. The boat is like those used in earlier times.]

THE OHIO COMPANY OF ASSOCIATES.—Meanwhile, some old soldiers of New
England and New Jersey who had claims for bounty lands, [10] organized the
Ohio Company of Associates, and in 1787 sent an agent (Manasseh Cutler) to
New York, where Congress was sitting, and bade him buy a great tract of
land northwest of the Ohio, on which they might settle.

[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.]

THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.—When Cutler reached New York, he found Congress debating a measure of great importance. This was an ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, including the whole region from the Lakes to the Ohio, and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. When passed, this famous Ordinance of 1787 provided—

1. That until five thousand free white males lived in the territory, the governing body should be a governor and three judges appointed by Congress.

2. That when there were five thousand free white men in the territory, they might elect a legislature and send a delegate to Congress.

3. That slavery should not be permitted in the territory, but that fugitive slaves should be returned.

4. That the territory should in time be cut up into not more than five, or less than three, states.

5. That when the population of each division numbered sixty thousand, it should be admitted into the Union on the same footing as the original states.

OHIO SETTLED.—After the ordinance was passed, Cutler bought five million acres of land north of the Ohio River, and in the winter of 1787-88 a party of young men sent out by the Ohio Company made their way from New England to a branch of the Monongahela River. There they built a great boat, and when the ice broke up, floated down the Ohio to the lands of the Ohio Company, where they erected a few log huts and a fort of hewn timber which they called Campus Martius. The little settlement was called Marietta. [11]

Farther down the Ohio, on land owned by John Cleve Symmes and associates, Columbia and Losantiville, afterward called Cincinnati, were founded in 1788.

STATE BOUNDARIES.—The old charters which led to the conflicting claims to land in the West, caused like disputes in the East. Massachusetts claimed a strip of country embracing western New York, and did not settle the dispute till 1786. [12] A similar dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania was settled in 1782. [13] New York claimed all Vermont as having once been part of New Netherland; but Vermont was really an independent republic. [14] In Kentucky the people were insisting that their country be separated from Virginia and made a state.

TROUBLE WITH SPAIN.—Congress had trouble in trying to secure from foreign nations fair treatment for our commerce, and was involved in a dispute over the navigation of the Mississippi. Spain owned both banks at the mouth of the river, and denied the right of Americans to go in or out without her consent. The Spanish minister who came over in 1785 was ready to make a commercial treaty if the river was closed to navigation for twenty-five years, and the Eastern states were quite ready to agree to it. But the people of Kentucky and Tennessee threatened to leave the Union if cut off from the sea, and no treaty was made with Spain till 1795.

THE WEAKNESS OF THE CONFEDERATION.—The question of trade and commerce with foreign powers and between the states was very serious, and the weakness of Congress in this and other matters soon wrecked the Confederation.

1. In the first place, the Articles of Confederation gave Congress no power to levy taxes of any kind. Money, therefore, could not be obtained to pay the debts of the United States, or the annual cost of government. [15]

2. Congress had no power to regulate the foreign trade. As there were few articles manufactured in the country, china, glass, cutlery, edged tools, hardware, woolen, linen, and many other articles of daily use were imported from Great Britain. As Great Britain took little from us, these goods were largely paid for in specie, which grew scarcer and scarcer each year. Great Britain, moreover, hurt our trade by shutting our vessels out of her West Indies, and by heavy duties on American goods coming to her ports in American ships. [16] Congress, having no power to regulate trade, could not retaliate by treating British ships in the same way.

3. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states. As a consequence, some of the states laid heavy duties on goods imported from other states. Retaliation followed, and the safety of the Union was endangered.

4. Congress did not have sole power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. There were, therefore, nearly as many kinds of paper money as there were states, and the money issued by each state passed in others at all sorts of value, or not at all. This hindered interstate trade.

5. Congress could not enforce treaties. It could make treaties with other countries, but only the states could compel the people to observe them, and the states did not choose to do so.

[Illustration: NEW HAMPSHIRE COLONIAL PAPER MONEY. Similar bills were issued by the states before 1789.]

CONGRESS ASKS FOR MORE POWER.—Of the defects in the Articles of Confederation Congress was fully aware, and it asked the states to amend the Articles and give it more authority. [17] To do this required the assent of all the states, and as the consent of thirteen states could not be obtained, the additional powers were not given to Congress.

This soon brought matters to a crisis. With no regulation of trade, the purchase of more and more goods from British merchants made money so scarce that the states were forced to print and issue large amounts of paper bills. In Massachusetts, when the legislature refused to issue such currency, the debtors rose and, led by a Revolutionary officer named Daniel Shays, prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of debts. The governor called out troops, and several encounters took place before a bitter winter dispersed the insurgents. [18]

THE ANNAPOLIS TRADE CONVENTION.—In this condition of affairs, Virginia invited her sister states to send delegates to a convention at Annapolis in 1786. They were to "take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States." Five states sent delegates, but the convention could do nothing, because less than half the states were present, and because the powers of the delegates were too limited. A request was therefore made by it that Congress call a convention of the states to meet at Philadelphia and "take into consideration the situation of the United States."

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.—Congress issued the call early in 1787, and delegates from twelve states [19] met at Philadelphia and framed the Constitution of the United States. Washington was made president of the convention, and among the members were many of the ablest men of the time. [20]

[Illustration: INVITATION SENT BY WASHINGTON, AS PRESIDENT OF THE
CONVENTION. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

THE COMPROMISES.—In the course of the debates in the convention great difference of opinion arose on several matters.

The small states wanted a Congress of one house, and equality of state representation. The great states wanted Historical a Congress of two houses, with representation in proportion to population. This difference of opinion was so serious that a compromise was necessary, and it was agreed that in one branch (House of Representatives) the people should be represented, and in the other (Senate) the states.

The question then arose whether slaves should be counted as population. The Southern delegates said yes; the Northern, no. It was finally agreed that direct taxes and representatives should be apportioned according to population, and that three fifths of the slaves should be counted as population. This was the second compromise.

The convention agreed that Congress should regulate foreign commerce. But the Southern members objected that by means of this power Congress might pass navigation acts limiting trade to American ships, which might raise freights on exports from the South. Many Northern members, on the other hand, wanted the slave trade stopped. These two matters were therefore made the basis of another compromise, by which Congress could pass navigation acts, but could not prohibit the slave trade before 1808.

THE CONSTITUTION RATIFIED.—When the convention had finished its work (September 17, 1787), the Constitution [21] was sent to the old (Continental) Congress, which referred it to the states, and the states, one by one, called on the people to elect; delegates to conventions to ratify or reject the new plan of government. In a few states it was accepted without any demand for changes. In others it was vigorously opposed as likely to set up too strong a government. In Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia adoption was long in doubt. [22]

By July, 1788, eleven states had ratified, and the Constitution was in force as to these States. [23]

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT.—The Continental Congress then appointed the first Wednesday in January, 1789, as the day on which electors of President should be chosen in the eleven states; the first Wednesday in February as the day on which the electors should meet and vote for President; and the first Wednesday in March (which happened to be the 4th of March) as the day when the new Congress should assemble at New York and canvass the vote for President.

[Illustration: FEDERAL HALL, ON WALL STREET, NEW YORK. From an old print.]

WASHINGTON THE FIRST PRESIDENT.—When March 4 came, neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives had a quorum, and a month went by before the electoral votes were counted, and Washington and John Adams declared President and Vice President of the United States. [24]

Some time now elapsed before Washington could be notified of his election. More time was consumed by the long journey from Mount Vernon to New York, where, on April 30, 1789, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall, he took the oath of office in the presence of a crowd of his fellow-citizens.

SUMMARY

1. The treaty of peace defined the boundaries of our country; but Great Britain continued to hold the forts along the north, and Spain to occupy the country in the southwest.

2. Seven of the thirteen states claimed the country west of the mountains.

3. The other six, especially Maryland, denied these claims, and this dispute delayed the adoption of the Articles of Confederation till 1781.

4. By the year 1786 the lands northwest of the Ohio had been ceded to Congress.

5. In 1787, therefore, Congress formed the Northwest Territory.

6. Certain states, meantime, were settling disputes as to their boundaries in the east.

7. We had trouble with Spain over the right to use the lower Mississippi River, and with Great Britain over matters of trade.

8. Six years' trial proved that the government of the United States was too weak under the Articles of Confederation.

9. In 1787, therefore, the Constitution was framed, and within a year was ratified by eleven states.

10. In 1789 Washington and Adams became President and Vice President, and government under the Constitution began.

[Illustration: LIBERTY BELL.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Both France and Spain had tried to shut us out of the Mississippi valley. Read Fiske's Critical Period of American History, pp. 17-25.

[2] By the treaty of 1783 Congress provided that all debts due British subjects might be recovered by law, and that the states should be asked to pay for confiscated property of the Loyalists. But the states would not permit the recovery of the debts nor pay for the property taken from the Loyalists. Great Britain, by holding the forts along our northern frontier, controlled the fur trade and the Indians, and ruled the country about the forts. These were Dutchman's Point, Point au Fer, Oswegatchie, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Detroit, Mackinaw.

[3] To understand her conduct we must remember that in 1764, shortly after the French and Indian War, Great Britain made 32° 28' north latitude (through the mouth of the Yazoo, p. 143) the north boundary of West Florida; and although Great Britain in her treaty with us made 31° the boundary between us and West Florida, Spain insisted that it should be 32° 28'. Spain's claim to the Northwest, founded on her occupation of Fort St. Joseph (p. 183), had not been allowed; she was therefore the more determined to expand her claims in the South.

[4] The states claiming such lands by virtue of their colonial charters were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. New York had acquired the Iroquois title to lands in the West. Her claim conflicted with those of Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The claims of Connecticut and Massachusetts covered lands included in the Virginia claim—Maryland denied the validity of all these claims, for these reasons: (1) the Mississippi valley belonged to France till 1763; (2) when France gave the valley east of the Mississippi to Great Britain in 1763, it became crown land; (3) in 1763 the king drew the line around the sources of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, and forbade the colonists to settle beyond that line (p. 143).

[5] The Articles were not to go into effect till every state signed. Maryland was the thirteenth state to sign.

[6] Virginia reserved ownership of a large tract called the Virginia Military Lands. It lay in what is now Ohio between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers (map, p. 201), and was used to pay bounties to her soldiers of the Revolution.

[7] Connecticut reserved the ownership (and till 1800 the government) of a tract 120 miles long, west of Pennsylvania. Of this "Western Reserve of Connecticut," some 500,000 acres were set apart in 1792 for the relief of persons whose houses and farms had been burned and plundered by the British. The rest was sold and the money used as a school fund.

[8] When the settlers on the Watauga (pp. 181, 182) heard of this, they became alarmed lest Congress should not accept the cession, and forming a new state which they called Franklin, applied to Congress for admission into the Union. No attention was given to the application. North Carolina repealed the act of cession, arranged matters with the settlers, and in 1787 the Franklin government dissolved.

[9] The favorite time for the river trip was from February to May, when there was high water in the Ohio and its tributaries the Allegheny and Monongahela. Then the voyage from Pittsburg to Louisville could be made in eight or ten days. An observer at Pittsburg in 1787 saw 50 flatboats depart in six weeks. Another man at Fort Finney counted 177 passing boats with 2700 people in eight months.

[10] In order to encourage enlistment in the army, Congress had offered to give a tract of land to each officer and man who served through the war. The premium in land, or gift, over and above pay, was known as land bounty.

[11] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 505- 519. All the land bought by the Ohio Company was not for its use. A large part was for another, known as the Scioto Company, which sent an agent to Paris and sold the land to a French company. This, in turn, sold in small pieces to Frenchmen eager to leave a country then in a state of revolution. In 1790, accordingly, several hundred emigrants reached Alexandria, Virginia, and came on to the little square of log huts, with a blockhouse at each corner, which the company had built for them and named Gallipolis. Most of them were city-bred artisans, unfit for frontier life, who suffered greatly in the wilderness.

[12] The land was included in the limits laid down in the charter of Massachusetts; but that charter was granted after the Dutch were in actual possession of the upper Hudson. In 1786 a north and south line was drawn 82 miles west of the Delaware. Ownership of the land west of that line went to Massachusetts; but jurisdiction over the land, the right to govern, was given to New York.

[13] Connecticut, under her sea-to-sea grant from the crown, claimed a strip across northern Pennsylvania, bought some land there from the Indians (1754), and some of her people settled on the Susquehanna in what was known as the Wyoming Valley (1762 and 1769). The dispute which followed, first with the Penns and then with the state of Pennsylvania, dragged on till a court of arbitration appointed by the Continental Congress decided in favor of Pennsylvania.

[14] Because of Champlain's discovery of the lake which now bears his name (p. 115), the French claimed most of Vermont; on their early maps it appears as part of New France, and as late as 1739 they made settlements in it. About 1750 the governor of New Hampshire granted land in Vermont to settlers, and the country began to be known as "New Hampshire Grants"; but in 1763 New York claimed it as part of the region given to the Duke of York in 1664. This brought on a bitter dispute which was still raging when, in 1777, the settlers declared New Hampshire Grants "a free and independent state to be called New Connecticut." Later the name was changed to Vermont. But the Continental Congress, for fear of displeasing New York, never recognized Vermont as a state.

[15] Each state was bound to pay its share of the annual expenses; but they failed or were unable to do so.

[16] Why would not Great Britain make a trade treaty with us? Read Fiske's Critical Period, pp. 136-142; also pp. 142-147, about difficulties between the states.

[17] Congress asked for authority to do three things: (1) to levy taxes on imported goods, and use the money so obtained to discharge the debts due to France, Holland, and Spain; (2) to lay and collect a special tax, and use the money to meet the annual expenses of government; and (3) to regulate trade with foreign countries.

[18] The story of Shays's Rebellion is told in fiction in Bellamy's Duke of Stockbridge. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 313-326.

[19] All the states except Rhode Island.

[20] One had written the Albany Plan of Union; some had been members of the Stamp Act Congress; some had signed the Declaration of Independence, or the Articles of Confederation; two had been presidents and twenty-eight had been members of Congress; seven had been or were then governors of states. In after times two (Washington and Madison) became Presidents, one (Elbridge Gerry) Vice President, four members of the Cabinet, two Chief Justices and two justices of the Supreme Court, five ministers at foreign courts, and many others senators and members of the House of Representatives. One, Franklin, has the distinction of having signed the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France (1778), the treaty of peace with Great Britain (1783), and the Constitution of the United States, the four great documents in our early history.

[21] Every student should read the Constitution, as printed near the end of this book or elsewhere, and should know about the three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial; the powers of Congress (Art. I, Sec. 8), of the President (Art. I, Sec. 7; Art. II, Secs. 2 and 3), and of the United States; courts (Art. III); the principal powers forbidden to Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9) and to the states (Art. I, Sec. 10); the methods of amending the Constitution (Art. V); the supremacy of the Constitution (Art. VI).

[22] To remove the many objections made to the new plan, and enable the people the better to understand it, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote a series of little essays for the press, in which they defended the Constitution, explained and discussed its provisions, and showed how closely it resembled the state constitutions. These essays were called The Federalist, and, gathered into book form (in 1788), have become famous as a treatise on the Constitution and on government. Those who opposed the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists, and they wrote pamphlets and elaborate series of letters in the newspapers, signed by such names as Cato, Agrippa, A Countryman. They declared that Congress would overpower the states, that the President would become a despot, that the Courts would destroy liberty; and they insisted that amendments should be made, guaranteeing liberty of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury, no quartering of troops in time of peace, liberty of conscience. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 490-491; 478-479.

[23] Because the Constitution provided that it should go into force as soon as nine states ratified it. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not ratify till some months later, and, till they did, were not members of the new Union.

[24] In three of the eleven states then in the Union (Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia) the presidential electors were chosen by vote of the people. In Massachusetts the voters in each congressional district voted for two candidates, and the legislature chose one of the two, and also two electors at large. In New Hampshire also the people voted for electors, but none receiving a majority vote, the legislature made the choice. Elsewhere the legislatures appointed electors; but in New York the two branches of the legislature fell into a dispute and failed to choose any. Washington received the first vote of all the 69 electors, and Adams received 34 votes, the next highest number.

CHAPTER XVII

OUR COUNTRY IN 1789

THE STATES.—When Washington became President, the thirteen original states of the Union [1] were in many respects very unlike the same states in our day. In some the executive was called president; in others governor. In some he had a veto; in others he had not. In some there was no senate. To be a voter in those days a man had to have an estate worth a certain sum of money, [2] or a specified annual income, or own a certain number of acres. [3]

Moreover, to be eligible as governor or a member of a state legislature a man had to own more property than was needed to qualify him to vote. In many states it was further required that officeholders should be Protestants, or at least Christians, or should believe in the existence of God.

The adoption of the Constitution made necessary certain acts of legislation by the states. They could issue no more bills of credit; provision therefore had to be made for the redemption of those outstanding. They could lay no duties on imports; such as had laid import duties had to repeal their laws and abolish their customhouses. All lighthouses, beacons, buoys, maintained by individual states were surrendered to the United States, and in other ways the states had to adjust themselves to the new government.

[Illustration: CONTINENTAL PAPER MONEY.]

THE NATIONAL DEBT.—Each of the states was in debt for money and supplies used in the war; and over the whole country hung a great debt contracted by the old Congress. Part of this national debt was represented by bills of credit, loan-office certificates, lottery certificates, and many other sorts of promises to pay, which had become almost worthless. This was strictly true of the bills of credit or paper money issued in great quantities by the Continental Congress. [4] Besides this domestic debt owed to the people at home, there was a foreign debt, for Congress had borrowed a little money from Spain and a great deal from France and Holland. On this debt interest was due, for Congress had not been able to pay even that.

THE MONEY OF THE COUNTRY.—The Continental bills having long ceased to circulate, the currency of the country consisted of paper money issued by individual states, and the gold, silver, and copper coins of foreign countries. These passed by such names as the Joe or Johannes, the doubloon, pistole, moidore, guinea, crown, dollar, shilling, sixpence, pistareen, penny. A common coin was the Spanish milled dollar, which passed at different ratings in different parts of the country. [5] Congress in 1786 adopted the dollar as a unit, divided it into the half, quarter, dime, half dime, cent, and half cent, and ordered some coppers to be minted; but very few were made by the contractor.

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1790.]

POPULATION.—Just how many people dwelt in our country before 1790 can only be guessed at. In that year they were counted for the first time, and it was then ascertained that they numbered 3,929,000 (in the thirteen states) of whom 700,000 were slaves. All save about 200,000 dwelt along the seaboard, east of the mountains; and nearly half were between Chesapeake Bay and Florida.

The most populous state was Virginia; after her, next in order were
Massachusetts (including Maine), Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and New
York.

The most populous city was Philadelphia, after which came New York,
Boston, Charleston, and Baltimore.

LIFE IN THE CITIES.—What passed for thriving cities in those days were collections of a thousand or two houses, very few of which made any pretension to architectural beauty, ranged along narrow streets, none of which were sewered, and few of which were paved or lighted even on nights when the moon did not shine. During daylight a few constables kept order. At night small parties of men called the night watch walked the streets. Each citizen was required to serve his turn on the watch or find a substitute or pay a fine. He had to be a fireman and keep in his house near the front door a certain number of leather fire buckets with which at the clanging of the courthouse or market bell he would run to the burning building and take his place in the line which passed the full buckets from the nearest pump to the engine, or in the line which passed the empty buckets from the engine back to the pump. Water for household use or for putting out fires came from private wells or from the town pumps. There were no city water works.

[Illustration: EARLY FIRE ENGINE.]

Lack of good and abundant water, lack of proper drainage, ignorance of the laws of health, filthy, unpaved streets, spread diseases of the worst sort. Smallpox was common. Yellow fever in the great cities was of almost annual occurrence, and often raged with the violence of a plague.

LACK OF CONVENIENCES.—Few appliances which increase comfort, or promote health, or save time or labor, were in use. Not even in the homes of the rich were there cook stoves or furnaces or open grates for burning anthracite coal, or a bath room, or a gas jet. Lamps and candles afforded light by night. The warming pan, the foot stove (p. 97), and the four- posted bedstead (p. 76), with curtains to be drawn when the nights were cold, were still essentials. The boy was fortunate who did not have to break the ice in his water pail morning after morning in winter. Clocks and watches were luxuries for the rich. The sundial was yet in use, and when the flight of time was to be noted in hours or parts, people resorted to the hour glass. Many a minister used one on Sundays to time his preaching by, and many a housewife to time her cooking. [6]

[Illustration: HOUR GLASS. In Essex Hall, Salem.]

No city had yet reached such size as to make street cars or cabs or omnibuses necessary. Time was less valuable than in our day. The merchant kept his own books, wrote all business letters with a quill pen, and waited for the ink to dry or sprinkled it with sand. There were no envelopes, no postage stamps, no letter boxes in the streets, no collection of the mails. The letter written, the paper was carefully folded, sealed with wax or a wafer, addressed, and carried to the post office, where postage was paid in money at rates which would now seem extortionate. A single sheet of paper was a single letter, and two sheets a double letter on which double postage was paid. Three mails a week between Philadelphia and New York, and two a week between New York and Boston, were thought ample. The post offices in the country towns consisted generally of a drawer or a few boxes in a store.

[Illustration: QUILLS AS SOLD FOR MAKING PENS. In Essex Hall, Salem.]

NEWSPAPERS could not be sent by mail, and there were few to send. Though the first newspaper in the colonies was printed in Boston as early as 1704, the first daily newspaper in our country was issued in Philadelphia in 1784. Illustrated newspapers, trade journals, scientific weeklies, illustrated magazines, [7] were unknown. Such newspapers as existed in 1789 were published most of them once a week, and a few twice, and were printed by presses worked by hand; and no paper anywhere in our country was issued on Sunday or sold for as little as a penny.

BOOKS.—In no city in 1790 could there have been found an art gallery, a free museum of natural history, a school or institute of any sort where instruction in the arts and sciences was given. There were many good private libraries, but hardly any that were open to public use. Books were mostly imported from Great Britain, or such as were sure of a ready sale were reprinted by some American publisher when enough subscribers were obtained to pay the cost. Of native authors very few had produced anything which is now read save by the curious. [8]

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.—In education great progress had been made. There were as yet no normal schools, no high schools, no manual training schools, and, save in New England, no approach to the free common school of to-day. There were private, parish, and charity schools and academies in all the states. In many of these a small number of children of the poor, under certain conditions, might receive instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But as yet the states did not have the money with which to establish a great system of free common schools.

[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME PRIVATE CARRIAGE.]

Money in aid of academies and colleges was often raised by lotteries. Indeed, every one of the eight oldest colleges of that day had received such help. [9] In each of these the classes were smaller, the course of instruction much simpler, and the graduates much younger than to-day. In no country of that time were the rich and well-to-do better educated than in the United States, [10] and it is safe to say that in none was primary education—reading, writing, and arithmetic—more diffused among the people. [11]

TRAVEL.—To travel from one city to another in 1789 required at least as many days as it now does hours. [12] The stagecoach, horseback, or private conveyances were the common means of land travel. The roads were bad and the large rivers unbridged, and in stormy weather or in winter the delays at the ferries were often very long. Breakdowns and upsets were common, and in rainy weather a traveler by stagecoach was fortunate if he did not have to help the driver pull the wheels out of the mud. [13]

THE INNS AND TAVERNS, sometimes called coffeehouses or ordinaries, at which travelers lodged, were designated by pictured signs or emblems hung before the door, and were given names which had no relation to their uses, as the Indian Head, the Crooked Billet, the Green Dragon, the Plow and Harrow. In these taverns dances or balls were held, and sometimes public meetings. To those in the country came sleigh-ride parties. From them the stagecoaches departed, and before their doors auctions were often held, and in the great room within were posted public notices of all sorts.

[Illustration: SIGN OF THE INDIAN HEAD TAVERN, NEAR CONCORD, MASS. Now in the possession of the Concord Antiquarian Society.]

THE SHOPS were designated in much the same way as the inns, not by street numbers but by signs; as the Lock and Key, the Lion and the Glove, the Bell in Hand, the Golden Ball, the Three Doves. One shop is described as near a certain bake-house, another as close by the townhouse, another as opposite a judge's dwelling. The shop was usually the front room of a little house. In the rear or overhead lived the tradesman, his family, and his apprentice.

METHODS OF BUSINESS.—For his wares the tradesman took cash when he could get it, gave short credit with good security when he had to, and often was forced to resort to barter. Thus paper makers took rags for paper, brush makers exchanged brushes for hog's bristles, and a general shopkeeper took grain, wood, cheese, butter, in exchange for dry goods and clothing.

Few of the modern methods of extending business, of seeking customers, of making the public aware of what the merchant had for sale, existed, even in a rude state. There were no commercial travelers, no means of widespread advertising. When an advertisement had been inserted in a newspaper whose circulation was not fifteen hundred copies, when a handbill had been posted in the markets and the coffeehouses, the means of reaching the public were exhausted.

THE WORKINGMAN.—What was true of the merchant was true of men in every walk in life. Their opportunities were few, their labor was hard, their comforts of life were far inferior to what is now within their reach. In every great city to-day are men, women, and boys engaged in a hundred trades, professions, and occupations unknown in 1790. The great corporations, mills, factories, mines, railroads, the steamboats, rapid transit, the telegraph, the telephone, the typewriter, the sewing machine, the automobile, the postal delivery service, the police and fire departments, the banks and trust companies, the department stores, and scores of other inventions and business institutions of great cities, now giving employment to millions of human beings, have been created since 1790.

The working day was from sunrise to sunset, with one hour for breakfast and another for dinner. Wages were about a third what they are now, and were less when the days were short than when they were long. The redemptioner was still in demand in the Middle States. In the South almost all labor was done by slaves.

SLAVERY.—In the North slavery was on the decline. While still under the crown, Virginia and several other colonies had attempted to check slavery by forbidding the importation of more slaves, but their laws for this purpose were disallowed by the king. After 1776 the states were free to do as they pleased in the matter, and many of them stopped the importation of slaves. Moreover, before Congress shut slavery out of the Northwest Territory, the New England states and Pennsylvania had either abolished slavery outright or provided for its extinction by gradual abolition laws. [14]

INDUSTRIES.—In New England the people lived on their own farms, which they cultivated with their own hands and with the help of their children, or engaged in codfishing, whaling, lumbering, shipbuilding, and commerce. They built ships and sold them abroad, or used them to carry away the products of New England to the South, to the ports of France, Spain, Russia, Sweden, the West Indies, and even to China. To the West Indies went horses, cattle, lumber, salt fish, and mules; and from them came sugar, molasses, coffee, indigo, wines. From Sweden and Russia came iron, hemp, and duck.

The Middle States produced much grain and flour. New York had lost much of her fur trade because of the British control of the frontier posts; but her exports of flour, grain, lumber, leather, and what not, in 1791, were valued at nearly $3,000,000. The people of Pennsylvania made lumber, linen, flour, paper, iron; built ships; carried on a prosperous commerce with foreign lands and a good fur trade with the Indians.

[Illustration: TRADING CANOE.]

In Maryland and Virginia the staple crop was still tobacco, but they also produced much grain and flour. North Carolina produced tar, pitch, resin, turpentine, and lumber. Some rice and tobacco were raised. Great herds of cattle and hogs ran wild. In South Carolina rice was the most important crop. Indigo, once an important product, had declined since the Revolution, and cotton was only just beginning to be grown for export. From the back country came tar, pitch, turpentine, and beaver, deer, and bear skins for export.

THE FUR TRADE.—The region of the Great Lakes, where the British still held the forts on the American side of the boundary, was the chief seat of the fur trade. Goods for Indian use were brought from England to Montreal and Quebec, and carried in canoes to Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie (map, p. 194), and thence scattered over the Northwest. [15]

SUMMARY

1. In 1789 the states had governments less democratic than at present; in general only property owners could vote and hold office.

2. The states were all in debt, and Congress had incurred besides a large national debt.

3. The population was less than 4,000,000, mostly on the Atlantic seaboard.

4. Cities were few and small, without street cars, pavements, water works, gas or electric lights, public libraries or museums, letter carriers, or paid firemen. Everywhere many of the common conveniences of modern life were unknown.

5. Travel was slow and tiresome, because there were no railroads, steamboats, or automobiles.

6. Occupations were far fewer than now, wages lower, and hours of labor longer. Slavery had been abolished, or was being gradually stopped, in New England and Pennsylvania, but existed in all the other states; and in the South nearly all the labor was done by slaves.

7. New Englanders were engaged in farming, fishing, lumbering, and commerce; the Middle States produced much wheat and flour, and also lumber; the South chiefly tobacco, rice, and tar, pitch, and turpentine.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The states ratified the Constitution on the dates given below:—

1. Delaware……… Dec. 7, 1787 2. Pennsylvania….. Dec. 12,1787 3. New Jersey……. Dec. 18, 1787 4. Georgia………. Jan. 2, 1788 5. Connecticut…… Jan. 9, 1788 6. Massachusetts…. Feb. 7, 1788 7. Maryland……… April 28, 1788 8. South Carolina… May 23, 1788 9. New Hampshire…. June 21, 1788 10. Virginia…….. June 26, 1788 11. New York…….. July 26, 1788 12. North Carolina.. Nov. 21, 1789 13. Rhode Island…. May 29, 1790

[2] In New Jersey any "person" having a freehold (real estate owned outright or for life) worth £50 might vote. In New York each voter had to have a freehold of £20, or pay 40 shillings house rent and his taxes. In Massachusetts he had to have an estate of £60, or an income of £3 from his estate.

[3] In Maryland 50 acres; in South Carolina 50 acres or a town lot; in Georgia £10 of taxable property.

[4] When Congress was forced to assume the conduct of the war, money was needed to pay the troops. But the Congress then had no authority to tax either the colonies or the people, so (in 1775-81) it issued bills of credit, or Continental money, of various denominations. A loan office was also established in each state, and the people were asked to loan Congress money and receive in return loan-office certificates bearing interest and payable in three years. But little money came from this source; and the people refused to take the bills of credit at their face value. The states then made them legal tender, that is, made them lawful money for the payment of debts. But as they became more and more plentiful, prices of everything paid for in Continental money rose higher and higher. From an old bill of January, 1781, it appears that in Philadelphia a pair of boots cost $600 in paper dollars; six yards of chintz, $900; eight yards of binding, $400; a skein of silk, $10; and butter, $20 a pound. In Boston at the same time sugar was $10 a pound; beef, $8; and flour, $1575 a barrel. To say of anything that it was "not worth a continental" was to say that it was utterly worthless.

[5] In New England it was valued at six shillings; in New York at eight; in Pennsylvania at seven and six pence; in South Carolina and Georgia at four shillings and eight pence.

[6] The hour glass consisted of two small glass bulbs joined by a small glass tube. In one bulb was as much fine sand as in the course of an hour could run through the tube into the other bulb. At auctions when ships or real estate were for sale it was common to measure time by burning an inch or more of candle; that is, the bidding would go on till a certain length of candle was consumed.

[7] The Massachusetts Magazine was illustrated with occasional engravings of cities and scenery; but it was not what we know as an illustrated magazine. Read a description of the newspapers of this time in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 35-38.

[8] Franklin is still the most popular of colonial writers. His autobiography, his Way to Wealth, and many of his essays are still republished and widely read. The poetry of Philip Freneau, of John Trumbull, and Francis Hopkinson is still read by many; but it was in political writing that our countrymen excelled. No people have ever produced a finer body of political literature than that called forth by the Revolution. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 74-80.

[9] Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth. In a lottery "drawn" in 1797 for the benefit of Brown University, 9000 tickets were sold at $6 each—a total of $54,000. Of this, $8000 was kept by the university, and $46,000 distributed in 3328 prizes—2000 at $9 each, 1000 at $12 each, and the rest from $20 to $4000.

[10] In the convention which framed the Constitution twenty of the fifty- five men were college graduates. Five were graduates of Princeton, three of Harvard, three of Yale, three of William and Mary, two of Pennsylvania, one of King's (now Columbia), and one each of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

[11] The writings of men who were not college graduates—Washington, Franklin, Dickinson, and many others—speak well for the character of the early schools.

[12] The journey from Boston to New York by land consumed six days, but may now be made in less than six hours. New York was a two days' journey from Philadelphia, but the distance may now be traversed in two hours.

[13] One pair of horses usually dragged the stage eighteen miles, when a fresh team was put on, and if no accident happened, the traveler would reach an inn about ten at night. After a frugal meal he would betake himself to bed, for at three the next morning, even if it rained or snowed, he had to make ready, by the light of a horn lantern or a farthing candle, for another ride of eighteen hours.

[14] In 1777 Vermont forbade the slavery of men and women. In 1780 Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition act. Massachusetts by her constitution declared "All men are born free and equal," which her courts held prohibited slavery. New Hampshire in her constitution made a similar declaration with a like result. In 1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island adopted gradual abolition laws, providing that children born of a slave parent after a certain date should be free when they reached a certain age, and that their children were never to be slaves. These were states where slaves had never been much in demand, and where the industries of the people did not depend on slave labor.

[15] The departure of a fleet of canoes from Quebec or Montreal was a fine sight. The trading canoe of bark was forty-five feet long, and carried four tons of goods. The crew of eight men, with their hats gaudy with plumes and tinsel, their brilliant handkerchiefs tied around their throats, their bright-colored shirts, flaming belts, and gayly worked moccasins, formed a picture that can not be described. When the axes, powder, shot, dry goods, and provisions were packed in the canoes, when each voyager had hung his votive offering in the chapel of his patron saint, a boatman of experience stepped into the bow and another into the stern of each canoe, the crew took places between them, and at the word the fleet glided up the St. Lawrence on its way to the Ottawa, and thence on to Sault Ste. Marie, to Grand Portage (near the northeast corner of what is now Minnesota), or to Mackinaw.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NEW GOVERNMENT

FIRST ACTS OF CONGRESS.—During Washington's first term of office as President (1789-93), the time of Congress was largely taken up with the passage of laws necessary to put the new government in operation, and to carry out the plan of the Constitution.

[Illustration: DESK USED BY WASHINGTON WHILE PRESIDENT. In the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.]

Departments of State, Treasury, and War were established; a Supreme Court was organized with a Chief Justice [1] and five associates; three Circuits (one for each of the three groups of states, Eastern, Middle, and Southern) and thirteen District Courts (one for each state) were created, and provision was made for all the machinery of justice; and twelve amendments to the Constitution were sent out to the states, of which ten were ratified by the requisite number of states and became a part of the Constitution. [2]

At the second session of Congress provision was made, in the Funding Measure, for the assumption of the Continental and state debts incurred during the war for independence. [3] The District of Columbia as the permanent seat of government was located on the banks of the Potomac, [4] and the temporary seat of government was moved from New York to Philadelphia, there to remain for ten years.

NEW STATES.—The states of North Carolina and Rhode Island, having at last ratified the Constitution, sent representatives and senators to share in the work of Congress during this session.

The quarrel between New York and Vermont having been settled, Vermont was admitted in 1791; and Virginia having given her consent, the people of Kentucky were authorized to form a state constitution, and Kentucky entered the Union in 1792. [5]

THE NATIONAL BANK AND THE CURRENCY.—The funding of the debt (proposed by Hamilton) was the first great financial measure adopted by Congress. [6] The second (1791) was the charter of the Bank of the United States with power to establish branches in the states and to issue bank notes to be used as money. The third (1792) was the law providing for a national coinage and authorizing the establishment of a United States mint for making the coin. [7] It was ordered that whoever would bring gold or silver to the mint should receive for it the same weight of coins. This was free coinage of gold and silver, and made our standard of money bimetallic, or of two metals; for a debtor could choose which kind of money he would pay.

[Illustration: HAMILTON'S TOMB, NEW YORK CITY.]

THE REVENUE LAWS.—Other financial measures of Washington's first term were the tariff law, which levied duties on imported goods, wares, and merchandise, the excise or whisky tax, and the law fixing rates of postage on letters. [8]

THE RISE OF PARTIES.—As to the justice and wisdom of the acts of Congress the people were divided in their opinions. Those who approved and supported the administration were called Federalists, and had for leaders Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, Robert Morris, John Jay, and Rufus King; those who opposed the administration were the Anti-Federalists, or Republicans, whose great leaders were Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Gerry, Gallatin, and Randolph.

The Republicans had opposed the funding and assumption measures, the national bank, and the excise. They complained that the national debt was too large, that the salaries of the President, Congressmen, and officials were too high, and that the taxes were too heavy; and they accused the Federalists of a fondness for monarchy and aristocracy.

Washington opened each session of Congress with a speech just as the king opened Parliament, and each branch of Congress presented an answer just as the Lords and Commons did to the king. Nobody could go to the President's reception without a card of invitation. The judges of the Supreme Court wore gowns as did English judges. The Senate held its daily sessions in secret, and shut out reporters and the people. All this the Anti- Federalists held to be unrepublican.

[Illustration: LADY WASHINGTON'S RECEPTION. From an old print.]

THE ELECTION OF 1792.—When the time came, in 1792, to elect a successor to Washington, there were thus two political parties. Both parties supported Washington for President; but the Republicans tried hard, though in vain, to defeat Adams for Vice President.

OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT by no means ended with the formation of parties and votes at the polls. The Assembly of Virginia condemned the assumption of the state debts. North Carolina denounced assumption and the excise law. In Maryland a resolution declaring assumption dangerous to the rights of the states was lost by the casting vote of the Speaker. The right of Congress to tax pleasure carriages was tested in the Supreme Court, which declared the tax constitutional. When that court decided (1793) that a citizen of one state might sue another state, Virginia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts called for a constitutional amendment to prevent this, and the Eleventh Amendment was proposed by Congress (1794) and declared in force in 1798. The tax on whisky caused an insurrection in Pennsylvania.

THE WHISKY INSURRECTION.—The farmers around Pittsburg were largely engaged in distilling whisky, refused to pay the tax, and drove off the collectors. Congress thereupon (1794) enacted a law to enforce the collection, but when the marshal arrested some of the offenders, the people rose, drove him away, and by force of arms prevented the execution of the law. Washington then called for troops from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and these marching across the state by a mere show of force brought the people to obedience. Leaders of the insurrection were arrested, tried, and convicted of treason, but were pardoned by Washington. [9]

THE INDIAN WAR.—Still farther west, meantime, a great battle had been fought with the Indians. The succession of boats loaded with emigrants floating down the Ohio, and the arrivals of settlers north of the river at Marietta, Gallipolis, and Cincinnati, had greatly excited the Indians. The coming of the whites meant the destruction of game and of fur-bearing animals, and the pushing westward of the Indians. This the red men determined to resist, and did so by attacking boats and killing emigrants, and in January, 1790, they marched down on the settlement called Big Bottom (northwest of Marietta) and swept it from the face of the earth.

Washington sent fifteen hundred troops from Kentucky and Pennsylvania against the Indians in the autumn of 1790. Led by Colonel Harmar, the troops burned some Indian supplies and villages, but accomplished nothing save to enrage the Indians yet more. Washington thereupon put General St. Clair in command, and in the autumn of 1791 St. Clair set off to build a chain of forts from Cincinnati to Lake Michigan; but the Indians surprised him and cut his army to pieces.

[Illustration: TERRITORY CEDED BY THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE.]

Anthony Wayne was next placed in command, and two years were spent in careful preparation before he began his march across what is now the state of Ohio. At the Falls of the Maumee (August, 1794) he met and beat the Indians so soundly that a year later, by the treaty of Greenville, a lasting peace was made with the ten great nations of the Northwest.

NEUTRALITY.—Washington's second term of office was a stormy time in foreign as well as in domestic affairs. In February, 1793, the French Republic declared war on Great Britain, and so brought up the question, Which side shall the United States take? Washington said neither side, and issued a proclamation of neutrality, warning the people not to commit hostile acts in favor of either Great Britain or France. The Republicans (and many who were Federalists) grew angry at this and roundly abused the President. France, they said, is an old friend; Great Britain, our old enemy. France helped win independence and loaned us money and sent us troops and ships; Great Britain attempted to enslave us. We were bound to France by a treaty of alliance and a treaty of commerce; we were bound to Great Britain by no treaty of any kind. To be neutral, then, was to be ungrateful to France. [10] As a result the Federalists were called the British party, and they, in turn, called the Republicans the French party or Democrats.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S COACH.]

GREAT BRITAIN SEIZES OUR SHIPS.—To preserve neutrality under such conditions would have been hard enough, but Great Britain made it harder still by seizing American merchant ships that were carrying lumber, fish, flour, and provisions to the French West Indies. [11]

Our merchants at once appealed to Congress for aid, and the Republicans attempted to retaliate on Great Britain in a way that might have brought on war. In this they failed, but Congress laid an embargo for a short time, preventing all our vessels from sailing to foreign ports; and money was voted to build fortifications at the seaports from Maine to Georgia, and for building arsenals at Springfield (Mass.) and Carlisle (Pa.), and for constructing six frigates. [12]

Washington did not wish war, and with the approval of the Senate sent Chief-Justice John Jay to London to make a treaty of friendship and commerce with Great Britain.

JAY'S TREATY, when ratified (1795), was far from what was desired. But it provided for the delivery of the posts on our northern frontier, its other provisions were the best that could be had, and it insured peace. For this reason among others the treaty gave great offense to the Republicans, who wanted the United States to quarrel with Great Britain and take sides with France. They denounced it from one end of the country to the other, burned copies of it at mass meetings, and hanged Jay in effigy. For the same reason, also, France took deep offense.

TREATY WITH SPAIN.—Our treaty with Great Britain was followed by one with Spain, by which the vexed question of the Mississippi was put at rest. Spain agreed to withdraw her troops from all her posts north of the parallel of 31 degrees. She also agreed that New Orleans should be a port of deposit. This was of great advantage to the growing West, for the farmers, thereafter, could float their bacon, flour, lumber, etc. down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans and there sell it for export to the West Indies or Europe.

[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF THE AUTOGRAPH COPY OF WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL
ADDRESS. In the Lenox Library, New York.]

THE ELECTION OF 1796.—Washington, who had twice been elected President, now declined to serve a third time, and in September, 1796, announced his determination by publishing in a newspaper what is called his Farewell Address. [13] There was no such thing as a national party convention in those days, or for many years to come. The Federalists, however, by common consent, selected John Adams as their candidate for President, and most of them supported Thomas Pinckney for Vice President. The Republicans put forward Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr and others. The French minister to our country used his influence to help the Republican candidates; [14] but when the election was over, it turned out that Adams [15] was chosen President and Jefferson Vice President. Pinckney, the Federalist candidate for Vice President, was defeated because he failed to receive the votes of all the Federalist electors. [16]

THE X. Y. Z. AFFAIR.—The French Directory, a body of five men that governed the French Republic, now refused to receive a minister whom Washington had just sent to that country (Charles G. Pinckney). This deliberate affront to the United States was denounced by Adams in his first message to Congress; but he sent to Paris a special commission composed of two Federalists and one Republican, [17] in an earnest effort to keep the peace. These commissioners were visited by three agents of the Directory, who told them that before a new treaty could be made they must give a present of $50,000 to each Director, apologize for Adams's denunciation of France, and loan a large sum (practically pay tribute money) to France.

In reporting this affair to Congress the Secretary of State concealed the names of the French agents and called them Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z. This gave the affair the name of the X. Y. Z. Mission.

PREPARATION FOR WAR WITH FRANCE (1798).—The reading of the dispatches in Congress caused a great change in feeling. The country had been insulted, and Congress, forgetting politics, made preparations for war. An army was raised and Washington made lieutenant general. The Navy Department was created and the first Secretary of the Navy appointed. Ships were built, purchased, and given to the government; and with the cry, "Millions for defense, not a cent for tribute," the people offered their services to the President, and labored without pay in the erection of forts along the seaboard. Then was written by Joseph Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, and sung for the first time, our national song Hail, Columbia! [18]

THE ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS.—In preparing for war, Congress had acted wisely. But the Federalists, whom the trouble with France had placed in control of Congress, also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which aroused bitter opposition.

The Alien Acts were (1) a law requiring aliens, or foreigners, to live in our country fourteen years before they could be naturalized and become citizens; (2) a law giving the President power, for the next two years, to send out of the country any alien he thought to be dangerous to the peace of the United States; and (3) the Alien Enemies Act for the expulsion, in time of war, of the subjects of the hostile government.

The Sedition Act provided for the punishment of persons who acted, spoke, or wrote in a seditious manner, that is, opposed the execution of any law of the United States, or wrote, printed, or uttered anything with intent to defame the government of the United States or any of its officials.

Adams did not use the power given him by the second Alien Act; but the Sedition Act was rigorously enforced with fines and imprisonment. Such interference with the liberty of the press cost Adams much of his popularity.

THE VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS.—The Republicans were greatly excited by the Alien and Sedition Acts, and at the suggestion of Jefferson resolutions condemning them as unconstitutional [19] and hence "utterly void and of no force" were passed by the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia.

[Illustration: THE ENTERPRISE.]

Seven states answered with resolutions declaring the acts constitutional. Whereupon, in the following year (1799), Kentucky declared that when a state thought a law of Congress unconstitutional, that state might veto or nullify it, that is, forbid its citizens to obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, was later of serious importance.

THE NAVAL WAR WITH FRANCE.—Meantime, the little navy which had been so hastily prepared was sent to scour the seas around the French West Indies, and in a few months won many victories. [20] The publication of the X. Y. Z. letters created almost as much indignation in France as in our country, and forced the Directory to send word that if other commissioners came, they would be received. Adams thereupon appointed three; but when they reached France the Directory had fallen from power, Napoleon was ruling, and with him a new treaty was concluded in 1800.

[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON.]

THE ELECTION OF 1800.—The cost of this war made new taxes necessary, and these, coupled with the Alien and Sedition Acts, did much to bring about the defeat of the Federalists. Their candidates for the presidency and vice presidency were John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney. The Republicans nominated Jefferson [21] and Aaron Burr, and won. Unfortunately Jefferson and Burr each received the same number of votes, so it became the duty of the House of Representatives to determine which should be President. When the House elects a President, each state, no matter how many representatives it may have, casts one vote. There were then sixteen states [22] in the Union. The votes of nine, therefore, were necessary to elect. But the Federalists held the votes of six, and as the representatives of two more were equally divided, the Federalists thought they could say who should be President, and tried hard to elect Burr. Finally some of them yielded and allowed the Republicans to make Jefferson President, thus leaving Burr to be Vice President.

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.—The inauguration took place on March 4, 1801, at Washington, to which city the government was removed from Philadelphia in the summer of 1800. [23] Everywhere the day was celebrated with bell ringing, cannonading, dinners, and parades. The people had triumphed; "the Man of the People" was President. Monarchy, aristocracy, and Federalism, it was said, had received a deathblow.

SUMMARY

1. The first Congress under the Constitution passed laws establishing the executive departments and the United States courts, and other laws necessary to put the new government in operation.

2. The debts incurred during the Revolution were assumed and funded, and the permanent seat of government (after 1800) was located on the Potomac.

3. Import and excise duties were laid, a national bank was chartered, and a mint was established for coining United States money.

4. In Washington's second term as President (1793-97) there was war between Great Britain and France, and it was with difficulty that our government succeeded in remaining neutral.

5. Treaties were made with Great Britain and Spain, whereby these powers withdrew from the posts they held in our country, the right of deposit at New Orleans was secured, and peace was preserved.

6. A five years' Indian war in the Northwest Territory was ended by Wayne's victory (1794) and the treaty of Greenville (1795).

7. The people of western Pennsylvania resisted the excise tax on whisky, but their insurrection was easily suppressed by a force of militia.

8. Differences on questions of domestic and foreign policy had resulted in the growth of the Federalist and Republican parties, but party organization was imperfect. In 1796 Adams (Federalist) was elected President, and Jefferson (Republican) Vice President.

9. The British treaty and the election of Adams gave offense to the French government, which made insulting demands upon our commissioners sent to that country. A brief naval war in the French West Indies was ended by a treaty made by a new French government in 1800.

10. The passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts brought out protests against them in what are called the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99, one of which claimed the right of a state to nullify an act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional.

11. In the next presidential election (1800) the Republicans were successful; but as Jefferson and Burr had each the same number of votes, the House of Representatives had to decide which should be President and which Vice President. After a long contest Jefferson was given the higher office, as the Republicans had wished.

[Illustration: A SILHOUETTE, A KIND OF PORTRAIT OFTEN MADE BEFORE 1840. In the possession of the Concord Antiquarian Society.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Washington appointed John Jay the first Chief Justice, and gave the newly created secretaryships of State, Treasury, and War to Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Knox respectively. These men were intended to be heads of departments; but Washington soon began to consult them and the Attorney General on matters of state and thus made them also a body of advisers known as "the Cabinet." All the Secretaries and the Postmaster General and the Attorney General are now members of the Cabinet.

[2] These ten amendments form a sort of "bill of rights," and were intended to remove objections to the Constitution by those who feared that the national government might encroach on the liberties of the people.

[3] For the different kinds of debt, see p. 211. The Continental money was funded at $1 in government stock for $100 in the paper money; but the other forms of debt were assumed by the government at their face value. All told,—state debts, foreign debt, loan-office certificates, etc.,— these obligations amounted to about $75,000,000. To pay so large a sum in cash was impossible, so Congress ordered interest-bearing stock to be given in exchange for evidence of debt.

[4] As first laid out, the District of Columbia was a square ten miles on a side, and was partly in Virginia and partly in Maryland. But the piece in Virginia many years later (1846) was given back to that state.

[5] After these two states were admitted each was given a star and a stripe on the national flag. Until 1818 our flag thus had fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, no further change being made as new states were admitted. In 1818 two stripes were taken off, the number of stars was made the same as the number of states, and since then each new state has been represented by a new star.

[6] Alexander Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, one of the British West Indies. He was sent to New York to be educated, and entered King's College (now Columbia University). There he became an ardent patriot, wrote pamphlets in defense of the first Congress, and addressed a public meeting when but seventeen. He was captain of an artillery company in 1776, one of Washington's aids in 1777-81, distinguished himself at Yorktown, and (in 1782) went to Congress. He was a man of energy, enthusiasm, and high ideals, was possessed of a singular genius for finance, and believed in a vigorous national government. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton proposed not only the funding and assumption plans, but the national bank and the mint.

[7] The coins were to be the eagle or ten-dollar piece, half eagle, and quarter eagle of gold; the dollar, half, quarter, dime, and half dime of silver; and the cent and half cent of copper. The mint was established at once at Philadelphia, and the first copper coin was struck in 1793. But coinage was a slow process, and many years passed before foreign coins ceased to circulate. The accounts of Congress were always kept in dollars and cents. But the states and the people used pounds, shillings, pence, and Spanish dollars, and it was several years before the states, by law, required their officers to levy taxes and keep accounts in dollars and cents (Virginia in 1792, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1795, New York and Vermont in 1797, New Jersey in 1799).

[8] A single letter in those days was one written on a single sheet of paper, large or small, and the postage on it was 6 cents for any distance under 30 miles, 8 cents from 30 to 60, 10 cents from 60 to 100, and so on to 450 miles, above which the rate was 25 cents. In all our country there were but 75 post offices, and the revenue derived from them was about $100,000 a year.

[9] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 189-204.

[10] Good feeling toward France led the Republicans to some funny extremes. To address a person as Sir, Mr., Mrs., or Miss was unrepublican. You should say, as in France, Citizen Jones, or Citizeness Smith. Tall poles with a red liberty cap on top were erected in every town where there were Republicans; civic feasts were held; and July 14 (the anniversary of the day the Bastile of Paris fell in 1789) was duly celebrated.

[11] When Great Britain drove French ships from the sea, France threw open the trade with the French West Indies to other ships. But Great Britain had laid down a rule that no neutral could have in time of war a trade with her enemy it did not have in time of peace. Our merchants fell under the ban of Great Britain for this reason.

[12] These frigates were not built. They were really intended for use against the Barbary powers (Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli) that were plundering our Mediterranean commerce. These nations of northern Africa had long been accustomed to prey upon European ships and sell the crews into slavery. To obtain protection against such treatment the nations of southern Europe paid these pirates an annual tribute. Some of our ships and sailors were captured, and as we had no navy with which to protect our commerce, a treaty was made with Algiers (1795) which bound us to pay a yearly tribute of "twelve thousand Algerine sequins in maritime stores." We shall see what came of this a few years later.

[13] In the Farewell Address, besides giving notice of his retirement, Washington argued at length against sectional jealousy and party spirit, and urged the promotion of institutions "for the general diffusion of knowledge." He disapproved of large standing armies ("overgrown military establishments"), and earnestly declared that our true policy is "to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world," especially European nations. Washington died at Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799.

[14] He called on all French citizens living in the United States to wear on their hats the French tricolor (blue, white, and red) cockade, and of course all the Republican friends of France did the same and made it their party badge. He next published in the newspapers a long letter in which he said, in substance, that unless the United States changed its policy toward France it might expect trouble. This meant that unless a Republican President (Jefferson) was elected, there might be war between the two countries.

[15] John Adams was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1735. He graduated from Harvard College, studied law, and in 1770 was one of the lawyers who defended the soldiers that were tried for murder in connection with the famous "Boston Massacre." He was sent to the First and Second Continental Congresses, and was a member of the committee appointed to frame the Declaration of Independence, and of the committee to arrange treaties with foreign powers. He was for a time associated with Franklin in the ministry to France; in 1780 went as minister to Holland; and in 1783 was one of the signers of the treaty of peace with Great Britain. In 1785 he was appointed the first United States minister to Great Britain; and in 1789- 97 was Vice President.

[16] Adams received 71 votes, Jefferson 68, Pinckney 59, Burr 30, and nine other men also received votes. Under the original Constitution the electors did not vote separately for President and Vice President. Each cast one ballot with two names on it; the man receiving the most votes (if a majority of the number of electors) was elected President, and the man receiving the next highest number was elected Vice President. Thus it happened that while the Federalists elected the President, the Republicans elected the Vice President.

[17] The Federalists were John Marshall and Charles C. Pinckney. Elbridge Gerry was the Republican member.

[18] Read the account of the popular excitement in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 376-387.

[19] That is, condemning them on the ground that the Constitution did not give Congress power to make such laws. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions are printed in full in MacDonald's Select Documents, 1776- 1861, pp. 149-160.

[20] One squadron that captured a number of vessels was under the command of Captain John Barry. Another squadron under Captain Truxtun captured sixty French privateers. The Constellation took the French frigate Insurgente and beat the Vengeance, which escaped; the Enterprise captured eight privateers and recaptured four American merchantmen; and the Boston captured the Berceau. During the war eighty-four armed French vessels were taken by our navy.

[21] Thomas Jefferson was born on a Virginia plantation April 13, 1743, attended William and Mary College, studied law, and in 1769 became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He rose into notice as a defender of colonial rights, was sent to the Second Continental Congress, and in 1776 wrote the Declaration of Independence. Between 1776 and 1789 he was a member of the Virginia legislature, governor of Virginia, member of Congress (1783-1784), and minister to France (1784-1789). He was a strict constructionist of the Constitution; he wrote the original draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, had great faith in the ability of the people to govern themselves, and dreaded the growth of great cities and the extension of the powers of the Supreme Court. He and John Adams died the same day, July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

[22] Tennessee, the sixteenth, was admitted in 1796.

[23] A story is current that on inauguration day Jefferson rode unattended to the Capitol and tied his horse to the fence before entering the Senate Chamber and taking the oath of office. The story was invented by an English traveler and is pure fiction. The President walked to the Capitol attended by militia and the crowd of supporters who came to witness the end of the contested election, and was saluted by the guns of a company of artillery as he entered the Senate Chamber and again as he came out.

CHAPTER XIX

GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY, 1789-1805

PROSPERITY.—Twelve years had now elapsed since the meeting at New York of the first Congress under the Constitution, and they had been years of great prosperity.

When Washington took the oath of office, each state regulated its trade with foreign countries and with its neighbors in its own way, and issued its own paper money, which it made legal tender. Agriculture was in a primitive stage, very little cotton was grown, mining was but little practiced, manufacture had not passed the household stage, transportation was slow and costly, and in all the states but three banks had been chartered. [1]

With the establishment of a strong and vigorous government under the new Constitution, and the passage of the much-needed laws we have mentioned, these conditions began to pass away. Now that the people had a government that could raise revenue, pay its debts, regulate trade with foreign nations and between the states, enforce its laws, and provide a uniform currency, confidence returned. Men felt safe to engage in business, and as a consequence trade and commerce revived, and money long unused was brought out and invested. Banks were incorporated and their stock quickly purchased. Manufacturing companies were organized and mills and factories started; a score of canals were planned and the building of several was begun; [2] turnpike companies were chartered; lotteries [3] were authorized to raise money for all sorts of public improvements,—schools, churches, wharves, factories, and bridges; and speculation in stock and Western land became a rage.

NEW INDUSTRIES.—It was during the decade 1790-1800 that Slater built the first mill for working cotton yarn; [4] that Eli Terry began the manufacture of clocks as a business; that sewing thread was first made in our country (at Pawtucket, R.I.); that Jacob Perkins began to make nails by machine; that the first broom was made from broom corn; that the first carpet mill and the first cotton mill were started; that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; and that the first steamboat went up and down the Delaware.

[Illustration: A TERRY CLOCK.]

THE COTTON GIN.—Before 1790 the products of the states south of Virginia were tar, pitch, lumber, rice, and indigo. But the destruction of the indigo plants by insects year after year suggested the cultivation of some other crop, and cotton was tried. To clean it of its seeds by hand was slow and costly, and to remove the difficulty Eli Whitney of Massachusetts, then a young man living in Georgia, invented a machine called the cotton gin. [5] Then the cultivation of cotton became most profitable, and the new industry spread rapidly in the South.

[Illustration: MODEL OF WHITNEY'S COTTON GIN. In the National Museum,
Washington.]

THE STEAMBOAT.—The idea of driving boats through water by machinery moved by steam was an old one. Several men had made such experiments in our country before 1790. [6] But in that year John Fitch put a steamboat on the Delaware and during four months ran it regularly from Philadelphia to Trenton. He was ahead of his time and for lack of support was forced to give up the enterprise.

[Illustration: MODEL OF FITCH'S STEAMBOAT. In the National Museum,
Washington.]

THE NEW WEST.—In the western country ten years had wrought a great change. Good times in the commercial states and the Indian war in the West had done much to keep population out of the Northwest Territory from 1790 to 1795. But from the South population had moved steadily over the mountains into the region south of the Ohio River. The new state of Kentucky (admitted in 1792) grew rapidly in population.

North Carolina, after ratifying the Constitution, again ceded her Western territory, and out of this and the narrow strip ceded by South Carolina, Congress (1790) made the "Territory of the United States south of the river Ohio." But population came in such numbers that in 1796 the North Carolina cession was admitted as the state of Tennessee.

In the far South, after Spain accepted the boundary of 31°, Congress established the territory of Mississippi (1798), consisting of most of the southern half of the present states of Mississippi and Alabama. Four years later Georgia accepted her present boundaries, and the territory of Mississippi was then enlarged, so as to include all the Western lands ceded by South Carolina and Georgia (map, p. 242).

CLEVELAND.—Jay's treaty, by providing for the surrender of the forts along the Great Lakes, opened that region to settlement, and in 1796 Moses Cleveland led a New England colony across New York and on the shore of Lake Erie laid out the town which now bears his name. Others followed, and by 1800 there were thirty-two settlements in the Connecticut Reserve.

DETROIT.—The chief town of the Northwest was Detroit. Wayne, who saw it in 1796, described it as a crowded mass of one- and two-story buildings separated by streets so narrow that two wagons could scarcely pass. Around the town was a stockade of high pickets with bastions and cannon at proper distances, and within the stockade "a kind of citadel." The only entrances were through two gates defended by blockhouses at either end of a street along the river. Every night from sunset to sunrise the gates were shut, and during this time no Indian was allowed to remain in the town.

INDIANA TERRITORY.—After Wayne's treaty with the Indians, five years brought so many people into the Northwest Territory that in 1800 the western part was cut off and made the separate territory of Indiana. [7] Not 6,000 white people then lived in all its vast area.

The census of 1800 showed that more than 5,000,000 people then dwelt in our country; of these, nearly 400,000 were in the five Western states and territories—Kentucky, Tennessee, Northwest, Indiana, Mississippi.

PUBLIC LAND ON CREDIT.—The same year (1800) in which Congress created the territory of Indiana, it changed the manner of selling the public lands. Hitherto the buyer had been obliged to pay cash. After 1800 he might buy on credit, paying one quarter annually. The effect of this was to bring settlers into the West in such numbers that the state of Ohio was admitted in 1803, and the territory of Michigan formed in 1805. [8]

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1810.]

FRANCE ACQUIRES LOUISIANA.—For yet another reason the year 1800 is a memorable one in our history. When the French Minister of Foreign Affairs heard that Spain (in 1795) had agreed that 31° north latitude should be the dividing line between us and West Florida, he became alarmed. He feared that our next step would be to acquire West Florida, and perhaps the country west of the Mississippi. To prevent this he asked Spain to give Louisiana back to France as France had given it to Spain in 1762 (see page 143); France would then occupy and hold it forever. Spain refused; but soon after Napoleon came into power the request was renewed in so tempting a form that Spain yielded, and by a secret treaty returned Louisiana to France in 1800.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES, 1805.]

THE MISSISSIPPI CLOSED TO OUR COMMERCE.—The treaty for a while was kept secret; but when it became known that Napoleon was about to send an army to take possession of Louisiana, a Spanish official at New Orleans took away the "right of deposit" at that city and so prevented our citizens from sending their produce out of the Mississippi River. This was a violation of the treaty with Spain, and the settlers in the valley from Pittsburg to Natchez demanded the instant seizure of New Orleans. Indeed, an attempt was made in Congress to authorize the formation of an army of fifty thousand men for this very purpose.

[Illustration: THE CABILDO, CITY HALL OF NEW ORLEANS.]

LOUISIANA PURCHASED, 1803.—But President Jefferson did not want war; instead, he obtained the consent of Congress to offer $2,000,000 for West Florida and New Orleans. Monroe was then sent to Paris to aid Livingston, our minister, in making the purchase, and much to their surprise Napoleon offered to sell all Louisiana. [9] After some hesitation the offer was accepted. The price was $15,000,000, of which $11,250,000 was paid to France and $3,750,000 to citizens of our country who had claims against France. [10]

THE BOUNDARIES OF LOUISIANA.—The splendid territory thus acquired had never been given definite bounds. But resting on the discoveries and explorations of Marquette, Joliet, and La Salle, Louisiana was understood to extend westward to the Rio Grande and the Rocky Mountains, and northward to the sources of the rivers that flowed into the Mississippi. Whether the purchase included West Florida was doubtful, but we claimed it, so that our claim extended eastward to the Perdido River.

THE TERRITORY OF ORLEANS.—The country having been acquired, it had to be governed. So much of it as lay west of the Mississippi and south of 33° north latitude, with the city of New Orleans and the region round about it, was made the new territory of Orleans. The rest of the purchase west of the Mississippi was called the territory of Louisiana (map, p. 242).

LOUISIANA EXPLORED.—When the Louisiana purchase was made in 1803, most of the country was an unknown land. But in 1804 an exploring party under Meriwether Lewis and William Clark [11] went up the Missouri River from St. Louis, spent the winter of 1804-5 in what is now North Dakota, crossed the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1805, and went down the Columbia to the Pacific. After passing a winter (1805-6) near the coast, the party started eastward in the spring, recrossed the mountains, and in the autumn reached St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS was then a little frontier hamlet of maybe a thousand people of all sorts—French, Spanish, American, negro slaves, and Indians. The houses were built on a bottom or terrace at the foot of a limestone cliff and arranged along a few streets with French names. The chief occupation of the people was the fur trade, and to them the reports brought back by Lewis and Clark were so exciting that the St. Louis Fur Company was organized to hunt and trap on the upper Missouri.

[Illustration: BRANDING IRON USED BY LEWIS.]

REFORMS IN THE STATES.—During the years which had passed since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, great political reforms had been made. The doctrine that all men are born politically equal was being put into practice, and the states had begun to reform their old constitutions or to adopt new ones, abolishing religious qualifications for officeholders or voters, [12] and doing away with the property qualifications formerly required of voters. [13] Some states had reformed their laws for punishing crime, had reduced the number of crimes punishable with death from fifteen or twenty to one or two, and had abolished whipping, branding, cutting off the ears, and other cruel punishments of colonial times. The right of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was more fully recognized than ever before.

REFORMS IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.—When the Republican party came into power in 1801, it was pledged to make reforms "to put the ship of state," as Jefferson said, "on the Republican tack." About a third of the important Federalist office-holders were accordingly removed from office, the annual speech at the opening of Congress was abolished, and the written message introduced—a custom followed ever since by our Presidents. Internal taxes were repealed, the army was reduced, [14] the cost of government lessened, and millions of dollars set aside annually for the payment of the national debt.

That there might never again be such a contested election as that of 1800, Congress submitted to the states an amendment to the Constitution providing that the electors should vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots, and not as theretofore on the same ballot. The states promptly ratified, and as the Twelfth Amendment it went into force in 1804 in time for the election of that year.

JEFFERSON REËLECTED.—The Federalist candidates for President and Vice
President in 1804 were Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King; but the
Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and George Clinton, [15] were
elected by a very large majority.

BURR KILLS HAMILTON.—Vice-President Burr, who had consented to be a candidate for the presidency in 1801 (p. 235) against Jefferson, had never been forgiven by his party, and had ever since been a political outcast. His friends in New York, however, nominated him for governor and tried to get the support of the Federalists, but Hamilton sought to prevent this. After Burr was defeated he challenged Hamilton to a duel (July, 1804) and killed him.

BURR'S CONSPIRACY.—Fearing arrest for murder, Burr fled to Philadelphia and applied to the British minister for British help in effecting "a separation of the western part of the United States from that which lies between the Atlantic and the mountains"; for he believed the people in Orleans territory were eager to throw off American rule. After the end of his term as Vice President (March 4, 1805) Burr went west and came back with a scheme for conquering a region in the southwest, enlisted a few men in his enterprise, assembled them at Blennerhassets Island in the Ohio River (a few miles below Marietta), and (in December, 1806) started for New Orleans. The boats with men and arms floated down the Ohio, entered the Mississippi, and were going down that river when General James Wilkinson, a fellow-conspirator, betrayed the scheme to Jefferson. Burr was arrested and sent to Virginia, charged with levying war against the United States, which was treason, and with setting on foot a military expedition against the dominions of the king of Spain, which was a "high misdemeanor." Of the charge of treason Burr was acquitted; that of high misdemeanor was sent to a court in Ohio for trial, and came to naught. [16]

[Illustration: BURR'S GRAVE AT PRINCETON, N. J.]

SUMMARY

1. With the establishment of government under the Constitution, confidence was restored and prosperity began.

2. Banks were chartered by the states, some roads and canals were constructed, and money was gathered by lotteries for all sorts of public improvements.

3. New industries were started, and the cotton gin and other machines were invented.

4. The defeat of the Indians, the removal of the British and Spanish from our Western country, and the sale of public land on credit encouraged a stream of emigrants into the West.

5. Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio entered the Union, and the territories of Mississippi, Indiana, and Michigan were organized.

6. The cession of Louisiana to France in 1800, and the closing of the Mississippi River to Americans, led to the purchase of Louisiana in 1803.

7. This great region was organized into the territories of Orleans and Louisiana; and the width of the continent from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia was explored by Lewis and Clark.

8. Many reforms were made in the state and national governments tending to make them more democratic.

9. In 1804 Jefferson was reelected President, but Burr was not again chosen Vice President. Having engaged in a plan for conquering a region in the southwest (1806), Burr was arrested for treason, but was not condemned.

[Illustration: PIONEER HUNTER.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Read "Town and Country Life in 1800," Chap. xii in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. II.

[2] The Middlesex from Boston to Lowell; the Dismal Swamp in Virginia; the Santee in South Carolina.

[3] In those days lotteries for public purposes were not thought wrong. The Continental Congress and many state legislatures used them to raise revenue. Congress authorized one to secure money with which to improve Washington city. Faneuil Hall in Boston and Independence Hall in Philadelphia were aided by lotteries. Private lotteries had been forbidden by many of the colonies. But the states continued to authorize lotteries for public purposes till after 1830, when one by one they forbade all lotteries.

[4] Parliament in 1774 forbade any one to take away from England any drawing or model of any machine used in the manufacture of cotton goods. No such machines were allowed in our country in colonial times. In 1787, however, the Massachusetts legislature voted six tickets in the State Land Lottery to two Scotchmen named Burr to help them build a spinning jenny. About the same time £200 was given to a man named Somers to help him construct a machine. The models thus built were put in the Statehouse at Boston for anybody to copy who wished, and mills were soon started at Worcester, Beverly, and Providence. But it was not till 1790, when Samuel Slater came to America, that the great English machines were introduced. Slater was familiar with them and made his from memory.

[5] Eli Whitney was born in 1765, and while still a lad showed great skill in making and handling tools. After graduating from Yale College, he went to reside in the family of General Greene, who had been given a plantation by Georgia. While he was making the first cotton gin, planters came long distances to see it, and before it was finished and patented some one broke into the building where it was and stole it. In 1794 he received a patent, but he was unable to enforce his rights. After a few years, South Carolina bought his right for that state, and North Carolina levied a tax on cotton gins for his benefit. But the sum he received was very small.

[6] James Rumsey, as early as 1785, had experimented with a steamboat on the Potomac, and about the same time John Fitch built one in Pennsylvania, and succeeded so well that in 1786 and in 1787 one of his boats made trial trips on the Delaware. Later in 1787 Rumsey ran a steamboat on the Potomac at the rate of four miles an hour.

[7] Not the Indiana of to-day, but the great region including what is now Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and half of Michigan and Minnesota. The settlements were Mackinaw, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, Cahokia, Belle Fontaine, L'Aigle, Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Fort Massac, and Vincennes. Notice that most of these names are of French origin. The governor was William H. Harrison, afterward a President.

[8] In 1809 Illinois territory was created from the western part of Indiana territory. When the census was taken in 1810, nearly 1,000,000 people were living west of the Appalachians.

[9] Read the scene between Napoleon and his brothers over the sale of Louisiana, as told in Adams's History of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 33-39.

[10] The transfer of Louisiana to France took place on November 30, 1803, and the delivery to us on December 20. Our commissioners William C. C. Claiborne and James Wilkinson met the French commissioner Laussat (lo- sah') in the hall of the Cabildo (a building still in existence, p. 243), presented their credentials, received the keys of the city, and listened to Laussat as he proclaimed Louisiana the property of the United States. This ceremony over, the commissioners stepped out on a balcony to witness the transfer of flags. The tricolor which floated from the top of a staff in the Place d'Armes (now Jackson Square) was drawn slowly down and the stars and stripes as slowly raised till the two met midway, when both were saluted by cannon. Our flag was then raised to the top of the pole, and that of France lowered and placed in the hands of Laussat. One hundred years later the anniversary was celebrated by repeating the same ceremony. The Federalists bitterly opposed the purchase of Louisiana. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 629-631. For descriptions of life in Louisiana, read Cable's Creoles of Louisiana, The Grandissimes, and Strange True Stories of Louisiana.

[11] Both Lewis and Clark were Virginians and experienced Indian fighters. On their return Lewis was made governor of the upper Louisiana territory, later called Missouri territory; and died near Nashville in 1809. Clark was likewise a governor of Missouri territory and later a Superintendent of Indian Affairs; he died at St. Louis in 1838. He was a younger brother of George Rogers Clark.

[12] Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia.

[13] In Pennsylvania all free male taxpayers could vote. Georgia and Delaware gave the suffrage to all free white male taxpayers. In Vermont and Kentucky there had never been a property qualification.

[14] In 1802, however, there was founded the United States Military Academy at West Point.

[15] Clinton was born in 1739, took an active part in Revolutionary affairs, was chosen governor of New York in 1777, and was reflected every election for eighteen years. He was the leader of the popular party in that state, was twice chosen Vice President of the United States, and died in that office in 1812.

[16] Burr's trial was conducted (in a circuit court) with rigid impartiality by Chief-Justice John Marshall, one of the greatest judges our country has known. As head of the Supreme Court for thirty-four years (1801-35), he rendered many decisions of lasting influence.

CHAPTER XX

THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE

WAR WITH TRIPOLI.—In his first inaugural Jefferson announced a policy of peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations; but unhappily he was not able to carry it out. Under treaties with Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, we had paid tribute or made presents to these powers, to prevent them from attacking our ships. In 1800, however, when Adams sent the yearly tribute to Algiers, the ruler of Tripoli demanded a large present, and when it did not come, declared war. Expecting trouble with this nest of pirates, Jefferson in 1801 sent over a fleet which was to blockade the coast of Tripoli and that of any other Barbary power that might be at war with us. But four years passed, and Tripoli was five times bombarded before terms of peace were dictated by Captain Rodgers under the muzzles of his guns (1805). [1]

GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE.—While our contest with Tripoli was dragging along, France and Great Britain again went to war (1803), and our neutral rights were again attacked. British cruisers captured many American ships on the ground that they were carrying on trade between the ports of France and her colonies.

Napoleon attacked British commerce by decrees which closed the ports of Europe to British goods, declared a blockade of the British Isles, and made subject to capture any neutral vessels that touched at a British port. Great Britain replied with orders in council, blockading the ports of France and her allies, and requiring all neutral vessels going to a closed port to stop at some British port and pay tribute. [2]

As Great Britain ruled the sea, and Napoleon most of western Europe, these decrees and orders meant the ruin of our commerce. Against such rules of war our government protested, claiming the right of "free trade," or the "freedom of the seas,"—the right of a neutral to trade with either belligerent, provided the goods were not for use in actual war (as guns, powder, and shot).

OUR SAILORS IMPRESSED.—But we had yet another cause of quarrel with Great Britain. She claimed that in time of war she had a right to the services of her sailors; that if they were on foreign ships, they must come home and serve on her war vessels. She denied that a British subject could become a naturalized American; once a British subject, always a British subject, was her doctrine. She stopped our vessels at sea, examined the crews, and seized or "impressed" any British subjects found among them— and many American sailors as well. Against such "impressment" our government set up the claim of "sailors' rights"—denying the right of Great Britain to search our ships at sea or to seize sailors of any nationality while on board an American vessel.

THE ATTACK ON THE CHESAPEAKE.—Before 1805 Great Britain confined impressment to the high seas and to her own ports. After 1805 she carried it on also off our coasts and in our ports. Finally, in 1807, a British officer, hearing that some British sailors were among the crew of our frigate Chesapeake which was about to sail, only partly equipped, from the Washington navy yard, ordered the Leopard to follow the Chesapeake to sea and search her. This was done, and when Commodore Barron refused to have his vessel searched, she was fired on by the Leopard, boarded, searched, and one British and three American sailors were taken from her deck. [3]

[Illustration: THE CHESAPEAKE SURRENDERS TO THE LEOPARD.]

CONGRESS RETALIATES.—It was now high time for us to strike back at France and Great Britain. We had either to fight for "free trade and sailors' rights," or to abandon the sea and stop all attempts to trade with Europe and Great Britain. Jefferson chose the latter course. Our retaliation therefore consisted of

1. The Long Embargo (1807-9). 2. The Non-intercourse Act (1809). 3. Macon's Bill No. 2 (1810). 4. The Declaration of War (1812).

THE LONG EMBARGO.—Late in December, 1807, at the request of Jefferson, Congress laid an embargo and cut off all trade with foreign ports. [4] The restriction was so sweeping and the damage to farmers, planters, merchants, shipowners, and sailors so great, that the law was at once evaded. More stringent laws were therefore enacted, till at last trade along the coast from port to port was made all but impossible. Defiance to the embargo laws became so general [5] that a Force Act (1809) was passed, giving the President authority to use the army and navy in enforcing obedience. This was too much, and such a storm of indignation arose in the Eastern states that Congress repealed the embargo laws (1809) and substituted

THE NON-INTERCOURSE ACT.—This forbade commerce with Great Britain and
France, but allowed it with such countries as were not under French or
British control. If either power would repeal its orders or decrees, the
President was to announce this fact and renew commerce with that power.

Just at this time the second term of Jefferson ended, [6] and Madison became President (March 4, 1809). [8]

THE ERSKINE AGREEMENT(1809).—And now the British minister, Mr. Erskine, offered, in the name of the king, to lift the orders in council if the United States would renew trade with Great Britain. The offer was accepted, and the renewal of trade proclaimed. But when the king heard of it, he recalled Erskine and disavowed the agreement, and Madison was forced to declare trade with Great Britain again suspended.

MACON'S BILL NO. 2.—Non-intercourse having failed, Congress in 1810 tried a new experiment, and by Macon's Bill No. 2 (so-called because it was the second of two bills introduced by Mr. Macon) restored trade with France and Great Britain. At the same time it provided that if either power would withdraw its decrees or orders, trade should be cut off with the other unless that power also would withdraw them.

Napoleon now (1810) pretended to recall his decrees, but Great Britain refused to withdraw her orders in council, whereupon in 1811 trade was again stopped with Great Britain.

THE DECLARATION OF WAR.—And now the end had come. We had either to submit tamely or to fight. The people decided to fight, and in the elections of 1810 completely changed the character of the House of Representatives. A large number of new members were elected, and the control of public affairs passed from men of the Revolutionary period to a younger set with very different views. Among them were two men who rose at once to leadership and remained so for nearly forty years to come. One was Henry Clay of Kentucky; [9] the other was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Clay was made speaker of the House of Representatives, and under his lead the House at once began preparations for war with Great Britain, which was formally declared in June, 1812. The causes stated by Madison in the proclamation were (1) impressing our sailors, (2) sending ships to cruise off our ports and search our vessels, (3) interfering with our trade by orders in council, and (4) urging the Indians to make war on the Western settlers.

THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE.—That the British had been tampering with the Indians was believed to be proved by the preparation of many of the Indian tribes for war. From time to time some Indian of great ability had arisen and attempted to unite the tribes in a general war upon the whites. King Philip was such a leader, and so was Pontiac, and so at this time were the twin brothers Tecumthe and the Prophet. The purpose of Tecumthe was to unite all the tribes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico in a general war, to drive the whites from the Mississippi valley. After uniting many of the Northern tribes he went south, leaving his brother, the Prophet, in command. But the action of the Prophet so alarmed General Harrison, [10] governor of Indiana territory, that he marched against the Indians and beat them at the Tippecanoe (1811). [11]

[Illustration: VICINITY OF THE TIPPECANOE RIVER.]

MADISON REËLECTED.—As Madison was willing to be a war President the
Republicans nominated him for a second term of the presidency, with
Elbridge Gerry [12] for the vice presidency. The Federalists and those
opposed to war, the peace party, nominated DeWitt Clinton for President.
Madison and Gerry were elected. [13]

THE WAR OPENS.—The war which now followed, "Mr. Madison's War" as the Federalists called it, was fought along the edges of our country and on the sea. It may therefore be considered under four heads:—

1. War on land along the Canadian frontier. 2. War on land along the Atlantic seaboard. 3. War on land along the Gulf coast. 4. War on the sea.

Scarcely had the fighting begun when news arrived that Great Britain had recalled the hated orders in council, but she would not give up the right of search and of impressment, so the war went on, as Madison believed that cause enough still remained.

[Illustration: WAR OF 1812.]

FIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER, 1812.—The hope of the leaders of the war party, "War Hawks" as the Federalists called them, was to capture the British provinces north of us and make peace at Halifax. Three armies were therefore gathered along the Canadian frontier. One under General Hull was to cross at Detroit and march eastward. A second under General Van Rensselaer was to cross the Niagara River, join the forces under Hull, capture York (now Toronto), and then go on to Montreal. The third under General Dearborn was to enter Canada from northeastern New York, arid meet the other troops near Montreal. The three armies were then to capture Montreal and Quebec and conquer Canada.

But the plan failed; Hull was driven out of Canada, and surrendered at Detroit. Van Rensselaer did not get a footing in Canada, and Dearborn went no farther than the northern boundary line of New York.

FIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER, 1813.—The surrender of Hull filled the people with indignation, and a new army under William Henry Harrison was sent across the wilds of Ohio in the dead of winter to recapture Detroit. But the British and Indians attacked and captured part of the army at Frenchtown on the Raisin River, where the Indians massacred the prisoners. They then attacked Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson, but were driven off.

BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE.—Meantime a young naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry, was hastily building at Erie (Presque Isle) a little fleet to attack the British, whose fleet on Lake Erie had been built just as hurriedly. The fight took place near the west end of the lake and ended in the capture of all the British ships. [14] It was then that Perry sent off to Harrison those familiar words "We have met the enemy and they are ours." [15]

BATTLE OF THE THAMES.—This signal victory gave Perry command of Lake Erie and enabled him to carry Harrison's army over to Canada, where, on the Thames River, he beat the British and Indians and put them to flight. [16] By these two victories of Perry and Harrison we regained all that we had lost by the surrender of Hull. On the New York frontier neither side accomplished anything decisive in 1813, though the public buildings at York (now Toronto) were destroyed, and some villages on both sides of the Niagara River were burned.

FIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER, 1814.—Better officers were now put in command
on the New York frontier, and during 1814 our troops under Jacob Brown and
Winfield Scott captured Fort Erie and won the battles of Chippewa and
Lundys Lane. But in the end the British drove our army out of Canada.

Further eastward the British gathered a fleet on Lake Champlain and sent an army to attack Plattsburg, but Thomas Macdonough utterly destroyed the fleet in Plattsburg Bay, and the army was repulsed.

FIGHTING ALONG THE SEABOARD.—During 1812 and 1813 the British did little more than blockade our coast from Rhode Island to New Orleans, leaving all the east coast of New England unmolested. [17] But in 1814 the entire coast was blockaded, the eastern part of Maine was seized and occupied, and Stonington in Connecticut was bombarded.

WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE ATTACKED.—A fleet entered Chesapeake Bay and landed an army which marched to Washington, burned the Capitol, the President's house, the Treasury Building, and other public buildings, [18] and with the aid of the fleet made a vain attack on Baltimore.

It was during the bombardment of a fort near Baltimore that Francis Scott
Key, temporarily a prisoner with the British, wrote The Star-spangled
Banner.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE CAPITOL AFTER THE FIRE.]

FIGHTING ALONG THE GULF COAST.—After the repulse at Baltimore the British army was carried to the island of Jamaica to join a great expedition fitting out for an attack on New Orleans. It was November before the fleet bearing the army set sail, and December when the troops landed on the southeast coast of Louisiana and started for the Mississippi. On the banks of that river, a few miles below New Orleans, they met our forces under General Andrew Jackson drawn up behind a line of rude intrenchments, attacked them on the 8th of January, 1815, and were badly beaten.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. From an old print.]

THE SEA FIGHTS.—The victories won by the army were indeed important, but those by the navy were more glorious still. In years before the war British captains laughed at our little navy and called our ships "fir- built things with a bit of striped bunting at their mastheads." These fir- built things now inflicted on the British navy a series of defeats such as it had never before suffered from any nation.

[Illustration: NAVAL CANNON OF 1812.]

Before the end of 1812 the frigate Constitution, "Old Ironsides" as she is still popularly called, [19] beat the Guerrière (gar-e-ar') so badly that she could not be brought to port; the little sloop Wasp almost shot to pieces the British sloop Frolic; [20] the frigate United States brought the Macedonian in triumph to Newport (R.I.); [21] and the Constitution made a wreck of the Java.

[Illustration: CUTLASS.]

In 1813 the Hornet, Commander James Lawrence, so riddled the British sloop Peacock that after surrendering she went down carrying with her nine of her own crew and three of the Hornet's. The brig Enterprise, William Burrows in command, fought the British brig Boxer, Captain Blythe, off Portland harbor, Maine. Both commanders were killed, but the Boxer was taken and carried into Portland, where Burrows and Blythe, wrapped in the flags they had so well defended, were buried in the Eastern Cemetery which overlooks the bay.

THE CHESAPEAKE CAPTURED.—But we too met with defeats. When Lawrence returned home with the Hornet, he was given command of the Chesapeake, then fitting out in Boston harbor, and while so engaged was challenged by the commander of the British frigate Shannon to come out and fight. He went, was mortally wounded, and a second time the Chesapeake struck to the British. As Lawrence was carried below he cried out, "Don't give up the ship—keep her guns going—fight her till she sinks"; but the British carried her by boarding.

The brig Argus, while destroying merchantmen off the English coast, was taken by the British brig Pelican. [22]

PEACE.—Quite early in the war Russia tendered her services as mediator and they were accepted by us. Great Britain declined, but offered to treat directly if commissioners were sent to some neutral port. John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell were duly appointed, and late in December, 1814, signed a treaty of peace at Ghent. Nothing was said in it about impressment, search, or orders in council, nor indeed about any of the causes of the war.

Nevertheless the gain was great. Our naval victories made us respected abroad and showed us to be the equal of any maritime power. At home, the war aroused a national feeling, did much to consolidate the Union, and put an end to our old colonial dependence on Europe. Thenceforth Americans looked westward, not eastward.

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.—News of the treaty signed in December, 1814, did not reach our country till February, 1815. [23] Had there been ocean steamships or cables in those days, two famous events in our history would not have happened. The battle of New Orleans would not have been fought, and the report of the Hartford Convention would not have been published. The Hartford Convention was composed of Federalist delegates from the New England states, [24] met in December, 1814, and held its sessions in secret. But its report proposed some amendments to the United States Constitution, state armies to defend New England, and the retention of a part of the federal taxes to pay the cost. Congress was to be asked to agree to this, arid if it declined, the state legislatures were to send delegates to another convention to meet in June, 1815. [25] When the commissioners to present these demands reached Washington, peace had been declared, and they went home, followed by the jeers of the nation.

SUMMARY

1. The war with Tripoli (1801-5) ended in victory for our navy.

2. The renewal of war between France and Great Britain involved us in more serious trouble.

3. When France attacked British commerce by decrees, Great Britain replied with orders in council (1806-7). In these paper blockades we were the chief sufferers.

4. Great Britain claimed a right to take her subjects off American ships, and while impressing many British sailors into her navy, she impressed many Americans also.

5. She sent vessels of war to our coast to search our ships, and in 1807 even seized sailors on board an American ship of war, the Chesapeake.

6. Congress retaliated with several measures cutting off trade with France and Great Britain; these failing, war on Great Britain was declared in 1812.

7. War on land was begun by attempts to invade Canada from Detroit, Niagara, and northeastern New York. These attempts failed, and Detroit was captured by the British.

8. In 1813 Perry won a great naval victory on Lake Erie; and the American soldiers, after a reverse at Frenchtown, invaded Canada and won the battle of the Thames.

9. In 1814 the Americans won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, but were later driven from Canada. A British invasion of New York met disaster at Plattsburg Bay.

10. Along the seaboard the British blockaded the entire coast, seized the eastern part of Maine, took Washington and burned the public buildings, and attacked Baltimore.

11. Later New Orleans was attacked, but in 1815 Jackson won a signal victory and drove the British from Louisiana.

12. On the sea our vessels won many ship duels.

13. Peace was made in 1814, just as the New England Federalists were holding their Hartford Convention. The war resulted in strengthening the Union and making it more respected.

[Illustration: FLINTLOCK MUSKET, SUCH AS WAS USED IN THE WAR OF 1812.]

[Illustration: MODERN MILITARY CARBINE.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] During the war, in 1803, the frigate Philadelphia ran on the rocks in the harbor of Tripoli, and was captured by the Tripolitans. The Americans then determined to destroy her. Stephen Decatur sailed into the harbor with a volunteer crew in a little vessel disguised as a fishing boat. The Tripolitans allowed the Americans to come close, whereupon they boarded the Philadelphia, drove off the pirate crew, set the vessel on fire, and escaped unharmed.

[2] The French decrees and British orders in council were as follows: (1) Napoleon began (1806) by issuing a decree closing the ports of Hamburg and Bremen (which he had lately captured) and so cutting off British trade with Germany. (2) Great Britain retaliated with an order in council (May, 1806), blockading the coast of Europe from Brest to the mouth of the river Elbe. (3) Napoleon retaliated (November, 1806) with the Berlin Decree, declaring the British Isles in a state of blockade, and forbidding English trade with any country under French control. (4) Great Britain issued another order in council (November, 1807), commanding her naval officers to seize any neutral vessel going to any closed port in Europe unless it first touched at a British port, paid duty, and bought a license to trade. (5) Napoleon thereupon (December, 1807) issued his Milan Decree, authorizing the seizure of any neutral vessel that had touched at any British port and taken out a license. Read Adams's History of the U. S., Vol. III, Chap. 16; Vol. IV, Chaps. 4, 5, 6; McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. III, pp. 219-223, 249-250, 272-274.

[3] The British sailor was hanged at Halifax. The three Americans were not returned till 1812. Read Maclay's History of the Navy, Vol. I, pp. 305- 308.

[4] The Federalists ridiculed the embargo as the "terrapin-policy"; that is, the United States, like a terrapin when struck, had pulled its head and feet within its shell instead of fighting. They reversed the letters so that they read "o-grab-me," and wrote the syllables backward so as to spell "go-bar-'em."

[5] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. III, pp. 279-338.

[7] The people would gladly have given him a third term. Indeed, the legislatures of eight states invited him to be a candidate for reflection. In declining he said, "If some termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance." The examples of Washington and Jefferson established an unwritten law against a third term for any President.

[8] James Madison was born in Virginia in 1751, and educated partly at Princeton. In 1776 he was a delegate to the Virginia convention to frame a state constitution, was a member of the first legislature under it, went to Congress in 1780-83, and then returned to the state legislature, 1784- 87. He was one of the most important members of the convention that framed the United States Constitution. After the adoption of the Constitution, he led the Republican party in Congress (1789-97). He wrote the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, and in 1801-9 was Secretary of State under Jefferson. As the Republican candidate for President in 1808, he received 122 electoral votes against 47 for the Federalist candidate Charles C. Pinckney. He died in 1836.

[9] Henry Clay, the son of a Baptist minister, was born in Virginia in 1777 in a neighborhood called "the Slashes." One of his boyhood duties was to ride to the mill with a bag of wheat or corn. Thus he earned the name of "the Mill Boy of the Slashes," which in his campaigns for the presidency was used to get votes. His education was received in a log- cabin schoolhouse. At fourteen he was behind the counter in a store at Richmond; but finally began to read law, and in 1797 moved to Kentucky to "grow up with the country." There he prospered greatly, and in 1803 was elected to the state legislature, in 1806 and again in 1809-10 served as a United States senator to fill an unexpired term, and in 1811 entered the House of Representatives. From then till his death, June 29, 1852, he was one of the most important men in public life; he was ten years speaker of the House, four years Secretary of State, twenty years a senator, and three times a candidate for President. He was a great leader and an eloquent speaker. He was called "the Great Pacificator" and "the Great Compromiser," and one of his sayings, "I had rather be right than be President," has become famous.

[10] William Henry Harrison was a son of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born in Virginia in 1773, served in the Indian campaigns under St. Clair and Wayne, commanded Fort Washington on the site of Cincinnati, was secretary of the Northwest Territory, and then delegate to Congress, and did much to secure the law for the sale of public land on credit. He was made governor of Indiana Territory in 1801, and won great fame as a general in the War of 1812.

[11] Tecumthe's efforts in the South led to a war with the Creeks in 1813- 14. These Indians began by capturing Fort Mims in what is now southern Alabama, and killing many people there; but they were soon subdued by General Andrew Jackson. Read Edward Eggleston's Roxy; and Eggleston and Seelye's Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet.

[12] Gerry was a native of Massachusetts and one of the delegates who refused to sign the Constitution when it was framed in 1787. As a leading Republican he was chosen by Adams to represent his party on the X. Y. Z. Mission. As governor of Massachusetts he signed a bill rearranging the senatorial districts in such wise that some towns having Federalist majorities were joined to others having greater Republican majorities, thus making more than a fair proportion of the districts Republican. This political fraud is called Gerrymandering. Gerry died November 23, 1814, the second Vice President to die in office.

[13] Eighteen states cast electoral votes at this election (1812). The electors were chosen by popular vote in eight states, and by vote of the legislature in ten states, including Louisiana (the former territory of Orleans), which was admitted into the Union April 8, 1812. The admission of Louisiana was bitterly opposed by the Federalists. For their reasons, read a speech by Josiah Quincy in Johnston's American Orations, Vol. I, pp. 180-204.

[14] Perry's flagship was named the Lawrence, after the gallant commander of the Chesapeake, captured a short while before off Boston. As Lawrence, mortally wounded, was carried below, he said to his men, "Don't give up the ship." Perry put at the masthead of the Lawrence a blue pennant bearing the words "Don't give up the ship," and fought two of the largest vessels of the enemy till every gun on his engaged side was disabled, and but twenty men out of a hundred and three were unhurt. Then entering a boat with his brother and four seamen, he was rowed to the Niagara, which he brought into the battle, and with it broke the enemy's line and won.

[15] The story of the naval war is told in Maclay's History of the Navy, Part Third; and in Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812.

[16] In this battle the great Indian leader Tecumthe was killed.

[17] In New England the ruin of commerce made the war most unpopular, and it was because of this that the British did not at first blockade the New England coast. British goods came to Boston, Salem, and other ports in neutral ships, or in British ships disguised as neutral, and great quantities of them were carried in four-horse wagons to the South, whence raw cotton was brought back to New England to be shipped abroad. The Republicans made great fun of this "ox-and-horse-marine."

[18] For a description of the scenes in Washington, read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 138-147; or Adams's History of the U. S., Vol. VIII, pp. 144-152; or Memoirs of Dolly Madison, Chap. 8.

[19] Read Holmes's poem Old Ironsides.

[20] This battle was fought on a clear moonlight night and was full of dramatic incidents. A storm had lashed the sea into fury and the waves were running mountain high. Wave after wave swept the deck of the Wasp and drenched the sailors. The two sloops rolled till the muzzles of their guns dipped in the sea; but both crews cheered heartily and fought on till, as the Wasp rubbed across the bow of the Frolic, her jib boom came in between the masts of the Wasp. A boarding party then leaped upon her bowsprit, and as they ran down the deck were amazed to see nobody save the man at the wheel and three wounded officers. As the British were not able to lower their flag, Lieutenant Biddle of the Wasp hauled it down. Scarcely had this been done when the British frigate Poictiers came in sight, and chased and overhauled the Wasp and captured her.

[21] Of all the British frigates captured during the war, the Macedonian was the only one brought to port. The others were shot to pieces and sank or were destroyed soon after the battle. The Macedonian arrived at Newport in December, 1812. When the lieutenant bearing her flag and dispatches reached Washington, he was informed that a naval ball was being held in honor of the capture of the Guerrière and another ship, and that their flags were hanging on the wall. Hastening to the hotel, he announced himself and was quickly escorted to the ballroom, where, with cheers and singing, the flag of the Macedonian was hung beside those of the other two captured vessels.

[22] In October, 1812, the frigate Essex, Captain Porter in command, sailed from Delaware Bay, cruised down the east and up the west coast of South America, and captured seven British vessels. But she was captured near Valparaiso by the British frigates Cherub and Phoebe in March, 1814. In January, 1815, the President, Commodore Decatur, was captured off Long Island by a British squadron of four vessels. In February the Constitution, Captain Stewart, when near Madeira, captured the Cyane and the Levant.

[23] Some idea of the difficulty of travel and the transmission of news in those days may be gained from the fact that when the agent bearing the treaty of peace arrived at New, York February 11, 1815, an express rider was sent post haste to Boston, at a cost of $225.

[24] The states of Vermont and New Hampshire sent no delegates to this convention; but three delegates were appointed by certain counties in those states. When Connecticut and Rhode Island chose delegates, a Federalist newspaper published in Boston welcomed them in an article headed "Second and Third Pillars of a New Federal Edifice Reared." Despite the action of the Hartford Convention, the fact remains that Massachusetts contributed more than her proportionate share of money and troops for the war.

[25] The report is printed in MacDonald's Select Documents.

CHAPTER XXI

RISE OF THE WEST

TRADE, COMMERCE, AND THE FISHERIES.—The treaty of 1814 did not end our troubles with Great Britain. Our ships were still shut out of her West Indian ports. The fort at Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River, had been seized during the war and for a time was not returned as the treaty required. The authorities in Nova Scotia claimed that we no longer had a right to fish in British waters, and seized our fishing vessels or drove them from the fishing grounds. We had no trade treaty with Great Britain. In 1815, therefore, a convention was made regulating trade with Great Britain and her East Indian colonies, but not with her West Indies; [1] in 1817, a very important agreement limited the navies on the Great Lakes; [2] and in 1818 a convention was made defending our fishing rights in British waters. [3]

BANKS AND THE CURRENCY.—But there were also domestic affairs which required attention. When the charter of the Bank of the United States (p. 224) expired in 1811, it was not renewed, for the party in power denied that Congress had authority to charter a bank. A host of banks chartered by the states thereupon sprang up, in hope of getting some of the business formerly done by the national bank and its branches.

[Illustration: THE FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.]

In three years' time one hundred and twenty new state banks were created. Each issued bank notes with a promise to exchange them for specie (gold or silver coin) on demand. In 1814, however, nearly all the banks outside of New England "suspended specie payment"; that is, refused to redeem their notes in specie. Persons having gold and silver money then kept it, and the only money left in circulation was the bank notes—which, a few miles away from the place of issue, would not pass at their face value. [4]

Business and travel were seriously interfered with, and in order to provide the people with some kind of money which would pass at the same value everywhere, Congress in 1816 chartered a second Bank of the United States, [5] very much like the first one, for a period of twenty years.

MANUFACTURES AND THE TARIFF.—Before the embargo days, trade and commerce were so profitable, because of the war in Europe, that manufactures were neglected. Almost all manufactored articles—cotton and woolen goods, china, glass, edge tools, and what not—were imported, from Great Britain chiefly.

But the moment our foreign trade was cat off by the embargo, manufactures sprang up, and money hitherto put into ships and commerce was invested in mills and factories. Societies for the encouragement of domestic manufactures were started everywhere. To wear American-made clothes, walk in American-made shoes, write on American-made paper, and use American- made furniture were acts of patriotism which the people publicly pledged themselves to perform. Thus encouraged, manufactories so throve and flourished that by 1810 the value of goods made in our country each year was $173,000,000.

When trade was resumed with Great Britain after the war, her goods were sent over in immense quantities. This hurt our manufacturers, and therefore Congress in 1816 laid a tariff or tax on imported manufactures, for the purpose of keeping the price of foreign goods high and thus protecting home manufactures.

PROSPERITY OF THE COUNTRY.—Despite the injury done by British orders, French decrees, the embargo, non-intercourse, and the war, the country grew more prosperous year by year. Cities were growing, new towns were being planted, rivers were being bridged, colleges, [6] academies, schools, were springing up, several thousand miles of turnpike had been built, and over these good roads better stagecoaches drawn by better horses carried the mail and travelers in quicker time than ever before.

ROUTES TO THE WEST.—Goods for Pittsburg and the West could now leave Philadelphia every day in huge canvas-covered wagons drawn by four or six horses, and were only twenty days on the road. The carrying trade in this way was very great. More than twelve thousand wagons came to Pittsburg each year, bringing goods worth several millions of dollars. From New York wares and merchandise for the West went in sloops up the Hudson to Albany, were wagoned to the falls of the Mohawk, where they were put into "Schenectady boats," which were pushed by poles up the Mohawk to Utica. Thence they went by canal and river to Oswego on Lake Ontario, in sloops to Lewiston on the Niagara River, by wagon to Buffalo, by sloop to Westfield on Lake Erie, by wagon to Chautauqua Lake, and thence by boat down the lake and the Allegheny River to Pittsburg.

[Illustration: ROUTES FROM PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK TO THE WEST.]

THE STEAMBOAT.—The growth of the country and the increase in travel now made the steamboat possible. Before 1807 all attempts to use such boats had failed. [7] But when Fulton in that year ran the Clermont from New York to Albany and back, practical steam navigation began. In 1808 a line of steamboats ran up and down the Hudson. In 1809 there was one on the Delaware, another on the Raritan, and a third on Lake Champlain. In 1811 a steamboat went from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and in 1812 there were steam ferryboats between what is now Jersey City and New York, and between Philadelphia and Camden. [8]

[Illustration: AN EARLY FERRYBOAT.]

By the use of the steamboat and better roads it was possible in 1820 to go from New York to Philadelphia between sunrise and sunset in summer, and from New York to Boston in forty-eight hours, and from Boston to Washington in less than five days.

THE RUSH TO THE WEST.—After the peace in 1815 came a period of hard times. Great Britain kept our ships out of her ports in the West Indies. France, Spain, and Holland did their own trading with their colonies. Demands for our products fell off, trade and commerce declined, thousands of people were thrown out of employment, and another wave of emigration started westward. Nothing like it had ever before been known. People went by tens of thousands, building new towns and villages, clearing the forests, and turning the prairies into farms and gardens. Some went in wagons, some on horseback; great numbers even went on foot, pushing their children and household goods in handcarts, in wheelbarrows, in little box carts on four small wheels made of plank. [9]

Once on the frontier, the pioneer, the "mover," the "newcomer," would secure his plot of land, cut down a few trees, and build a half-faced camp,—a shed with a roof of sapling and bark, and one side open,—and in this he would live till the log cabin was finished.

THE LOG CABIN.—To build a log cabin the settler would fell trees of the proper size, cut them into logs, and with his ax notch them half through at the ends. Laid one on another these logs formed the four sides of the cabin. Openings were left for a door, one window, and a huge fireplace; the cracks between the logs were filled with mud; the roof was of hewn boards, and the chimney of logs smeared on the inside with clay and lined at the bottom with stones. Greased paper did duty for glass in the window. The door swung on wooden hinges and was fastened with a wooden latch on the inside, which was raised from the outside by a leather string passed through a hole in the door. Some cabins had no floor but the earth; in others the floor was of puncheons, or planks split and hewn from trunks of trees and laid with the round side down. [10]

[Illustration: CORN-HUSK MOP.]

PIONEER LIFE.—If the farm were wooded, the first labor of the settler was to grub up the bushes, cut down the smaller trees, and kill the larger ones by cutting a girdle around each near the roots. When the trees were felled, the neighbors would come and help roll the logs into great piles for burning. From the ashes the settler made potash; for many years potash was one of the important exports of the country.

In the land thus cleared and laid open to the sun the pioneer planted his corn, flax, wheat, and vegetables. The corn he shelled on a gritter, and ground in a handmill, or pounded in a wooden mortar with a wooden pestle, or carried on horseback to some mill perhaps fifteen miles away.

Cooking stoves were not used. Game was roasted by hanging it by a leather string before an open fire. All baking was done in a Dutch oven on the hearth, or in an out oven built, as its name implies, out of doors. [11]

Deerskin in the early days, and later tow linen, woolens, jeans, and linseys, were the chief materials for clothing till store goods became common. [12] The amusements of the pioneers were like those of colonial days—shooting matches, bear hunts, races, militia musters, raisings, log rollings, weddings, corn huskings, and quilting parties.

[Illustration: BREAKING FLAX.]

FIVE NEW STATES.—The first effect of the emigration to the West was such an increase of population there that five new states were admitted in five years. They were Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Missouri (1821). As Louisiana (1812) and Maine (1820) had also been admitted by 1821, the Union then included twenty-four states (map, p. 279).

POWER OF THE WEST.—A second result of this building of the West was an increase in its political importance. The West in 1815 sent to Congress 8 senators and 28 members of the House; after 1822 it sent 18 senators out of 48, and 47 members of the House out of 213.

[Illustration: TRADING WITH A RIVER MERCHANT.]

TRADE OF THE WEST.—A third result was a straggle for the trade of the West. Favored by the river system, the farmers of the West were able to float their produce, on raft and flatboat, to New Orleans. Before the introduction of the steamboat, navigation up the Mississippi was all but impossible. Flatboats, rafts, barges, broadhorns, with their contents, were therefore sold at New Orleans, and the money brought back to Pittsburg or Wheeling and there used to buy the manufactures sent from the Eastern states. But now a score of steamboats went down and up the Mississippi and the Ohio, stopping at Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Natchez, and a host of smaller towns, loaded with goods obtained at Pittsburg and New Orleans. [13] Commercially the West was independent of the East. The Western trade of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore was seriously threatened.

THE ERIE CANAL.—So valuable was this trade, and so important to the East, that New York in 1817 began the construction of the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo, and finished it in 1825. [14] The result, as we shall see in a later chapter, was far-reaching.

SLAVERY.—A fourth result of the rush to the West was the rise of the question of slavery beyond the Mississippi.

Before the adoption of the Constitution, as we have seen, slavery was forbidden or was in course of abolition in the five New England states, in Pennsylvania, and in the Northwest Territory. Since the adoption of the Constitution gradual abolition laws had been adopted in New York (1799) and in New Jersey (1804). [15] Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama came into the Union as slave-holding states; and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (besides Vermont) as free states. So in 1819 the dividing line between the eleven free and the eleven slave states was the south boundary line of Pennsylvania (p. 81) and the Ohio River.

SLAVERY BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI.—By 1819 so many people had crossed the Mississippi and settled on the west bank and up the Missouri that Congress was asked to make a new territory to be called Arkansas and a new state to be named Missouri.

Whether the new state was to be slave or free was not stated, but the Missourians owned slaves and a settlement of this matter was important for two reasons: (1) there were then eleven slave and eleven free states, and the admission of Missouri would upset this balance in the Senate; (2) her entrance into the Union would probably settle the policy as to slavery in the remainder of the great Louisiana Purchase. The South therefore insisted that Missouri should be a slave-holding state, and the Senate voted to admit her as such. The North insisted that slavery should be abolished in Missouri, and the House of Representatives voted to admit her as a free state. As neither would yield, the question went over to the next session of Congress.

MAINE.—By that time Maine, which belonged to Massachusetts, had obtained leave to frame a constitution, and applied for admission as a free state. This afforded a chance to preserve the balance of states in the Senate, and Congress accordingly passed at the same time two bills, one to admit Maine as a free state, and one to authorize Missouri to make a proslavery constitution.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE, 1820.—The second of these bills embodied the Missouri Compromise, or Compromise of 1820, which provided that in all the territory purchased from France in 1803 and lying north of the parallel 36° 30' there never should be slavery, except in Missouri (map p. 279). [16]

This Compromise left a great region from which free states might be made in future, and very little for slave states. We shall see the consequences of this by and by.

EXPLORATION OF THE WEST.—West of Missouri the country was still a wilderness overrun by Indians, and by buffalo and other wild animals. Many believed it to be almost uninhabitable. Pike, who (1806-7) marched across the plains from St. Louis to the neighborhood of Pikes Peak and on to the upper waters of the Rio Grande, and Long, who (1820) followed Pike, brought back dismal accounts of the country. Pike reported that the banks of the Kansas, the Platte, and the Arkansas rivers might "admit of a limited population," but not the plains. Long said the country west of Council Bluffs "is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable by people depending on agriculture," and that beyond the Rockies it was "destined to be the abode of perfect desolation."

[Illustration: BUFFALO RUNNING AWAY FROM A PRAIRIE FIRE.]

THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.—This started the belief that in the West was a great desert, and for many years geographers indicated such a desert on their maps. It covered most of what is now Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and parts of Texas, Colorado, and South Dakota. One geographer (1835) declared, "a large part maybe likened to the Great Sahara or African Desert."

THE NORTHWESTERN BOUNDARY.—When Louisiana was purchased in 1803 no boundary was given it on the north or west.

By treaty with Great Britain in 1818, the 49th parallel was made our northern boundary from the Lake of the Woods to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. [17]

THE OREGON COUNTRY.—The country west of the sources of the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, the region drained by the Columbia, or as it was sometimes called, the Oregon River, was claimed by both Great Britain and the United States. As neither would yield, it was agreed that the Oregon country should be held jointly for a time. [18]

THE SPANISH BOUNDARY.—South of Oregon and west of the mountains lay the possessions of Spain, with which country in 1819 we made a treaty, fixing the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase. We began by claiming as far as the Rio Grande, and asking for Florida. We ended by accepting the line shown on the map, p. 278, and buying Florida. [19]

SUMMARY

1. The treaty of peace in 1814 left several issues unsettled; it was therefore followed by a trade treaty with Great Britain, an agreement to limit naval power on the northern lakes, and (1818) a treaty about fisheries in British waters.

2. The suspension of specie payments by the state banks during the war caused such disorder in the currency that a national bank was chartered to regulate it.

3. The embargo, by cutting off importation of British goods, encouraged home manufactures. Heavy importations after the war injured home manufactures, and to help them Congress enacted a protective tariff law.

4. Despite commercial troubles and the war, the people were prosperous. New towns were founded, travel was improved, the steamboat was introduced, and the West grew rapidly.

5. After 1815 a great wave of population poured over the West.

6. Seven new states were admitted between 1812 and 1821.

7. A struggle for the trade of the growing West led to the building of the Erie Canal.

8. A struggle over slavery led to the Missouri Compromise (1820).

9. By treaties with Great Britain and Spain, boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were established, Florida was purchased, and the Oregon country was held jointly with Great Britain.

[Illustration: AN OLD STAGECOACH.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] A serious quarrel over the West Indian trade now arose and was not settled till 1830. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. V, pp. 483-487.

[2] The agreement of 1817 provided that each power might have one armed vessel on Lake Ontario, two on the upper lakes, and one on Lake Champlain. Each vessel was to have but one eighteen-pound cannon. All other armed vessels were to be dismantled and no others were to be built or armed. In Europe such a water boundary between two powers would have been guarded by strong fleets and forts and many armed men.

[3] The fishery treaty provides (1) that our citizens may forever catch and dry fish on certain parts of the coasts of Newfoundland and of Labrador; (2) that they may not catch fish within three miles of any other of the coasts of the British dominions in America; (3) that our fishermen may enter the harbors on these other coasts for shelter, or to obtain water, or wood, or to repair damages, "and for no other purpose whatever."

[4] As to the straits to which people were put for small change, read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 297-298.

[5] This bank had branches in the various states, and specie could be had for its notes at any branch. Hence its notes passed at their face value over all the country, and became, like specie, of the same value everywhere. Authority to charter the bank was found in the provision of the Constitution giving Congress power to "regulate the currency."

[6] Thirty-nine of our colleges, theological seminaries, and universities were founded between 1783 and 1820.

[7] For Rumsey and Fitch, see p. 239. William Longstreet in 1790 tried a small model steamboat on the Savannah River; and in 1794 Elijah Ormsbee at Providence and Samuel Morey on Long Island Sound, in 1796 John Fitch on a pond in New York city, in 1797 Morey on the Delaware, in 1802 Oliver Evans at Philadelphia, and in 1804 and 1806 John Stevens at Hoboken, demonstrated that boats could be moved by steam. But none had made the steamboat a practical success.

[8] The state of New York gave Fulton and his partner, Livingston, the sole right to use steamboats on the waters of the state. This monopoly was evaded by using teamboats, on which the machinery that turned the paddle wheel was moved by six or eight horses hitched to a crank and walking round and round in a circle on the deck. Teamboats were used chiefly as ferryboats. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 397-407.

[9] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 381-394. All the great highways to the West were crowded with bands of emigrants. In nine days 260 wagons bound for the West passed through one New York town. At Easton, in Pennsylvania, on a favorite route from New England (map, p. 194), 511 wagons accompanied by 3066 persons passed in a month. A tollgate keeper on another route reported 2000 families as having passed during nine months. From Alabama, whither people were hurrying to settle on the cotton lands, came reports of a migration quite as large. When the census of 1820 was taken, the returns showed that there were but 75 more people in Delaware in 1820 than there were in 1810. In the city of Charleston there were 24,711 people in 1810 and 24,780 in 1820. In many states along the seaboard the rate of increase of population was less during the census period 1810-20 than it had been before, because of the great numbers who had left for the West.

[10] If the newcomer chose some settlement for his home, the neighbors would gather when the logs were cut, hold a "raising," and build his cabin in the course of one day. Tables, chairs, and other furniture were generally made by the settler with his own hands. Brooms and brushes were of corn husks, and many of his utensils were cut from the trunks of trees. "I know of no scene more primitive," said a Kentucky pioneer, "than such a cabin hearth as that of my mother's. In the morning a buckeye backlog, a hickory forestick, resting on stones, with a johnny cake on a clean ash board, set before the fire to bake; a frying pan with its long handle resting on a splint-bottom chair, and a teakettle swung from a log pole, with myself setting the table, or turning the meat. Then came the blowing of the conch-shell for father in the field, the howling of old Lion, the gathering around the table, the blessing, the dull clatter of pewter spoons on pewter dishes, and the talk about the crops and stock."

[11] For an account of the social conditions in 1820, read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, Chap, xxxvii; also Eggleston's Circuit Rider, Cooper's Prairie, and Recollections of Life in Ohio, by W. C. Howells.

[12] A story is told of an early settler who was elected to the territorial legislature of Illinois. Till then he had always worn buckskin clothes, but thinking them unbecoming a lawmaker, he and his sons gathered hazel nuts and bartered them at the crossroads store for a few yards of blue strouding, out of which the women of the settlement made him a coat and pantaloons.

[13] On the Ohio River floated odd craft of many sorts. There were timber rafts from the mountain streams; pirogues built of trunks of trees; broadhorns; huge pointed and covered hulks carrying 50 tons of freight and floating downstream with the current and upstream by means of poles, sails, oars, or ropes; keel boats for upstream work, with long, narrow, pointed bow and stern, roofed, manned with a crew of ten men, and propelled with setting poles; flatboats which went downstream with the pioneer never to come back—flat-bottomed, box-shaped craft manned by a crew of six, kept in the current by oars 30 feet long called "sweeps" and a steering oar 50 feet long at the stern. Those intended to go down the Mississippi were strongly built, roofed over, and known as "Orleans boats." "Kentucky flatboats" for use on the Ohio were half roofed and slighter. Mingled with these were arks, galleys, rafts, and shanty boats of every sort, and floating shops carrying goods, wares, and merchandise to every farmhouse and settlement along the river bank. Now it would be a floating lottery office, where tickets were sold for pork, grain, or produce; now a tinner's establishment, where tinware was sold or mended; now a smithy, where horses and oxen were shod and wagons mended; now a factory for the manufacture of axes, scythes, and edge tools; now a dry- goods shop fitted up just as were such shops in the villages, and filled with all sorts of goods and wares needed by the settlers.

[14] This canal was originally a ditch 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide, and 363 miles long. The chief promoter was De Witt Clinton. The opponents of the canal therefore called it in derision "Clinton's big ditch," and declared that it could never be made a success. But Clinton and his friends carried the canal to completion, and in 1825 a fleet of canal boats left Buffalo, went through the canal, down the Hudson, and out into New York Bay. There fresh water brought from Lake Erie in a keg was poured into the salt water of the Atlantic.

[15] It was once hoped that Southern states also would in time abolish slavery; but as more and more land was devoted to cotton raising in the South, the demand for slave labor there increased. The South came to regard slavery as necessary for her prosperity, and to desire its extension to more territory.

[16] Meantime Arkansas (1819) had been organized as a slave-holding territory. As Missouri had to make a state constitution and submit it to Congress she did not enter the Union till 1821. The Compromise line 36° 30' was part of the south boundary of Missouri and extended to the 100th meridian. Missouri did not have the present northwestern boundary till 1836; compare maps on pp. 279 and 331. On the Compromise read the speech of Senator Rufus King, in Johnston's American Orations, Vol. II, pp. 33- 62; and that of Senator Pinckney, pp. 63-101.

[17] By the treaty with Great Britain in 1783 a line was to be drawn from the Lake of the Woods due west to the Mississippi. This was impossible, but the difficulty was ended by the treaty of 1818. From the northwesternmost point of the Lake of the Woods a line (as the treaty provides) is drawn due south to the 49th parallel. This makes a little knob on our boundary.

[18] We claimed it because in 1792 Captain Gray, in the ship Columbia, discovered the river, entered, and named it after his ship; because in 1805-6 Lewis and Clark explored both its main branches and spent the winter near its mouth; and because in 1811 an American fur-trading post, Astoria, was built on the banks of the Columbia near its mouth. Great Britain claimed a part of it because of explorations under Vancouver (1792), and occupation of various posts by the Hudson's Bay Company. At first Oregon was the country drained by the Columbia River. Through our treaty with Spain, in 1819, part of the 42d parallel was made the southern boundary. In 1824, by treaty with Russia, the country which then owned Alaska, 54° 40' became the northern boundary. The Rocky Mountains were understood to be the eastern limit.

[19] What is called the purchase of Florida consisted in releasing Spain from all liability for damages of many sorts inflicted on our citizens from 1793 to the date of the treaty, and paying them ourselves; the sum was not to exceed $5,000,000.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1824.]

CHAPTER XXII

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING

THE PARTY ISSUES.—The issues which divided the Federalists and the Republicans from 1793 to 1815 arose chiefly from our foreign relations. Neutrality, French decrees, British orders in council, search, impressment, the embargo, non-intercourse, the war, were the matters that concerned the people. Soon after 1815 all this changed; Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena, Europe was at peace, and domestic issues began to be more important.

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING.—The election of 1816, however, was decided chiefly on the issues of the war. James Monroe, [1] the Republican candidate for President, was elected by a very large majority over Rufus King. During Monroe's term domestic issues were growing up, but had not become national. They were rather sectional. Party feeling subsided, and this was so noticeable that his term was called "the Era of Good Feeling." In this condition of affairs the Federalist party died out, and when Monroe was renominated in 1820, no competitor appeared. [1] The Federalists presented no candidate.

POLITICAL EVENTS.—The chief political events of Monroe's first term (1817-21), as we have seen, were the admission of several new states, the Compromise of 1820, and the treaties of 1818 and 1819, with Great Britain and Spain. The chief political events of his second term (1821-25) were: a dispute over the disposition of public lands in the new states; [3] a dispute over the power of Congress to aid the building of roads and canals, called "internal improvements"; the recognition of the independence of South American colonies of Spain; the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine; the passage of a new tariff act; and the breaking up of the Republican party.

THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.—In 1808 Napoleon invaded Spain, drove out the king, and placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. Thereupon many of the Spanish colonies in America rebelled and organized themselves as republics. When Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, the Spanish king (who was restored in 1814) brought back most of the colonies to their allegiance. La Plata, however, rebelled, and was quickly followed by the others. In 1822 President Monroe recognized the independence of La Plata (Argentina), Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and Central America.

THE HOLY ALLIANCE.—The king of Spain, unable to conquer the revolted colonies, applied for aid to the Holy Alliance which was formed by Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France for the purpose of maintaining monarchical government in Europe. For a while these powers did nothing, but in 1823 they called a conference to consider the question of restoring to Spain her South American colonies. But the South American republics had won their independence from Spain, and had been recognized by us as sovereign powers; what right had other nations to combine and force them back again to the condition of colonies? In his annual message (December, 1823), the President therefore took occasion to make certain announcements which have ever since been called the Monroe Doctrine. [4]

[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME SOFA.]

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.—Referring to the conduct of the Holy Alliance, he said—

1. That the United States would not meddle in the political affairs of Europe.

2. That European governments must not extend their system to any part of North and South America, nor in any way seek to control the destiny of any of the nations of this hemisphere.

As Russia had been attempting to plant a colony on the coast of California, which was then a part of Mexico, the President announced (as another part of the doctrine)—

3. That the American continents were no longer open for colonization by European powers.

[Illustration: AN OLD-TIME PIANO.]

THE TARIFF OF 1824.—Failure of the tariff of 1816 to shut out British manufactures, the hard times of 1819, and the general ruin of business led to a demand for another tariff in 1820. To this the cotton states were bitterly opposed. In the South there were no manufacturing centers, no great manufacturing industries of any sort. The planters sold their cotton to the North and (chiefly) to Great Britain, from which they bought almost all kinds of manufactured goods they used. Naturally, they wanted low duties on their imported articles; just enough tax to support the government and no more.

In the North, especially in towns now almost wholly given up to manufactures, as Lynn and Lowell and Fall River and Providence and Cohoes and Paterson and others; in regions where the farmers were raising sheep for wool; in Pennsylvania, where iron was mined; and in Kentucky, where the hemp fields were, people wanted domestic manufactures protected by a high tariff.

The struggle was a long one. At each session of Congress from 1820 to 1824 the question came up. Finally in 1824 a new tariff for protection was enacted despite the efforts of the South and part of New England.

BREAKING UP OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.—Though the three questions of internal improvements, the tariff, and the use of the public lands led to bitter disputes, they did less to break up the party harmony than the action of the leaders. After the second election of Monroe the question of his successor at once arose. The people of Tennessee nominated Andrew Jackson; South Carolina named the Secretary of War, Calhoun; Kentucky wanted Henry Clay, who had long been speaker of the House of Representatives; the New England states were for John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. Finally the usual party caucus of Republican members of Congress nominated Crawford of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury.

THE ELECTION OF 1824-25.—The withdrawal of Calhoun from the race for the presidency left in it Adams, Clay, Crawford, and Jackson, representing the four sections of the country—Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest. As no one had a majority of the electoral votes, it became the duty of the House of Representatives to elect one from the three who had received the highest votes. [5] They were Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. The House chose Adams, [6] who was duly inaugurated in 1825. [7] The electoral college had elected Calhoun Vice President. [8]

THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION.—The friends of Jackson were bitterly disappointed by his defeat. He was "the Man of the People," had received the highest number of electoral votes (though not a majority), and ought, they said, to have been elected by the House. That he had not been elected was due, they claimed, to a bargain: Clay was to urge his friends to vote for Adams; if elected, Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was ever made. But after Adams became President he appointed Clay Secretary of State, and then the supporters of Jackson were convinced that the charge was true.

RISE OF THE NEW PARTIES.—The legislature of Tennessee, therefore, at once renominated Jackson, and about him gathered all who, for any reason, disliked Adams and Clay, all who were opposed to the tariff and internal improvements, or wanted "a man of the people" for President. They were called Jackson men, or Democratic Republicans.

Adams, it was well known, would also be renominated, as the candidate of the supporters of the tariff and internal improvements. They were the Adams men, or National Republicans. Thus was the once harmonious Republican party broken into fragments, out of which grew two distinctly new parties.

[Illustration: LETTER WRITTEN BY JACKSON, THEN A SENATOR.]

THE TARIFF OF 1828.—The act of 1824 not proving satisfactory to the growers and manufacturers of wool, a new tariff law was enacted in 1828. So many and so high were the duties laid that the opponents of protection named the law the Tariff of Abominations. To the cotton states it was particularly hateful, and in memorials, resolutions, and protests they declared that a tariff for protection was unconstitutional, unjust, and oppressive. They made threats of ceasing to trade with the tariff states, and talked of nullifying, or refusing to obey the law, and even of leaving the Union.

THE ELECTION OF 1828.—Great as was the excitement in the South over this new tariff law, it produced little effect in the struggle for the presidency. The campaign had really been going on for three years past and would have ended in the election of Jackson had the tariff never existed. "Old Hickory," the "Hero of New Orleans," the "Man of the People," was more than ever the favorite of the hour, and though his party was anti- tariff he carried states where the voters were deeply interested in the protection of manufactures. Indeed, he received more than twice the number of electoral votes cast for Adams. [9]

SUMMARY

1. After the election of Monroe (1816) the Federalist party died out, the old party issues disappeared, and Monroe's term is known as the Era of Good Feeling.

2. The South American colonies of Spain, having rebelled, formed republics, and were recognized by the United States. To prevent interference with them by European powers, especially by the Holy Alliance, Monroe announced the doctrine now known by his name (1823).

3. The growth of the West and the rise of new states brought up the question of internal improvements at national expense.

4. The growth of manufactures brought up the question of more protection and a new tariff. In 1824 a new tariff law was enacted, in spite of the opposition of the South, which had no manufactures and imported largely from Great Britain.

5. These issues, which were largely sectional, and the action of certain leaders, split the Republican party, and led to the nomination of four presidential candidates in 1824.

6. The electors failed to choose a President, but did elect a Vice President. Adams was then elected President by the House of Representatives.

7. A new tariff was enacted in 1828, though the South opposed it even more strongly than the tariff of 1824.

8. In 1828 Jackson, one of the candidates defeated in 1824, was elected President.

[Illustration: A CONESTOGA WAGON, SUCH AS WAS IN USE ABOUT 1825.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] James Monroe was a Virginian, born in 1758; he entered William and Mary College, served in the Continental army, was a member of the Virginia Assembly, of the Continental Congress for three years, and of the Virginia convention that adopted the Federal Constitution in 1788. He strongly opposed the adoption of the Constitution. As United States senator (1790- 94), he opposed Washington's administration; but was sent as minister to France (1794-96). In 1799-1802 Monroe was governor of Virginia, and then was sent to France to aid Livingston in the purchase of Louisiana; was minister to Great Britain 1804-6, and in 1811-17 was Secretary of State, and in 1814-15 acted also as Secretary of War. In 1817-25 he was President. He died in 1831.

[2] Monroe carried every state in the Union and was entitled to every electoral vote. But one elector did not vote for him, in order that Washington might still have the honor of being the only President unanimously elected.

[3] In the new Western states were great tracts which belonged to the United States, and which the Western states now asked should be given to them, or at least be sold to them for a few cents an acre. The East opposed this, and asked for gifts of Western land which they might sell so as to use the money to build roads and canals and establish free schools.

[4] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. V, pp. 28-54.

[5] Jackson had 99 votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. The Constitution (Article XII of the amendments) provides that if no person have a majority of the electoral votes, "then from the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President."

[6] By a vote of 13 states, against 7 for Jackson, and 4 for Crawford.

[7] John Quincy Adams was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, went with his father John Adams to France, and spent several years abroad; then graduated from Harvard, studied law, and was appointed by Washington minister to the Netherlands and then to Portugal, and in 1797 to Prussia. He was a senator from Massachusetts in 1803-8. In 1809 Madison sent him as minister to Russia, where he was when the war opened in 1812. Of the five commissioners at Ghent he was the ablest and the most conspicuous. In 1815 Madison appointed him minister to Great Britain, and in 1817 he came home to be Secretary of State under Monroe. In 1831 he became a member of the House of Representatives and continued as such till stricken in the House with paralysis in February, 1848.

[8] John Caldwell Calhoun was born in South Carolina in 1782, entered Yale College in 1802, studied law, and became a lawyer at Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1807. In 1808 he went to the legislature, and in 1811 entered Congress, and was appointed chairman of the committee on foreign relations. As such he wrote the report and resolutions in favor of war with Great Britain. At this period of his career he favored a liberal construction of the Constitution, and supported the tariff of 1816, the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, and internal improvements. He was Secretary of War in Monroe's Cabinet, and was Vice President from 1825 until 1832, when he resigned and entered the Senate, where he remained most of the time till his death in 1850.

[9] This election is noteworthy also as the first in which nearly all the states chose electors by popular vote. Only two of the twenty-four states made the choice by vote of the legislature; in the others the popular vote for Jackson electors numbered 647,276 and that for Adams electors 508,064. A good book on presidential elections is A History of the Presidency, by Edward Stanwood.

CHAPTER XXIII.

POLITICS FROM 1829 TO 1841

In many respects the election of Jackson [1] was an event of as much political importance as was the election of Jefferson. Men hailed it as another great uprising of the people, as another triumph of democracy. They acted as if the country had been delivered from impending evil, and hurried by thousands to Washington to see the hero inaugurated and the era of promised reform opened. [2]

THE NEW PARTY.—Jackson treated the public offices as the "spoils of victory," and within a few weeks hundreds of postmasters, collectors of revenue, and other officeholders were turned out, and their places given to active workers for Jackson. This "spoils system" was new in national politics and created immense excitement. But it was nothing more than an attempt to build up a new national party in the same way that parties had already been built up in some of the states. [3]

JACKSON AS PRESIDENT.—In many respects Jackson's administration was the most exciting the country had yet experienced. Never since the days of President John Adams had party feeling run so high. The vigorous personality of the President, his intense sincerity, his determination to do, at all hazards, just what he believed to be right, made him devoted friends and bitter enemies and led to his administration being often called the Reign of Andrew Jackson. The questions with which he had to deal were of serious importance, and on the solution of some of them hung the safety of the republic.

[Illustration: GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON.]

THE SOUTH CAROLINA DOCTRINE.—Such a one was the old issue of the tariff. The view of the South as set forth by the leaders, especially by Calhoun of South Carolina, was that the state ought to nullify the Tariff Act of 1828 because it was unconstitutional. [4] Daniel Webster attacked this South Carolina doctrine and (1830) argued the issue with Senator Hayne of South Carolina. The speeches of the two men in the Senate, the debate which followed, and the importance of the issue, make the occasion a famous one in our history. That South Carolina would go so far as actually to carry out the doctrine and nullify the tariff did not seem likely. But the seriousness of South Carolina alarmed the friends of the tariff, and in 1832 Congress amended the act of 1828 and reduced the duties.

SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFIES THE TARIFF.—This did not satisfy South Carolina. The new tariff still protected manufactures, and it was protection that she opposed; and in November, 1832, she adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, which forbade any of her citizens to pay the tariff duties after February 1, 1833.

When Congress met in December, 1832, the great question was what to do with South Carolina. Jackson was determined the law should be obeyed, [5] sent vessels to Charleston harbor, and asked for a Force Act to enable him to collect the revenue by force if necessary. [6]

THE GREAT DEBATE.—In the course of the debate on the Force Act, Calhoun (who had resigned the vice presidency and had been elected a senator from South Carolina) explained and defended nullification and contended that it was a peaceable and lawful remedy and a proper exercise of state rights. Webster [7] denied that the Constitution was a mere compact, declared that nullification and secession were rebellion, and upheld the authority and sovereignty of the Union. [8]

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF DANIEL WEBSTER.]

THE COMPROMISE OF 1833.—Clay meantime came forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be reduced gradually till 1842, when all duties should be twenty per cent on the value of the articles imported. As such duties would not be protective, Calhoun and the other Southern members accepted the plan, and the Compromise Tariff was passed in March, 1833. [10] To satisfy the North arid uphold the authority of the government, the Force Act also was passed. But as South Carolina repealed the Ordinance of Nullification there was never any need to use force.

FIRST NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTIONS.—In the midst of the excitement over the tariff, came the election of 1832. Since 1824, when the Republican party was breaking up, presidential candidates had been nominated by state legislatures and caucuses of members of state legislatures. But in 1831 the Antimasons [11] held a convention at Baltimore, nominated William Wirt and Amos Ellmaker for President and Vice President, and so introduced the national nominating convention.

The example thus set was quickly followed: in December, 1831, a national convention of National Republicans nominated Clay (then a senator) for President, and John Sergeant for Vice President. In May, 1832, a national convention of Jackson men, or Democrats as some called them, nominated Martin Van Buren for Vice President. There was no need to renominate Jackson, for in a letter to some friends he had already declared himself a candidate, and many state legislatures had made the nomination. He was still the idol of the people and was re-elected by a greater majority than in 1828.

THE BANK ATTACKED.—One of the issues in the campaign was the recharter of the Bank of the United States, whose charter was to expire in 1836. Jackson always hated that institution, had attacked it in his annual messages, and had vetoed (1832) a recharter bill passed (for political effect) by Clay and his friends in Congress.

REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS.—Jackson therefore looked upon his reflection as a popular approval of his treatment of the bank. He continued to attack it, and in 1833 requested the Secretary of the Treasury, William Duane, to remove the deposits of government money from the bank and its branches. When Duane refused, Jackson turned him out of office and put in Roger B. Taney, who made the removal. [12]

The Senate passed resolutions, moved by Clay, censuring the President for this action; but Senator Benton of Missouri said that he would not rest till the censure was expunged. Expunging now became a party question; state after state instructed its senators to vote for it, and finally in 1837 the Senate ordered a black line to be drawn around the resolutions and the words "Expunged by order of the Senate" to be written across them.

RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.—The hatred which the National Republicans felt for Jackson was intense. They accused him of trying to set up a despotic government, and, asserting that they were contending against the same kind of tyranny our forefathers fought against in the War of Independence, they called themselves Whigs. In the state elections of 1834 the new name came into general use, and thenceforth for many years there was a national Whig party.

THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT.—The Missouri Compromise was supposed to have settled the issue of slavery. But its effect was just the reverse. Antislavery agitators were aroused. The antislavery newspapers grew more numerous and aggressive. New antislavery societies were formed and old ones were revived and became aggressive, and in 1833 delegates from many of them met at Philadelphia and formed the American Antislavery Society. [13]

ANTISLAVERY DOCUMENTS.—The field of work for the anti-slavery people was naturally the South. That section was flooded with newspapers, pamphlets, pictures, and handbills intended to stir up sentiment for instant abolition of slavery and liberation of the slaves.

[Illustration: SLAVE QUARTERS ON A SOUTHERN PLANTATION.]

Against this the South protested, declared such documents were likely to cause slaves to run away or rise in insurrection, and called on the North to suppress them.

PROSLAVERY MOBS.—To stop their circulation by legal means was not possible; so attempts were made to do it by illegal means. In many Northern cities, as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Utica, and elsewhere, mobs broke up the antislavery meetings. In Charleston, South Carolina, the postmaster seized some antislavery documents and the people burned them. At Cincinnati the newspaper office of James G. Birney was twice sacked and his presses destroyed (1836). Another at Alton, Illinois, was four times attacked, and the owner, Elijah Lovejoy, was at last killed by the mob while protecting his press.

THE RIGHT OF PETITION.—Not content with this, the pro-slavery people attempted to pass a bill through Congress (1836) to exclude antislavery documents from the mails, and even attacked the right of petition. The bill to close the mails to antislavery documents failed. But the attempt to exclude antislavery petitions from the House of Representatives succeeded: a "Gag Rule" was adopted which forbade any petition, resolution, or paper relating in any way to slavery or the abolition of slavery to be received, and this was in force down to 1844. [14]

OUR COUNTRY OUT OF DEBT.—Despite all this political commotion our country for years past had prospered greatly. In this prosperity the government had shared. Its income had far exceeded its expenses, and by using the surplus year by year to reduce the national debt it succeeded in paying the last dollar by 1835.

THE SURPLUS.—After the debt was extinguished a surplus still remained, and was greatly increased by a sudden speculation in public lands, so that by the middle of 1836 the government had more than $40,000,000 of surplus money in the banks.

What to do with the money was a serious question, and all sorts of uses were suggested. But Congress decided that from the surplus as it existed on January 1, 1837, $5,000,000 should be subtracted and the remainder distributed among the states in four installments. [15]

THE ELECTION OF VAN BUREN.—When the time came to choose a successor to Jackson, a Democratic national convention nominated Martin Van Buren, with Richard M. Johnson for Vice President. The Whigs were too disorganized to hold a national convention; but most of them favored William Henry Harrison for President. Van Buren was elected (1836); but no candidate for Vice President received a majority of the electoral vote. The duty of choosing that officer therefore passed to the United States Senate, which elected Richard M. Johnson.

THE ERA OF SPECULATION.—On March 4, 1837, Van Buren [16] entered on a term made memorable by one of the worst panics our country has experienced. From 1834 to 1836 was a period of wild speculation. Money was plentiful and easy to borrow, and was invested in all sorts of schemes by which people expected to make fortunes. Millions of acres of the public land were bought and held for a rise in price. Real estate in the cities sold for fabulous prices. Cotton, timber lands in Maine, railroad, canal, bank, and state stocks, and lots in Western towns which had no existence save on paper, all were objects of speculation.

[Illustration: NEW YORK MERCHANT, 1837.]

PANIC OF 1837.—Money used for these purposes was borrowed largely from the state banks, and much of it was the surplus which the government had deposited in the banks. When, therefore, in January, 1837, the government drew out one quarter of its surplus to distribute among the states, the banks were forced to stop making loans and call in some of the money they had lent. This hurt business of every sort. Quite unexpectedly the price of cotton fell; this ruined many. Business men failed by scores, and the merchants of New York appealed to Van Buren to assemble Congress and stop the further distribution of the surplus. Van Buren refused, and the banks of New York city suspended specie payment, that is, no longer redeemed their notes in gold and silver. Those in every other state followed, and a panic swept over the country. [17]

THE NEW NATIONAL DEBT.—With business at a standstill, the national revenues fell off; and the desperate financial state of the country forced Van Buren to call Congress together in September. By that time the third installment of the surplus had been paid to the states, and times were harder than ever. To mend matters Congress suspended payment of the fourth installment, and authorized the debts of the government to be paid in treasury notes. This put our country again in debt, and it has ever since remained so.

POLITICAL DISCONTENT.—As always happens in periods of financial distress, hard times bred political discontent. The Whigs laid all the blame on the Democrats, who, they said, had destroyed the United States Bank, and by their reckless financial policy had caused the panic and the hard times. Whether this was true or not, the people believed it, and various state elections showed signs of a Whig victory in 1840. [18]

THE LOG-CABIN CAMPAIGN.—The Whigs in their national convention nominated William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. The Democrats renominated Van Buren, but named no one for the vice presidency. The antislavery people, in hopes of drawing off from the Whig and Democratic parties those who were opposed to slavery, and so making a new party, nominated James G. Birney.

The Whig convention did not adopt a platform, but an ill-timed sneer at Harrison furnished just what they needed. He would, a Democratic newspaper said, be more at home in a log cabin drinking cider than living in the White House as President. The Whigs hailed this sneer as an insult to the millions of Americans who then lived, or had once lived, or whose parents had dwelt in log cabins, and made the cabin the emblem of their party. Log cabins were erected in every city, town, and village as Whig headquarters; were mounted on wheels, were drawn from place to place, and lived in by Whig stump speakers. Great mass meetings were held, and the whole campaign became one of frolic, song, and torchlight processions. [19] The people wanted a change. Harrison was an ideal popular candidate, and "Tippecanoe [20] and Tyler too" and a Whig Congress were elected.

DEATH OF HARRISON; TYLER PRESIDENT (1841).—As soon as Harrison was inaugurated, a special session of Congress was called to undo the work of the Democrats. But one month after inauguration day Harrison died, and when Congress assembled, Tyler [21] was President.

SUMMARY

1. The inauguration of Jackson was followed by the introduction of the "spoils system" into national politics.

2. The question of nullification was debated in the Senate by Webster and Hayne. Under Calhoun's leadership, South Carolina nullified the tariff of 1832. Jackson asked for a Force Act; but the dispute was settled by the Compromise of 1833.

3. Jackson vigorously opposed the Bank of the United States, and after his reëlection he ordered the removal of the government deposits.

4. This period is notable in the history of political parties for (1) the introduction of the national nominating convention, (2) the rise of the Whig party, (3) the formation of the antislavery party.

5. Slavery was now a national issue. An attempt was made to shut antislavery documents out of the mails, and antislavery petitions were shut out of the House of Representatives.

6. Financially, Jackson's second term is notable for (1) the payment of the national debt, (2) the growth of a great surplus in the treasury, (3) the distribution of the surplus among the states.

7. The manner of distributing the surplus revenue among the states interrupted a period of wild speculation and brought on the panic of 1837.

8. Van Buren, who succeeded Jackson as President, called a special session of Congress; and the fourth installment of the surplus was withheld.

9. Financial distress, hard times, and general discontent led to a demand for a change; and the log-cabin, hard-cider campaign that followed ended with the election of Harrison (1840).

FOOTNOTES

[1] Andrew Jackson was born in Waxhaw, North Carolina, 1767, but always considered himself a native of South Carolina, for the place of his birth was on the border of the two states. During the Revolution a party of British came to the settlement where Jackson lived. An officer ordered the boy to clean his boots, and when Jackson refused, struck him with a sword, inflicting wounds on his head and arm. Andrew and his brothers were taken prisoners to Camden. His mother obtained his release and shortly after died while on her way to nurse the sick prisoners in Charleston. Left an orphan, Jackson worked at saddlery, taught school, studied law, and went to Tennessee in 1788; was appointed a district attorney, in 1796 was the first representative to Congress from the state of Tennessee, and in 1797 became one of its senators. In 1798-1804 he was one of the judges of the Tennessee supreme court. His military career began in 1813-14, when he beat the Indians in the Creek War. In 1814 he was made a major general, in 1815 won the battle of New Orleans, and in 1818 beat the Seminoles in Florida. He was the first governor of the territory of Florida. He died in June, 1845. Read the account of Jackson's action in the Seminole War and the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 439-456.

[2] The inauguration was of the simplest kind. Uncovered, on foot, escorted by the committee in charge, and surrounded on both sides by gigs, wood wagons, hacks full of women and children, and followed by thousands of men from all parts of the country, Jackson walked from his hotel to the Capitol and on the east portico took the oath of office. A wild rush was then made by the people to shake his hand. With difficulty the President reached a horse and started for the White House, "pursued by a motley concourse of people, riding, running helter-skelter, striving who should first gain admittance." So great was the crowd at the White House that Jackson was pushed through the drawing room and would have been crushed against the wall had not his friends linked arms and made a barrier about him. The windows had to be opened to enable the crowd to leave the room.

[3] Editors of newspapers that supported Jackson were given office or were rewarded with public printing, and a party press devoted to the President was thus established. To keep both workers and newspapers posted as to the policy of the administration, there was set up at Washington a partisan journal for which all officeholders were expected to subscribe. The President, ignoring his secretaries, turned for advice to a few party leaders whom the Adams men nicknamed the "Kitchen Cabinet."

[4] Calhoun maintained (1) that the Constitution is a compact or contract between the states; (2) that Congress can only exercise such power as this compact gives it; (3) that when Congress assumes power not given it, and enacts a law it has no authority to enact, any state may veto, or nullify, that law, that is, declare it not a law within her boundary; (4) that Congress has no authority to lay a tariff for any other purpose than to pay the debts of the United States; (5) that the tariff to protect manufactures was therefore an exercise of power not granted by the Constitution. This view of the Constitution was held by the Southern states generally. But as the two most ardent expounders of it were Hayne and Calhoun, both of South Carolina, it was called the South Carolina doctrine.

[5] On the anniversary of Jefferson's birthday, April 13, 1830, a great dinner was given in Washington at which nullification speeches were made in response to toasts. Jackson was present, and when called on for a toast offered this: "Our Federal Union, it must be preserved."

[6] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 153-163.

[7] Daniel Webster was born in New Hampshire in 1782, graduated from Dartmouth, studied law, wrote some pamphlets, and made several Fourth of July orations, praising the Federal Constitution and denouncing the embargo. In 1813 he entered Congress as a representative from New Hampshire, but lost his seat by removing to Boston in 1816. In 1823 Webster returned to Congress as a representative from one of the Massachusetts districts, rose at once to a place of leadership, and in 1827 entered the United States Senate. By this time he was famous as an orator. Passages from his speeches were recited by schoolboys, and such phrases as "Our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country," "Thank God, I, I also, am an American," "Independence now, and Independence forever!" passed into everyday speech. In his second reply to Hayne of South Carolina, defending and explaining the Constitution (p. 290), he closed with the words "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." In 1836 he received the electoral vote of Massachusetts for the presidency. He was a senator for many years, was twice Secretary of State, and died in October, 1852.

[9] Read the speeches of Calhoun in Johnston's American Orations, Vol. I, pp. 303-319.

[10] Shortly before February 1, 1833, the day on which nullification was to go into effect, the South Carolina leaders met and suspended the Ordinance of Nullification till March 3, the last day of the session of Congress. This, of course, they had no power to do. The state authorities did not think it wise to put the ordinance in force till they saw what Congress would do with the tariff.

[11] In 1826 a Mason named William Morgan, living at Batavia, in western New York, threatened to reveal the secrets of masonry. But about the time his book was to appear, he suddenly disappeared. The Masons were accused of having killed him, and the people of western New York denounced them at public meetings as members of a society dangerous to the state. A party pledged to exclude Masons from public office was quickly formed and soon spread into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New England, where it became very strong.

[12] This so-called removal consisted in depositing the revenue, as it was collected, in a few state banks, the "pet banks,"—instead of in the United States Bank as before,—and gradually drawing out the money on deposit with the United States Bank. Read an account of the interviews of Jackson with committees from public meetings in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 200-204.

[13] The principles of this new society, formulated by William Lloyd Garrison, were: (1) that each state had a right to regulate slavery within its boundaries; (2) that Congress should stop the interstate slave trade; (3) that Congress should abolish slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia; (4) that Congress should admit no more slave states into the Union.

[14] Read Whittier's poem A Summons—"Lines written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions."

[15] The surplus on January 1, 1837, was $42,468,000. The amount to be distributed therefore was $37,468,000. Only three installments (a little over $28,000,000) were paid. For the use the states made of the money, read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 351- 358.

[16] Martin Van Buren was born in New York state in 1782, studied law, began his political career at eighteen, and held several offices before he was sent to the state senate in 1812. From 1815 to 1819 he was attorney general of New York, became United States senator in 1821, and was reflected in 1827; but resigned in 1828 to become governor of New York. Jackson appointed him Secretary of State in 1829; but he resigned in 1831 and was sent as minister to Great Britain. The appointment was made during a recess of the Senate, which later refused to confirm the appointment, and Van Buren was forced to come home. Because of this "party persecution" the Democrats nominated him for Vice President in 1832, and from 1833 to 1837 he had the pleasure of presiding over the body that had rejected him. He died in 1862.

[17] Specie payment was resumed in the autumn of 1838; but most of the banks again suspended in 1839, and again in 1841. Read the account of the panic in McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 398-405.

[18] Financial distress was not the only thing that troubled Van Buren's administration. During 1837 many Canadians rebelled against misrule, and began the "Patriot War" in their country. One of their leaders enlisted aid in Buffalo, and seized a Canadian island in the Niagara River. The steamer Caroline was then run between this island and the New York shore, carrying over visitors, and, it was claimed, guns and supplies. This was unlawful, and one night in December, 1837, a force of Canadian government troops rowed over to the New York shore, boarded the Caroline, and destroyed her; it was a disputed question whether she was burned and sunk, or whether she was set afire and sent over the Falls. The whole border from Vermont to Michigan became greatly excited over this invasion of our territory. Men volunteered in the "Patriot" cause, supplies and money were contributed, guns were taken from government arsenals, and raids were made into Canada. Van Buren sent General Scott to the frontier, did what he could to preserve peace and neutrality, and thus made himself unpopular in the border states. There was also danger of war over the disputed northern boundary of Maine. State troops were sent to the territory in dispute, along the Aroostook River (1839; map, p. 316); but Van Buren made an unpopular agreement with the British minister, whereby the troops were withdrawn and both sides agreed not to use force.

[19] In the West, men came to these meetings in huge canoes and wagons of all sorts, and camped on the ground. At one meeting the ground covered by the people was measured, and allowing four to the square yard it was estimated about 80,000 attended. Dayton, in Ohio, claimed 100,000 at her meeting. At Bunker Hill there were 60,000. In the processions, huge balls were rolled along to the cry, "Keep the ball a-rolling." Every log cabin had a barrel of hard cider and a gourd drinking cup near it. On the walls were coon skins, and the latch-string was always hanging out. More than a hundred campaign songs were written and sung to popular airs. Every Whig wore a log-cabin medal, or breastpin, or badge, or carried a log-cabin cane. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 550-588.

[20] The battle fought in 1811, meaning Harrison, the victor in that battle. See note on p. 254.

[21] John Tyler was born in Virginia in 1790 and died in 1862. At twenty- one he was elected to the legislature of Virginia, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1821, and favored the admission of Missouri as a slave state. In 1825 he became governor of Virginia, and in 1827 was elected to the United States Senate. There he opposed the tariff and internal improvements, supported Jackson, but condemned his proclamation to the milliners, voted for the censure of Jackson, and when instructed by Virginia to vote for expunging, refused and resigned from the Senate in 1836.

CHAPTER XXIV

GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1820 TO 1840

POPULATION.—When Harrison was elected in 1840, the population of our country was 17,000,000, spread over twenty-six states and three territories. Of these millions several hundred thousand had come from the Old World. No records of such arrivals were kept before 1820; since that date careful records have been made, and from them it appears that between 1820 and 1840 about 750,000 immigrants came to our shores. They were chiefly from Ireland, England, and Germany. [1]

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1840.]

West of the mountains were over 6,000,000 people; yet but two Western states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837), had been admitted to the Union since 1821; and but two new Western territories, Wisconsin and Iowa, had been organized. This meant that the Western states already admitted were filling up with population. [2]

[Illustration: A PUBLIC SCHOOL OF EARLY TIMES.]

THE PUBLIC LANDS.—The rise of new Western states brought up the troublesome question, What shall be done with the public lands? [3] The Continental Congress had pledged the country to sell the lands and use the money to pay the debt of the United States. Much was sold for this purpose, but Congress set aside one thirty-sixth part of the public domain for the use of local schools. [4] As the Western states made from the public domain had received land grants for schools, many of the Eastern states about 1821 asked for grants in aid of their schools. The Western states objected, and both then and in later times asked that all the public lands within their borders be given to them or sold to them for a small sum. After 1824 efforts were made by Benton and others to reduce the price of land to actual settlers. [5] But Congress did not adopt any of these measures. After 1830, when the public debt was nearly paid, Clay attempted to have the money derived from land sales distributed among all the states. The question what to do with the lands was discussed year after year. At last in 1841 (while Tyler was President) Clay's bill became a law with the proviso that the money should not be distributed if the tariff rates were increased. The tariff rates were soon increased (1842), and but one distribution was made.

THE INDIANS.—Another result of the filling up of the country was the crowding of the Indians from their lands. They had always been regarded as the rightful owners of the soil till their title should be extinguished by treaty. Many such treaties had been made, ceding certain areas but reserving others on which the whites were not to settle. But population moved westward so rapidly that it seemed best to set apart a region beyond the Mississippi and move all the Indians there as quickly as possible. [6] In 1834, therefore, such a region, an "Indian Country," was created in what was later called Indian Territory, and the work of removal began.

In the South this proved a hard matter. In Georgia the Creeks and Cherokees refused for a while to go, and by so doing involved the federal government in serious trouble with Georgia and with the Indians. In 1835 an attempt to move the Seminoles from Florida to the Indian Country caused a war which lasted seven years and cost millions of dollars. [7]

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.—Another issue with which the growth of the West had much to do was that of government aid to roads, canals, and railroads. Much money was spent on the Cumberland Road; [18] but in 1817 Madison vetoed a bill appropriating money to be divided among the states for internal improvements, and from that time down to Van Buren's day the question of the right of Congress to use money for such purposes was constantly debated in Congress. [9]

[Illustration: THE NATIONAL ROAD.]

THE STATES BUILD CANALS AND ROADS.—All this time population was increasing, the West was growing, interstate trade was developing, new towns and villages were springing up, and farms increasing in number as the people moved to the new lands. The need of cheap transportation became greater and greater each year, and as Congress would do nothing, the states took upon themselves the work of building roads and canals.

What a canal could do to open up a country was shown when the Erie Canal was finished in 1825 (see p. 273). So many people by that time had settled along its route, that the value of land and the wealth of the state were greatly increased. [10] The merchants of New York could then send their goods up the Hudson, by the canal to Buffalo, and then to Cleveland or Detroit, or by Chautauqua Lake and the Allegheny to Pittsburg, for about one third of what it cost before the canal was opened (maps, pp. 267, 279). Buffalo began to grow with great rapidity, and in a few years its trade had reached Chicago. In 1839 eight steamboats plied between these two towns.

A TRIP ON A CANAL PACKET.—Passengers traveled on the canal in packet boats, as they were called. The hull of such a craft was eighty feet long and eleven feet wide, and carried on its deck a long, low house with flat roof and sloping sides. In each side were a dozen or more windows with green blinds and red curtains. When the weather was fine, passengers sat on the roof, reading, talking, or sewing, till the man at the helm called "Low bridge!" when everybody would rush down the steps and into the cabin, to come forth once more when the bridge was passed. Walking on the roof when the packet was crowded was impossible. Those who wished such exercise had to take it on the towpath. Three horses abreast could drag a packet boat some four miles an hour.

[Illustration: LOCKS ON THE ERIE CANAL, ROCKPORT, N.Y.]

WESTERN ROUTES.—Aroused by the success of the Erie Canal, Pennsylvania began a great highway from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. As planned, it was to be part canal and part turnpike over the mountains. But before it was completed, railroads came into use, and when finished, it was part railroad, part canal. Not to be outdone by New York and Pennsylvania, the people of Baltimore began the construction (1828) of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first in the country for the carriage of passengers and freight. [11] Massachusetts, alarmed at the prospect of losing her trade with the West, appointed (1827) a commission and an engineer to select a route for a railroad to join Boston and Albany. Ohio had already commenced a canal from Cleveland to the Ohio. [12]

EARLY RAILROADS.—The idea of a public railroad to carry freight and passengers was of slow growth, [13] but once it was started more and more miles were built every year, till by 1835 twenty-two railroads were in operation. The longest of them was only one hundred and thirty-six miles long; it extended from Charleston westward to the Savannah River, opposite Augusta. These early railroads were made of wooden beams resting on stone blocks set in the ground. The upper surface of the beams, where the wheels rested, was protected by long strips or straps of iron spiked to the beam. The spikes often worked loose, and, as the car passed over, the strap would curl up and come through the bottom of the car, making what was called a "snake head."

[Illustration: AN EARLY RAILROAD.]

What should be the motive power, was a troublesome question. The horse was the favorite; it sometimes pulled the car, and sometimes walked on a treadmill on the car. Sails were tried also, and finally locomotives. [14]

Locomotives could not climb steep grades. When a hill was met with, the road had to go around it, or if this was not possible, the engine had to be taken off and the cars pulled up or let down an inclined plane by means of a rope and stationary engine. [15]

A TRIP ON AN EARLY RAILROAD.—A traveler from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, in 1836, would set off about five o'clock in the morning for what was called the depot. There his baggage would be piled on the roof of a car, which was drawn by horses to the foot of an inclined plane on the bank of the Schuylkill. Up this incline the car would be drawn by a stationary engine and rope to the top of the river bank. When all the cars of the train had been pulled up in this way, they would be coupled together and made fast to a little puffing, wheezing locomotive without cab or brake, whose tall smokestack sent forth volumes of wood smoke and red-hot cinders. At Lancaster (map, p. 267) the railroad ended, and passengers went by stage to Columbia on the Susquehanna, and then by canal packet up that river and up the Juniata to the railroad at the foot of the mountains.

[Illustration: HANDBILL OF A PHILADELPHIA TRANSPORTATION COMPANY, OF 1835.]

The mountains were crossed by the Portage Railroad, a series of inclined planes and levels somewhat like a flight of steps. At Johnstown, west of the Alleghenies, the traveler once more took a canal packet to Pittsburg. [16]

THE WEST BUILDS RAILROADS AND CANALS.—Prior to 1836 most of the railroads and canals were in the East. But in 1836 the craze for internal improvements raged in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and in each an elaborate system of railroads and canals was planned, to be built by the state. Illinois in this way contracted a debt of $15,000,000; Indiana, $10,000,000, and Michigan, $5,000,000.

But scarcely was work begun on the canals and railroads when the panic of 1837 came, and the states were left with heavy debts and unfinished public works that could not pay the cost of operating them. Some defaulted in the payment of interest, and one even repudiated her bonds which she had issued and sold to establish a great bank.

THE MAILS.—As the means of transportation improved, the mails were carried more rapidly, and into more distant parts of the country. By 1837 it was possible to send a letter from New York to Washington in one day, to New Orleans in less than seven days, to St. Louis in less than five days, and to Buffalo in three days; and after 1838 mail was carried by steamships to England in a little over two weeks.

[Illustration: THE SAVANNAH.]

OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.—In the month of May, 1819, the steamship Savannah left the city of that name for Liverpool, England, and reached it in twenty-five days, using steam most of the way. She was a side- wheeler with paddle wheels so arranged that in stormy weather they could be taken in on deck. [17]

No other steamships crossed the Atlantic till 1838, when the Sirius reached New York in eighteen days, and the Great Western in sixteen days from England. Others followed, in 1839 the Cunard line was founded, and regular steam navigation of the Atlantic was established.

EXPRESS.—Better means of communication made possible another convenience, of which W. F. Harnden was the originator. He began in 1839 to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New York and Boston, traveling by steamboat and railroad. At first two carpetbags held all he had to carry; but his business increased so rapidly that in 1840 P. B. Burke and Alvin Adams started a rival concern which became the Adams Express Company.

[Illustration: CARPETBAG.]

MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT.—The greater use of the steamboat, the building of railroads, and the introduction of the steam locomotive, were but a few signs of the marvelous industrial and mechanical development of the times. The growth and extent of the country, the opportunities for doing business on a great scale, led to a demand for time-saving and labor-saving machinery.

One of the characteristics of the period 1820-40, therefore, is the invention and introduction of such machinery. Boards were now planed, and bricks pressed, by machine. It was during this period that the farmers began to give up the flail for the thrashing machine; that paper was extensively made from straw; that Fairbanks invented the platform scales; that Colt invented the revolver; that steel pens were made by machine; and that a rude form of friction match was introduced. [18]

Anthracite coal was now in use in the large towns and cities, and grate and coal stoves were displacing open fires and wood stoves, just as gas was displacing candles and lamps.

THE CITIES AND TOWNS.—The increase of manufacturing in the northeastern part of the country caused the rise of large towns given up almost exclusively to mills and factories and the homes of workmen. [19] The increase of business, trade, and commerce, and the arrival of thousands of immigrants each year, led to a rapid growth of population in the seaports and chief cities of the interior. This produced many changes in city life. The dingy oil lamps in the streets, lighted only when the moon did not shine, were giving way to gas lights. The constable and the night watchman with his rattle were being replaced by the policeman. Such had been the increase in population and area of the chief cities, that some means of cheap transportation about the streets was needed, and in 1830 a line of omnibuses was started in New York city. So well did it succeed that other lines were started; and three years later omnibuses were used in Philadelphia.

[Illustration: NEW YORK OMNIBUS, 1830. From a print of the time.]

THE WORKINGMAN.—The growth of manufactures and the building of works of internal improvement produced a demand for workmen of all sorts, and thousands came over, or were brought over, from the Old World. The unskilled were employed on the railroads and canals; the skilled in the mills, factories, and machine shops.

As workingmen increased in number, trades unions were formed, and efforts were made to secure better wages and a shorter working day. In this they succeeded: after a long series of strikes in 1834 and 1835 the ten-hour day was adopted in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and in 1840, by order of President Van Buren, went into force "in all public establishments" under the federal government.

THE SOUTH.—No such labor issues troubled the southern half of the country. There the laborer was owned by the man whose lands he cultivated, and strikes, lockouts, questions of wages, and questions of hours were unknown. The mills, factories, machine shops, the many diversified industries of the Northern states were unknown. In the great belt of states from North Carolina to the Texas border, the chief crop was cotton. These states thus had two common bonds of union: the maintenance of the institution of negro slavery, and the development of a common industry. As the people of the free states developed different sorts of industry, they became less and less like the people of the South, and in time the two sections were industrially two separate communities. The interests of the people being different, their opinions on great national issues were different and sectional.

REFORMS.—As we have seen, a great antislavery agitation (p; 293) occurred during the period 1820-40. It was only one of many reform movements of the time. State after state abolished imprisonment for debt, [20] lessened the severity of laws for the punishment of crime, extended the franchise, [21] or right to vote, reformed the discipline of prisons, and established hospitals and asylums. So eager were the people to reform anything that seemed to be wrong, that they sometimes went to extremes. [22] The antimasonic movement (p. 292) was such a movement for reform; the Owenite movement was another. Sylvester Graham preaching reform in diet, Mrs. Bloomer advocating reform in woman's dress, and Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, were but so many advocates of reform of some sort.

Owen believed that poverty came from individual ownership, and the accumulation of more money by one man than by another. He believed that people should live in communities in which everything—lands, houses, cattle, products of the soil—are owned by the community; that the individual should do his work, but be fed, housed, clothed, educated, and amused by the community. Owen's teachings were well received, and Owenite communities were founded in many places in the West and in New York, only to end in failure. [23]

MORMONISM had better fortune. Joseph Smith, its founder, published in 1830 the Book of Mormon, as an addition to the Bible. [24] A church was next organized, missionaries were sent about the country, and in 1831 the sect moved to Kirtland in Ohio, and there built a temple. Trouble with other sects and with the people forced them to move again, and they went to Missouri. But there, too, they came in conflict with the people, were driven from one county to another, and in 1839-40 were driven from the state by force of arms. A refuge was then found in Illinois, where, on the banks of the Mississippi, they founded the town of Nauvoo. In spite of their wanderings they had increased in number, and were a prosperous community. [25]

[Illustration: PACK ANIMALS.]

THE GREAT WEST EXPLORED.—During the twenty years since Major Long's expedition, the country beyond the Missouri had been more fully explored. In 1822 bands of merchants at St. Louis began to trade with Santa Fe, sending their goods on the backs of mules and in wagons, thus opening up what was known as the Santa Fe trail. One year later a trapper named Prevost found the South Pass over the Rocky Mountains, and entered the Great Salt Lake country. [26] This was the beginning, and year after year bands of trappers wandered over what was then Mexican territory but is now part of our country, from the Great Salt Lake to the lower Colorado River, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. [27]

[Illustration: THE FAR WEST IN 1840.]

Between 1830 and 1832 Hall J. Kelley attempted to found a colony in Oregon, but failed, as did another leader, Nathaniel J. Wyeth. [28] Wyeth tried again in 1834, but his settlements were not permanent. A few fur traders and missionaries to the Indians had better fortune; but in 1840 most of the white men in the Oregon country were British fur traders. It was not till 1842 that the tide of American migration began to set strongly toward Oregon; but within a few years after that time the Americans there greatly outnumbered the British.

SUMMARY

1. In 1840 the population of the country was 17,000,000, of whom more than a third dwelt west of the Allegheny Mountains.

2. For twenty years there had been much discussion about the disposition of the public lands; but Congress did not give up the plan of selling them for the benefit of the United States.

3. As population increased, the Indians were pushed further and further west. Some went to the Indian Country peaceably. In Georgia and Florida they resisted.

4. As Congress would not sanction a general system of federal improvements, the states built canals and railroads for themselves.

5. The success of those in the East encouraged the Western states to undertake like improvements. But they plunged the states into debt.

6. The period was one of great mechanical development, and many inventions of world-wide use date from this time.

7. The growth of manufactures produced great manufacturing towns, and the increase of artisans and mechanics led to the formation of trades unions.

8. The unrest caused by the rapid development, of the country invited reforms of all sorts, and many—social, industrial, and political—were attempted.

FOOTNOTES

[1] In the early thirties much excitement was aroused by the arrival of hundreds of paupers sent over from England by the parishes to get rid of them. But when Congress investigated the matter, it was found not to be so bad as represented, though a very serious evil.

[2] Life in the West at this period is well described in Eggleston's Hoosier Schoolmaster and The Graysons.

[3] The credit system of selling lands (p. 241) was abolished in 1820, because a great many purchasers could not pay for what they bought.

[4] The public domain is laid off in townships six miles square. Each township is subdivided into 36 sections one mile square, and the sixteenth section in each township was set apart in 1785 for the use of schools in the township. This provision was applied to new states erected from the public domain down to 1848; in states admitted after that time both the sixteenth and the thirty-sixth sections have been set apart for this purpose. In addition to this, before 1821, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana had each received two entire townships for the use of colleges and academies.

[5] After the Indian title to land was extinguished, the land was surveyed and offered for sale at auction. Land which did not sell at auction could be purchased at private sale for $1.25 an acre. Benton proposed that land which did not sell at private sale within five years should be offered at 50 cents an acre, and if not sold, should be given to any one who would cultivate it for three years.

[6] An attempt to remove the Indians in northern Illinois and in Wisconsin led to the Black Hawk War in 1832. The Indians had agreed to go west, but when the settlers entered on their lands, Black Hawk induced the Sacs and Foxes to resist, and a short war was necessary to subdue them.

[7] The leader was Osceola, a chief of much ability, who perpetrated several massacres before he was captured. In 1837 he visited the, camp of General Jesup under a flag of truce, and was seized and sent to Fort Moultrie, near Charleston, where he died. His followers were beaten (1837) in a hard-fought battle by Colonel Zachary Taylor, but kept up the war till 1842.

[8] When Ohio was admitted (p. 241), Congress promised to use a part of the money from the sale of land to build a road joining the Potomac and Ohio rivers. Work on the National Road, as it was called, was started in 1811. It began at Cumberland on the Potomac and reached the Ohio at Wheeling. But Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois demanded that the road be extended, and in time it was built through Columbus and Indianapolis to Vandalia. Thence it was to go to Jefferson City in Missouri; but a dispute arose as to whether it should cross the Mississippi at Alton or at St. Louis, and work on it was stopped.

[9] Jackson vetoed several bills for internal improvements, and the hostility of his party to such a use of government money was one of the grievances of the Whigs.

[10] For a description of life in central New York, read My Own Story, by J. T. Trowbridge.

[11] The first railroad in our country was used in 1807, at Boston, to carry earth from a hilltop to grade a street. Others, only a few miles long, were soon used to carry stone and coal from quarry and mine to the wharf—in 1810 near Philadelphia, in 1826 at Quincy (a little south of Boston), in 1827 at Mauchchunk (Pennsylvania). All of these were private roads and carried no passengers.

[12] While the means of travel were improving, the inns and towns even along the great stage routes had not improved. "When you alight at a country tavern," said a traveler, "it is ten to one you stand holding your horse, bawling for the hostler while the landlord looks on. Once inside the tavern every man, woman, and child plies you with questions. To get a dinner is the work of hours. At night you are put into a room with a dozen others and sleep two or three in a bed. In the morning you go outside to wash your face and then repair to the barroom to see your face in the only looking glass the tavern contains." Another traveler complains that at the best hotel in New York there was neither glass, mug, cup, nor carpet, and but one miserable rag dignified by the name of towel.

[Illustration: MANSION HOUSE, 39 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, IN 1831.]

[13] As early as 1814 John Stevens applied to New Jersey for a railroad charter, and when it was granted, he sought to persuade the New York Canal Commission to build a railroad instead of a canal. In 1823 Pennsylvania granted Stevens and his friends a charter to build a railroad from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna. In 1825 Stevens built a circular road at Hoboken and used a steam locomotive to show the possibility of such a means of locomotion. But all these schemes were ahead of the times.

[14] The friends of canals bitterly opposed railroads as impractical. Snow, it was said, would block them for weeks. If locomotives were used, the sparks would make it impossible to carry hay or other things combustible. The boilers would blow up as they did on steamboats. Canals were therefore safer and cheaper. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 87-89.

[15] Almost all the early roads used this device. There was one such inclined plane at Albany; another at Belmont, now in Philadelphia; a third on the Paterson and Hudson Railroad near Paterson; and a fourth on the Baltimore and Ohio. When Pennsylvania built her railroad over the Allegheny Mountains, many such planes were necessary, so that the Portage Railroad, as it was called, was a wonder of engineering skill.

[16] The state built the railroads, like the canals, as highways open to everybody. At first no cars or motive power, except at the inclined planes, were supplied. Any car owner could carry passengers or freight who paid the state two cents a mile for each passenger and $4.92 for each car sent over the rails. After 1836 the state provided locomotives and charged for hauling cars.

[17] The captain of a schooner, seeing her smoke, thought she was a ship on fire and started for her, "but found she went faster with fire and smoke than we possibly could with all sails set. It was then that we discovered that what we supposed a vessel on fire was nothing less than a steamboat crossing the Western Ocean." In June, when off the coast of Ireland, she was again mistaken for a ship on fire, and one of the king's revenue cutters was sent to her relief and chased her for a day.

[18] A common form was known as the loco-foco. In 1835 the Democratic party in New York city was split into two factions, and on the night for the nomination of candidates for office one faction got possession of the hall by using a back door. But the men of the other faction drove it from the room and were proceeding to make their nominations when the gas was cut off. For this the leaders were prepared, and taking candles out of their pockets lit them with loco-foco matches. The next morning a newspaper called them "Loco-Focos," and in time the name was applied to a wing of the Democratic party.

[19] Good descriptions of life in New England are Lucy Larcom's New England Girlhood; T. B. Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy; and E. E. Hale's New England Boyhood.

[20] Read Whittier's Prisoner for Debt.

[21] In Rhode Island many efforts to have the franchise extended came to naught. The old colonial charter was still in force, and under it no man could vote unless he owned real estate worth $134 or renting for $7 a year, or was the eldest son of such a "freeman." After the Whig victory in 1840, however, a people's party was organized, and adopted a state constitution which extended the franchise, and under which Thomas W. Dorr was elected governor. Dorr attempted to seize the state property by force, and establish his government; but his party and his state officials deserted him, and he was arrested, tried, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was finally pardoned, and in 1842 a state constitution was regularly adopted, and the old charter abandoned.

[22] In New York many people were demanding a reform in land tenure. One of the great patroonships granted by the Dutch West India Company (p. 72) still remained in the Van Rensselaer family. The farmers on this vast estate paid rent in produce. When the patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer, died in 1839, the heir attempted to collect some overdue rents; but the farmers assembled, drove off the sheriff, and so compelled the government to send militia to aid the sheriff. The Anti-rent War thus started dragged on till 1846, during which time riots, outrages, some murders, and much disorder took place. Again and again the militia were called out. In the end the farmers were allowed to buy their farms, and the old leasehold system was destroyed. Cooper's novels The Redskins, The Chainbearer, and Satanstoe relate to these troubles. So also does Ruth Hall's Downrenter's Son.

[23] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. V, pp. 90- 97.

[24] Joseph Smith asserted that in a vision the angel of the Lord told him to dig under a stone on a certain hill near Palmyra, New York, and that on doing so he found plates of gold inscribed with unknown characters, and two stones or crystals, on looking through which he was enabled to translate the characters.

[25] Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. VI, pp. 102-107; 454-458.

[26] In 1824 W. H. Ashley led a party from St. Louis up the Platte River, over the mountains, and well down the Green River, and home by Great Salt Lake, the South Pass, the Big Horn, the Yellowstone, and the Missouri. In 1826 Ashley and a party went through the South Pass, dragging a six-pound cannon, the first wheeled vehicle known to have crossed the mountains north of the Santa Fe trail, The cannon was put in a trading post on Utah Lake.

[27] In 1826 Jedediah Smith with fifteen trappers went from near the Great Salt Lake to the lower Colorado River, crossed to San Diego, and went up California and over the Sierra Nevada to Great Salt Lake. In 1827, with another party, Smith went over the same ground to the lower Colorado, where the Indians killed ten of his men and stole his property. With two companions Smith walked to San Jose, where the Mexicans seized him. At Monterey (mon-te-rá) an American ship captain secured his release, and with a new band of followers Smith went to a fork of the Sacramento River. While Smith and his party were in Oregon in 1828, the Indians massacred all but five of them. The rest fled and Smith went on alone to Fort Vancouver, a British fur-trading post on the Columbia River. Up this river Smith went (in the spring of 1829) to the mountains, turned southward, and in August, near the head waters of the Snake River, met two of his partners. Together they crossed the mountains to the source of the Big Horn, and then one went on to St. Louis. Early in 1830 he returned with eighty-two men and ten wagons. This was the first wagon train on the Oregon trail.

[28] Wyeth had joined Kelley's party; but finding that it would not start for some time, he withdrew, and organized a company to trade in Oregon, and early in 1832, with twenty-nine companions, left Boston, went to St. Louis, joined a band of trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and went with them to a great Indian fair on the upper waters of the Snake River. There some of his companions deserted him, as others had done along the way. With the rest Wyeth reached Fort Vancouver, where the company went to pieces, and in 1833 Wyeth returned to Boston.

CHAPTER XXV

MORE TERRITORY ACQUIRED

TYLER AND THE WHIGS QUARREL.—When Congress (in May, 1841) first met in Tyler's term, Clay led the Whigs in proposing measures to carry out their party principles. But Tyler vetoed their bill establishing a new national bank. The Whigs then made some changes to suit, as they supposed, his objections, and sent him a bill to charter a Fiscal Corporation; but this also came back with a veto; whereupon his Cabinet officers (all save Daniel Webster, Secretary of State) resigned, and the Whig members of Congress, in an address to the people, read him out of the party. Later in his term Tyler vetoed two tariff bills, but finally approved a third, known as the Tariff of 1842. For these uses of the veto power the Whigs thought of impeaching him; but did not.

[Illustration: THE DISPUTED MAINE BOUNDARY.]

WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY.—When Tyler's cabinet officers resigned, Webster remained in order to conclude a new treaty with Great Britain, [1] by which our present northeastern boundary was fixed from the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence. Neither power obtained all the territory it claimed under the treaty of 1783, but the disputed region was divided about equally between them. [2]

Soon after the treaty was concluded Webster resigned the secretaryship of state, and the rupture between Tyler and the Whigs was complete.

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS.—The great event of Tyler's time was the decision to annex the republic of Texas.

[Illustration: THE ALAMO.]

In 1821 Mexico secured her independence of Spain, and about three years afterward adopted the policy of granting a great tract of land in Texas to anybody who, under certain conditions, and within a certain time, would settle a specified number of families on the grant. To colonize in this way at once became popular in the South, and in a few years thousands of American citizens were settled in Texas.

For a while all went well; but in 1833 serious trouble began between the Mexican government and the Texans, who in 1836 declared their independence, founded the republic of Texas, [3] and sought admission into our Union as a state. Neither Jackson nor Van Buren favored annexation, so the question dragged on till 1844, when Tyler made with Texas a treaty of annexation and sent it to the Senate. That body refused assent.

[Illustration: THE WAR WITH MEXICO.]

THE DEMOCRATS AND TEXAS.—The issue was thus forced. The Democratic national convention of 1844 claimed that Texas had once been ours, [4] and declared for its "reannexation." To please the Northern Democrats it also declared for the "reoccupation" of Oregon up to 54° 40'. This meant that we should compel Great Britain to abandon all claim to that country, and make it all American soil.

The Democrats went into the campaign with the popular cries, "The reannexation of Texas;" "The whole of Oregon or none;" "Texas or disunion"—and elected Polk [5] after a close contest.

TEXAS ANNEXED; OREGON DIVIDED.—Tyler, regarding the triumph of the Democrats as an instruction from the people to annex Texas, urged Congress to do so at once, and in March, 1845, a resolution for the admission of Texas passed both houses, and was signed by the President. [6] The resolution provided also that out of her territory four additional states might be made if Texas should consent. The boundaries were in dispute, but in the end Texas was held to have included all the territory from the boundary of the United States to the Rio Grande and a line extending due north from its source.

After Texas was annexed, notice was served on Great Britain that joint occupation of Oregon must end in one year. The British minister then proposed a boundary treaty which was concluded in a few weeks (1846). The line agreed on was the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca (hoo-ahn' da foo'ca), and by it to the Pacific Ocean (compare maps, pp. 278 and 330).

WAR WITH MEXICO.—Mexico claimed that the real boundary of Texas was the Nueces (nwâ'sess) River. When, therefore, Polk (in 1846) sent General Zachary Taylor with an army to the Rio Grande, the Mexicans attacked him; but he beat them at Palo Alto (pah'lo ahl'to) and again near by at Resaca de la Palma (ra-sah'ca da lah pahl'ma), and drove them across the Rio Grande. When President Polk heard of the first attack, he declared that "Mexico has shed American blood upon American soil…. War exists,… and exists by the act of Mexico herself." Congress promptly voted men and money for the war.

MONTEREY.—Taylor, having crossed the Rio Grande, marched to Monterey and (September, 1846) attacked the city. It was fortified with strong stone walls in the fashion of Old World cities; the flat-roofed houses bristled with guns; and across every street was a barricade. In three days of desperate fighting our troops forced their way into the city, entered the buildings, made their way from house to house by breaking through the walls or ascending to the roofs, and reached the center of the city before the Mexicans surrendered the town.

NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA.—Immediately after the declaration of war, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny with a force of men set off (June, 1846) by the old Santa Fe trail and (August 18) captured Santa Fe without a struggle, established a civil government, declared New Mexico annexed to the United States, and then started to take possession of California. But California had already been conquered by the Americans. In June, 1846, some three hundred American settlers, believing that war was imminent and fearing they would be attacked, revolted, adopted a flag on which was a grizzly bear, and declared California an independent republic. Fremont, who had been exploring in California, came to their aid (July 5), and two days later Commodore Sloat with a naval force entered Monterey and raised the flag there. In 1847 (January 8, 9) battles were fought with the Mexicans of California; but the Americans held the country.

BUENA VISTA.—Toward the close of 1846 General Winfield Scott was put in command of the army in Mexico, and ordered Taylor to send a large part of the army to meet him at Vera Cruz (vâ'ra kroos). Santa Anna, hearing of this, gathered 18,000 men and at Buena Vista, in a narrow valley at the foot of the mountains, attacked Taylor (February 23, 1847). The battle raged from morning to night. Again and again the little American army of 5000 seemed certain to be overcome by the 18,000 Mexicans. But they fought on desperately, and when night came, both armies left the field. [7]

[Illustration: GENERAL TAYLOR AT BUENA VISTA. From an old print.]

THE MARCH TO MEXICO.—Scott landed at Vera Cruz in March, 1847, took the castle and city after a siege of fifteen days, and about a week later set off for the city of Mexico, winning victory after victory on the way. The heights of Cerro Gordo were taken by storm, and the army of Santa Anna was beaten again at Jalapa (ha-lah'pa). Puebla (pwâ'bla) surrendered at Scott's approach, and there he waited three months. But on August 7 Scott again started westward with 10,000 men, and three days later looked down on the distant city of Mexico surrounded by broad plains and snow-capped mountains.

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL, MEXICO.]

Then followed in quick succession the victory at Contreras (kôn-trâ'ras), the storming of the heights of Churubusco, the victory at Molino del Rey (mô-lee'no del râ') the storming of the castle of Chapultepec' perched on a lofty rock, and the triumphal entry into Mexico (September 14). [8]

THE TERMS OF PEACE (1848).—The republic of Mexico was now a conquered nation and might have been added to our domain; but the victors were content to retain Upper California and New Mexico—the region from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, and from the Gila River to Oregon (compare maps, pp. 318, 330). For this great territory we paid Mexico $15,000,000, and in addition paid some $3,500,000 of claims our citizens had against her for injury to their persons or property. [9]

[Illustration: MONUMENT ON MEXICAN BOUNDARY.]

SHALL THE NEWLY ACQUIRED TERRITORY BE SLAVE SOIL OR FREE?—The treaty with Mexico having been ratified and the territory acquired, it became the duty of Congress to provide the people with some American form of government. There needed to be American governors, courts, legislatures, customhouses, revenue laws, in short a complete change from the Mexican way of governing. To do this would have been easy if it had not been for the fact that (in 1827) Mexico had abolished slavery. All the territory acquired was therefore free soil; but the South wished to make it slave soil. The question of the hour thus became, Shall New Mexico and California be slave soil or free soil? [10]

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1848.—So troublesome was the issue that the two great parties tried to keep it out of politics. The Democrats in their platform in 1848 said nothing about slavery in the new territory, and the Whigs made no platform. This action of the two parties so displeased the antislavery Whigs and Wilmot Proviso Democrats that they held a convention, formed the Free-soil party, [11] nominated Martin Van Buren for President, and drew away so many New York Democrats from their party that the Whigs carried the state and won the presidential election. [12] On March 5, 1849 (March 4 was Sunday), Taylor [13] and Fillmore [14] were inaugurated.

[Illustration: DEMOCRATIC CARTOON IN CAMPAIGN OF 1848]

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.—By this time the question of slavery in the new territory was still more complicated by the discovery of gold in California. Many years before this time a Swiss settler named J. A. Sutter had obtained a grant of land in California, where the city of Sacramento now stands. In 1848 James W. Marshall, while building a sawmill for Sutter at Coloma, some fifty miles away from Sutter's Fort, discovered gold in the mill race. Both Sutter and Marshall attempted to keep the fact secret, but their strange actions attracted the attention of a laborer, who also found gold. Then the news spread fast, and people came by hundreds and by thousands to the gold fields. [15] Later in the year the news reached the East, and when Polk in his annual message confirmed the rumors, the rush for California began. Some went by vessel around Cape Horn. Others took ships to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed it on foot, and sailed to San Francisco. Still others hurried to the Missouri to make the overland journey across the plains. [16] By August, 1849, some eighty thousand gold hunters, "forty-niners," as they came to be called, had reached the mines. [17]

[Illustration: A ROCKER.]

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.—As Congress had provided no government, and as scarcely any could be said to exist, the people held a convention, made a free-state constitution, and applied for admission into the Union as a state.

ISSUES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.—The election of Taylor, and
California's application for statehood, brought on a crisis between the
North and the South.

Most of the people in the North desired no more slave states and no more slave territories, abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the admission of California as a free state.

The South opposed these things; complained of the difficulty of capturing slaves that escaped to the free states, and of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the abolitionists; and demanded that the Mexican cession be left open to slavery.

Since 1840 two slave-holding states, Florida and Texas (1845), and two free states, Iowa (1846) and Wisconsin (1848), had been admitted to the Union, making fifteen free and fifteen slave states in all; and the South now opposed the admission of California, partly because it would give the free states a majority in the Senate.

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.—At this stage Henry Clay was again sent to the Senate. He had powerfully supported two great compromise measures—the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the Compromise Tariff of 1833. He believed that the Union was in danger of destruction; but that if the two parties would again compromise, it could be saved.

To please the North he now proposed (1) that California should be admitted as a free state, and (2) that the slave trade (buying and selling slaves), but not the right to own slaves, should be abolished in the District of Columbia. To please the South he proposed (1) that Congress should pass a more stringent law for the capture of fugitive slaves, and (2) that two territories, New Mexico and Utah, should be formed from part of the Mexican purchase, with the understanding that the people in them should decide whether they should be slave soil or free. This principle was called "squatter sovereignty," or "popular sovereignty."

[Illustration: CLAY ADDRESSING THE SENATE IN 1850. From an old engraving.]

Texas claimed the Rio Grande as part of her west boundary. But the United States claimed the part of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, and both sides seemed ready to appeal to arms. Clay proposed that Texas should give up her claim and be paid for so doing.

During three months this plan was hotly debated, [18] and threats of secession and violence were made openly. But in the end the plan was accepted: (1) California was admitted, (2) New Mexico and Utah were organized as territories open to slavery, (3) Texas took her present bounds (see maps, pp. 318, 330) and received $10,000,000, (4) a new fugitive slave law [19] was passed, and (5) the slave trade was prohibited in the District of Columbia. These measures together were called the Compromise of 1850.

DEATH OF TAYLOR.—While the debate on the compromise was under way, Taylor died (July 9, 1850) and Fillmore was sworn into office as President for the remainder of the term.

SUMMARY

1. Congress in 1841 passed two bills for chartering a new national bank, but President Tyler vetoed both. The Whig leaders then declared that Tyler was not a Whig.

2. The next year the Webster-Ashburton treaty settled a long-standing dispute over the northeastern boundary.

3. In 1844 the Democrats declared for the annexation of Texas and Oregon, and elected Polk President. Congress then quickly decided to admit Texas to the Union.

4. War with Mexico followed a dispute over the Texas boundary. In the course of it Taylor won victories at Monterey and Buena Vista; Scott made a famous march to the city of Mexico; and Kearny marched to Santa Fe and on to California.

5. Peace added to the United States a great tract of country acquired from Mexico. Meanwhile, the Oregon country had been divided by treaty with Great Britain.

6. The acquisition of Mexican territory brought up the question of the admission of slavery, for the territory was free soil under Mexican rule.

7. The opponents of extension of the slave area formed the Free-soil party in 1848, and drew off enough Democratic votes so that the Whigs elected Taylor and Fillmore.

8. Meanwhile gold had been discovered in California, and a wild rush for the "diggings" began.

9. The people in California formed a free-state constitution and applied for admission to the Union.

10. The chief political issues now centered around slavery, and as they had to be settled, lest the Union be broken, the Whigs and Democrats arranged the Compromise of 1850.

11. This made California a free state, but left the new territories of Utah and New Mexico open to slavery.

[Illustration: OLD ADOBE RANCH HOUSE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Besides the long-standing dispute over the Maine boundary, two other matters were possible causes of war with Great Britain. (1) Her cruisers had been searching our vessels off the African coast to see if they were slavers. (2) In the attack on the Caroline (p. 297) one American was killed, and in 1840 a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested in New York and charged with the murder. Great Britain now avowed responsibility for the burning of the Caroline, and demanded that the man should be released. McLeod, however, was tried and acquitted.

[2] Two other provisions of the treaty were of especial importance. (1) In order to stop the slave trade each nation was to keep a squadron (carrying at least eighty guns) cruising off the coast of Africa. (2) It was agreed that any person who, charged with the crime of murder, piracy, arson, robbery, or forgery, committed in either country, shall escape to the other, shall if possible be seized and given up to the authorities of the country which he fled.

[3] A war between Mexico and Texas followed, and was carried on with great cruelty by the Mexicans. Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, having driven some Texans into a building called the Alamo (ah'la-mo), in San Antonio, carried it by storm and ordered all of its defenders shot. A band of Texans who surrendered at Goliad met the same fate. In 1836, however, General Samuel Houston (hu'stun) beat the Mexicans in the decisive battle of San Jacinto. The struggle of the Texans for independence aroused sympathy in our country; hundreds of volunteers joined their army, and money, arms, and ammunition were sent them. Read A. E. Barr's novel Remember the Alamo.

[4] Referring to our claim between 1803 and 1819 (p. 276) that the Louisiana Purchase extended west to the Rio Grande.

[5] James K. Polk was born in North Carolina in 1795, but went with his parents to Tennessee in 1806, where in 1823 he became a member of the legislature. From 1824 to 1839 he was a member of Congress, and in 1839 was elected governor of Tennessee. Polk was the first presidential "dark horse"; that is, the first candidate whose nomination was unexpected and a surprise. In the Democratic national convention at Baltimore the contest was at first between Van Buren and Cass. Polk's name did not appear till the eighth ballot; on the ninth the convention "stampeded" and Polk received every vote. When the news was spread over the country by means of railroads and stagecoaches, many people would not believe it till confirmed by the newspapers. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay; and the Liberty party, James G. Birney. Tyler also was renominated by his friends, but withdrew.

[6] Read Whittier's Texas.

[7] In the course of the fight a son of Henry Clay was killed, and Jefferson Davis, afterward President of the Confederate States of America, was wounded. At one stage of the battle Lieutenant Crittenden was sent to demand the surrender of a Mexican force that had been cut off; but the Mexican officer in command sent him blindfolded to Santa Anna. Crittenden thereupon demanded the surrender of the entire Mexican army, and when told that Taylor must surrender in an hour or have his army destroyed, replied, "General Taylor never surrenders." Read Whittier's Angels of Buena Vista.

[8] The war was bitterly opposed by the antislavery people of the North as an attempt to gain more slave territory. Numbers of pamphlets were written against it. Lincoln, then a member of Congress, introduced resolutions asking the President to state on what spot on American soil blood had been shed by Mexican troops, and James Russell Lowell wrote his famous Biglow Papers.

[9] Five years later (1853), by another treaty with Mexico, negotiated by James Gadsden, we acquired a comparatively small tract south of the Gila, called the Gadsden Purchase (compare maps, pp. 330, 352). The price was $10,000,000. The purchase was made largely because Congress was then considering the building of a railroad to the Pacific, and because the route likely to be chosen went south of the Gila.

[10] As early as 1846 the North attempted to decide the question in favor of freedom. Polk had asked for $2,000,000 with which to settle the boundary dispute with Mexico, and when the bill to appropriate the money was before the House, David Wilmot moved to add the proviso that all territory bought with it should be free soil. The House passed the Wilmot Proviso, but the Senate did not; so the bill failed. The following year (1847) a bill to give Polk $3,000,000 was introduced, and again the proviso was added by the House and rejected by the Senate. Then the House gave way, and passed the bill; but the acquisition of California and New Mexico by treaty left the question still unsettled.

[11] Their platform declared: (1) that Congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king; (2) that there must be "free soil for a free people"; (3) that there must be "no more slave states, no more slave territories"; (4) that "we inscribe on our banner, 'Free soil, free speech, free labor, and freemen.'"

[12] The Liberty party nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire, but he withdrew in favor of Van Buren. The Liberty party was thus merged in the Free-soil party, and so disappeared from politics. The Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President were Lewis Cass and William O. Butler.

[13] Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia in 1784, was taken to Louisville, Kentucky, while still a child, and grew up there. In 1808 he entered the United States army as a lieutenant, and by 1810 had risen to be a captain. For a valiant defense of Fort Harrison on the Wabash, he was made a major. He further distinguished himself in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars. In the Mexican War General Taylor was a great favorite with his men, who called him in admiration "Old Rough and Ready." Before 1848 he had taken very little interest in politics. He was nominated because of his record as a military hero.

[14] Millard Fillmore was born in central New York in 1800, and at fourteen was apprenticed to a trade, but studied law at odd times, and practiced law at Buffalo. He served three terms in the state assembly, was four times elected to Congress, and was once the Whig candidate for governor. In 1848 he was nominated for the vice presidency as a strong Whig likely to carry New York.

[15] Laborers left the fields, tradesmen the shops, and seamen deserted their ships as soon as they entered port. One California newspaper suspended its issue because editor, typesetters, and printer's devil had gone to the gold fields. In June the Star stopped for a like reason, and California was without a newspaper. Some men made $5000, $10,000, and $15,000 in a few days. California life in the early times is described in Kirk Munroe's Golden Days of '49, and in Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp and Tales of the Argonauts.

[16] Those who crossed the plains suffered terribly, and for many years the wrecks of their wagons, the bones of their oxen and horses, and the graves of many of the men were to be seen along the route. This route was from Independence in Missouri, up the Platte River, over the South Pass, past Great Salt Lake, and so to "the diggings."

[17] Some miners obtained gold by digging the earth, putting it into a tin pan, pouring on water, and then shaking the pan so as to throw out the muddy water and leave the particles of gold. Others used a box mounted on rockers and called a "cradle" or "rocker."

[18] Read the speeches of Calhoun and Webster in Johnston's American Orations, Vol. II. Webster's speech gave great offense in the North. Read McMaster's Daniel Webster, pp. 314-324, and Whittier's poem Ichabod. The debate and its attendant scenes are well described in Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 104-189.

[19] The fugitive slave law gave great offense to the North. It provided that a runaway slave might be seized wherever found, and brought before a United States judge or commissioner. The negro could not give testimony to prove he was not a fugitive but had been kidnapped, if such were the case. All citizens were "commanded," when summoned, to aid in the capture of a fugitive, and, if necessary, in his delivery to his owner. Fine and imprisonment were provided for any one who harbored a fugitive or aided in his escape. The law was put in execution at once, and "slave catchers," "man hunters," as they were called, "invaded the North." This so excited the people that many slaves when seized were rescued. Such rescues occurred during 1851 at New York, Boston, Syracuse, and at Ottawa in Illinois. Read Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Chap. 26.

In the midst of this excitement Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Mrs. Stowe's purpose was "to show the institution of slavery truly just as it existed." The book is rather a picture of what slavery might have been than of what slavery really was; but it was so powerfully written that everybody read it, and thousands of people in the North who hitherto cared little about the slavery issue were converted to abolitionism.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.]

CHAPTER XXVI

THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE SOIL

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1852.—The Compromise of 1850 was thought to be a final settlement of all the troubles that had grown out of slavery. The great leaders of the Whig and Democratic parties solemnly pledged themselves to stand by the compromise, and when the national conventions met in 1852, the two parties in their platforms made equally solemn promises.

The Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce [1] of New Hampshire for President, and declared they would "abide by and adhere to" the compromise, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs selected Winfield Scotland declared the compromise to be a "settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and promised to do all they could to prevent further agitation of it. The Free-soilers nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire. The refusal of the Whig party to stand against the compromise drove many Northern voters from its ranks. Pierce carried every state save four and, March 4, 1853, was duly inaugurated. [2]

THE SLAVERY QUESTION NOT SETTLED.—But Pierce had not been many months in office when the quarrel over slavery was raging once more. In January, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced into the Senate a bill to organize a new territory to be called Nebraska. Every foot of it was north of 36° 30' and was, by the Compromise of 1820 (p. 274), free soil. But an attempt was made to amend the bill and declare that the Missouri Compromise should not apply to Nebraska, whereupon such bitter opposition arose that Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another. [3]

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT.—The new bill provided for the creation of two territories, one to be called Kansas and the other Nebraska; for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, thus opening the country north of 36° 30' to slavery; and for the adoption of the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

The Free-soilers, led by Salmon P. Chase, William H. Seward, and Charles Sumner, tried hard to defeat the bill. But it passed Congress, and was signed by the President (1854). [4]

[Illustration: GOVERNOR'S MANSION, KANSAS, IN 1857. Contemporary drawing.]

THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.—And now began a seven years' struggle between the Free-soilers and the proslavery men for the possession of Kansas. Men of both parties hurried to the territory. [5] The first election was for territorial delegate to Congress, and was carried by the proslavery party assisted by hundreds of Missourians who entered the territory, voted unlawfully, and went home. The second election was for members of the territorial legislature. Again the Missourians swarmed over the border, and a proslavery legislature was elected. Governor Reeder set the elections aside in seven districts, and in them other members were chosen; but the legislature when it met turned out the seven so elected and seated the men rejected by the governor. The proslavery laws of Missouri were adopted, and Kansas became a slave-holding territory.

THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION.—Unwilling to be governed by a legislature so elected, looking on it as illegal and usurping, the free-state men framed a state constitution at Topeka (1855), organized a state government, and applied to Congress for admission into the Union as a state. The House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas, but the Senate would not consent, and (July 4, 1856) United States troops dispersed the legislature when it attempted to assemble under the Topeka constitution. Kansas was a slave- holding territory for two years yet before the free-state men secured a majority in the legislature, [6] and not till 1861 did it secure admission as a free state.

PERSONAL LIBERTY LAWS.—In the East meantime the rapidly growing feeling against slavery found expression in what were called personal liberty laws, which in time were enacted by all save two of the free states. Their avowed object was to prevent free negroes from being sent into slavery on the claim that they were fugitive slaves; but they really obstructed the execution of the fugitive slave law of 1850.

Another sign of Northern feeling was the sympathy now shown for the Underground Railroad. This was not a railroad, but a network of routes along which slaves escaping to the free states-were sent by night from one friendly house to another till they reached a place of safety, perhaps in Canada.

[Illustration: RECEPTION AT THE WHITE HOUSE, IN 1858. Contemporary drawing.]

BREAKING UP OF OLD PARTIES.—On political parties the events of the four years 1850-54 were serious. The Compromise of 1850, and the vigorous execution of the new fugitive slave law, drove thousands of old line Whigs from their party. The deaths of Clay and Webster in 1852 deprived the party of its greatest leaders. The Kansas-Nebraska bill completed the ruin, and from that time forth the party was of small political importance. The Democratic party also suffered, and thousands left its ranks to join the Free-soilers. Out of such elements in 1854-56 was founded the new Republican party. [7]

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1856.—At Philadelphia, in June, 1856, a Republican national convention nominated John C. Fremont for President. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan. A remnant of the Whigs, now nicknamed "Silver Grays," indorsed Fillmore, who had been nominated by the American, or "Know-nothing," party. [8] The Free-soilers joined the Republicans. Buchanan was elected. [9]

DRED SCOTT DECISION, 1857.—Two days after the inauguration of Buchanan, the Supreme Court made public a decision which threw the country into intense excitement. A slave named Dred Scott had been taken by his owner from Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to Minnesota, made free soil by the Compromise of 1820. When brought back to Missouri, Dred Scott sued for freedom. Long residence on free soil, he claimed, had made him free. The case finally reached the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided against him. [10] But in delivering the decision, Chief- Justice Taney announced: (1) that Congress could not shut slavery out of the territories, and (2) that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and void.

THE TERRITORIES OPEN TO SLAVERY.—This decision confirmed all that the South had gained by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Compromise of 1850, and also opened to slavery Washington and Oregon, which were then free territories.

If the court supposed that its decision would end the struggle, it was much mistaken. Not a year went by but some incident occurred which added to the excitement.

[Illustration: LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE IN SPRINGFIELD.]

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE.—In 1858 the people of Illinois were to elect a legislature which would choose a senator to succeed Stephen A. Douglas. The Democrats declared for Douglas. The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, [11] and as the canvass proceeded the two candidates traversed the state, holding a series of debates. The questions discussed were popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott decision, and the extension of slavery into the territories, and the debates attracted the attention of the whole country. Lincoln was defeated; but his speeches gave him a national reputation. [12]

JOHN BROWN AT HARPERS FERRY.—In 1859 John Brown, a lifelong enemy of slavery, went to Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with a little band of followers, to stir up an insurrection and free the slaves. He was captured, tried for murder and treason, and hanged. The attempt was a wild one; but it caused intense excitement in both the North and the South, and added to the bitter feeling which had long existed between the two sections. [13]

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860.—The Democrats were now so divided on the slavery issues that when they met in convention at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860, the party was rent in twain, and no candidates were chosen. Later in the year the Northern wing nominated Stephen A. Douglas for President. The Southern delegates, at a convention of their own, selected John C. Breckinridge.

Another party made up of old Whigs and Know-nothings nominated John Bell of Tennessee. This was the Constitutional Union party. The Republicans [14] named Abraham Lincoln and carried the election. [15]

SUMMARY

1. The Compromise of 1850 was supposed to settle the slavery issues, and the two great parties pledged themselves to support it.

2. But the issues were not settled, and in 1854 the organization of Kansas and Nebraska reopened the struggle.

3. The Kansas-Nebraska bill and the contest over Kansas split both the Whig party and the Democratic party, and by the union of those who left them, with the Free-soilers, the Republican party was made, 1854-56.

4. In 1857 the Supreme Court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and opened all territories to slavery.

5. In 1858 this decision and other slavery issues were debated by Lincoln and Douglas.

6. This debate made Lincoln a national character, and in 1860 he was elected President by the Republican party.

[Illustration: SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE MOUNTAINS, USED BY BROWN AS AN ARSENAL.
Contemporary drawing.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Franklin Pierce was born in New Hampshire in 1804, and died in 1869. He began his political career in the state legislature, went to Congress in 1833, and to the United States Senate in 1837. In the war with Mexico, Pierce rose from the ranks to a brigadier generalship. He was a bitter opponent of anti-slavery measures; but when the Civil War opened he became a Union man.

[2] The electoral vote was, for Pierce, 254; for Scott, 42. The popular vote was, for Pierce, 1,601,474; for Scott, 1,386,580; for Hale, 155,667.

[3] Stephen A. Douglas was born in Vermont in 1813, went west in 1833, was made attorney-general of Illinois in 1834, secretary of state and judge of the supreme court of Illinois in 1840, a member of Congress in 1843, and of the United States Senate in 1847. He was a small man, but one of such mental power that he was called "the Little Giant." He was a candidate for the presidential nomination in the Democratic conventions of 1852 and 1856, and in 1860 was nominated by the Northern wing of that party. He was a Union man.

[4] For popular opinion on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, read Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. I, pp. 461-470.

[5] Proslavery men from Missouri and other Southern states founded Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton, and Kickapoo, in the northeastern part of Kansas. Free-state men from the North founded Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Osawatomie, in the east-central part of the territory.

[6] In 1856 border war raged in Kansas, settlers were murdered, property destroyed, and the free-state town of Lawrence was sacked by the proslavery men. In 1857 the proslavery party made a slave-state constitution at Lecompton and applied for admission, and the Senate (1858) voted to admit Kansas under it; but the House refused. In 1859 the Free- soilers made a second (the Wyandotte) constitution, under which Kansas was admitted into the Union (1861).

[7] The breaking up of old parties over the slavery issues naturally brought up the question of forming a new party, and at a meeting at Ripon in Wisconsin in 1854, it was proposed to call the new party Republican. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, a thousand citizens of Michigan signed a call for a state convention, at which a Republican state party was formed and a ticket nominated on which were Whigs, Free-soilers, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Similar "fusion tickets," as they were called, were adopted in eight other states. The success of the new party in the elections of 1854, and its still greater success in 1855, led to a call for a convention at Pittsburg on Washington's Birthday, 1856. There and then the national Republican party was founded.

[8] The American party was the outcome of a long-prevalent feeling against the election of foreign-born citizens to office. At many times and at many places this feeling had produced political organizations. But it was not till 1852 that a secret, oath-bound organization, with signs, grips, and passwords, was formed and spread its membership rapidly through most of the states. As its members would not tell its principles and methods, and professed entire ignorance of them when questioned, the American party was called in derision "the Know-nothings." Its success, however, was great, and in 1855 Know-nothing governors and legislatures were elected in eight states, and heavy votes polled in six more.

[9] The electoral vote was, for Buchanan, 174; for Frémont, 114; for Fillmore, 8. The popular vote was, for Buchanan, 1,838,169; for Frémont, 1,341,264; for Fillmore, 874,534. James Buchanan was born in Pennsylvania in 1791, was educated at school and college, studied law, served in the state legislature, was five times elected to the House of Representatives, and three times to the Senate. In the Senate he was a warm supporter of Jackson, and favored the annexation of Texas under Tyler. He was Secretary of State under Polk, and had been minister to Great Britain.

[10] The Chief Justice ruled that no negro whose ancestors had been brought as slaves into the United States could be a citizen; Scott therefore was not a citizen, and hence could not sue in any United States court.

[11] Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, February 12, 1809, and while still a child was taken by his parents to Indiana. The first winter was spent in a half-faced camp, and for several years the log cabin that replaced it had neither door nor wood floor. Twelve months' "schooling" was all he ever had; but he was fond of books and borrowed Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Weems's Life of Washington, the book in which first appeared the fabulous story of the hatchet and the cherry tree. At nineteen Lincoln went as a flatboatman to New Orleans. In 1830 his father moved to Illinois, where Lincoln helped build the cabin and split the rails to fence in the land, and then went on another flatboat voyage to New Orleans. He became a clerk in a store in 1831, served as a volunteer in the Black Hawk War, tried business and failed, became postmaster of New Salem, which soon ceased to have a post office, supported himself as plowman, farm hand, and wood cutter, and tried surveying; but made so many friends that in 1834 he was sent to the legislature, and reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. He now began the practice of law, settled in Springfield, was elected to Congress in 1846, and served there one term.

[12] For a description of the Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858, read Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 314-338.

[13] Many persons regarded Brown as a martyr. Read Whittier's Brown of Ossawatomie, or Stedman's How Old Brown took Harper's Ferry. Read, also, Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 383-398.

[14] The platform of the Republicans adopted in 1860 (at Chicago) sets forth: (1) that the party repudiates the principles of the Dred Scott decision, (2) that Kansas must be admitted as a free state, (3) that the territories must be free soil, and (4) that slavery in existing states should not be interfered with.

[15] The electoral vote was, for Lincoln, 180; for Douglas, 12; for Breckinridge, 72; for Bell, 39. The popular vote was, for Lincoln, 1,866,452; for Douglas, 1,376,957; for Breckinridge, 849,781; for Bell, 588,879. Lincoln received no votes at all in ten Southern states. The popular votes were so distributed that if those for Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell had all been cast for one of the candidates, Lincoln would still have been elected President (by 173 electoral votes to 130).

CHAPTER XXVII

STATE OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1840 TO 1860

POPULATION.—In the twenty years which had elapsed since 1840 the population of our country had risen to over 31,000,000. In New York alone there were, in 1860, about as many people as lived in the whole United States in 1789.

Not a little of this increase of population was due to the stream of immigrants which had been pouring into the country. From a few thousand in 1820, the number who came each year rose gradually to about 100,000 in the year 1842, and then went down again. But famine in Ireland and hard times in Germany started another great wave of immigration, which rose higher and higher till (1854) more than 400,000 people arrived in one year. Then once more the wave subsided, and in 1861 less than 90,000 came.

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1860.]

NEW STATES AND TERRITORIES.—Though population was still moving westward, few of our countrymen, before the gold craze of 1849, had crossed the Missouri. Those who did, went generally to Oregon, which was organized as a territory in 1848 and admitted into the Union as a state in 1859. By that time California (1850) and Minnesota (1858) had also been admitted, so that the Union in 1860 consisted of thirty-three states and five territories. Eighteen states were free, and fifteen slave-holding. The five territories were New Mexico, Utah, Washington (1853), Kansas, and Nebraska (small map, p. 394).

CITY LIFE.—About one sixth of the population in 1860 lived in cities, of which there were about 140 of 8000 or more people each. Most of them were ugly, dirty, badly built, and poorly governed. The older ones, however, were much improved. The street pump had given way to water works; gas and plumbing were in general use; many cities had uniformed police; [1] but the work of fighting fires was done by volunteer fire departments. Street cars (drawn by horses) now ran in all the chief cities, omnibuses were in general use, and in New York city the great Central Park, the first of its kind in the country, had been laid out. Illustrated magazines, and weekly papers, Sunday newspapers, and trade journals had been established, and in some cities graded schools had been introduced. [2]

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.—In the country the district school for boys and girls was gradually being improved. The larger cities of the North now had high schools as well as common schools, and in a few instances separate high schools for girls. Between 1840 and 1860 eighty-two sectarian and twenty non-sectarian colleges were founded, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis was opened. Not even the largest college in 1860 had 800 students, and in but one (University of Iowa, 1856) were women admitted to all departments.

LITERATURE.—Public libraries were now to be found not only in the great cities, but in most of the large towns, and in such libraries were collections of poetry, essays, novels, and histories written by American authors. Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Poe, Bryant, and Whittier among poets; Hawthorne, Irving, Cooper, Simms, and Poe among writers of fiction; Emerson and Lowell among essayists, were read and admired abroad as well as at home. Prescott, who had lately (1859) died, had left behind him histories of Spain in the Old World and in the New; Parkman was just beginning his story of the French in America; Motley had published his Rise of the Dutch Republic, and part of his History of the United Netherlands; Hildreth had completed one History of the United States, and Bancroft was still at work on another.

Near these men of the first rank stood many writers popular in their day. The novels of Kennedy, and the poetry of Drake, Halleck, and Willis are not yet forgotten.

OCCUPATIONS.—In the Eastern states the people were engaged chiefly in fishing, commerce, and manufacturing; in the Middle states in farming, commerce, manufacturing, and mining. To the great coal and iron mines of Pennsylvania were (1859) added the oil fields. That petroleum existed in that state had long been known; but it was not till Drake drilled a well near Titusville (in northwestern Pennsylvania) and struck oil that enough was obtained to make it marketable. Down the Ohio there was a great trade in bituminous coal, and the union of the coal, iron, and oil trades was already making Pittsburg a great city. In the South little change had taken place. Cotton, tobacco, sugar, and the products of the pine forests were still the chief sources of wealth; mills and factories hardly existed. The West had not only its immense farms, but also the iron mines of upper Michigan, the lead mines of the upper Mississippi and in Missouri, the copper mines of the Lake Superior country, and the lumber industry of Michigan and Wisconsin. Through the lakes passed a great commerce. California was the great gold-mining state; but gold and silver had just been discovered near Pikes Peak, and in what is now Nevada.

THE MORMONS.—Utah territory in 1860 contained forty thousand white people, nearly all Mormons. These people, as we have seen, when driven from Missouri, built the city called Nauvoo in Illinois. Their leaders now introduced the practice of polygamy, and in various ways opposed the state authorities. In 1844 they came to blows with the state; the leaders were arrested, and while in jail Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob. Brigham Young then became head of the church, and in the winter of 1846 the Mormons, driven from Nauvoo, crossed the Mississippi and began a long march westward over the plains to Great Salt Lake, then in Mexico. There they settled down, and when the war with Mexico ended, they were again in the United States. When Utah was made a territory in 1850, Brigham Young was appointed its first governor. [3]

[Illustration: FORT UNION, BUILT IN 1829 BY THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY.]

THE FAR WEST.—Before 1850 each new state added to the Union had bordered an some older state; but now California and Oregon were separated from the other states by wide stretches of wilderness. The Rocky Mountain highland and the Great Plains, however, were not entirely uninhabited. Over them wandered bands of Indians mounted on fleet ponies; white hunters and trappers, some trapping for themselves, some for the great fur companies; and immense herds of buffalo, [4] and in the south herds of wild horses. The streams still abounded with beaver. Game was everywhere, deer, elk, antelope, bears, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and on the streams wild ducks and geese. Here and there were villages of savage and merciless Indians, and the forts or trading posts of the trappers. Every year bands of emigrants crossed the plains and the mountains, bound to Utah, California, or Oregon.

PROPOSED RAILROAD TO THE PACIFIC.—In 1842 John C. Fremont, with Kit Carson as guide, began a series of explorations which finally extended from the Columbia to the Colorado, and from the Missouri to California and Oregon (map, p. 314). [5] Men then began to urge seriously the plan of a railroad across the continent to some point on the Pacific. In 1845 Asa Whitney [6] applied to Congress for a grant of a strip of land from some point on Lake Michigan to Puget Sound, and came again with like appeals in 1846 and 1848. By that time the Mexican cession had been acquired, and this with the discovery of gold in California gave the idea such importance that (in 1853) money was finally voted by Congress for the survey of several routes. Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, ordered five routes to be surveyed and (in 1855) recommended the most southerly; and the Senate passed a bill to charter three roads. [7] Jealousy among the states prevented the passage of the bill by the House. In 1860 the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties declared for such a railroad.

MECHANICAL IMPROVEMENT.—During the period 1840-60 mechanical improvement was more remarkable than in earlier periods. The first iron-front building was erected, the first steam fire engine used, wire rope manufactured, a grain drill invented, Hoe's printing press with revolving type cylinders introduced, and six inventions or discoveries of universal benefit to mankind were given to the world. They were the electric telegraph, the sewing machine, the improved harvester, vulcanized rubber, the photograph, and anaesthesia.

[Illustration: MORSE AND HIS FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT.]

THE TELEGRAPH.—Seven years of struggle enabled Samuel F. B. Morse, helped by Alfred Vail, to make the electric telegraph a success, [8] and in 1844, with the aid of a small appropriation by Congress, Morse built a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. [9] Further aid was asked from Congress and refused. [10] The Magnetic Telegraph Company was then started. New York and Baltimore were connected in 1846, and in ten years some forty companies were in operation in the most populous states.

[Illustration: HOWE'S FIRST SEWING MACHINE.]

THE SEWING MACHINE; THE HARVESTER.—A man named Hunt invented the lockstitch sewing machine in 1834; but it was not successful, and some time elapsed before his idea was taken up by Elias Howe, who after several years of experiment (1846) made a practical machine. People were slow to use it, but by 1850 he had so aroused the interest of inventors that seven rivals were in the field, and to their joint labors we owe one of the most useful inventions of the century. From the household the sewing machine passed into use in factories (1862), and to-day gives employment to hundreds of thousands of people.

[Illustration: EARLY HARVESTER. From an old print.]

What the sewing machine is to the home and the factory, that is the reaper to the farm. After many years of experiment Cyrus McCormick invented a practical reaper and (1840) sought to put it on the market, but several more years passed before success was assured. To-day, greatly improved and perfected, it is in use the world over, and has made possible the great grain fields, not only of our own middle West and Northwest, but of Argentina, Australia, and Russia.

VULCANIZED RUBBER; PHOTOGRAPHY; ANAESTHESIA.—The early attempts to use India rubber for shoes, coats, caps, and wagon covers failed because in warm weather the rubber softened and emitted an offensive smell. To overcome this Goodyear labored year after year to discover a method of hardening or, as it is called, vulcanizing rubber. Even when the discovery was made and patented, several years passed before he was sure of the process. In 1844 he succeeded and gave to the world a most useful invention.

[Illustration: A DAGUERREOTYPE, IN METAL CASE, 1843.]

In 1839 a Frenchman named Daguerre patented a method of taking pictures by exposing to sunlight a copper plate treated with certain chemicals. The exposure for each picture was some twenty minutes. An American, Dr. John W. Draper, so improved the method that pictures were taken of persons in a much shorter time, and photography was fairly started.

Greater yet was the discovery that by breathing sulphuric ether a person can become insensible to pain and then recover consciousness. The glory of the discovery has been claimed for Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson, who used it in 1846. Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) was used as an ansesthetic before this time by Dr. Wells of Hartford.

TRANSPORTATION IMPROVED.—In the country east of the Mississippi some thirty thousand miles of railroad had been built, and direct communication opened from the North and East to Chicago (1853) and New Orleans (1859). For the growth of railroads between 1850 and 1861 study the maps on pp. 331, 353. [11] At first the lines between distant cities were composed of many connecting but independent roads. Thus between Albany and Buffalo there were ten such little roads; but in 1853 they were consolidated and became the New York Central, and the era of the great trunk lines was fairly opened.

On the ocean, steamship service between the Old World and the New was so improved that steamships passed from Liverpool to New York in less than twelve days.

Better means of transportation were of benefit, not merely to the traveler and the merchant, but to the people generally. Letters could be carried faster and more cheaply, so the rate of postage on a single letter was reduced (1851) from five or ten cents to three cents, [12] and before 1860 express service covered every important line of transportation.

THE ATLANTIC CABLE.—The success of the telegraph on land suggested a bold attempt to lay wires across the bed of the ocean, and in 1854 Cyrus W. Field of New York was asked to aid in the laying of a cable from St. Johns to Cape Ray, Newfoundland. But Field went further and formed a company to join Newfoundland and Ireland by cable, and after two failures succeeded (1858). During three weeks all went well and some four hundred messages were sent; then the cable ceased to work, and eight years passed before another was laid. Since then many telegraph cables have been laid across the Atlantic; but it was not till 1903 that the first was laid across the Pacific.

FOREIGN RELATIONS.—We have seen how during this period our country was expanded by the annexation of Texas (1845) and by two cessions of territory from Mexico (1848 and 1853). But this was not enough to satisfy the South, and attempts were made to buy Cuba. Polk (1848) offered Spain $100,000,000 for it. Filibusters tried to capture it (in 1851), and Pierce (1853) urged its annexation. With this end in view our ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain met at Ostend in Belgium in 1854 and issued what was called the Ostend Manifesto. This set forth that Cuba must be annexed to protect slavery, and if Spain would not sell for a fair price, "then by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power." Buchanan also (1858) urged the purchase of Cuba; but in vain.

CHINA AND JAPAN.—More pleasing to recall are our relations with China and Japan. Our flag was first seen in China in 1784, when the trading vessel Empress of China reached Canton. Washington (1790) appointed a consul to reside in that city, the only one in China, then open to foreign trade; but no minister from the United States was sent to China till Caleb Gushing went in 1844. By him our first treaty was negotiated with China, under which five ports were opened to American trade and two very important concessions secured: (1) American citizens charged with any criminal act were to be tried and punished only by the American consul. (2) All privileges which China might give to any other nation were likewise to be given to the United States.

At that time Japan was a "hermit nation." In 1853, however, Commodore M. C. Perry went to that country with a fleet, and sent to the emperor a message expressing the wish of the United States to enter into trade relations with Japan. Then he sailed away; but returned in 1854 and made a treaty (the first entered into by Japan) which resulted in opening that country to the United States. Other nations followed, and Japan was thus opened to trade with the civilized world.

SUMMARY

1. Between 1840 and 1860 the population increased from 17,000,000 to 31,000,000.

2. During this period millions of immigrants had come.

3. As population continued to move westward new states and territories were formed.

4. In one of these new territories, Utah, were the Mormons who had been driven from Illinois.

5. The rise of a new state on the Pacific coast revived the old demand for a railroad across the plains, and surveys were ordered.

6. East of the Mississippi thousands of miles of railroads were built, and the East, the West, and the far South were connected.

7. This period is marked by many great inventions and discoveries, including the telegraph, the sewing machine, and the reaper.

8. It was in this period that trade relations were begun with China and Japan.

[Illustration: MODERN HARVESTER.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] All the large cities were so poorly governed, however, that they were often the scenes of serious riots, political, labor, race, and even religious.

[2] An unfriendly picture of the United States in 1842 is Dickens's American Notes, a book well worth reading.

[3] Several non-Mormon officials were sent to Utah, but they were not allowed to exercise any authority, and were driven out. The Mormons formed the state of Deseret and applied for admission into the Union. Congress paid no attention to the appeal, and (1857) Buchanan appointed a new governor and sent troops to Utah to uphold the Federal authority. Young forbade them to enter the territory, and dispatched an armed force that captured some of their supplies. In the spring of 1858 the President offered pardon "to all who will submit themselves to the just authority of the Federal Government," and Young and his followers did so.

[4] An interesting account of the buffalo is given in A. C. Laut's The Story of the Trapper_, pp. 65-80. Herds of a hundred thousand were common. As many as a million buffalo robes were sent east each year in the thirties and forties.

[5] John C. Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813, and in 1842 was Lieutenant of Engineers, United States Army. In 1842 he went up the Platte River and through the South Pass. The next year he passed southward to Great Salt Lake, then northwestward to the Columbia, then southward through Oregon to California, and back by Great Salt Lake to South Pass in 1844. In 1845 he crossed what is now Nebraska and Utah, and reached the vicinity of Monterey in California. The Mexican authorities ordered him away; but he remained in California and helped to win the country during the war with Mexico. Later, he was senator from California, Republican candidate for President in 1856, and an army general during the Civil War.

[6] Whitney asked for a strip sixty miles wide. So much of the land as was not needed for railroad purposes was to be sold and the money used to build the road. During 1847-49 his plan was approved by the legislatures of seventeen states, and by mass meetings of citizens or Boards of Trade in seventeen cities.

[7] One from the west border of Texas to California; another from the west border of Missouri to California; and a third from the west border of Wisconsin to the Pacific in Oregon or Washington.

[8] In 1842 Morse laid the first submarine telegraph in the world, from Governors Island in New York harbor to New York city. It consisted of a wire wound with string and coated with tar, pitch, and india rubber, to prevent the electric current running off into the water. It was laid on October 18, and the next morning, while messages were being received, the anchor of a vessel caught and destroyed the wire.

[9] The wire was at first put in a lead tube and laid in a furrow plowed in the earth. This failed; so the wire was strung on poles. One end was in the Pratt St. Depot, Baltimore, and the other in the Supreme Court Chamber at Washington. The first words sent, after the completion of the line, were "What hath God wrought." Two days later the Democratic convention (which nominated Polk for President) met at Baltimore, and its proceedings were reported hourly to Washington by telegraph.

[10] Morse offered to sell his patent to the government, but the Postmaster General reported that the telegraph was merely an interesting experiment and could never have a practical value, so the offer was not accepted.

[11] The use of vast sums of money in building so many railroads, together with overtrading and reckless speculation, brought on a business panic in 1857. Factories were closed, banks failed, thousands of men and women were thrown out of employment, and for two years the country suffered from hard times.

[12] It was not till 1883 that the rate was reduced to two cents. Before the introduction of the postage stamp, letters were sent to the post offices, and when the postage had been paid, they were marked "Paid" by the officials. When the mails increased in volume in the large cities, this way of doing business consumed so much time that the postmasters at St. Louis and New York sold stamps to be affixed to letters as evidence that the postage had been paid. The convenience was so great that public opinion forced Congress to authorize the post office department to furnish stamps and require the people to use them (1847).

[Illustration: MAP OF EASTERN UNITED STATES IN 1861.]

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1863

[Illustration: NEWSPAPER BULLETIN POSTED IN THE STREETS OF CHARLESTON.]

THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.—After Lincoln's election, the cotton states, one by one, passed ordinances declaring that they left the Union. First to go was South Carolina (December 20, 1860), and by February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. On February 4 delegates from six of these seven states met at Montgomery, Alabama, framed, a constitution, [1] established the "Confederate States of America," and elected Jefferson Davis [2] and Alexander H. Stephens provisional President and Vice President. Later they were elected by the people.

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Photograph of 1856.]

[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS.]

LINCOLN'S POLICY.—President Buchanan did nothing to prevent all this, and such was the political situation when Lincoln was inaugurated (March 4, 1861). His views and his policy were clearly stated in his inaugural address: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists…. No state on its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union…. The Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states…. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority…. The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government."

FORT SUMTER CAPTURED.—Almost all the "property and places" belonging to the United States government in the seven seceding states had been seized by the Confederates. [3] But Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor was still in Union hands, and to this, Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina, supplies would be sent. Thereupon the Confederate army already gathered in Charleston bombarded the fort till Major Anderson surrendered it (April 14, 1861). [4]

[Illustration: ONE OF THE BATTERIES THAT BOMBARDED FORT SUMTER.]

THE WAR OPENS.—With the capture of Fort Sumter the war for the Union opened in earnest. On April 15 Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand militia to serve for three months. [5] Thereupon Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded and joined the Confederacy. The capital of the Confederacy was soon moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia.

In the slave-holding states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri
the Union men outnumbered the secessionists and held these states in the
Union. When Virginia seceded, the western counties refused to leave the
Union, and in 1863 were admitted into the Union as the state of West
Virginia.

THE DIVIDING LINE.—The first call for troops was soon followed by a second. The responses to both were so prompt that by July 1, 1861, more than one hundred and eighty thousand Union soldiers were under arms. They were stationed at various points along a line that stretched from Norfolk in Virginia up the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River to Harpers Ferry, and then across western Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. South of this dividing line were the Confederate armies. [6]

Geographically this line was cut into three sections: that in Virginia, that in Kentucky, and that in Missouri,

[Illustration: STONE BRIDGE OVER BULL RUN. Crossed by many fleeing Union men.]

BULL RUN.—General Winfield Scott was in command of the Union army. Under him and in command of the troops about Washington was General McDowell, who in July, 1861, was sent to drive back the Confederate line in Virginia. Marching a few miles southwest, McDowell met General Beauregard near Manassas, and on the field of Bull Run was beaten and his army put to flight. [7] The battle taught the North that the war would not end in three months; that an army of raw troops was no better than a mob; that discipline was as necessary as patriotism. Thereafter men were enlisted for three years or for the war.

General George B. McClellan [8] was now put in command of the Union Army of the Potomac, and spent the rest of 1861, and the early months of 1862, in drilling his raw volunteers.

[Illustration: DRIVING BACK THE CONFEDERATE LINE IN THE WEST.]

CONFEDERATE LINE IN KENTUCKY DRIVEN BACK, 1862.—In Kentucky the Confederate line stretched across the southern part of the state as shown on the map. Against this General Thomas was sent in January, 1862. He defeated the Confederates at Mill Springs near the eastern end. In February General U. S. Grant and Flag-Officer Foote were sent to attack, by land and water, Forts Donelson and Henry near the western end of the line. Foote arrived first at Fort Henry on the Tennessee and captured it. Thereupon Grant marched across country to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, and after three days' sharp fighting forced General Buckner to surrender. [9]

[Illustration: ULYSSES S. GRANT.]

SHILOH OR PITTSBURG LANDING.—The Confederate line was now broken, and abandoning Nashville and Columbus, the Confederates fell back toward Corinth in Mississippi. The Union army followed in three parts.

1. One under General Curtis moved to southwestern Missouri and won a battle at Pea Ridge (Arkansas).

2. Another under General Pope on the banks of the Mississippi aided Flag- Officer Foote in the capture of Island No. 10. [10] The fleet then passed down the river and took Fort Pillow.

3. The third part under Grant took position very near Pittsburg Landing, at Shiloh, [11] where it was attacked and driven back. But the next day, being strongly reënforced, General Grant beat the Confederates, who retreated to Corinth. General Halleck now took command, and having united the second and third parts of the army, took Corinth and cut off Memphis, which then surrendered to the fleet in the river.

BRAGG'S RAID.—And now the Confederates turned furiously. Their army under General Bragg, starting from Chattanooga, rushed across Tennessee and Kentucky toward Louisville, but after a hot fight with General Buell's army at Perryville was forced to turn back, and went into winter quarters at Murfreesboro. [12]

[Illustration: NORTHERN CAVALRYMAN. A war-time drawing published in 1869.]

There Bragg was attacked by the Union forces, now under General Rosecrans, was beaten in one of the most bloody battles of the war (December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863), and was forced to retreat further south.

NEW ORLEANS, 1862.—Both banks of the Mississippi as far south as the Arkansas were by this time in Union hands. [13] South of that river on the east bank of the Mississippi the Confederates still held Vicksburg and Port Hudson (maps, pp. 353, 368). But New Orleans had been captured in April, 1862, by a naval expedition under Farragut; [14] and the city was occupied by a Union army under General Butler. [15]

[Illustration: WAR IN THE EAST, 1862.]

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, 1862.—In the East the year opened with great preparation for the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capital.

1. Armies under Fremont and Banks in the Shenandoah valley were to prevent an attack on Washington from the west.

2. An army under McDowell was to be ready to march from Fredericksburg to Richmond, when the proper time came.

3. McClellan was to take the largest army by water from Washington to Fort Monroe, and then march up the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers to the neighborhood of Richmond, where McDowell was to join him.

Landing at the lower end of the peninsula early in April, McClellan moved northward to Yorktown, and captured it after a long siege. McClellan then hurried up the peninsula after the retreating enemy, and on the way fought and won a battle at Williamsburg. [16]

THE SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN, 1862.—It was now expected that McDowell, who had been guarding Washington, would join McClellan, but General T. J. Jackson [17] (Stonewall Jackson), who commanded the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah, rushed down the valley and drove Banks across the Potomac into Maryland. This success alarmed the authorities at Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia to protect the capital. Part of his troops, with those of Banks and Fremont, were dispatched against Jackson; but Jackson won several battles and made good his escape.

[Illustration: THOMAS J. JACKSON.]

END OF PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.—Though deprived of the aid of McDowell, General McClellan moved westward to within eight or ten miles of Richmond; but the Confederate General J. E. Johnston now attacked him at Fair Oaks. A few weeks later General R. E. Lee, [18] who had succeeded Johnston in command, was joined by Jackson; the Confederates then attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and Gaines Mill and forced him to retreat, fighting as he went (June 26 to July 1), to Harrisons Landing on the James River. There the Union army remained till August, when it went back by water to the Potomac.

[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE.]

LEE'S RAID; BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, 1862.—The departure of the Union army from Harrisons Landing left General Lee free to do as he chose, and seizing the opportunity he turned against the Union forces under General Pope, whose army was drawn up between Cedar Mountain and Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. Stonewall Jackson first attacked General Banks at the western end of the line at Cedar Mountain, and beat him. Jackson and Lee then fell upon General Pope on the old field of Bull Run, beat him, and forced him to fall back to Washington, where his army was united with that of McClellan. [19] This done, Lee crossed the Potomac and entered Maryland. McClellan attacked him at Antietam Creek (September, 1862), where a bloody battle was fought (sometimes called the battle of Sharpsburg). Lee was beaten; but McClellan did not prevent his recrossing the Potomac into Virginia. [20]

FREDERICKSBURG, 1862.—McClellan was now removed, and General A. E. Burnside put in command. The Confederates meantime had taken position on Marye's Heights on the south side of the Rappahannock, behind Fredericksburg. The position was impregnable; but in December Burnside attacked it and was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. The two armies then went into winter quarters with the Rappahannock between them.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.—Ever since the opening of the year 1862, the question of slavery in the loyal states and in the territories had been constantly before Congress. In April Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and set free the slaves there with compensation to the owners. In June it abolished slavery in the territories and freed the slaves there without compensation to the owners, and in July authorized the seizure of slaves of persons then in rebellion.

In March Lincoln had asked Congress to help pay for the slaves in the loyal slave states, if these states would abolish slavery; but neither Congress nor the states adopted the plan. [21] Lincoln now determined, as an act of war, to free the slaves in the Confederate states, and when the armies of Lee and McClellan stood face to face at Antietam, he decided, if Lee was beaten, to issue an emancipation proclamation. Lee was beaten, and on September 22, 1862, the proclamation came forth declaring that on January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves" in any state or part of a state then "in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free." The Confederate states did not return to their allegiance, and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued, declaring the slaves within the Confederate lines to be free men.

[Illustration: PART OF THE AUTOGRAPH COPY OF LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION OF
JANUARY 1, 1863.]

1. Lincoln did not abolish slavery anywhere. He emancipated certain slaves.

2. His proclamation did not apply to the loyal slave states—Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri.

3. It did not apply to such Confederate territory as the Union armies had conquered; namely, Tennessee, seven counties in Virginia, and thirteen parishes in Louisiana.

4. Lincoln freed the slaves by virtue of his authority as commander in chief of the Union armies, "and as a fit and necessary war measure."

SUMMARY

1. In 1860 and 1861 seven cotton states seceded, formed the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson Davis President.

2. The capture of Fort Sumter (April, 1861) and Lincoln's call for troops were followed by the secession of four more Southern states.

3. In 1861 an attempt was made to drive back the Confederate line in Virginia; but this ended in disaster at the battle of Bull Run.

4. In 1862 the Peninsular Campaign failed, Pope was defeated at Bull Run, Lee's invasion of Maryland was ended by the battle of Antietam, and Burnside met defeat at Fredericksburg.

5. In the West in 1862 the Confederate line was forced back to northern Mississippi, and New Orleans was captured. Great battles were fought at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro.

6. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln declared free the slaves in the states and parts of states held by the Confederates.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The constitution of the Confederacy was the Constitution of the United States altered to suit conditions. The President was to serve six years and was not to be eligible for reëlection; the right to own slaves was affirmed, but no slaves were to be imported from any foreign country except the slave-holding states of the old Union. The Congress was forbidden to establish a tariff for protection of any branch of industry. A Supreme Court was provided for, but was never organized.

[2] Jefferson Davis was born in 1808, graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1828, served in the Black Hawk War, resigned from the army in 1835, and became a cotton planter in Mississippi. In 1845 he was elected to Congress, but resigned to take part in the Mexican War, and was wounded at Buena Vista. In 1847 lie was elected a senator, and from 1853 to 1857 was Secretary of War. He then returned to the Senate, where he was when Mississippi seceded. He died in New Orleans in 1889.

[3] Property of the United States seized by the states was turned over to the Confederate government. Thus Louisiana gave up $536,000 in specie taken from the United States customhouse and mint at New Orleans.

[4] Read "Inside Sumter in '61" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 65-73.

[5] Read "War Preparations in the North" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 85-98; on pp. 149-159, also, read "Going to the Front."

[6] An interesting account of "Scenes in Virginia in '61" may be found in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 160-166.

[7] "The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat," says General Johnston; and no pursuit of the Union forces was made. "The larger part of the men," McDowell telegraphed to Washington, "are a confused mob, entirely disorganized." None stopped short of the fortifications along the Potomac, and numbers entered Washington. Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 229-239. "I have no idea that the North will give it up," wrote Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy. "Their defeat will increase their energy." He was right.

[8] George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia in 1826, graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and resigned from the army in 1857, to become a civil engineer, but rejoined it at the opening of the war. In July, 1861, he conducted a successful campaign against the Confederates in West Virginia, and his victories there were the cause of his promotion to command the Army of the Potomac. After the battle of Antietam (p. 363) he took no further part in the war, and finally resigned in 1864. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of New Jersey. He died in 1885.

[9] Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, and at seventeen entered West Point, where his name was registered Ulysses S. Grant, and as such he was ever after known. He served in the Mexican War, and afterward engaged in business of various sorts till the opening of the Civil War, when he was made colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment, and then commander of the district of southeast Missouri. When General Buckner, who commanded at Fort Donelson, wrote to Grant to know what terms he would offer, Grant replied: "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." This won for Grant the popular name "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

Andrew H. Foote was born in Connecticut in 1806, entered the navy at sixteen, and when the war opened, was made flag officer of the Western navy. His gunboats were like huge rafts carrying a house with flat roof and sloping sides that came down to the water's edge. The sloping sides and ends were covered with iron plates and pierced for guns; three in the bow, two in the stern, and four on each side. The huge wheel in the stern which drove the boat was under cover; but the smoke stacks were unprotected. Foote died in 1863, a rear admiral.

[10] The islands in the Mississippi are numbered from the mouth of the Ohio River to New Orleans.

[11] Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 465-486.

[12] Farther west the Confederates attacked the Union army at Corinth (October 4), but were defeated by General Rosecrans.

[13] In January, 1862, the Confederate line west of the Mississippi stretched from Belmont across southern Missouri to Indian Territory; but Grant drove the Confederates out of Belmont; General Curtis, as we have seen, beat them at Pea Ridge (in March), and when the year ended, the Union army was in possession of northern Arkansas.

[14] David G. Farragut was born in 1801, and when eleven years old served on the Essex in the War of 1812. When his fleet started up the Mississippi River, in 1862, he found his way to New Orleans blocked by two forts, St. Philip and Jackson, by chains across the river on hulks below Fort Jackson, and by a fleet of ironclad boats above. After bombarding the forts for six days, he cut the chains, ran by the forts, defeated the fleet, and went up to New Orleans, and later took Baton Rouge and Natchez. For the capture of New Orleans he received the thanks of Congress, and was made a rear admiral; for his victory in Mobile Bay (p. 379) the rank of vice admiral was created for him, and in 1866 a still higher rank, that of admiral, was made for him. He died in 1870.

[15] When it was known in New Orleans that Farragut's fleet was coming, the cotton in the yards and in the cotton presses was hauled on drays to the levee and burned to prevent its falling into Union hands. The capture of the city had a great effect on Great Britain and France, both of whom the Confederates hoped would intervene to stop the war. Slidell, who was in France seeking recognition for the Confederacy as an independent nation, wrote that he had been led to believe "that if New Orleans had not been taken and we suffered no very serious reverses in Virginia and Tennessee, our recognition would very soon have been declared." Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 14-21,91-94.

[16] The story of the march is interestingly told in "Recollections of a Private," in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 189-199.

[17] Thomas J. Jackson was born in West Virginia in 1824, graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, resigned from the army, and till 1861 taught in the Virginia State Military Institute at Lexington. He then joined the Confederate army, and for the firm stand of his brigade at Bull Run gained the name of "Stonewall."

[18] Robert E. Lee was born in Virginia in 1807, a son of "Light Horse" Harry Lee of the Revolutionary army. He was a graduate of West Point, and served in the Mexican War. After Virginia seceded he left the Union army and was appointed a major general of Virginia troops, and in 1862 became commander in chief. At the end of the war he accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), and died in Lexington, Virginia, in 1870.

[19] Part of McClellan's army had joined Pope before the second battle of Bull Run.

[20] Read "A Woman's Recollections of Antietam," in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 686-695; also O. W. Holmes's My Hunt after "The Captain."

[21] West Virginia and Missouri later (1863) provided for gradual emancipation, and Maryland (1864) adopted a constitution that abolished slavery.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE CIVIL WAR, 1863-1865

THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN, 1863.—After the defeat at Fredericksburg, Burnside was removed, and General Hooker put in command of the Army of the Potomac. "Fighting Joe," as Hooker was called, led his army of 130,000 men against Lee and Jackson, and after a stubborn fight at Chancellorsville (May 1-4, 1863) was beaten and fell back. [1] In June Lee once more took the offensive, rushed down the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac River, crossed Maryland, and entered Pennsylvania with the Army of the Potomac in hot pursuit. On reaching Maryland General Hooker was removed and General Meade put in command.

[Illustration: WAR IN THE EAST, 1863-65.]

On the hills at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the two armies met, and there (July 1-3) Lee attacked Meade. The struggle was desperate. About one fourth of the men engaged were killed or wounded. But the splendid valor of the Union army prevailed, and Lee was beaten and forced to return to Virginia, where he remained unmolested till the spring of 1864. [2] The battle of Gettysburg ended Lee's plan for carrying the war into the North, and from the losses on that field his army never fully recovered. [3]

[Illustration: BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. Contemporary drawing.]

[Illustration: THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.]

[Illustration: GRANT'S HEADQUARTERS NEAR VICKSBURG. From a recent photograph.]

VICKSBURG, 1863.—In January, 1863, the Confederates held the Mississippi River only from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. The capture of these two towns would complete the opening of the river. Grant, therefore, determined to capture Vicksburg. The town stands on the top of a bluff which rises straight and steep from the river, and had been so strongly fortified on the land side that to take it seemed impossible. Grant, having failed in a direct advance through Mississippi, cut a canal across a bend in the river, on the west bank, hoping to divert the waters and get a passage by the town. This, too, failed; and he then decided to cross below Vicksburg and attack by land. To aid him, Admiral Porter ran his gunboats past the town on a night in April and carried the army across the river. Landing on the east bank, Grant won a victory at Port Gibson, and hearing that J. E. Johnston was coming to help Pemberton, pushed in between them, beat Johnston, and turning against Pemberton drove him into Vicksburg. After a siege of seven weeks, in which Vicksburg suffered severely from bombardment and famine, Pemberton surrendered the town and army July 4, 1863.

In less than a week (July 9) Port Hudson surrendered, the Mississippi was opened from source to mouth, and the Confederacy was cut in two.

[Illustration: WAR IN THE WEST, 1863-65, AND ON THE COAST.]

CHICKAMAUGA, 1863.—While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans forced a Confederate army under Bragg to quit its position south of Murfreesboro, and then to leave Chattanooga and retire into northern Georgia. There Bragg was reënforced, and he then attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September 19 and 20, 1863), where was fought one of the most desperate battles of the war. The Union right wing was driven from the field, but the left wing under General Thomas held the enemy in check and saved the army from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of "the Rock of Chickamauga."

CHATTANOOGA.—Rosecrans now went back to Chattanooga. Bragg followed, and, taking position on the hills and mountains which surround the town on the east and south, shut in the Union army and besieged it. Hooker was sent from Virginia with more troops, Sherman [4] brought an army from Vicksburg, Rosecrans was replaced by Thomas, and Grant was put in command of all. Then matters changed. The troops under Thomas (November 23) seized some low hills at the foot of Missionary Ridge, east of Chattanooga. Hooker (November 24) carried the Confederate works on Lookout Mountain, southwest of the town, in a fight often called "the Battle above the Clouds." Sherman (November 24 and 25) attacked the northern end of Missionary Ridge. Thomas (November 25) thereupon carried the heights of Missionary Ridge, and drove off the enemy. Bragg retreated to Dalton in northwestern Georgia, where the command of his army was given to General J. E. Johnston.

[Illustration: WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.]

[Illustration: CHARGING UP MISSIONARY RIDGE.]

THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, 1864.—The Confederates had now but two great armies left. One under Lee was lying quietly behind the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, protecting Richmond; the other under J. E. Johnston [5] was at Dalton, Georgia. The two generals chosen to lead the Union armies against these forces were Grant and Sherman. Grant (now lieutenant general arid in command of all the armies) with the Army of the Potomac was to drive Lee back and take Richmond. Sherman with the forces under Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield was to attack Johnston and enter Georgia. The Union soldiers outnumbered the Confederates.

[Illustration: JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON.]

MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.—On May 4, 1864, accordingly, Sherman moved forward against Johnston, flanked him out of Dalton, and drove him, step by step, through the mountains to Atlanta. Johnston's retreat forced Sherman to weaken his army by leaving guards in the rear to protect the railroads on which he depended for supplies; Johnston intended to attack when he could fight on equal terms. But his retreat displeased Davis, and at Atlanta he was replaced by General Hood, who was expected to fight at once.

In July Hood made three furious attacks, was repulsed, and in September left Atlanta and started northward. His purpose was to draw Sherman out of Georgia, but Sherman sent Thomas with part of the army into Tennessee, and after following Hood for a while, [6] turned back to Atlanta.

After partly burning the town, Sherman started for the seacoast in November, tearing up the railroads, burning bridges, and living on the country as he went. [7] In December Fort McAllister was taken and Savannah occupied.

[Illustration: RAIL TWISTED AROUND POLE BY SHERMAN'S MEN. In the possession of the Long Island Historical Society.]

GRANT AND LEE IN VIRGINIA, 1864.—On the same day in May, 1864, on which Sherman set out to attack Johnston in Georgia, the Army of the Potomac began the campaign in Virginia. General Meade was in command; but Grant, as commander in chief of all the Union armies, directed the campaign in person. Crossing the Rapidan, the army entered the Wilderness, a stretch of country covered with dense woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. Lee attacked, and for several days the fighting was almost incessant. But Grant pushed on to Spottsylvania Court House and to Cold Harbor, where bloody battles were fought; and then went south of Richmond and besieged Petersburg. [8]

EARLY'S RAID, 1864.—Lee now sought to divert Grant by an attack on Washington, and sent General Early down the Shenandoah valley. Early crossed the Potomac, entered Maryland, won a battle at the Monocacy River, and actually threatened the defenses of Washington, but was forced to retreat. [9]

[Illustration: PHILLIP H. SHERIDAN.]

To stop these attacks Grant sent Sheridan [10] into the valley, where he
defeated Early at Winchester and at Fishers Hill and again at Cedar Creek.
It was during this last battle that Sheridan made his famous ride from
Winchester. [11]

THE SITUATION EARLY IN 1865.—By 1865, Union fleets and armies had seized many Confederate strongholds on the coast. In the West, Thomas had destroyed Hood's army in the great battle of Nashville (December, 1864). In the East, Grant was steadily pressing the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, and Sherman was making ready to advance northward from Savannah. The cause of the Confederacy was so desperate that in February, 1865, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, was sent to meet Lincoln and Secretary Seward and discuss terms of peace. Lincoln demanded three things: the disbanding of the Confederate armies, the submission of the seceded states to the rule of Congress, and the abolition of slavery. The terms were not accepted, and the war went on.

SHERMAN MARCHES NORTHWARD, 1865.—After resting for a month at Savannah, Sherman started northward through South Carolina, (February 17) entered Columbia, the capital of the state, and forced the Confederates to evacuate Charleston. To oppose him, a new army was organized and put under the command of Johnston. But Sherman pressed on, entered North Carolina, and reached Goldsboro in safety.

THE SURRENDER OF LEE, 1865.—Early in April, Lee found himself unable to hold Richmond and Petersburg any longer. He retreated westward. Grant followed, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, seventy-five miles west of Richmond. [12]

FALL OF THE CONFEDERACY.—The Confederacy then went rapidly to pieces. Johnston surrendered to Sherman near Raleigh on April 26; Jefferson Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, and the war on land was over. [13]

REFLECTION OF LINCOLN.—While the war was raging, the time again came to elect a President and Vice President. The Republicans nominated Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The Democrats selected General McClellan and George H. Pendleton. Lincoln and Johnson were elected and on March 4, 1865, were inaugurated.

DEATH OF LINCOLN.—On the night of April 14, the fourth anniversary of the day on which Anderson marched out of Fort Sumter, while Lincoln was seated with his wife and some friends in a box at Ford's Theater in Washington, he was shot by an actor who had stolen up behind him. [14] The next morning he died, and Andrew Johnson became President.

SUMMARY

1. In 1863, Lee repulsed an advance by Hooker's army, and invaded Pennsylvania, but was defeated by Meade at Gettysburg.

2. In the West, Grant took Vicksburg, and the Mississippi was opened to the sea. The Confederates defeated Rosecrans at Chickamauga, but were defeated by Grant and other generals at Chattanooga.

3. In 1864, Grant moved across Virginia, after much hard fighting, and besieged Petersburg and Richmond, and Sherman marched across Georgia to Savannah.

4. In 1865, Sherman marched northward into North Carolina, and Grant forced Lee to leave Richmond and surrender.

5. In 1864, Lincoln was reëlected.

6. In April, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson became President.

[Illustration: SHARPSHOOTER'S RIFLE USED IN THE CIVIL WAR. With telescope sight. Weight, 32 lb.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Jackson was mortally wounded by a volley from his own men, who mistook him and his escort for Union cavalry, in the dusk of evening of the second day at Chancellorsville. His last words were: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

[2] Read "The Third Day at Gettysburg" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III, pp. 369-385. The field of Gettysburg is now a national park dotted with monuments erected in memory of the dead, and marking the positions of the regiments and spots where desperate fighting occurred. Near by is a national cemetery in which are interred several thousand Union soldiers. Read President Lincoln's beautiful Gettysburg Address.

[3] With the exception of a small body of regulars, the Union armies were composed of volunteers. When it became apparent that the war would not end in a few months, Congress passed a Draft Act: whenever a congressional district failed to furnish the required number of volunteers, the names of able-bodied men not already in the army were to be put into a box, and enough names to complete the number were to be drawn out by a blindfolded man. In July, 1863, when this was done in New York city, a riot broke out and for several days the city was mob-ruled. Negroes were killed, property was destroyed, and the rioters were not put down till troops were sent by the government.

[4] William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820, graduated from West Point, and served in the Seminole and Mexican wars. He became a banker in San Francisco, then a lawyer in Kansas, in 1860 superintendent of a military school in Louisiana, and then president of a street car company in St. Louis. In 1861 he was appointed colonel in the regular army. He fought at Bull Run, was made brigadier general of volunteers, and was transferred to the West, where he rose rapidly. After the war, Grant was made general of the army, and Sherman lieutenant general; and when Grant became President, Sherman was promoted to the rank of general. He was retired in 1884 and died in 1891 at New York.

[5] Joseph Eggleston Johnston was born in Virginia in 1807, graduated from West Point, and served in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican wars. When the Civil War opened, he joined the Confederacy, was made a major general, and with Beauregard commanded at the first battle of Bull Run. Johnston was next put in charge of the operations against McClellan (1862); but was wounded at Fair Oaks and succeeded by Lee. In 1863 he was sent to relieve Vicksburg, but failed. In 1864 he was put in command of Bragg's army after its defeat, and so became opposed to Sherman.

[6] Early in October Hood had reached Dallas on his way to Tennessee. From Dallas he sent a division to capture a garrison and depots at Allatoona, commanded by General Corse. Sherman, who was following Hood, communicated with Corse from the top of Kenesaw Mountain by signals; and Corse, though greatly outnumbered, held the fort and drove off the enemy. On this incident was founded the popular hymn Hold the Fort, for I am Coming.

[7] To destroy the railroads so they could not be quickly rebuilt, the rails, heated red-hot in fires made of burning ties, were twisted around trees or telegraph poles. Stations, machine shops, cotton bales, cotton gins and presses were burned. Along the line of march, a strip of country sixty miles wide was made desolate.

[8] While the siege of Petersburg was under way, a tunnel was dug and a mine exploded under a Confederate work called Elliott's Salient (July 30, 1864). As soon as the mass of flying earth, men, guns, and carriages had settled, a body of Union troops moved forward through the break thus made in the enemy's line. But the assault was badly managed. The Confederates rallied, and the Union forces were driven back into the crater made by the explosion, where many were killed and 1400 captured.

[9] On October 19, 1864, St. Albans, a town in Vermont near the Canadian border, was raided by Confederates from Canada. They seized all the horses they could find, robbed the banks, and escaped. A little later the people of Detroit were excited by a rumor that their city was to be raided on October 30. Great preparations for defense were made; but no enemy came.

[10] Philip H. Sheridan was born at Albany, New York, in 1831, graduated from West Point, and was in Missouri when the war opened. In 1862 he was given a command in the cavalry, fought in the West, and before the year closed was made a brigadier and then major general for gallantry in action. At Chattanooga he led the charge up Missionary Ridge. After the war he became lieutenant general and then general of the army, and died in 1888.

[11] Sheridan had spent the night at Winchester, and as he rode toward his camp at Cedar Creek, he met such a crowd of wagons, fugitives, and wounded men that he was forced to take to the fields. At Newtown, the streets were so crowded he could not pass through them. Riding around the village, he met Captain McKinley (afterward President), who, says Sheridan, "spread the news of my return through the motley throng there." Between Newtown and Middletown he met "the only troops in the presence of and resisting the enemy…. Jumping my horse over the line of rails, I rode to the crest of the elevation and … the men rose up from behind their barricade with cheers of recognition." When he rode to another part of the field, "a line of regimental flags rose up out of the ground, as it seemed, to welcome me." With these flags was Colonel Hayes (afterward President). Hurrying to another place, he came upon some divisions marching to the front. When the men "saw me, they began cheering and took up the double-quick to the front." Crossing the pike, he rode, hat in hand, "along the entire line of infantry," shouting, "We are all right…. Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall sleep in our quarters to-night." And they did. Read Sheridan's Ride by T. Buchanan Read.

[12] Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 729-746.

[13] On the flight of Davis from Richmond, read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 762-767; or the Century Magazine, November, 1883.

[14] After firing the shot, the assassin waved his pistol and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis"—"Thus be it ever to tyrants" (the motto of the state of Virginia) and jumped from the box to the stage. But his spur caught in an American flag which draped the box, and he fell and broke his leg. Limping off the stage, he fled from the theater, mounted a horse in waiting, and escaped to Virginia. There he was found hidden in a barn and shot. The body of the Martyr President was borne from Washington to Springfield, by the route he took when coming to his first inauguration in 1861. Read Walt Whitman's poem My Captain.

CHAPTER XXX

THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES

THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.—The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the coast blockaded from Virginia to Texas.

[Illustration: SINKING THE PETREL. Contemporary drawing.]

The object of the blockade was to cut off the foreign trade of the Southern states, and to prevent their getting supplies of all sorts. But as Great Britain was one of the chief consumers of Southern cotton, and was, indeed, dependent on the South for her supply, it was certain that unless the blockade was made effective by many Union ships, cotton would be carried out of the Southern ports, and supplies run into them, in spite of Lincoln's proclamation.

[Illustration: CARTOON PUBLISHED IN 1861.]

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.—This is just what was done. Goods of all sorts were brought from Great Britain to the city of Nassau in the Bahama Islands (map, p. 353). There the goods were placed on board blockade runners and started for Wilmington in North Carolina, or for Charleston. So nicely would the voyage be timed that the vessel would be off the port some night when the moon did not shine. Then, with all lights out, the runner would dash through the line of blockading ships, and, if successful, would by daylight be safe in port. The cargo landed, cotton would be taken on board; and the first dark night, or during a storm, the runner, again breaking the blockade, would steam back to Nassau.

THE TRENT AFFAIR.—Great Britain and France promptly acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents. This gave them the same rights in the ports of Great Britain and France as our vessels of war. Hoping to secure a recognition of independence from these countries, the Confederate government sent Mason and Slidell to Europe. These two commissioners ran the blockade, went to Havana, and boarded the British mail steamship Trent. Captain Wilkes of the United States man-of-war San Jacinto, hearing of this, stopped the Trent and took off Mason and Slidell. Intense excitement followed in our country and in Great Britain, [2] which at once demanded their release and prepared for war. They were released, and the act of Wilkes was disavowed as an exercise of "the right of search" which we had always resisted when exercised by Great Britain, and which had been one of the causes of the War of 1812.

THE CRUISERS.—While the commerce of the Confederacy was almost destroyed by the blockade, a fleet of Confederate cruisers attacked the commerce of the Union.

The most famous of these, the Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Shenandoah [3] were built or purchased in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and were suffered to put to sea in spite of the protests of the United States minister. Once on the ocean they cruised from sea to sea, destroying every merchant vessel under our flag that came in their way.

[Illustration: SHELL LODGED IN THE STERN POST OF THE KEARSARGE. Now in the
Ordnance Museum, Washington Navy Yard.]

One of them, the Alabama, sailed the ocean unharmed for two years. She cruised in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Brazil, went around the Cape of Good Hope, entered the China Sea, came again around the Cape of Good Hope, and by way of Brazil and the Azores to Cherbourg in France. During the cruise she destroyed over sixty merchantmen. At Cherbourg the Alabama was found by the United States cruiser Kearsarge, and one Sunday morning in June, 1864, the two met in battle off the coast of France, and the Alabama was sunk. [4]

OPERATIONS ALONG THE COAST.—Besides blockading the coast, the Union navy captured or aided in capturing forts, cities, and water ways. The forts at the entrance to Pamlico Sound and Port Royal were captured in 1861. Control of the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle [5] sounds was secured in 1862 by the capture of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, Newbern, and Fort Macon (map, p. 369). In 1863 Fort Sumter was battered down in a naval attack on Charleston. In 1864 Farragut led his fleet into Mobile Bay (in southern Alabama), destroyed the Confederate fleet, captured the forts at the entrance to the bay, and thus cut the city of Mobile off from the sea. In 1865 Fort Fisher, which guarded the entrance to Cape Fear River, on which was Wilmington, fell before a combined attack by land and naval forces.

ON THE INLAND WATERS.—On the great water ways of the West the notable deeds of the navy were the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee by Foote's flotilla (p. 358), the capture of New Orleans by Farragut (p. 361), and the run of Porter's fleet past the batteries at Vicksburg (p. 368).

[Illustration: ONE OF PORTER'S GUNBOATS PASSING VICKSBURG.]

THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC .—But the most famous of all the naval engagements was that of the Monitor and the Merrimac in 1862. When the war opened, there were at the navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia, a quantity of guns, stores, supplies, and eleven vessels. The officer in command, fearing that they would fall into Confederate hands, set fire to the houses, shops, and vessels, and abandoned the place. One of the vessels which was burned to the water's edge and sunk was the steam frigate Merrimac. Finding her hull below the water line unhurt, the Confederates raised the Merrimac, turned her into an ironclad ram, renamed her Virginia, and sent her forth to destroy a squadron of United States vessels at anchor in Hampton Roads (at the mouth of the James River).

[Illustration: MERRIMAC AND MONITOR.]

Steaming across the roads one day in March, 1862, the Merrimac rammed and sank the Cumberland, [6] forced the Congress to surrender, and set her on fire. This done, the Merrimac withdrew, intending to resume the work of destruction on the morrow; for her iron armor had proved to be ample protection against the guns of the Union ships. But the next morning, as she came near the Minnesota, the strangest-looking craft afloat came forth to meet her. Its deck was almost level with the water, and was plated with sheets of iron. In the center of the deck was an iron- plated cylinder which could be revolved by machinery, and in this were two large guns. This was the Monitor [7] which had arrived in the Roads the night before, and now came out from behind the Minnesota to fight the Merrimac. During four hours the battle raged with apparently no result; then the Merrimac withdrew and the Monitor took her place beside the Minnesota. [8] This battle marks the doom of wooden naval vessels; all the nations of the world were forced to build their navies anew.

FINANCES OF THE WAR.—Four years of war on land and sea cost the people of the North an immense sum of money. To obtain the money Congress began (1861) by raising the tariff on imported articles; by taxing all incomes of more than $800 a year; and by levying a direct tax, which was apportioned among the states according to their population. [9] But the money from these sources was not sufficient, and (1862) an internal revenue tax was resorted to, and collected by stamp duties. [10] Even this tax did not yield enough money, and the government was forced to borrow on the credit of the United States. Bonds were issued, [11] and then United States notes, called "greenbacks," were put in circulation and made legal tender; that is, everybody had to take them in payment of debts. [12]

MONEY IN WAR TIME.—After the government began to issue paper money, the banks suspended specie payment, and all gold and silver coins, including the 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces, disappeared from circulation. The people were then without small change, and for a time postage stamps and "token" pieces of brass and copper were used instead. In March, 1863, however, Congress authorized the Issue of $50,000,000 in paper fractional currency. [13] Both the greenbacks and the fractional currency were merely promises to pay money. As the government did not pay on demand, coin commanded a premium; that is, $100 in gold or silver could be exchanged in the market (down till 1879) for more than $100 in paper money.

NATIONAL BANKS.—Besides the paper money issued by the government there were in circulation several thousand different kinds of state bank notes. Some had no value, some a little value, and others were good for the sums (in greenbacks) expressed on their faces. In order to replace these notes by a sound currency having the same value everywhere, Congress (1863) established the national banking system. Legally organized banking associations were to purchase United States bonds and deposit them with the government. Each bank so doing was then entitled to issue national bank notes to the value of ninety per cent [14] of the bonds it had deposited. Many banks accepted these terms; but it was not till (1865) after Congress taxed the notes of state banks that those notes were driven out of circulation.

COST OF THE WAR.—Just what the war cost can never be fully determined. Hundreds of thousands of men left occupations of all sorts and joined the armies. What they might have made had they stayed at home was what they lost by going to the front. Every loyal state, city, and county, and almost every town and village, incurred a war debt. The national government during the war spent for war purposes $3,660,000,000. To this must be added the value of our merchant ships destroyed by Confederate cruisers; the losses in the South; and many hundred millions paid in pensions to soldiers and their widows.

The loss in the cities and towns burned or injured by siege and the other operations of war, and the loss caused by the ruin of trade and commerce and the destruction of railroads, farms, plantations, crops, and private property, can not be fully estimated, but it was very great.

The most awful cost was the loss of life. On the Union side more than 360,000 men were killed, or died of wounds or of disease. On the Confederate side the number was nearly if not quite as large, so that some 700,000 men perished in the war. Many were young men with every prospect of a long life before them, and their early death deprived their country of the benefit of their labor.

DISTRESS IN THE SOUTH.—In the North the people suffered little if any real hardship. In the South, after the blockade became effective, the people suffered privations. Not merely luxuries were given up, but the necessaries of life became scarce. Thrown on their own resources, the people resorted to all manner of makeshifts. To get brine from which salt could be obtained by evaporation, the earthen floors of smokehouses, saturated by the dripping of bacon, were dug up and washed, and barrels in which salt pork had been packed were soaked in water. Tea and coffee ceased to be used, and dried blackberry, currant, and raspberry leaves were used instead. Rye, wheat, chicory, chestnuts roasted and ground, did duty for coffee. The spinning wheel came again into use, and homespun clothing, dyed with the extract of black-walnut bark, or with wild indigo, was generally worn. As articles were scarce, prices rose, and then went higher and higher as the Confederate money depreciated, like the old Continental money in Revolutionary times. In 1864 Mrs. Jefferson Davis states that in Richmond a turkey cost $60, a barrel of flour $300, and a pair of shoes $150. No little suffering was caused for want of medicines, [15] woolen goods, blankets, [16] shoes, paper, [17] and in some of the cities even bread became scarce. [18] To get food for the army the Confederate Congress (1863) authorized the seizure of supplies for the troops and payment at fixed prices which were far below the market rates. [19]

Some men made fortunes by blockade running, smuggling from the North, and speculation in stocks. Dwellers on the great plantations, remote from the operations of the contending armies, suffered not from want of food; but the great body of the people had much to endure.

SUMMARY

1. The operations of the navy comprised (1) the blockade of the coast of the Confederate States, (2) the capture of seaports, (3) the pursuit and capture of Confederate cruisers, and (4) aiding the army on the western rivers.

2. A notable feature in the naval war was the use of ironclad vessels. These put an end to the wooden naval vessels, and revolutionized the navies of the world.

3. The cost of the war in human life, money, and property destroyed was immense, and can be stated only approximately.

4. In the South, as the war progressed, the hardships endured by the mass of the people caused much suffering.

[Illustration: LOADING A NAVAL CANNON IN THE CIVIL WAR. Contemporary drawing.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The first Confederate privateer to get to sea was the Savannah. She took one prize and was captured. Another, the Beauregard, was taken after a short cruise. A third, the Petrel, mistook the frigate St. Lawrence for a merchantman and attempted to take her, but was sunk by a broadside. After a year the blockade stopped privateering.

[2] Captain Wilkes was congratulated by the Secretary of the Navy, thanked by the House of Representatives, and given a grand banquet in Boston; and the whole country was jubilant. The British minister at Washington was directed to demand the liberation of the prisoners and "a suitable apology for the aggression," and if not answered in seven days, or if unfavorably answered, was to return to London at once.

[3] Early in the war an agent was sent to Great Britain by the Confederate navy department to procure vessels to be used as commerce destroyers. The Florida and Alabama were built at Liverpool and sent to sea unarmed. Their guns and ammunition were sent in vessels from another British port. The Shenandoah was purchased at London (her name was then the Sea King) and was met at Madeira by a tender from Liverpool with men and guns. On her way to Australia, the Shenandoah destroyed seven of our merchantmen. She then went to Bering Sea and in one week captured twenty- five whalers, most of which she destroyed. This was in June, 1865, after the war was over. In August a British ship captain informed the commander of the Shenandoah that the Confederacy no longer existed. The Shenandoah was then taken to Liverpool and delivered to the British government, which turned her over to the United States.

[4] Read Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 600-614.

[5] In 1864 a Confederate ironclad ram, the Albemarle, appeared on the waters of Albemarle Sound. As no Union war ship could harm her, Commander W. B. Gushing planned an expedition to destroy her by a torpedo. On the night of October 27, with fourteen companions in a steam launch, he made his way to the ram, blew her up with the torpedo, and with one other man escaped. His adventures on the way back to the fleet read like fiction, and are told by himself in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 634-640.

[6] The hole made in the Cumberland by the Merrimac was "large enough for a man to enter." Through this the water poured in so rapidly that the sick, wounded, and many who were not disabled were carried down with the ship. After she sank, the flag at the masthead still waved above the water. Read Longfellow's poem The Cumberland.

[7] The Monitor was designed by John Ericsson, who was born in Sweden in 1803. After serving as an engineer in the Swedish army, he went to England; and then came to our country in 1839. He was the inventor of the first practical screw propeller for steamboats, and by his invention of the revolving turret for war vessels he completely changed naval architecture. His name is connected with many great inventions. He died in 1889.

[8] When the Confederates evacuated Norfolk some months later, the Merrimac was blown up. The Monitor, in December, 1862, went down in a storm at sea.

[9] As the right of a State to secede was not acknowledged, this direct tax of $20,000,000 was apportioned among the Confederate as well as among the Union states. The Confederate states, of course, did not pay their share.

[10] Deeds, mortgages, bills of lading, bank checks, patent medicines, wines, liquors, tobacco, proprietary articles, and many other things were taxed. Between 1862 and 1865 about $780,000,000 was raised in this way.

[11] Between July 1, 1861, and August 31, 1865, bonds to the amount of $1,109,000,000 were issued and sold.

[12] The Legal Tender Act, which authorized the issue of greenbacks, was enacted in 1862, and two years later $449,000,000 were in circulation. The greenbacks could not be used to pay duties on imports or interest on the public debt, which were payable in specie.

[13] This paper fractional currency consisted of small paper bills in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25, and 50 cents. Read the account in Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. V, pp. 191-196.

[14] In 1902 changed to one hundred per cent.

[15] When Sherman was in command at Memphis, a funeral procession was allowed to pass beyond the Union lines. The coffin, however, was full of medicines for the Confederate army.

[16] Blankets were sometimes made of cow hair, or long moss from the seaboard, and even carpets were cut up and sent as blankets to the army.

[17] The newspapers of the time give evidence of the scarcity of paper. Some are printed on half sheets, a few on brown paper, and some on note paper.

[18] Riots of women, prompted by the high prices of food, occurred in Atlanta, Mobile, Richmond, and other places.

[19] Read "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South," in the Century Magazine, October, 1889; Rhodes's History of the U. S., Vol. V, pp. 348-384.

CHAPTER XXXI

RECONSTRUCTION

THREE ISSUES.—After the collapse of the Confederacy, our countrymen were called on to meet three issues arising directly from the war:—

1. The first was, What shall be done to destroy the institution of slavery? [1]

2. The second was, What shall be done with the late Confederate states? [2]

3. The third had to do with the national debt and the currency.

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.—When the war ended, slavery had been abolished in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia, by gradual or immediate abolition acts, and in Tennessee by a special emancipation act. In order that it might be done away with everywhere Congress (in January, 1865) sent out to the states a Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, declaring slavery abolished throughout the United States. In December, 1865, three fourths of the states having ratified, it became part of the Constitution, and slavery was no more.

RECONSTRUCTION.—After the death of Lincoln, the work of reconstruction was taken up by his successor, Johnson. [3] He recognized the governments established by loyal persons in Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, and Louisiana. For the other states he appointed provisional governors and authorized conventions to be called. These conventions repudiated the Confederate debt, repealed the ordinances of secession, and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment.

This done, Johnson considered these states as reconstructed and entitled to send senators and representatives to Congress. But Congress thought otherwise and would not admit their senators and representatives. Johnson then denied the right of Congress to legislate for the states not represented in Congress. He vetoed many bills which chiefly affected the South, and in the summer of 1866 made speeches denouncing Congress for its action.

THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.—One measure which President Johnson would have vetoed if he could, was a Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which Congress proposed in 1866. Ten of the former Confederate states rejected it, as did also four of the Union states. Congress, therefore, in March, 1867, passed over the veto a Reconstruction Act setting forth what the states would have to do to get back into the Union. One condition was that they must ratify the Fourteenth Amendment; when they had done so, and when the amendment had become a part of the Constitution, they were to be readmitted.

SOUTHERN STATES READMITTED.—Six states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas—submitted, and the amendment having become a part of the Constitution, they were (1868) declared again in the Union. Tennessee had been readmitted in 1866. Virginia, Mississippi and Texas were not readmitted till 1870, and Georgia not till 1871.

THE DEBT AND THE CURRENCY.—The financial question to be settled included two parts: What shall be done with the bonds (p. 381)? and What shall be done with the paper money? As to the first, it was decided to pay the bonds as fast as possible, [4] and by 1873 some $500,000,000 were paid. As to the second, it was at first decided to cancel (instead of reissuing) the greenbacks as they came into the treasury in payment of taxes and other debts to the government. But after the greenbacks in circulation had been thus reduced (from $449,000,000) to $356,000,000, Congress ordered that their cancellation should stop.

JOHNSON IMPEACHED.—The President meantime had been impeached. In March, 1867, Congress passed (over Johnson's veto) the Tenure of Office Act, depriving him of power to remove certain officials. He might suspend them till the Senate examined into the cause of suspension. If it approved, the officer was removed. If it disapproved, he was reinstated. [5]

Johnson soon disobeyed the law. In August, 1867, he asked Secretary-of-War Stanton to resign, and when Stanton refused, suspended him. The Senate disapproved and reinstated Stanton. But Johnson then removed him and appointed another man in his place. For this act, and for his speeches against Congress, the House impeached the President, and the Senate tried him, for "high crimes and misdemeanors." He was not found guilty. [6]

[Illustration: REPUBLICAN CARTOON OF 1868. "Blood will tell: The great race for the presidential sweepstakes, between the Western War Horse U. S. Grant and the Manhattan Donkey."]

GRANT ELECTED PRESIDENT, 1868.—In the midst of Johnson's quarrel with Congress the time came to elect his successor. The Democratic party nominated Horatio Seymour. The Republicans chose Ulysses S. Grant and elected him.

Grant's first term is memorable because of the adoption of the Fifteenth
Amendment; the restoration to the Union of the last four of the former
Confederate states, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas; the
disorder in the South; and the character of our foreign relations.

THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.—Encouraged by their success at the polls, the Republicans went on with the work of reconstruction, and (in February, 1869) Congress sent out the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

By the Fourteenth Amendment the states were left (as before) to settle for themselves who should and who should not vote. But if any state denied or in any way abridged the right of any portion of its male citizens over twenty-one years old to vote, Congress was to reduce the number of representatives from that state in Congress in the same proportion. But now by the Fifteenth Amendment each state was forbidden to deprive any man of the right to vote because of his "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." In March, 1870, the amendment went into force, having been ratified by a sufficient number of states.

CARPETBAG RULE.—President Grant began his administration in troubled times. The Reconstruction Act had secured the negro the right to vote. Many Southern states were thereby given over to negro rule. Seeing this, a swarm of Northern politicians called "carpetbaggers" went south, made themselves political leaders of the ignorant freedmen, and plundered and misgoverned the states. In this they were aided by a few Southerners who supported the negro cause and were called "scalawags." But most of the Southern whites were determined to stop the misgovernment; and, banded together in secret societies, called by such names as Knights of the White Camelia, and the Ku-Klux-Klan, they terrorized the negroes and kept them from voting. [7]

FORCE ACT.—Such intimidation was in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress therefore enacted the "Ku-Klux Act," or Force Act (1871), which prescribed fine and imprisonment for any one convicted of hindering or attempting to hinder a negro from voting, or his vote when cast from being counted.

RISE OF THE LIBERAL REPUBLICANS.—The troubles which followed the enforcement of this act led many to think that the government had gone too far, and a more liberal treatment of the South was demanded. Many complained that the civil service of the government was used to reward party workers, and that fitness for office was not duly considered. There was opposition to the high tariff. These and other causes now split the Republican party in the West and led to the formation of the Liberal Republican party.

[Illustration: CARTOON OF 1862. "Say, Missus [Mexico], me and these other gents 'ave come to nurse you a bit." [8]]

FOREIGN RELATIONS.—Our foreign relations since the close of the Civil War present many matters of importance. In 1867 Alaska [9] was purchased from Russia for $7,200,000. At the opening of the war France sent troops to Mexico, overthrew the government, and set up an empire with Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, as emperor. This was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine (p. 282). When the war was over, therefore, troops were sent to the Rio Grande, and a demand was made on France to recall her troops. The French army was withdrawn, and Maximilian was captured by the Mexicans and shot. These things happened while Johnson was President.

SANTO DOMINGO.—In 1869 Grant negotiated a treaty for the annexation of the negro republic of Santo Domingo, and urged the Senate to ratify it. When the Senate failed to do so, he made a second appeal, with a like result.

ALABAMA CLAIMS.—In 1871 the treaty of Washington was signed, by which several outstanding subjects of dispute with Great Britain were submitted to arbitration. (1) Chief of these were the Alabama claims for damage to the property of our citizens by the Confederate cruisers built or purchased in Great Britain. [10] The five [11] arbitrators met at Geneva in 1872 and awarded us $15,500,000 in gold as indemnity. (2) A dispute over the northeastern fisheries [12] was referred to a commission which met at Halifax and awarded Great Britain $5,500,000. (3) The same treaty provided that a dispute over a part of the northwest boundary should be submitted to the emperor of Germany as arbitrator. He decided in favor of our claim, thus confirming our possession of the small San Juan group of islands, in the channel between Vancouver and the mainland.

CUBA.—In 1868 the people of Cuba rebelled against Spain, proclaimed a republic, and began a war which lasted nearly ten years. American ships were seized, our citizens arrested; American property in Cuba was destroyed or confiscated; and our ports were used to fit out filibusters to aid the Cubans. Because of these things and the sympathy felt in our country for the Cubans, Grant made offers of mediation, which Spain declined. As the war continued, the question of giving the Cubans rights of belligerents, and recognizing their independence, was urged on Congress.

While these issues were undecided, a vessel called the Virginius, flying our flag, was seized by Spain as a filibuster, and fifty-three of her passengers and crew were put to death (1873). War seemed likely to follow; but Spain released the ship and survivors, and later paid $80,000 to the families of the murdered men.

SUMMARY

1. The end of the Civil War brought up several issues for settlement.

2. Out of the negro problem came the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the Constitution.

3. Out of the issue of readmitting the Confederate states into the Union grew a serious quarrel with President Johnson.

4. Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over Johnson's veto (1867), and by 1868 seven states were back in the Union.

5. Johnson's intemperate speeches and his violation of an act of Congress led to his impeachment and trial. He was not convicted.

6. Johnson was succeeded by Grant, in whose administration the remaining Southern states were readmitted to the Union; but the condition of the South, under carpetbag government, became worse than ever, and led to the passage of the Force Act.

7. Our foreign relations after the end of the war are memorable for the purchase of Alaska, the withdrawal of the French from Mexico, the treaty with Great Britain for the settlement of several old issues, the attempt of Grant to purchase Santo Domingo, and the Virginius affair with Spain.

FOOTNOTES

[1] A closely related question was, What shall be done for the negroes set free by the Emancipation Proclamation? During the war, as the Union armies occupied more and more of Confederate territory, the number of freedmen within the lines grew to hundreds of thousands. Many were enlisted as soldiers, others were settled on abandoned or confiscated lands, and societies were organized to aid them. In 1865, however, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to care for them. Tracts of confiscated land were set apart to be granted in forty-acre plots, and the bureau was to find the negroes work, establish schools for them, and protect them from injustice.

[2] When the eleven Southern states passed their ordinances of secession, they claimed to be out of the Union. As to this there were in the North three different views. (1) Lincoln held that no state could secede; that the people of the seceding states were insurgents or persons engaged in rebellion; that when the rebellion was crushed in any state, loyal persons could again elect senators and representatives, and thus resume their old relations to the Union. (2) Others held that these states had ceased to exist; that nothing but their territory remained, and that Congress could do what it pleased with this territory. (3) Between these extremes were most of the Republican leaders, who held that these states had lost their rights under the Constitution, and that only Congress could restore them to the Union.

[3] Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina in 1808. He never went to school, and when ten years old was apprenticed to a tailor. When eighteen, he went to Tennessee, where he married and was taught to read and write by his wife. He was a man of ability, was three years alderman and three years mayor of Greenville, was three times elected a member of the legislature, six times a member of Congress, and twice governor of Tennessee. When the war opened, he was a Democratic senator from Tennessee, and stoutly opposed secession. In 1862 Lincoln made him military governor of Tennessee. In 1875 he was again elected United States senator, but died the same year.

[4] Some of these bonds (issued after March, 1863) contained the provision that they should be paid "in coin." But others (issued in 1862) merely provided that the interest should be paid in coin. Now, greenbacks were legal tender for all debts except duties on imports and interest on the bonds. A demand was therefore made that the early bonds should be paid in greenbacks; also that all government bonds (which had been exempted from taxation) should be taxed like other property. This idea was so popular in Ohio that it was called the "Ohio idea," and its supporters were nicknamed "Greenbackers." To put an end to this question Congress (1869) provided that all bonds should be paid in coin.

[5] This Tenure of Office Act was afterward repealed (partly in 1869, and partly in 1887).

[6] There have been eight cases of impeachment of officers of the United States. The House begins by sending a committee to the Senate to impeach, or accuse, the officer in question. The Senate then organizes itself as a court with the Vice President as the presiding officer, and fixes the time for trial. The House presents articles of impeachment, or specific charges of misconduct, and appoints a committee to take charge of its side of the case. The accused is represented by lawyers, witnesses are examined, arguments made, and the decision rendered by vote of the senators. When a President is impeached, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presides in place of the Vice President.

[7] Read A Fool's Errand, by A. W. Tourgée, and Red Rock, by Thomas Nelson Page—two interesting novels describing life in the South during this period.

[8] When France first interfered in Mexican affairs, it was in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain, on the pretext of aiding Mexico to provide for her debts to these powers. But when France proceeded to overthrow the Mexican government, Great Britain and Spain withdrew.

[9] Soon after the purchase a few small Alaskan islands were leased to a fur company for twenty years, and during that time nearly $7,000,000 was paid into the United States treasury as rental and royalty. Besides seals and fish, much gold has been obtained in Alaska.

[10] The cruisers were the Alabama, Sumter, Shenandoah, Florida, and others (p. 378). We claimed that Great Britain had not done her duty as a neutral; that she ought to have prevented their building, arming, or equipping in her ports and sailing to destroy the commerce of a friendly nation, and that, not having done so, she was responsible for the damage they did. We claimed damages for (1) private losses by destruction of ships and cargoes; (2) high rates of insurance paid by citizens; (3) cost of pursuing the cruisers; (4) transfer of American merchant ships to the British flag; (5) prolongation of the war because of recognition of the Confederate States as belligerents, and the resulting cost to us. Great Britain denied that 2, 3, 4, and 5 were subject to arbitration, and it looked for a while as if the arbitration would come to naught. The tribunal decided against 2, 4, and 5 on principles of international law, and made no award for 3.

[11] One was appointed by the President, one by Great Britain, one by the King of Italy, one by the President of the Swiss Confederation, and one by the Emperor of Brazil. In 1794-1904 there were fifty-seven cases submitted to arbitration, of which twenty were with Great Britain.

[12] The question was, whether the privilege granted citizens of the United States to catch fish in the harbors, bays, creeks, and shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island was more valuable than the privilege granted British subjects to catch fish in harbors, bays, creeks, and off the coast of the United States north of 39°. The commission decided that it was.

CHAPTER XXXII

GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1860 TO 1880

THE WEST.—In 1860 the great West bore little resemblance to its present appearance. The only states wholly or partly west of the Mississippi River were Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas. Louisiana, Texas, California, and Oregon. Kansas territory extended from Missouri to the Rocky Mountains. Nebraska territory included the region from Kansas to the British possessions, and from Minnesota and Iowa to the Rocky Mountains. New Mexico territory stretched from Texas to California, Utah territory from the Rocky Mountains to California, and Washington territory from the mountains to the Pacific.

[Illustration: SCENE IN A MINING TOWN. Deadwood, Dakota, in the '70's.]

GOLD AND SILVER MINING.—One decade, however, completely changed the West. In 1858 gold was discovered on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, near Pikes Peak; gold hunters rushed thither, Denver was founded, and in 1861 Colorado was made a territory. Kansas, reduced to its present limits, was admitted as a state the same year, and the northern part of Nebraska territory was cut off and called Dakota territory (map, p. 352).

In 1859 silver was discovered on Mount Davidson (then in western Utah), and population poured thither. Virginia City sprang into existence, and in 1861 Nevada was made a territory and in 1864, with enlarged boundaries, was admitted into the Union as a state.

[Illustration: THE WEST.]

Precious metals were found in 1862 in what was then eastern Washington; the old Fort Boise of the Hudson's Bay Company became a thriving town, other settlements were made, and in 1863 the territory of Idaho was organized. In the same year Arizona was cut off from New Mexico.

Hardly had this been done when gold was found on the Jefferson fork of the Missouri River. Bannack City, Virginia City, and Helena were founded, and in 1864 Montana was made a territory. [1]

In 1867 Nebraska became a state, and the next year Wyoming territory was formed.

OVERLAND TRAILS.—When Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, no railroad crossed the plains. The horse, the stagecoach, the pack train, the prairie schooner, [2] were the means of transportation, and but few routes of travel were well defined. The Great Salt Lake and California trail, starting in Kansas, followed the north branch of the Platte River to the mountains, crossed the South Pass, and went on by way of Salt Lake City to Sacramento. Over this line, once each week, a four-horse Concord coach [3] started from each end of the route.

From Independence in Missouri another line of coaches carried the mail over the old Santa Fe trail to New Mexico.

The great Western mail route began at St. Louis, went across Missouri and
Arkansas, curved southward to El Paso in Texas, and then by way of the
Gila River to Los Angeles and San Francisco; the distance of 2729 miles
was covered in twenty-four days. [4]

[Illustration: OVERLAND MAIL COACH STARTING FROM SAN FRANCISCO FOR THE
EAST IN 1858. Contemporary drawing.]

PONY EXPRESS.—This was too slow for business men, and in 1860 the stage company started the Pony Express to carry letters on horseback from St. Joseph to San Francisco. Mounted on a swift pony, the rider, a brave, cool-headed, picked man, would gallop at breakneck speed to the first relay station, jump on the back of another pony and speed away to the second, mount a fresh horse and be off for a third. At the third station he would find a fresh rider mounted, who, the moment the mail bags had been fastened to his horse, would ride off to cover his three stations in as short a time as possible. The riders left each end of the route twice a week or oftener. The total distance, about two thousand miles, was passed over in ten days. [5]

In the large cities of the East free delivery of letters by carriers was introduced (1863), the postal money order system was adopted (1864), and trials were made with postal cars in which the mail was sorted while en route.

THE TELEGRAPH.—Meanwhile Congress (in June, 1860) incorporated the Pacific Telegraph Company to build a line across the continent. By November the line reached Fort Kearny, where an operator was installed in a little sod hut. By October, 1861, the two lines, one building eastward from California, and the other westward from Omaha, reached Salt Lake City. The charge for a ten-word message from New York to Salt Lake City was 87.50.

When the telegraph line was finished, the work of the Pony Express ended, and all letters went by the overland stage line, whose coaches entered every large mining center, carrying passengers, express matter, and the mail. [6]

OVERLAND FREIGHT.—The discovery of gold in western Kansas, in 1858, and the founding of Denver, led to a great freight business across the plains. Flour, bacon, sugar, coffee, dry goods, hardware, furniture, clothing, came in immense quantities to Omaha, St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth, there to be hauled to the "diggings." Atchison became a trade center. There, in the spring of 1860, might have been seen hundreds of wagons, and tons of goods piled on the levee, and warehouses full of provisions, boots, shoes, and clothing. From it, day after day, went a score of prairie schooners drawn by horses, mules, or oxen. [7]

THE RAILROAD.—The idea of a railroad over the plains was, as we have seen, an old one; but at last, in 1862, Congress chartered two railroad companies to build across the public domain from the Missouri River to California. One, the Union Pacific, was to start at Omaha and build westward. The other, the Central Pacific, was to start in California and build eastward till the two met. Work was begun in November, 1865, and in May, 1869, the two lines were joined at Promontory Point, near Salt Lake City.

As the railroad progressed, the overland coaches plied between the ends of the two sections, their runs growing shorter and shorter till, when the road was finished, the overland stagecoach was discontinued.

THE HOMESTEAD LAW.—When the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were chartered, they were given immense land grants; [8] but in the same year (1862) the Homestead Law was enacted. Under the provisions of this law a farm of 80 or 160 acres in the public domain might be secured by any head of a family or person twenty-one years old who was a citizen of our country or had declared an intention to become such, provided he or she would live on the farm and cultivate it for five years. [9] Between 1863 and 1870, 103,000 entries for 12,000,000 acres were made. This showed that the people desired the land, and was one reason why no more should be given to corporations.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.—In 1864 Congress had chartered a railroad for the new Northwest, and had given the company an immense land grant. But building did not begin till 1870. All went well till 1873, when a great panic swept over the country and the road became bankrupt. It then extended from Duluth to Bismarck. Two years later the company was reorganized, and the road was finished in 1883. [10]

WHEAT FIELDS OF DAKOTA.—During the panic certain of the directors of the road bought great tracts of land from the company, paying for them with the railroad bonds. On some of these lands in the valley of the Red River of the North an attempt was made to raise wheat in 1876. It proved successful, and the next year a wave of emigration set strongly toward Dakota. In 1860 there were not 5000 people in Dakota; in 1870 there were but 14,000, mostly miners; in 1880 there were 135,000.

PRAIRIE HOMES.—These newcomers—homesteaders, as they were often called— broke up the prairie, planted wheat, raised sheep and cattle, and lived at first in a dugout, or hole dug in the side of a depression in the prairie. This was roofed (about the level of the prairie) with thick boards covered with sods. After a year or two in such a home the settler would build a sod house. The walls, two feet thick, were made of sods cut like great bricks from the prairie. The roof would be of boards covered with shingles or oftener with sods, and the walls inside would sometimes be whitewashed. Near watercourses a few settlers found enough trees to make log cabins.

[Illustration: LOG CABIN WITH SOD ROOF.]

THE RANCHES.—Stretching across the country from Montana and Dakota to Arizona lay the grass region, the great ranch country, where herds of cattle grazed and were driven to the railroads to be taken to market. In later years this became also the greatest sheep-raising and wool-producing region in the Union.

BUFFALOES AND INDIANS.—With the building of the railroads and the coming of the settlers the reckless slaughter of the buffalo and the crowding of the Indians began. [11] To-day the buffalo is as rare an animal in the West as in the East; and after many wars and treaties with the Indians, they now hold less than one hundredth of the land west of the Mississippi.

[Illustration: CUSTER'S FIGHT.]

MECHANICAL PROGRESS.—The period 1860 to 1880 was one of great mechanical and industrial progress. During this time dynamite and the barbed-wire fence were introduced; the compressed-air rock drill, the typewriter, the Westinghouse air brake, the Janney car coupler, the cable car, the trolley systems, the electric light, the search light, electric motors, the Bell telephone, the phonograph, the gas engine, and a host of other inventions and mechanical devices were invented. To satisfy the demands of trade and commerce, great works of engineering were undertaken, such as twenty years before could not have been attempted. The jetties constructed by James B. Eads in the South Pass at the mouth of the Mississippi, to force that river to keep open its own channel; the steel-arch railroad bridge built by Eads across the Mississippi at St. Louis; the Roebling suspension bridges over the Ohio at Cincinnati and over the East River at New York; and the successful laying of the Atlantic cable (1866) by Cyrus W. Field, are a few of the great mechanical triumphs of this period.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.—Industries once carried on in the household or in small factories were conducted on a large scale by great corporations. The machine for making tin cans made possible the canning industry. The self- binding harvester and reaper made possible the immense grain fields of the West. The production and refining of petroleum became an industry of great importance. The great flour mills of Minneapolis, the iron and steel mills of Pennsylvania, the packing houses of Chicago and Kansas City, and many other enterprises were the direct result of the use of machinery.

[Illustration: STEEL MILL.]

RISE OF GREAT CORPORATIONS.—Trades and occupations, industries of all sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and large corporations took the place of individuals and small companies. In place of many little railroads there were now trunk lines. [12] In place of many little telegraph companies, express companies, and oil companies there were now a few large ones.

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1880.]

IMMIGRATION.—This industrial development, in spite of machinery, could not have been so great were it not for the increase in population, wealth, the facilities of transportation, and the great number of workingmen. These were largely immigrants, who came by hundreds of thousands year after year. From about 90,000 in 1862, the number who came each year rose to more than 450,000 in 1873; and then fell to less than 150,000 in 1878. The population of the whole country in 1880 was 50,000,000, of whom more than 6,500,000 were of foreign birth.

SUMMARY

1. The discovery of gold and silver near the Rocky Mountains in 1858 and later brought to that region many thousand miners.

2. Their presence in that wild region made local government necessary, and by 1868 seven new territories were formed (Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming), and one of them (Nevada, 1864) was admitted into the Union as a state.

3. Means of communication with California and the far West were improved. First came the Pony Express, then the telegraph, and finally the railroad.

4. The construction of the railroad across the middle of the country was followed by the building of another near the northern border.

5. Railroad building, the Homestead Law, and the success of the Dakota wheat farms, led to the rapid development of the new Northwest.

6. Quite as noticeable is the mechanical and industrial progress of the country, the rise of great corporations, and the flood of immigrants that came to our shores each year.

FOOTNOTES

[1] For descriptions of the wild life in the new Northwest in the pioneer days read Langford's Vigilante Days and Ways.

[2] A large wagon with a white canvas top.

[3] A kind of heavy coach, so called because first manufactured at Concord, New Hampshire.

[4] When the war opened and Texas seceded, this route was abandoned, and after April, 1861, letters and passengers went from St. Joseph by way of Salt Lake City to California.

[5] All letters had to be written on the thinnest paper, and no more than twenty pounds' weight was allowed in each of the two pouches. The trail was infested with "road agents" (robbers), and roving bands of Indians were ever ready to murder and scalp; but in summer and winter, by day and night, over the plains and over the mountains, these brave men made their dangerous rides, carrying no arms save a revolver and a knife. Each letter had to be inclosed in a ten-cent stamped envelope and have on it in addition for each half ounce five one-dollar stamps of the Pony Express Company. The story of the Pony Express is told in Henry Inman's Great Salt Lake Trail, Chap. viii.

[6] As the government had no post offices in the mining camps, the stage company became the postmasters, delivered the letters, and charged twenty- five cents for each. Sometimes the owner of a little store in a remote mountain camp would act as postmaster, and charge a high price for sending letters to or bringing them from the nearest stage station. One such used a barrel for the letter box, and sent the mail once a month. A hole was cut in the head of the barrel, and beside it was posted a notice which read: "This is a Post Office. Shove a quarter through the hole with your letter. We have no use for stamps as I carry the mail."

[7] The lighter articles went in wagons drawn by four or six horses or mules, the heavier in great wagons drawn by six and eight yoke of oxen, which made the trip to Denver in five weeks. The cost of provisions brought in this way was very great. Thus in 1865, in Helena, Montana, flour sold for $85 a sack of one hundred pounds. Potatoes cost fifty cents in gold a pound, and coal oil, at Virginia City, $10 in gold a gallon. Board and lodgings rose in proportion, and it was not uncommon to see posted in the boarding houses such notices as this: "Board with bread at meals, $32; board without bread, $22." Read Hough's The Way to the West, pp. 200-221.

[8] Every other section in a strip of land twenty miles wide along the entire length of the railroad. The government had always been liberal in granting land to aid in the construction of roads, canals, and railroads, and between 1827 and 1860 had given away for such purposes 215,000,000 acres. Had these acres been in one great tract it would have been seven times as large as Pennsylvania. In 1862 Congress also added to its grants for educational purposes (p. 301) by giving to each state from 90,000 to 990,000 acres of public land in aid of a college for teaching agriculture and the mechanical arts.

[9] For conditions on which land could be secured before this, see p. 302.

[10] The history of the railroads across the continent is told in Cy. Warman's Story of the Railroad; for the Northern Pacific, read pp. 179-196.

[11] White men eager for land invaded the Indian reservations; acts of violence were frequent, and shameful frauds were perpetrated by the agents of the government. The Indians, in retaliation, killed settlers and ran off horses, mules, and cattle. There were uprisings of the Sioux in Minnesota (1862) and in Montana (1866); but the worst offenders were the Apaches of Arizona, and against them General Crook waged war in 1872. Toward the close of 1872 the Modocs left their reservation in Oregon, took refuge in the Lava Beds in northern California, and defied the troops sent to drive them back. General Canby and several others were treacherously murdered at a conference (1873), and a war of several months' duration followed before the Modocs were forced to surrender. In 1874 the Cheyennes (she-enz'), enraged at the slaughter of the buffaloes by the whites, made cattle raids, and more fighting ensued. An attempt to remove the Sioux to a new reservation led to yet another war in 1876, in which Lieutenant- Colonel Custer and his force of 262 men were massacred in Montana. Read Longfellow's poem The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face.

[12] Thus (1869) the New York Central (from Albany to Buffalo) and the Hudson River (from New York to Albany) were combined and formed one railroad under one management from New York to Buffalo.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A QUARTER CENTURY OF STRUGGLE OVER INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS, 1872 TO 1897

THE NATIONAL LABOR PARTY.—The changed industrial conditions of the period 1860-80 affected politics, and after 1868 the questions which divided parties became more and more industrial and financial. The rise of the national labor party and its demands shows this very strongly. Ever since 1829 the workingman had been in politics in some of the states, and had secured many reforms. But no national labor congress was held till 1865, after which like congresses were held each year till 1870, when a national convention was called to form a "National Labor-Reform Party."

The demands of the party thus formed (1872) were for taxation of government bonds (p. 387); repeal of the national banking system (p. 382); an eight-hour working day; exclusion of the Chinese; [1] and no land grants to corporations (p. 398). At every presidential election since this time, nominations have been made by one or more labor parties.

THE PROHIBITION PARTY.—Another party which first nominated presidential candidates in 1872 was that of the Prohibitionists. After much agitation of temperance reform, [2] efforts were made to prohibit the sale of liquor entirely, and between 1851 and 1855 eight states adopted prohibitory laws. Then the movement subsided for a while, but in 1869 it began again and in that year the National Prohibition Reform party was founded. In 1872 its platform called for the suppression of the sale of intoxicating liquor, and for a long series of other reforms. Every four years since that time the Prohibition party has named its candidates.

GRANT REFLECTED.—In 1872 no great importance was attached to either of these parties (the Labor and the Prohibition). The contest lay between General Grant, the Republican candidate for President, and Horace Greeley, [3] the Liberal Republican nominee (p. 390), who was supported also by most of the Democrats. Grant was elected by a large majority.

THE PANIC OF 1873.—Scarcely had Grant been reinaugurated when a serious panic swept over the country. The period since the war had been one of great prosperity, wild speculation, and extraordinary industrial development. Since 1869 some 24,000 miles of railroad had been built. But in the midst of all this prosperity, the city of Chicago was almost destroyed by fire (1871), [4] and the next year a large part of the city of Boston was burned. This led to a demand for money to rebuild them. Many speculative enterprises failed. The railroads that were being built ahead of population, in order to open up new lands, could not sell their bonds, and when a banker who was backing one of the railroads failed, the panic started. Thousands of business men failed, and the wages of workingmen were cut down.

THE SPECIE PAYMENT ACT.—The cry was then raised for more money, and (in 1874) Congress attempted to increase, or "inflate," the amount of greenbacks in circulation from $356,000,000 to $400,000,000. Grant vetoed the bill. What shall be done with the currency? then became the question of the hour. Paper money was still circulating at less than its face value as measured in coin. To make it worth face value, Congress (1875) decided to resume specie payment; that is, the fractional currency was to be called in and redeemed in 10, 25, and 50 cent silver pieces; and after January 1, 1879, all greenbacks were to be redeemed in specie.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN 1876. [5]—This policy of resumption of specie payment did not please everybody. A Greenback party was formed, which called for the repeal of the Specie Payment Act and for the issue of more greenbacks. That the presidential election would be close was certain, and this certainty did much to lead the Democratic and Republican parties to take up some of the demands of the Prohibition, Liberal Republican, and Labor parties. Thus both the Democratic and Republican parties called for no more land grants to corporations, and for the exclusion of the Chinese.

[Illustration: MEMORIAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA.]

THE ELECTION OF 1876.—The Republican candidate for President was Rutherford B. Hayes; [6] the Democratic candidate was Samuel J. Tilden. The admission of Colorado in August, 1876, made thirty-eight states, casting 369 electoral votes. A candidate to be elected therefore needed at least 185 electoral votes. So close was the contest that the election of Hayes was claimed by exactly 185 votes. This number included the votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, in each of which a dispute was raging as to whether Republican or Democratic electors were chosen. Both sets claimed to have been elected, and both met and voted.

ELECTORAL COMMISSION.—The electoral votes of the states are counted in the presence of the House and Senate. The question then became, Which of these duplicate sets shall Congress count? To determine the question an electoral commission of fifteen members was created. [7] It decided that the votes of the Republican electors In the four states should be counted, and Hayes was therefore declared elected. [8]

END OF CARPETBAG GOVERNMENTS.—The inauguration of Hayes was followed by the recall of United States troops from the South, and the downfall of carpetbag governments in South Carolina and Louisiana. During the first half of Hayes's term the. Democrats had control of the House of Representatives, and during the second half, of the Senate as well. As a result, proposed partisan measures either failed to pass Congress, or were vetoed by the President.

THE YEAR 1877 was one of great business depression. A strike on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the summer of 1877 spread to other railroads and became almost an industrial insurrection. Traffic was stopped, millions of dollars' worth of freight cars, machine shops, and other property was destroyed, and in the battles fought around Pittsburg many lives were lost. [9] Failures were numerous; in 1878 more business men failed than in the panic year 1873.

SILVER COINAGE.—For much of this business depression the financial policy of the government was blamed, and when Congress assembled in 1877, this policy was at once attacked. An attempt to repeal the act for resuming specie payment (p. 408) was made, but failed. [10] Another measure, however, concerning silver coinage, was more successful.

Congress had dropped (1873) the silver dollar from the list of coins to be made at the mint. [11] Soon afterward the silver mines of Nevada began to yield astonishingly, and the price of silver fell. This led to a demand (by inflationists and silver-producers) that the silver dollar should again be coined; and in 1878 Congress passed (over Hayes's veto) the Bland-Allison Act, which required the Secretary of the Treasury to buy not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 worth of silver bullion each month and coin it into dollars. [12]

"THE CHINESE MUST GO."—Another act vetoed by Hayes was intended to stop the coming of Chinese to our country. In 1877 an anti-Chinese movement was begun in San Francisco by the workingmen led by Dennis Kearney. Open-air meetings were held, and the demand for Chinese exclusion was urged so vigorously that Congress (1879) passed an act restricting Chinese immigration. Hayes vetoed this as violating our treaty with China, but (1880) negotiated a new treaty which provided that Congress might regulate the immigration of Chinese laborers.

THE ELECTION OF 1880; DEATH OF GARFIELD.—In 1880 there were again several
parties, but the contest was between the Republicans with James A.
Garfield [13] and Chester A. Arthur as candidates for President and Vice
President, and the Democrats with Winfield S. Hancock and William H.
English as leaders.

Garfield and Arthur were elected, and on March 4, 1881, were duly inaugurated. Four months later, as the President stood in a railway station in Washington, a disappointed office seeker shot him in the back. After his death (September 19, 1881) Chester A. Arthur became President. [14]

IMPORTANT LAWS, 1881-85.—All parties had called for anti-Chinese legislation. The long-desired act was accordingly passed by Congress, excluding the Chinese from our country for a period of twenty years. Arthur vetoed it as contrary to our treaty with China. An act "suspending" the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years was then passed and became law; similar acts have been passed from time to time since then.

The Republicans (and Prohibitionists) had demanded the suppression of polygamy in Utah and the neighboring territories. Another law (the Edmunds Act, 1882) was therefore enacted for this end. [15]

The murder of Garfield aroused a general demand for civil service reform. The Pendleton Act (1883) was therefore enacted to secure appointment to office on the ground of fitness, not party service. [16]

[Illustration: THE CRUISER BOSTON.]

THE NEW NAVY.—After the close of the Civil War our navy was suffered to fall into neglect and decay. The thirty-seven cruisers, all but four of which were of wood; the fourteen single-turreted monitors built during the war; the muzzle-loading guns, belonged to a past age. By 1881 this was fully realized and the foundation of a new and splendid navy was begun by the construction of three unarmored cruisers—the Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago. Once started, the new navy grew rapidly, and in the course of twelve years forty-seven vessels were afloat or on the stocks. [17]

NEW REFORMS DEMANDED.—Meantime the wonderful development of our country caused a demand for further reforms. The chief employers of labor were corporations and capitalists, many of whom abused the power their wealth gave them. They were accused of importing laborers under contract and thereby keeping wages down, of getting special privileges from legislatures, and of combining to fix prices to suit themselves. In the campaign of 1884, therefore, these issues came to the front, and demands were made for (1) legislation against the importation of contract labor, (2) regulation of interstate commerce, especially as carried on by railways, (3) government ownership of telegraphs and railways, (4) reduction of the hours of labor, (5) bureaus to collect and spread information as to labor.

[Illustration: GROVER CLEVELAND.]

THE ELECTION OF 1884.—The Republicans nominated James G. Blaine for President; the Democrats, Grover Cleveland. [18] The nomination of Blaine gave offense to many Republicans; they took the name of Independents and supported Cleveland, who was elected.

IMPORTANT LAWS, 1885-89. [19]—As the two great parties, Democratic and Republican, had each favored the passage of certain laws demanded by the labor parties, these reforms were now obtained.

1. An Anti-Contract-Labor Law (1885) forbade any person, company, or corporation to bring aliens into the United States under contract to perform labor or service.

2. An Interstate Commerce Act (1887) provided for a commission whose duty it is to see that all charges for the carriage of passengers or freight are reasonable and just, and that no unfair special rates are made for favored shippers.

3. A Bureau of Labor was established and put in charge of a commissioner whose duty it is to "diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with labor." Such bureaus or departments already existed in many of the states.

THE SURPLUS.—These old issues disposed of, the continued growth and prosperity of our country brought up new ones. For some time past the revenue of the government had so exceeded its expenses that on December 1, 1887, there was a surplus of $50,000,000 in the treasury. Six months later this had risen to $103,000,000.

[Illustration: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.]

Three plans were suggested for disposing of the surplus. Some thought it should be distributed among the states as in 1837. Some were for buying government bonds and so reducing the national debt. Others urged a reduction of the annual revenue by cutting down the tariff rates. The President in his message in 1887 asked for such a reduction, and in 1888 the House passed a new tariff bill which the Senate rejected.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.—In the campaign of 1888, therefore, the tariff issue came to the front. The Democrats renominated Grover Cleveland for President, and called for a tariff for revenue only, and for no more revenue than was needed to pay the cost of economical government. The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison [20] on a platform favoring a protective tariff, and elected him.

NEW STATES.—Both the great parties had called for the admission of new states. Just before the end of Cleveland's term, therefore, an enabling act was passed for North and South Dakota, Washington, and Montana, which were accordingly admitted to the Union a few months later (1889). Idaho and Wyoming were admitted the following year (1890), and Utah in 1896.

NEW LAWS OF 1890.—The administration of affairs having again passed to the Republican party, it enacted the McKinley Tariff Law, which slightly raised the average rate of duties; the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, forbidding combinations to restrain trade; and a new financial measure which also bore the name of Senator Sherman. The law (p. 409) requiring the purchase and coinage of at least $2,000,000 worth of silver bullion each month did not satisfy the silver men. They wanted a free-coinage law, giving any man the privilege of having his silver coined into dollars (p. 224). As they had a majority of the Senate, they passed a free-coinage bill, but the House rejected it. A conference followed, and the so-called Sherman Act was passed, increasing the amount of silver to be bought each month by the government. [21]

THE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION OF 1890.—The effect of the increased tariff rates, the Sherman Act, and large expenditures by Congress was at once apparent, and in the congressional election of 1890 the Republicans were beaten. The Democratic minority in the House of Representatives was turned into a great majority, and in both House and Senate appeared members of a new party called the Farmers' Alliance. [22]

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1892.—The success of the Alliance men in the election of 1890, and the conviction that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would further all their demands, led to a meeting of Alliance and Labor leaders in May, 1891, and the formation of "the People's Party of the United States of America." In 1892 this People's Party, or the Populists, as they were called, nominated James B. Weaver for President, cast a million votes, and secured the election of four senators and eleven representatives in Congress. The Republicans renominated Harrison for President. But the Democrats secured majorities in the House and the Senate, and elected Cleveland. [23]

THE PANIC OF 1893.—When Cleveland's second inauguration took place, March 4, 1893, our country had already entered a period of panic and business depression. Trade had fallen off. Money was hard to borrow. Foreigners who held our stocks and bonds sought to sell them, and a great amount of gold was drawn to Europe. So bad did business conditions become that the President called Congress to meet in special session in August to remedy matters.

The silver dollars coined by the government were issued and accepted by the government at their face value, and circulated on a par with gold, although the price of silver bullion had fallen so low that the metal in a silver dollar was worth less than seventy cents. Many people believed the business panic was due to fears that the government could not much longer keep the increasing volume of silver currency at par with gold. Therefore Congress repealed part of the Sherman Act of 1890, so as to stop the purchase of more silver.

THE WILSON TARIFF.—The business revival which the majority of Congress now expected, did not come. Failures continued; mills remained closed, gold continued to leave the country, and government receipts were $34,000,000 less than expenditures when the year ended. By the close of the autumn of 1893, hundreds of thousands of people were out of employment and many in want. In this condition of affairs Congress met in regular session (December, 1893). The Democrats were in control of both branches, and were pledged to revise the tariff. A bill was therefore passed, cutting down some of the tariff rates (the Wilson Act). [24]

Nobody expected that the revised tariff would yield enough money to meet the expenses of the government. One section of the law therefore provided that all yearly incomes above $4000 should be taxed two per cent. Though Congress had levied an income tax thirty years before, its right to do so was now denied by many, and the Supreme Court decided (1895) that the income tax was unconstitutional. [25]

AUSTRALIAN BALLOT.—One great reform which must not go unnoticed was the introduction of the Australian or secret ballot. The purpose of this system of voting, first used in Australia, is to enable the voter to prepare his ballot in a booth by himself and deposit it without any one knowing for whom he votes. The system was first used in our country in Massachusetts and in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1888. So successful was it that ten states adopted it the next year, and by 1894 it was in use in all but seven of the forty-four states.

NEGROES DISFRANCHISED.—Six of the seven were Southern states where negroes were numerous. After the fall of the carpetbag governments, illegal means were often used to keep negroes from the polls and prevent "negro domination" in these states. Later legal methods were tried instead: the payment of taxes, and sometimes such an educational qualification as the ability to read, were required of voters; but the laws were so framed as to exclude many negroes and few whites. Mississippi was the first state to amend her constitution for this purpose (1890), and nearly all the Southern states have followed her example. [26]

THE FREE COINAGE ISSUE.—Now that the treasury had ceased to buy silver, the demand for the free coinage of silver was renewed. The Republicans in their national platform, in 1896, declared against it, whereupon thirty- four delegates from the silver states (Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada) left the convention. The Democratic party declared for free coinage, [27] but many Democrats ("gold Democrats") thereupon formed a new party, called the National Democratic, and nominated candidates on a gold-standard platform. Both the great parties were thus split on the issue of free coinage of silver.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1896.—The Republican party nominated William McKinley [28] for President. The Democrats named William J. Bryan, and he was indorsed by the People's party and the National Silver party. [29] The campaign was most exciting. The country was flooded with books, pamphlets, handbills, setting forth both sides of the silver issue; Bryan and McKinley addressed immense crowds, and on election day 13,900,000 votes were cast. McKinley was elected.

THE DINGLEY TARIFF.—The excitement over silver was such that in the campaign the tariff question was little considered. But the Republicans were pledged to a revision of the tariff, and accordingly (July, 1897) the Dingley Bill passed Congress and was approved by the President. Thus in the course of seven years the change of administration from one party to the other had led to the passage of three tariff acts—the McKinley (1890), the Wilson (1894), and the Dingley (1897).

FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS.—It is now time to review our foreign relations during this period. Twice since 1890 they had brought us apparently to the verge of war.

THE CHILEAN INCIDENT.—In 1891, while the United States ship Baltimore was in the port of Valparaiso, Chile, some sailors went on shore, were attacked on the streets, and one was killed and several wounded. Chile offered no apology and no reparation to the injured, but instead sent an offensive note about the matter. Harrison, in a message to Congress (1892), plainly suggested war. But the offensive note was withdrawn, a proper apology was made, and the incident ended.

THE SEAL FISHERIES.—Great Britain and our country were long at variance over the question of ownership of seals in Bering Sea. Our purpose was to protect them from extermination by certain restrictions on seal fishing. To settle our rights in the matter, a court of arbitration was appointed and met in Paris in 1893. The decision was against us, but steps were taken to protect the seals from extermination. [30]

[Illustration: HAWAIIAN BOATS WITH OUTRIGGERS.]

HAWAII.—Just before Harrison retired from office a revolution in the Hawaiian Islands drove the queen from the throne. A provisional government was then established, commissioners were dispatched to Washington, and a treaty for the annexation of Hawaii to the United States was drawn up and sent to the Senate. President Cleveland recalled the treaty and sought to have the queen restored. But the Hawaiians in control resisted and in 1894 established a republic.

VENEZUELA.—For many years there was a dispute over the boundary line between British Guiana and Venezuela, and in 1895 it seemed likely to involve Venezuela in a war with Great Britain. Our government had tried to bring about a settlement by arbitration. Great Britain refused to arbitrate, and denied our right to interfere. President Cleveland insisted that under the Monroe Doctrine we had a right, and in December, 1895, asked Congress to authorize a commission to investigate the claims of Great Britain. This was done, and great excitement at once arose at home and in Great Britain. But Great Britain and Venezuela soon submitted the question to arbitration.

SUMMARY

1. The wonderful industrial growth of our country between 1860 and 1880 brought up for settlement grave industrial and financial questions.

2. The failure of the two great parties to take up these questions at once, caused the formation of many new parties, such as the National Labor, the Prohibition, the Liberal Republican, and the People's party.

3. Some of their demands were enacted into laws, as the silver coinage act, the exclusion of the Chinese, the anti-contract-labor and interstate commerce acts, the establishment of a national labor bureau, and the antitrust act.

4. In 1890-97 the tariff was three times revised by the McKinley, Wilson, and Dingley acts.

5. In the political world the most notable events were the contested election of 1876-77; the recall of United States troops from the South, and the fall of carpetbag governments; the assassination of Garfield; and the two defeats of the national Republican ticket (1884 and 1892).

6. In the financial world the chief events were the panics of 1873 and 1893, the resumption of specie payment (1879), and the free-silver issue.

7. In the world at large we had trouble with Chile, Hawaii, and Great Britain.

FOOTNOTES

[1] After the discovery of gold in California, Chinamen, called coolies, came to that state in considerable numbers. But they attracted little attention till 1852, when the governor complained that they were sent out by Chinese capitalists under contract, that the gold they dug was sent to China, and that they worked for wages so low that no American could compete with them. Attempts were then made to stop their importation, especially by heavy taxes laid on them. But the courts declared such taxation illegal, and appeals were then made to Congress for relief. No action was taken; but in 1868 an old treaty with China was amended, and to import Chinamen without their free consent was made a penal offense. This did not prevent their coming, so the demand was made for their exclusion by act of Congress.

[2] In the early years of the nineteenth century liquor was a part of the workingman's wages. Every laborer on the farm, in the harvest field, every sailor, and men employed in many of the trades, as carpenters and masons, demanded daily grog at the cost of the employer. About 1810 a temperance movement put an end to much of this. But intemperance remained the curse of the workingman down to the days of Van Buren and Tyler, when a greater temperance movement began.

[3] Horace Greeley was born in New Hampshire in 1811, and while still a lad learned the trade of printer. When he went to New York in 1831, he was so poor that he walked the streets in search of work. During the Harrison campaign in 1840 he edited the Log Cabin, a Whig newspaper, and soon after the election founded the New York Tribune. In 1848 he was elected a member of Congress. He was one of the signers of the bond which released Jefferson Davis from imprisonment after the Civil War. Greeley overexerted himself in the campaign of 1872, and died a few weeks after the election.

[4] The fire is said to have been started by a cow kicking over a lamp in a small barn. Nearly 2200 acres were burned over, some 17,450 buildings consumed, 200 lives were lost, and 98,000 people made homeless.

[5] The close of the first century of our national independence was the occasion of a great exposition in Philadelphia—the first of many that have been held in our country on centennial anniversaries of great events in our history. The Philadelphia exposition was first planned as a mammoth fair for the display of the industries and arts of the United States; but Congress having approved the idea, all foreign nations were invited to take part, and thirty-three did so. The main building covered some twenty acres and was devoted to the display of manufactures. The exposition occupied also four other large buildings devoted to machinery, agriculture, etc., of which Horticultural Hall and Memorial Hall are still standing.

[6] Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Ohio in 1822, and after graduating from Kenyon College and the Harvard Law School settled at Fremont, Ohio, but soon moved to Cincinnati. At the opening of the war he joined the Union army and by 1865 had risen to the rank of brevet major general. While still in the army, he was elected to Congress, served two terms, and was then twice elected governor of Ohio. In 1875 he was elected for a third term. He died in 1893.

[7] The commission consisted of five senators, five representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court; eight were Republicans, and seven Democrats.

[8] By 185 electoral votes against 184 for Tilden. The popular vote at the election of 1876 was (according to the Republican claim): for Hayes, 4,033,768; for Tilden, 4,285,992; for Peter Cooper (Greenback-Labor or "Independent"), 81,737; for Green Clay Smith (Prohibition), 9522.

[9] The strikers' grievances were reduction of wages, irregular employment, irregular payment of wages, and forced patronage of company hotels. There were riots at Baltimore, Chicago, Reading, and other places besides Pittsburg; state militia was called out to quell the disorder; and at the request of the state governors, United States troops were sent to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia.

[10] Specie payment was accordingly begun on January 1, 1879, and then for the first time since greenbacks were made legal tender they were accepted everywhere at par with coin. By the provisions of other laws, the amount of greenbacks kept in circulation was fixed at $346,681,000.

[11] The price of silver in 1872 was such that the 412-1/2 grains in the dollar were worth $1.02 in gold money. The silver dollar was worth more as silver bullion than as money, and was therefore little used as money. This dropping of the silver dollar from the list of coins, or ceasing to coin it, was called the "demonetization of silver."

[12] To carry any number of these "cart-wheel dollars" in the pocket would have been inconvenient, because of their size and weight. Provision was therefore made that the dollars might be deposited in the United States treasury and paper "silver certificates" issued against them. Get specimens of different kinds of paper money, read the words printed on a silver certificate, and compare with the wording on a greenback (United States note) and on a national bank note.

[13] James A. Garfield was born in Ohio in 1831. While still a lad. he longed to be a sailor, and failing in this, he became a canal boatman. After a little experience as such he went back to school, supporting himself by working as a carpenter and teaching school. In 1854 he entered the junior class of Williams College, graduated in 1856, became a teacher in Hiram Institute, was elected to the Ohio senate in 1859, and joined the Union army in 1861. In 1862 he was elected to Congress, took his seat in December, 1863, and continued to be a member of the House of Representatives till 1881.

[14] Chester Alan Arthur was born in Vermont in 1830, graduated from Union College, became (1853) a lawyer in New York city, and was (1871-78) customs collector of the port of New York. In 1880 he attended the national Republican convention as a delegate from New York, and was one of the 302 members of that convention who voted to the last for the renomination of Grant. After Grant was defeated and Garfield nominated, Arthur was named for the vice presidency, in order to appease the "Stalwarts," as the friends of Grant were called.

[15] When this failed to accomplish its purpose, Congress (1887) enacted another law providing heavy penalties for polygamy. The Mormon Church then declared against the practice.

[16] The murder of Garfield led also to a new presidential succession law. The old law provided that if both the President and the Vice President should die, the office should be filled temporarily by the president pro tem of the Senate, or if there were none, by the speaker of the House of Representatives. But one Congress expired March 4, 1881, and the next one did not meet and elect its presiding officers till December; so if Arthur had died before then, there would have been no one to act as President. A new law passed in 1886 provides that if both the presidency and the vice presidency become vacant, the presidency shall pass to the Secretary of State, or, if there be none, to the Secretary of the Treasury, or, if necessary, to the Secretary of War, Attorney General, Postmaster General, Secretary of the Navy, or Secretary of the Interior.

[17] In 1881, Lieutenant A. W. Greely was sent to plant a station in the Arctic regions. Supplies sent in 1882 and 1883 failed to reach him, and alarm was felt for the safety of his party. In 1884 a rescue expedition was sent out under Commander W. S. Schley. Three vessels were made ready by the Navy Department, and a fourth by Great Britain. After a long search Greely and six companions were found on the point of starvation and five were brought safely home. During their stay in the Arctic, they had reached a point within 430 miles of the north pole, the farthest north any white man had then gone.

[18] Grover Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837. In 1841 his father, a Presbyterian minister, removed to Onondaga County, New York, where Grover attended school and served as clerk in the village store. Later he taught for a year in the Institute for the Blind in New York city; but soon began the study of law, and settled in Buffalo. He was assistant district attorney of Erie County, sheriff and mayor of Buffalo, and in 1882, as the Democratic candidate for governor of New York, carried the state by 192,000 plurality. Both when mayor and when governor he was noted for his free use of the veto power.

[19] In 1885 the Bartholdi statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was formally received at New York. It was a gift from the people of France to the people of America. A hundred thousand Frenchmen contributed the money for the statue, and the pedestal was built with money raised in the United States. An island in New York harbor was chosen for the site, and there the statue was unveiled in October, 1886. The top of Liberty's torch is 365 feet above low water.

In September, 1886, a severe earthquake occurred near Charleston, South Carolina, the vibrations of which were felt as far away as Cape Cod and Milwaukee. In Charleston most of the houses were made unfit for habitation, many persons were killed, and some $8,000,000 worth of property was destroyed.

[20] Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born at North Bend, Ohio, in 1833. He was educated at Miami University, studied law, settled at Indianapolis, and when the war opened, was reporter to the supreme court of Indiana. Joining the volunteers as a lieutenant, he was brevetted brigadier general before the war ended. In 1881 he became a senator from Indiana. He died in 1901.

[21] This required the Secretary of the Treasury to buy each month 4,500,000 ounces of silver, pay for it with treasury notes, and redeem the notes on demand in coin. After July 1, 1891, the silver so purchased need not be coined, but might be stored and silver certificates issued against it.

[22] Soon after the war the farmers in the great agricultural states had formed associations under such names as the Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, Patrons of Industry, Agricultural Wheel, Farmers' Alliance, and others. About 1886 they began to unite, and formed the National Agricultural Wheel and the Farmers' Alliance and Cooperative Union. In 1889 these and others were united in a convention at St. Louis into the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union.

[23] The electoral vote was: for Cleveland, 277; Harrison, 145; Weaver, 22. The popular vote was: Democratic, 5,556,543; Republican, 5,175,582; Populist, 1,040,886; Prohibition, 255,841; Socialist Labor, 21,532.

[24] Cleveland objected to certain features of the bill, and refused to sign it; but he did not veto it. By the Constitution, if the President neither signs a bill nor returns it with his veto within ten days (Sunday excepted) after he receives it, the bill becomes a law without his signature, provided Congress has not meanwhile adjourned. If Congress adjourns before the ten-day limit expires and the President does not sign, then the bill does not become a law, but is "pocket vetoed."

[25] Because Congress had made the tax uniform—the same on incomes of the same amount everywhere—instead of fixing the total amount to be raised and dividing it among the states according to population, as required by the Constitution in the case of direct taxes.

[26] The franchise has been slightly narrowed in some Northern states by educational qualifications; but, on the other hand, in four states it has been extended to women on the same terms as men—in Wyoming (since 1869), Colorado (since 1893), Utah (since 1895), and Idaho (since 1896). In nearly half the states, women can now vote in school elections. In Kansas they vote also in municipal elections.

[27] They demanded "the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1"; that is, that out of one pound of gold should be coined as many dollars as out of sixteen pounds of silver.

[28] William McKinley was born in Ohio in 1843, attended Allegheny College for a short time, then taught a district school, and was a clerk in a country post office. When the Civil War opened, he joined the army as a private in a regiment in which Hayes was afterwards colonel, served through the war, and was brevetted major for gallantry at Cedar Creek and Fishers Hill. The war over, he became a lawyer, entered politics in Ohio, and was elected a member of seven Congresses. From 1892 to 1896 he was governor of Ohio.

[29] The Gold Democrats nominated John M. Palmer; and the Prohibitionists, the National party, and the Socialist Labor party also named candidates. But none of these parties cast so many as 150,000 popular votes or secured any electoral votes.

[30] We contended that we had jurisdiction in Bering Sea; that the seals rearing their young on our islands in that sea were our property; that even though they temporarily went far out into the Pacific Ocean they were under our protection. Our revenue cutters had therefore seized Canadian vessels taking seals in the open sea.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE WAR WITH SPAIN, AND LATER EVENTS

THE CUBAN REBELLION.—In February, 1895, the Cubans, for the sixth time in fifty years, rose in rebellion against Spain, and attempted to form a republic. These proceedings concerned us for several reasons. American trade with Cuba was interrupted; American money invested in Cuban mines, railroads, and plantations might be lost; our ports were used by the Cubans in fitting out military expeditions which our government was forced to stop at great expense; the cruelty with which the war was waged aroused indignation. During the summer of 1897 the suffering of Cuban non- combatants was so great that our people began to send them food and medical aid.

[Illustration: CUBA AND PORTO RICO.]

DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE.—While our people were engaged in this humane work, our battleship Maine, riding at anchor in the harbor of Havana, was blown up (February 15, 1898) and two hundred and sixty of her sailors killed. War was now inevitable, and on April 19 Congress adopted a resolution demanding that Spain should withdraw from Cuba, and authorizing the President to compel her to leave if necessary. [1] Spain at once severed diplomatic relations, and (April 21, 1898) war began.

THE BATTLE AT MANILA BAY.—A fleet which had assembled at Key West sailed at once to blockade Havana and other ports on the coast of Cuba. Another under Commodore Dewey sailed from Hongkong to attack the Spanish fleet in the Philippine Islands. Dewey found it in Manila Bay, where on the morning of May 1, 1898, he attacked and destroyed it without losing a man or a ship. The city of Manila was then blockaded, and General Merritt with twenty thousand men was sent across the Pacific to take possession of the Philippines.

BLOCKADE OF CERVERA'S FLEET.—Meantime a second Spanish fleet, under Admiral Cervera (thair-va'ra), sailed from the Cape Verde Islands. Acting Rear-Admiral Sampson, with ships which had been blockading Havana, and Commodore Schley, with a "flying squadron," went in search of Cervera, who, after a long hunt, was found in the harbor of Santiago on the south coast of Cuba, and at once blockaded. [2]

[Illustration: THE PHILIPPINES.]

THE MERRIMAC.—The entrance to Santiago harbor is long, narrow, and defended by strong forts. In an attempt to make the blockade more certain, Lieutenant Hobson and a volunteer crew of seven men took the collier (coal ship) Merrimac well into the harbor entrance and sank her in the channel (June 3). [3] The little band were made prisoners of war and in time were exchanged.

[Illustration: A FIELD GUN NEAR SANTIAGO.]

BATTLES NEAR SANTIAGO.—As the fleet of Cervera could not be attacked by water, it was decided to capture Santiago and so force him to run out. General Shafter with an army was therefore sent to Cuba, and landed a few miles from the city (June 22, 23), and at once pushed forward. On July 1 the Spanish positions on two hills, El Caney (el ca-na') and San Juan (sahn hoo-ahn'), were carried by storm. [4]

The capture of Santiago was now so certain that, on July 3, Cervera's fleet dashed from the harbor and attempted to break through the blockading fleet. A running sea fight followed, and in a few hours all six of the Spanish vessels were shattered wrecks on the coast of Cuba. Not one of our ships was seriously damaged.

Two weeks later General Toral (to-rahl') surrendered the city of Santiago, the eastern end of Cuba, and a large army.

PORTO RICO.—General Miles now set off with an army to capture Porto Rico. He landed on the south coast (August 1) near Ponce (pon'tha), and was pushing across the island when hostilities came to an end.

PEACE.—Meanwhile, the French minister in Washington asked, on behalf of Spain, on what terms peace would be made. President McKinley stated them, and on August 12 an agreement, or protocol, was signed. This provided (1) that hostilities should cease at once, (2) that Spain should withdraw from Cuba and cede Porto Rico and an island in the Ladrones to the United States, and (3) that the city and harbor of Manila should be held by us till a treaty of peace was signed and the fate of the Philippines settled. [5]

The treaty was signed at Paris, December 10, 1898, and went into force upon its ratification four months later. Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba, and to cede us Porto Rico, Guam (one of the Ladrone Islands), and the Philippines. Our government agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000.

HAWAII, meanwhile, had steadily been seeking annexation to the United States. Many causes prevented it; but during the war with Spain the possibility of our holding the Philippines gave importance to the Hawaiian Islands, and in July, 1898, they were annexed. In 1900 they were formed into the territory of Hawaii. About the same time several other small Pacific islands were acquired by our country. [6]

PORTO RICO AND CUBA.—For Porto Rico, Congress provided a system of civil government which went into effect May 1, 1900, and made the island a dependency, or colony—a district governed according to special laws of Congress, but not forming part of our country. [7]

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTLYING POSSESSIONS.]

When Spain withdrew from Cuba, our government took control, and after introducing many sanitary reforms, turned the cities over to the Cubans. The people then elected delegates to a convention which formed a constitution, and when this had been adopted and a president elected, our troops were withdrawn, and (May 20, 1901), the Cubans began to govern their island.

[Illustration: A PHILIPPINE MARKET.]

WAR IN THE PHILIPPINES.—When our forces entered Manila (August, 1898), native troops under Aguinaldo (ahg-ee-nahl'do), who had revolted against Spanish rule, held Luzon [8] and most of the other islands. Aguinaldo now demanded that we should turn the islands over to his party, and when this was refused, attacked our forces in Manila. War followed; but in battle after battle the native troops were beaten and scattered, and in time Aguinaldo was captured. The group of islands is now governed as a dependency.

WAR IN CHINA.—The next country with which we had trouble was China. Early in 1900 members of a Chinese society called the Boxers began to kill Christian natives, missionaries, and other foreigners. The disorder soon reached Peking, where foreign ministers, many Europeans, and Americans were besieged in the part of the city where they were allowed to reside. Ships and troops were at once sent to join the forces of Japan and the powers of Europe in rescuing the foreigners in Peking. War was not declared; but some battles were fought and some towns captured before Peking was taken and China brought to reason. [9]

[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1900.]

THE CENSUS OF 1900.—At home in 1900 our population was counted for the twelfth time in our history and found to be 76,000,000. This census did not include the population of Porto Rico, Guam, or the Philippines. In New York the population exceeded that of the whole United States in 1810; in Pennsylvania it was greater than that of the whole United States in 1800, and Ohio and Illinois each had more people than the whole country in 1790.

IMMIGRATION.—In 1879 (p. 403) a great wave of immigration began and rose rapidly till nearly 800,000 foreigners came in one year, in 1882. Then the wave declined, but for the rest of the century every year brought several hundred thousand. In 1900 another great wave was rising, and by 1905 more than 1,000,000 immigrants were coming every year. For some years these immigrants have come mostly from southern and eastern Europe.

GROWTH OF CITIES.—Most remarkable has been the rapid growth of our cities. In 1790 there were but 6 cities of over 8000 inhabitants each in the United States, and their total population was but 131,000. In 1900 there were 545 such cities, and their inhabitants numbered 25,000,000— about a third of the entire population; 38 of these cities had each more than 100,000 inhabitants. By 1906 our largest city, New York, had more than 4,000,000 people, Chicago had passed the 2,000,000 mark, and Philadelphia had about 1,500,000.

THE NEW SOUTH.—The census of 1900 brought out other facts of great interest. For many years after 1860 the South had gone backward rather than forward. From 1880 to 1900 her progress was wonderful. In 1880 she was loaded with debt, her manufactures of little importance, her railways dilapidated, her banks few in number, and her laboring population largely unemployed. In 1900 her cotton mills rivaled those of New England. Since 1880 her cotton crop has doubled, her natural resources have begun to be developed, and coal, iron, lumber, cottonseed oil, and (in Texas and Louisiana) petroleum have become important products. Alabama ranks high in the list of coal-producing states, and her city of Birmingham has become a great center of the iron and steel industry. Atlanta and many other Southern cities are now important manufacturing centers.

With material prosperity came ability to improve the systems of public schools. Throughout the South separate schools are maintained for white and for negro children; and great progress has been made in both.

THE ELECTION OF 1900.—One of the signs of great prosperity in our country has always been the number of political parties. In the campaign for the election of President and Vice President in 1900 there were eleven parties, large and small. But the contest really was between the Republicans, who nominated William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and the Democrats, who nominated William J. Bryan and Adlai E. Stevenson, indorsed by the Populist and Silver parties.

[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT.]

MCKINLEY ASSASSINATED.—McKinley and Roosevelt were elected, and duly inaugurated March 4, 1901. In that year a great Pan-American Exposition was held at Buffalo, and while attending it in September, McKinley was shot by an anarchist who, during a public reception, approached him as if to shake hands. Early on the morning of September 14 the President died, and Vice-President Roosevelt [10] succeeded to the presidency.

THE CHINESE.—In President Roosevelt's first message to Congress (December, 1901) lie dealt with many current issues. One of his requests was for further legislation concerning Chinese laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act accordingly was (1902) applied to our island possessions, and no Chinese laborer is now allowed to enter one of them, nor may those already there go from one group to another, or come to any of our states.

IRRIGATION.—Another matter urged on the attention of Congress by the President was the irrigation [11] of arid public lands in the West in order that they might be made fit for settlement. Great reservoirs for the storage of water should be built, and canals to lead the water to the arid lands should be constructed at government expense, the land so reclaimed should be kept for actual settlers, and the cost repaid by the sale of the land. Congress in 1902 approved the plan, and by law set aside the money derived from the sale of public land in thirteen states and three territories as a fund for building irrigation works. The work of reclamation was begun the next year, and by 1907 eight new towns with some 10,000 people existed on lands thus watered.

ISTHMIAN CANAL ROUTES.—The project of a canal across the isthmus connecting North and South America, was more than seventy-five years old. But no serious attempt was made to cut a water way till a French company was organized in 1878, spent $260,000,000 in ten years, and then failed. Another French company then took up the work, and in turn laid it down for want of funds. So the matter stood when the war with Spain brought home to us the great importance of an isthmian canal. Then the question arose, Which was the better of two routes, that by Lake Nicaragua, or that across the isthmus of Panama? [12] Congress (1899) sent a commission to consider this, and it reported that both routes were feasible. Thereupon the French company offered to sell its rights and the unfinished canal for $40,000,000, and Congress (1902) authorized the President to buy the rights and property of the French company, and finish the Panama Canal; or, if Colombia would not grant us control of the necessary strip of land, to build one by the Nicaragua route.

[Illustration: PANAMA CANAL ZONE.]

THE PANAMA CANAL TREATY.—In the spring of 1903, accordingly, a treaty was negotiated with Colombia for the construction of the Panama Canal. Our Senate ratified, but Colombia rejected, the treaty, whereupon the province of Panama (November, 1903) seceded from Colombia and became independent republic.

Our government promptly recognized the new republic, and a treaty with it was ratified (February, 1904) by which we secured the right to dig the canal. The property of the French company was then purchased, and a commission appointed to superintend the work of construction. [13]

THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY.—By our treaty of purchase of Alaska, its boundaries depended on an old treaty between Russia and Great Britain. When gold was discovered in Canada in 1871, a dispute arose over the boundary, and it became serious when gold was discovered in the Klondike region in 1896. Our claim placed the boundary of southeastern Alaska thirty-five miles inland and parallel to the coast. Canada put it so much farther west as to give her several important ports. The matter was finally submitted to arbitration, and in 1903 the decision divided the land in dispute, but gave us all the ports. [14]

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1904.—The campaign of 1904 was opened by the nomination by the Republican party of Theodore Roosevelt and Charles W. Fairbanks. The Democrats presented Alton B. Parker and Henry G. Davis, and in the course of the summer seven other parties—the People's, the Socialist, the Socialist Labor, the Prohibition, the United Christian, the National Liberty, and the Continental—nominated candidates. Roosevelt and Fairbanks were elected. [15]

OKLAHOMA.—Among the demands of the Democratic party in 1904 was that for the admission of Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one state, and of New Mexico and Arizona as separate states. In 1906 Congress authorized the people of Oklahoma [16] and Indian Territory to frame a constitution, and if it were adopted by vote of the people, the President was empowered to proclaim the state of Oklahoma a member of the Union, which was done in 1907. The same act authorized the people of New Mexico and Arizona to vote separately on the question whether the two should form one state to be called Arizona. At the election (in November, 1906) a majority of the people of New Mexico voted for, and a majority of the people of Arizona against, joint statehood, so the two remained separate territories.

PURE FOOD AND MEAT INSPECTION LAWS.—At the same session of Congress (1906) two other wise and greatly needed laws were enacted. For years past the adulteration of food, drugs, medicines, and liquors had been carried on to an extent disgraceful to our country. The Pure Food Act, as it is called, was passed to prevent the manufacture of "adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors" in the District of Columbia and the territories, or the transportation of such articles from one state to another. Foods and drugs entering into interstate commerce must be correctly labeled.

The meat inspection act requires that all meat and food products intended for sale or transportation as articles of interstate or foreign commerce, shall be inspected by officials of the Department of Agriculture and marked "inspected and passed." All slaughtering, packing, and canning establishments must be inspected and their products duly labeled.

INTERVENTION IN CUBA.—As the year 1906 drew to a close, we were once more called on to intervene in affairs in Cuba. The elections of 1905 in that island had been followed by the revolt of the defeated party, and the appearance of armed bands which threatened the chief towns and even Havana. An attempt to bring about an understanding with the rebels was repudiated by President Palma, who declared martial law and called a meeting of the Cuban congress, which body gave him supreme power.

President Roosevelt, under our treaty with Cuba, was bound to maintain in that island a government able to protect life and property. Secretary-of- War Taft was therefore sent to Havana to examine into affairs, and while he was so engaged President Palma resigned, and the Cuban congress did not elect a successor. Secretary Taft then assumed the governorship of the island and held it till October, when Charles Magoon was appointed temporary governor. [17]

PANIC OF 1907.—The wonderful prosperity which our country had enjoyed for some years past came to a sudden end in the fall of 1907. Distrust of certain banks led to a run on several in New York city. When they were forced to stop paying out money, a panic started and spread over the country, business suffered, and hard times came again.

THE ELECTION OF 1908.—During the summer of 1908 seven parties nominated candidates for President and Vice President. They were the Republican, Democratic, Prohibition, Populist, Socialist, Socialist Labor, and Independence. The Republicans nominated William H. Taft and James S. Sherman; and the Democrats, William J. Bryan and John W. Kern. Taft [18] and Sherman were elected.

[Illustration: WILLIAM H. TAFT.]

Early in 1909 Taft visited the Canal Zone, with eminent engineers, to investigate the condition of the half-finished Panama Canal. He was inaugurated President on March 4. In the selection of his cabinet officers, and in his public addresses, he showed a determination to avoid sectionalism and narrow partisanship. One of his first acts as President was to convene Congress in special session beginning March 15, for the purpose of framing a new tariff act.

SUMMARY

1. Our foreign relations since 1898 have been most important. In 1898 there was a short war with Spain.

2. The chief events of the war were the battle of Manila Bay, the sinking of the Merrimac, the battles near Santiago, the destruction of Cervera's fleet, the invasion of Porto Rico, and the capture of Manila.

3. Peace brought us the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Guam, and forced Spain to withdraw from Cuba.

4. Cuba for awhile remained under our flag; but in 1902 we withdrew, and Cuba became a republic. Later events forced us to intervene in 1906.

5. In 1900 events forced us into a short war in China.

6. In 1898 Hawaii was annexed, and in 1900 was organized as a territory; in 1903 our dispute with Great Britain over the Alaskan boundary was settled; and in 1904 a treaty with Panama gave us the right to dig the Panama Canal.

7. Prominent among domestic affairs since 1898, are the assassination of President McKinley (1901); the Irrigation Act of 1902; the pure food and meat inspection laws of 1906; and the admission of the state of Oklahoma.

FOOTNOTES

[1] At the same time it was resolved, "That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people."

[2] When the Maine was destroyed, the battleship Oregon, then on the Pacific coast, was ordered to the Atlantic seaboard. Making her way southward through the Pacific, she passed the Strait of Magellan, steamed up the east coast of South America, and after the swiftest long voyage ever made by a battleship, took her place in the blockading fleet.

[3] The storm of shot and shell from the forts carried away some of the Merrimac's steering gear, so that Hobson was unable to sink the vessel at the spot intended. The channel was still navigable. Read the article by Lieutenant Hobson in the Century Magazine for December, 1898 to March, 1899.

[4] Among those who distinguished themselves in this campaign were General Joseph Wheeler, an ex-Confederate cavalry leader; and Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, with his regiment of volunteers called "Rough Riders."

[5] The city of Manila was captured through a combined attack by Dewey's fleet and Merritt's army, August 13, before news of the protocol had been received.

[6] Our flag was raised over Wake Island early in 1899. Part of the Samoa group, including Tutuila (too-too-e'la) and small adjacent islands, was acquired in 1900 by a joint treaty with Great Britain and Germany; these islands are 77 square miles in area and have 6000 population. Many tiny islands in the Pacific, most of them rocks or coral reefs, belong to us; but they are of little importance, except the Midway Islands, which are occupied by a party of telegraphers in charge of a relay in the cable joining our continent with the Philippines.

[7] Porto Rico is a little smaller than Connecticut, but has a population of about one million, of whom a third are colored. The civil government consists of a governor, an executive council of 11 members, and a House of Delegates of 35 members elected by the people. The island is represented at Washington by a resident commissioner.

[8] The Philippine group numbers about two thousand islands. The land area is about equal to that of New England and New York; that is, 115,000 square miles. Luzon, the largest, is about the size of Kentucky. A census taken in 1903 gave a population of 7,600,000, of whom 600,000 were savages. For several years the Philippines were governed by the President, first through the army, and then through an appointed commission. This commission, with Judge William H. Taft as president, began its duties in June of 1900; but by act of Congress (July 1, 1902) a new plan of government has been provided for. This includes a governor and a legislature of two branches, one the Philippine commission of eight members, and the other an assembly chosen by the Filipinos.

[9] In 1898 the emperor of Russia invited many of the nations of the world to meet and discuss the reduction of their armies and navies. Delegates from twenty-six nations accordingly met at the Hague (in Holland) in May, 1899, and there discussed (1) disarmament, (2) revision of the laws of land and naval war, (3) mediation and arbitration. Three covenants or agreements were made and left open for signature by the nations till 1900. One forbade the use in war of deadly gases, of projectiles dropped from balloons, and of bullets made to expand in the human body. The second revised the laws of war, and the third provided for a permanent court of arbitration at the Hague, before which cases may be brought with the consent of the nations concerned.

[10] Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York in 1858, graduated from Harvard University in 1880, and from 1882 to 1884 was a member of the legislature of New York. In 1886 he was the candidate of the Republican party for mayor of New York city and was defeated. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the United States Civil Service Commission, but resigned in 1895 to become president of the New York city police board. In 1897 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but when the war with Spain opened, resigned and organized the First United States Cavalry Volunteers, popularly known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Of this regiment he was lieutenant colonel and then colonel, and after it was mustered out of service, was elected governor of New York in the autumn of 1898. He is the author of many books on history, biography, and hunting, besides essays and magazine articles.

[11] Before this time many small areas had been irrigated by means of works constructed by individuals, by companies, and by local governments.

[12] In 1825 Central America invited us to build a canal by way of Lake Nicaragua, and from that time forth the question was often before Congress. In Jackson's time a commissioner was sent to examine the Nicaragua route and that across the isthmus of Panama. After Texas was annexed we made a treaty with New Granada (now Colombia), and secured "the right of way or transit across the isthmus of Panama upon any modes of communication that now exist, or that may be hereafter constructed." After the Mexican war, the discovery of gold in California, and the expansion of our territory on the Pacific coast, the importance of a canal was greatly increased. But Great Britain stepped in and practically seized control of the Nicaragua route. A crisis followed, and in 1850 we made with Great Britain the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, by which each party was pledged never to obtain "exclusive control over the said ship canal." When (in 1900) we practically decided to build by the Nicaragua route, and felt we must have exclusive control, it became necessary to abrogate this part of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The Hay-Pauncefote treaty was therefore made, by which Great Britain gave up all claim to a share in the control of such a canal, and the United States guaranteed that any isthmian canal built by us should be open to all nations on equal terms.

[13] In accordance with our rights under the treaty, Congress (April, 1904) authorized the President, as soon as he had acquired the property of the canal company and paid Panama $10,000,000, to take possession of the "Canal Zone," a strip ten miles wide (five miles on each side of the canal) stretching across the isthmus and extending three marine miles from low water out into the ocean at each end. On April 22, 1904, the property of the canal company was transferred at Paris, and on May 9 the company was paid $40,000,000; Panama had already been paid her $10,000,000, and on May 19 General Davis, president of the Canal Commission, issued a proclamation announcing the beginning of his administration as governor of the Canal Zone.

[14] Another event of 1903 was the addition of a ninth member to the Cabinet,—the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The Secretary of Agriculture (1889) was the eighth member.

[15] By 336 electoral votes against 140 for Parker and Davis. The popular vote was: Republican, 7,623,486; Democratic, 5,077,971; Socialist, 402,283; Prohibition, 258,536; Populist, 117,183; Socialist Labor, 31,249: all others combined, less than 10,000.

[16] The central portion of Indian Territory was opened for settlement on April 22, 1889, when a great rush was made for the new lands. Other areas were soon added, and in 1890 Oklahoma territory was organized. It included the western half of the Indian Territory shown on p. 394.

[17] Another event of 1906 was a great earthquake in western California (April 18). Many buildings in many places were shaken down, and most of San Francisco was destroyed by fires which could not be put out because the water mains were broken by the earthquake. Hundreds of persons lost their lives, and the property loss in San Francisco alone was estimated at $400,000,000.

[18] William Howard Taft was born in Ohio, September 15, 1857, graduated from Yale, studied law, became judge of the Superior Court of Ohio, and United States Circuit Judge (6th Circuit). After the war with Spain, Judge Taft was made president of the Philippine Commission, and in 1901 first civil governor of the Philippine Islands. In 1904 he was appointed Secretary of War, an office which he resigned after his nomination for the Presidency.

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Table of Contents

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

PREFACE

CONTENTS

- CHAPTER

LIST OF COLORED MAPS

- FRENCH CLAIMS, ETC., IN 1700 EASTERN NORTH AMERICA, 1754 BRITISH TERRITORY, 1764 NORTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION—SOUTHERN COLONIES DURING THE REVOLUTION THE UNITED STATES, ABOUT 1783, SHOWING STATE CLAIMS THE UNITED STATES, 1805 THE UNITED STATES, 1824 THE UNITED STATES, 1850 THE UNITED STATES, 1861 THE WEST IN 1870 (ALSO 1860 AND 1907) THE UNITED STATES AND ITS OUTLYING POSSESSIONS

COLUMBUS

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

- CHAPTER I
- SUMMARY
- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER II

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER III

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER IV

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER V

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER VI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER VII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER VIII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER IX

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER X

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XIII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XIV

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XV

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XVI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XVII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XVIII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XIX

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XX

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXIII.

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXIV

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXV

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXVI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXVII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXVIII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXIX

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXX

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXXI

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXXII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXXIII

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER XXXIV.

- SUMMARY

- FOOTNOTES

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