OCR Text |
Show JVTTIE STORY US THE FIRST 1SIENTV'0, rr? BY THE PEfctLSlUENT Installment 20 Waohlngton's Political Creed. "My 5olitlcal creed," he said, "is to be wise In the choice of delegates, support sup-port them like gentlemen while they are our representatives, give them competent powers for all federal purposes, pur-poses, support them in the due exercise exer-cise thereof, and, lastly, to compel them to close attendance in congress during their delegation." Iiut his thoughts took wider scope lis the months passed; and nothing quickened them more than his western trip. He saw how much of the future traveled with those slow wagon trains of Immigrants into the west; realized how thry were leaving behind them the rivers (hat ran to the old ports at the sea, and going down Into the valleys whose outlet was the great highway of the Mississippi and the ports of the gulf; how the great ridge pf the Alleghanies lay piled between them and the older seats of settlement, settle-ment, with only hero and there a gap to let a road through, only here and there two rivers lying close enough Rt their sources to link the east with the west; and the likelihood of a separation sepa-ration between the two peculations seemed to him as obvious as the tilt of the mountains upon either slope. Words of Wisdom. "There is nothing which binds one country or one state to another but Interest." he said. "Without this cement ce-ment the western inhabitants, who more than probably will be composed In a great degree of foreigners, can have no predilection for us, and a commercial connection is the only tie we can have upon them." . "The western settlers," he declared, while still fresh from the Ohio, "stand as It were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way" down the Mississippi to join their interests with those of the Spaniard, or back to the mountain roads and the headwaters of the eastern streams, to make for themselves a new allegiance in the east. He was glad to see the Spaniard so Impolitic as to close the Mississippi against the commerce offered him, and hoped that things might stand so until there should have been "a little time allowed to open and make easy the ways between the Atlantic states and the western territory." To Open the Potomac. The opening of the upper reaches of the Potomac to navigation had long been a favorite object with Washington; Washing-ton; now it seemed nothing less than a necessity. It had been part of the original scheme of the old Ohio company to use this means of winning a way for commerce through . the mountains. Steps had been taken more than twenty twen-ty years ago to act in the matter through private subscription; and active ac-tive measures for securing the necessary neces-sary legislation from the Assemblies of Virginia and Maryland were still in course when Washington was called call-ed to Cambridge and revolution drew men's minds Imperatively off from the business. I For an Empire's Trade. In 1770 Washington had written to Jefferson of the project as a means of opening a channel for "the extensive trade of a rising empire;" now the empire of which he had had a vision was no longer Britain's, but America's own, and it was become a matter of exigent political necessity to keep that western country against estrangement, estrange-ment, winning it by commerce and 1 , r.nnfV.tr t 4r.ln i t o nl P with tVia old feslonles in building up a free company com-pany of united states upon the great continent. Already the west was astir for the formation of new states. Virginia had taken the broad and national view of her duty that Washington Wash-ington himself held, aud had ceded to the confederation all her ancient claims to the lands that lay northwest of the Ohio river, reserving for herself her-self only the fair region that stretched south of that great stream, from her own mountains to the Mississippi. North Carolina's Settlers Defiant. North Carolina would have ceded her western lands beyond the mountains, also, had they been empty and unclaimed. like " the vast territory that lay belond the Ohio. But for many a year settlers had been crossing the mountains moun-tains into those fertile valleys, and both this region and that which Virginia Vir-ginia still kept showed many a clearing clear-ing now and many a rude hamlet where bardy frontiersmen were making mak-ing a new home for civilization. Rather than be handed over to congress, con-gress, to be disposed of by an authority author-ity which no one else was bound to obey. North Carolina's western settlers set-tlers declared they would form a state of their own, aud North Carolina had to recall her gift of their lands to the confederation before their plans of defiance could be checked and defeated. de-feated. Virginia found her own frontiersmen frontiers-men 1:0 less ready to take the initia-ftvp initia-ftvp in whatever aft'::ir touched their rrst . ip. m C'c-5 Lower Mississippi. :i.lv (,". "'1 '-h,! United States t,. v t. r ;,ui'is, but ref ised to grant them the use of the lower courses of the Mississippi, lest territorial terri-torial aggression should be pushed too shrewdly In that quarter; and news reached the settlers beyond the mountains, moun-tains, in the far countiee of North Carolina and Virginia, that Mr. Jay, the Confederation's secretary for foreign for-eign affairs, had proposed to the congress to yield the navigation of the Mississippi for a generation in exchange ex-change for trade on the seas. They flatly declared they would give themselves, them-selves, and their lands too, into the hands of England ataiu rather than submit to be so robbed, cramped and deserted. The New England states, on their part, threatened to withdraw from the Confederation if treaties were to be made to wait upon the assent of frontiersmen on the far Mississippi. The situation was full of menace of no ordinary sort. It could profit the Confederation little lit-tle that great states like Virginia and New York had grown magnanimous, and were endowing the Confederation with vast gifts of territory in the west, if such gifts were but to loosen still further the already slackened bonds oi the common government, leaving settlers set-tlers in the unclaimed lands no allegiance alle-giance they coirid respect. Without a national government spirited spir-ited and strong enough to frame policies poli-cies and command obedience, "we shall never establish a national character char-acter or be considered as on a respectable respect-able footing by the powers of Europe," Washington had said from the first. Washington Urge Union. He had made a most solemn appeal to the states in his last circular to them, ere he resigned his commission, urging them to strengthen the powers of congress, put faction and jealousy away, and make sure of "an indissoluble indis-soluble union under one federal head." "An option is still left to the United States of America," he had told them, with ail his plain and stately elo quence; "it is in their choice, and depends de-pends upon their conduct whether they will be respectable and prosperous, prosper-ous, or contemptible and miserable, as a nation. This is the time of their political probation." The hazards of that probation had been a burden upon his heart through all the toil of the Revolution, and now it seemed as if the states must needs make every evil choice in meeting them. Congress could not so much as carry out the provisions of the treaty of peace, for its commissioners had made promises in the name of the states which the states would not re-! re-! deem. England Breaks Her Agreement. England consequently refused to keep her part of the agreement and relinquish the western posts. She levied commercial war against the country, besides, without fear of reprisal; re-prisal; for congress had no power to regulate trade, and the states were too jealous of each other to co-operate in this or any other matter. English statesmen had consented to give up 1he colonies, and recognize their independence as a nation, rather , than face any longer the world in arms; but they now looked to see them presently drop back into their hands again, out of sheer helplessness and hopeless division in counsel; and there were observant men in America who deemed the thing possible, though it brought an intolerable fire into their blood to think of it. In Financial Straits. Other nations, too, were fast conceiving con-ceiving a like contempt for the Con- It was making no provision for the payment of the vast sums of money it had borrowed abroad, in France and Holland and Spain; and it could not make any. It conld only ask the states for money, and must count itself it-self fortunate to get enough to pay even the interest on its debts. It was this that foreign courts were finding out, that the Confederation was a mere "government of supplication," as Randolph had dubbed it; and its credit broke utterly down. Frenchman French-man and Spaniard alike would only have laughed In contemptuous derision deri-sion to see the whole fabric go to pieces, and were beginning to interest themselves with surmises as to what plunder it v.duld afford. Resort to Irredeemable Paper. The states which lay neighbors to each other were embroiled in boundary boun-dary disputes, aud were fallen to levying levy-ing duties on each other's commerce. They were individually in debt, besides, be-sides, and were many of them resorting resort-ing to issues of irredeemable paper money to relieve themselves of the Inevitable In-evitable taxation that must sooner or 1 r pay their reckonings. "We are either a united people, or we are not so," cried Washington. "If the former, let us in all matters of general concern act as a nation which has a national character to support; if we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it." As the months passed it began to look as if the farce might be turned into a tragedy. trag-edy. Washington Self-Possessed. The troubles of the country, though he filled his letters with them and wrung his heart for phrases of protest and persuasion that would tell effect ually in the deep labor of working out the sufficient remedy of a roused and united opinion, though he deemed them personal to himself, and knew his own fame in danger to be undone by them, did not break the steady self-possession self-possession of Washington's life at Mount Vernon. "It's astonishing the packets of letters let-ters that daily come for him, from all parts of the world," exclaimed an English visitor; but it was not till he had struggled to keep pace with his correspondence unassisted for a year and a half that he employed a secretary secre-tary to help him. "Letters of friendship require no study," he wrote to General Knox; "the communications are easy, and allowances are expected and made. This is not the case with those that require researches, consideration, recollection, rec-ollection, and the d 1 knows what to prevent error, and to answer the ends for which they are written." He grew almost docile, nevertheless, under the gratuitous task of courtesy thrust upon him. His gallantry, bred in him since a boy, the sense of duty to which be was born, his feeling that what he had done had in some sort committed him to serve his countrymen country-men and his friends everywhere, though it were only in answering questions, disposed him to sacrifice his comfort and his privacy to every one who had the slightest claim upon his attention. Submits to the Painters. He even found sitting for his portrait por-trait grow easy at last. "In for a penny, pen-ny, in for a pound, is an old adage," he laughed, writing to Francis Hop-kinson. Hop-kinson. "I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil that I am now altogether at their beck; and sit 'like patience on a monument' whilst they are delineating the lines of my face. ... At first I was as impatient at the request, and as rest-ive rest-ive under the operation, as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I submitted sub-mitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray horse moves more readily to his thill than I do to the painter's chair." Besides the failure of the public credit, it concerned Washington to note the fact that, though he kept a hundred cows, he was obliged to buy butter for his innumerable guests. He saw to it that there should be at least a very definite and efficient government upon his own estate, and, when there was need, put his own hand to the work. He "often works with his men himself strips off his coat and labors like a common man," measures with his own hands every bit of building or construction that is going forward, and "shows a great turn for mechanics," one of his guests noted, amidst comments on his greatness great-ness and his gracious dignity. Unchanged by War. It was such constancy and candor and spirit in living that took the admiration ad-miration of all men alike upon the instant; and his neighbors every day saw here the same strenuous and simple sim-ple gentleman they had known before ever the war began. It was through the opening of the Potomac, after all, the thing nearest his hand, that a way was found to cure the country of its malady of weakness and disorder. Washington had been chosen president presi-dent of the Potomac company, that it might have the advantage both of his name and of his capacity in affairs; and he hji gone upon a tour of Inspection, In-spection, with the directors of the company, to the falls of the river in the summer of 17S5, keeping steadily to the business he had come upon, and insisting upon being in fact a private gentleman busy with his own affairs, despite the efforts made everywhere every-where he went to see and to entertain enter-tain him; and it presently became evident even to the lea6t sanguine that the long-talked-of work was really real-ly to be carried through. Plan Ridiculed by Baltimore. A visitor at Mount Vernon in the summer of 1785 found Washington "quite pleased at the idea of the Baltimore merchants laughing at him, and saying it was a ridiculous plan, and would never succeed. They begin be-gin now, says the general, to look a little serious about the matter, as they know it must hurt their commerce com-merce amazingly." The scheme had shown its real consequence con-sequence in the spring of that very year, when it brought commissioners from the two states that lay upon the river together In conference to devise plans of co-operation. Commission at Mount Vernon. Both Virginia and Maryland had appointed ap-pointed commissioners, and a meeting had been set for March, 17S5, at Alexandria. Alex-andria. For some reason the Virgin-Ian Virgin-Ian commission were not properly notified of the place and time of conference. con-ference. The meeting was held, nevertheless, a minority of the Virginian Vir-ginian commissioners being present, and, as if to give it more the air of a cordial conference of neighbors, Washington Invited the representatives representa-tives of both states to adjourn from Alexandria to Mount Vernon. There they sat, his guests, from Friday Fri-day to Monday. He was net formally of the commission; but conference was not confined to their formal sessions, ses-sions, and his counsel entered Into their determinations. Wants General Conference. It was evident that two states were not enough to decide the questions submitted to them. Pennsylvania, at least, must be consulted before the full line of trade they sought could be drawn from the head-waters of the Ohio to the head-waters of the Potomac; Poto-mac; and if thrae states were to consult con-sult upon questions of trade which concerned the whole continent, why should not more be inviied, a'nd Che conference be made general. Such was the train of suggestiojt, oertainly, that ran in Washington mind, and which the commissioners carried home with them. A Tour of Inspection. Every sign of the time served to deepen its significance for Washington. Washing-ton. Just before quitting the army he had ridden upon a tour of inspection into the valley of the Mohawk, where a natural way, like this of the Potomac, Poto-mac, ran from the northern settlements settle-ments into the west He knew that the question of joining the Potomac with the Ohio was but one Item of a policy which all the states must consider con-sider and settle nothing less than the policy which must make them an empire em-pire or doom them to remain a weak and petty confederacy. The commissioners did not put all that they had heard at Mount Vernon into their reports to their respective assemblies. Trade Movement Sprads. They recommeaded only that, besides be-sides co-operating wifh each other and with Pennsylvania in opening a way to the western waters. Virgin! and Maryland should adopt a uniform system of duties and of commercial regulations, and should establish uni-fnm uni-fnm rules regarding their currency. Birt the Maryland assembly Its-ell went further. It presently Informed the Virginia legislature that it had not only adopted the measures recommended by the commissioners, but thought it wise to do something more. Delaware ought to be nonsuited, nonsuit-ed, with a view to carrying a ctraight v ater course, by canal, from Chesapeake Chesa-peake bay to the Delaware river; and, since conference could do no harm and bind nobody, it would be as well to Invite all the states to confer with them, for the questions involved seemed far-reaching enough to Justify it, if not to make it necessary. Gov ernor Bowdoin of Massa-chuse'ts had that very year urged his legislature to invite a general convention of the states in the interest of trade. The whole country was in a tangle tan-gle of disagreement about granting to congress the power to lay imposts; im-posts; Gardoqui, it was rumored, was Insisting, for Spain, upon closing the Mississippi; 'twas evident enough conference was needed. Every thoughtful thought-ful man might well pray that it would bring peace and accommodation. When Maryland's suggestion was read in the Virginian assembly, there was prompt acquiescence. Virginia asked all the states of the Union (January, (Jan-uary, 1786) to send delegates to a general gen-eral conference to bs held at Annapolis Annapo-lis on the first Monday in September, to consider and recommend such additions addi-tions to the powers of congress as might conduce to a better regulation of trade. Washington's Grav-e Charge. "There is more wickedness than ig-norano ig-norano in the conduct of the states, or, In other words, in the conduct of those who have too much Influence in the government of them," Washington wrote hotry to Henry Lee, upon hearing hear-ing to what lengths contempt of the authority of congress had been carried; car-ried; "and until the curtain Is withdrawn, with-drawn, and the private views and selfish self-ish principles upon which these men act are exposed to public notice, I have little hope of amendment without another convulsion." Perhaps the conference at Annapolis Annapo-lis would withdraw the curtain and give the light leave to work a purification; puri-fication; and be waited anxiously for the issue. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |