CHAPTER I.

1774-1775.

The thirteen British colonies in North America, by whose inhabitants the American Revolution was achieved, were, at the commencement of that struggle, so many separate communities, having, to a considerable extent, different political organizations and different municipal laws: but their various populations spoke almost universally the English language. These colonies were Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. From the times when they were respectively settled, until the union formed under the necessities of a common cause at the breaking out of the Revolution, they had no political connection; but each possessed a domestic government peculiar to itself, derived directly from the crown of England, and more or less under the direct control of the mother country.

The political organizations of the colonies have been classed by jurists and historians under the three heads of Provincial, Proprietary, and Charter governments.

To the class of Provincial governments belonged the Provinces of New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia. These had no other written constitutions, or fundamental laws, than the commissions issued to the Governors appointed by the crown, explained by the instructions which accompanied them. The Governor, by his commission, was made the representative or deputy of the King, and was obliged to act in conformity with the royal instructions. He was assisted by a Council, the members of which, besides participating with him, to a certain extent, in the executive functions of the government, constituted the upper house of the provincial legislature; and he was also authorized to summon a general assembly of representatives of the freeholders of the Province. The three branches thus convened, consisting of the Governor, the Council, and the Representatives, constituted the provincial Assemblies, having the power of local legislation, subject to the ratification and disapproval of the crown. The direct control of the crown over these provincial governments may also be traced in the features, common to them all, by which the Governor had power to suspend the members of the Council from office, and, whenever vacancies occurred, to appoint to those vacancies, until the pleasure of the crown should be known; to negative all the proceedings of the assembly; and to prorogue or dissolve it at his pleasure.

The Proprietary governments, consisting of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were those in which the subordinate powers of legislation and government had been granted to certain individuals called the proprietaries, who appointed the Governor and authorized him to summon legislative assemblies. The authority of the proprietaries, or of the legislative bodies assembled by the Governor, was restrained by the condition, that the ends for which the grant was made to them by the crown should be substantially pursued in their legislation, and that nothing should be done, or attempted, which might derogate from the sovereignty of the mother country. In Maryland, the laws enacted by the proprietary government were not subject to the direct control of the crown; but in Pennsylvania and Delaware they were.2

The Charter governments, consisting, at the period of the Revolution, of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, may be said, in a stricter sense, to have possessed written constitutions for their general political government. The charters, granted by the crown, established an organization of the different departments of government similar to that in the provincial governments. In Massachusetts, after the charter of William and Mary granted in 1691, the Governor was appointed by the crown; the Council were chosen annually by the General Assembly, and the House of Representatives by the people. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, the Governor, Council, and Representatives were chosen annually by the freemen of the colony. In the charter, as well as the provincial governments, the general power of legislation was restrained by the condition, that the laws enacted should be, as nearly as possible, agreeable to the laws and statutes of England.

One of the principal causes which precipitated the war of the Revolution was the blow struck by Parliament at these charter governments, commencing with that of Massachusetts, by an act intended to alter the constitution of that Province as it stood upon the charter of William and Mary; a precedent which justly alarmed the entire continent, and in its principle affected all the colonies, since it assumed that none of them possessed constitutional rights which could not be altered or taken away by an act of Parliament. The "Act for the better regulating the government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," passed in 1774, was designed to create an executive power of a totally different character from that created by the charter, and also to remodel the judiciary, in order that the laws of the imperial government might be more certainly enforced.

The charter had reserved to the King the appointment of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Secretary of the Province. It vested in the General Assembly the choice of twenty-eight councillors, subject to rejection by the Governor; it gave to the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council, the appointment of all military and judicial officers, and to the two houses of the legislature the appointment of all other civil officers, with a right of negative by the Governor. The new law vested the appointment of councillors, judges, and magistrates of all kinds, in the crown, and in some cases in the Governor, and made them all removable at the pleasure of the crown. A change so radical as this, in the constitution of a people long accustomed to regard their charter as a compact between themselves and the crown, could not but lead to the most serious consequences.

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The statements which have now been made are sufficient to remind the reader of the important fact, that, at the commencement of the Revolution, there existed, and had long existed, in all the colonies, local legislatures, one branch of which was composed of representatives chosen directly by the people, accustomed to the transaction of public business, and being in fact the real organs of the popular will. These bodies, by virtue of their relation to the people, were, in many instances, the bodies which took the initiatory steps for the organization of the first national or Continental Congress, when it became necessary for the colonies to unite in the common purpose of resistance to the mother country. But it should be again stated, before we attend to the steps thus taken, that the colonies had no direct political connection with each other before the Revolution commenced, but that each was a distinct community, with its own separate political organization, and without any power of legislation for any but its own inhabitants; that, as political communities, and upon the principles of their organizations, they possessed no power of forming any union among themselves, for any purpose whatever, without the sanction of the Crown or Parliament of England.3 But the free and independent power of forming a union among themselves, for objects and purposes common to them all, which was denied to their colonial condition by the principles of the English Constitution, was one of the chief powers asserted and developed by the Revolution; and they were enabled to effect this union, as a revolutionary right and measure, by the fortunate circumstances of their origin, which made the people of the different colonies, in several important senses, one people. They were, in the first place, chiefly the descendants of Englishmen, governed by the laws, inheriting the blood, and speaking the language of the people of England. As British subjects, they had enjoyed the right of dwelling in any of the colonies, without restraint, and of carrying on trade from one colony to another, under the regulation of the general laws of the empire, without restriction by colonial legislation. They had, moreover, common grievances to be redressed, and a common independence to establish, if redress could not be obtained: for although the precise grounds of dispute with the Crown or the Parliament of England had not always been the same in all the colonies, yet when the Revolution actually broke out, they all stood in the same attitude of resistance to the same oppressor, making common cause with each other, and resting upon certain great principles of liberty, which had been violated with regard to many of them, and with the further violation of which all were threatened.

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It was while the controversies between the mother country and the colonies were drawing towards a crisis, that Dr. Franklin, then in England as the political agent of Pennsylvania, of Massachusetts, and of Georgia, in an official letter to the Massachusetts Assembly, dated July 7th, 1773, recommended the assembling of a general congress of all the colonies. "As the strength of an empire," said he, "depends not only on the union of its parts, but on their readiness for united exertion of their common force; and as the discussion of rights may seem unseasonable in the commencement of actual war, and the delay it might occasion be prejudicial to the common welfare; as likewise the refusal of one or a few colonies would not be so much regarded, if the others granted liberally, which perhaps by various artifices and motives they might be prevailed on to do; and as this want of concert would defeat the expectation of general redress, that might otherwise be justly formed; perhaps it would be best and fairest for the colonies, in a general congress now in peace to be assembled, or by means of the correspondence lately proposed, after a full and solemn assertion and declaration of their rights, to engage firmly with each other, that they will never grant aids to the crown in any general war, till those rights are recognized by the King and both houses of Parliament; communicating at the same time to the crown this their resolution. Such a step I imagine will bring the dispute to a crisis."4

The first actual step towards this measure was taken in Virginia. A new House of Burgesses had been summoned by the royal Governor to meet in May, 1774. Soon after the members had assembled at Williamsburg, they received the news that, by an act of Parliament, the port of Boston was to be closed on the first day of the succeeding June, and that other disabilities were to be inflicted on the town. They immediately passed an order, setting apart the first day of June as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, "to implore the Divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights." Thereupon, the Governor dissolved the House. But the members immediately assembled at another place of meeting, and, having organized themselves as a committee, drew up and subscribed an Association, in which they declared that the interests of all the colonies were equally concerned in the late doings of Parliament, and advised the local Committee of Correspondence to consult with the committees of the other colonies on the expediency of holding a general Continental Congress. Pursuant to these recommendations, a popular convention was holden at Williamsburg, on the 1st of August, which appointed seven persons as delegates to represent the people of Virginia in a general Congress to be held at Philadelphia in the September following.5

The Massachusetts Assembly met on the last of May, and, after negativing thirteen of the Councillors, Governor Gage adjourned the Assembly to meet at Salem on the 7th of June. When they came together at that place, the House of Representatives passed a resolve, declaring a meeting of committees from the several colonies on the continent to be highly expedient and necessary, to deliberate and determine upon proper measures to be recommended to all the colonies for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and for the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain. They then appointed five delegates6 to meet the representatives of the other colonies in congress at Philadelphia, in the succeeding September.

These examples were at once followed by the other colonies. In some of them, the delegates to the Continental Congress were appointed by the popular branch of the legislature, acting for and in behalf of the people; in others, they were appointed by conventions of the people called for the express purpose, or by committees duly authorized to make the appointment.7 The Congress, styling themselves "the delegates appointed by the good people of these colonies," assembled at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774, and organized themselves as a deliberative body by the choice of officers and the adoption of rules of proceeding. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was elected President, and Charles Thompson of Pennsylvania Secretary of the Congress.

No precedent existed for the mode of action to be adopted by this assembly. There was, therefore, at the outset, no established principle which might determine the nature of the union; but that union was to be shaped by the new circumstances and relations in which the Congress found itself placed. There had been no general concert among the different colonies as to the numbers of delegates, or, as they were called in many of the proceedings, "committees" of the colonies, to be sent to the meeting at Philadelphia. On the first day of their assembling, Pennsylvania and Virginia had each six delegates in attendance; New York had five; Massachusetts, New Jersey, and South Carolina had four each; Connecticut had three; New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland had two each. The delegates from North Carolina did not arrive until the 14th.8

As soon as the choice of officers had taken place,9 the method of voting presented itself as the first thing to be determined; and the difficulties arising from the inequalities between the colonies in respect to actual representation, population, and wealth, had to be encountered upon the threshold. Insuperable obstacles stood in the way of the adoption of interests as the basis of votes. The weight of a colony could not be ascertained by the numbers of its inhabitants, the amount of their wealth, the extent of their trade, or by any ratio to be compounded of all these elements, for no authentic evidence existed from which data could be taken.10 As it was apparent, however, that some colonies had a larger proportion of members present than others, relatively to their size and importance, it was thought to be equally objectionable to adopt the method of voting by polls. In these circumstances, the opinion was advanced, that the colonial governments were at an end; that all America was thrown into one mass, and was in a state of nature; and consequently, that the people ought to be considered as represented in the Congress according to their numbers, by the delegations actually present.11 Upon this principle, the voting should have been by polls.

But neither the circumstances under which they were assembled, nor the dispositions of the members, permitted an adoption of the theory that all government was at an end, or that the boundaries of the colonies were effaced. The Congress had not assembled as the representatives of a people in a state of nature, but as the committees of different colonies, which had not yet severed themselves from the parent state. They had been clothed with no legislative or coercive authority, even of a revolutionary nature; compliance with their resolves would follow only on conviction of the utility of their measures; and all their resolves and all their measures were, by the express terms of many of their credentials, limited to the restoration of union and harmony with Great Britain, which would of course leave the colonies in their colonial state. The people of the continent, therefore, as a people in the state of nature, or even in a national existence as one people standing in a revolutionary attitude, had not then come into being.

The nature of the questions, too, which they were to discuss, and of the measures which they were to adopt, were to be considered in determining by what method of voting those questions and measures should be decided. The Congress had been called to secure the rights of the colonies. What were those rights? By what standard were they to be ascertained? By the law of nature, or by the principles of the English Constitution, or by the charters and fundamental laws of the colonies, regarded as compacts between the crown and the people, or by all of these combined? If the law of nature alone was to determine their rights, then all allegiance to the British crown was to be regarded as at an end. If the principles of the English Constitution, or the charters, were to be the standard, the law of nature must be excluded from consideration. This exclusion would of necessity narrow the ground, and deprive them of a resource to which Parliament might at last compel them to look.12 In order, therefore, to leave the whole field open for consideration, and at the same time to avoid committing themselves to principles irreconcilable with the preservation of allegiance and their colonial relation to Great Britain, it was necessary to consider themselves as an assembly of committees from the different colonies, in which each colony should have one voice, through the delegates whom it had sent to represent and act for it. But, as if foreseeing the time when population would become of necessity the basis of congressional power, when the authority of Parliament should have given place to a system of American continental legislation, they inserted, in the resolve determining that each colony should have one vote, a caution that would prevent its being drawn into precedent. They declared, as the reason for the course which they adopted, that the Congress were not possessed of, or able to procure, the proper materials for ascertaining the importance of each colony.13

It appears, therefore, very clear, that an examination of the relations of the first Congress to the colonies which instituted it will not enable us to assign to it the character of a government. Its members were not elected for the express purpose of making a revolution. It was an assembly convened from separate colonies, each of which had causes of complaint against the imperial government to which it acknowledged its allegiance to be due, and each of which regarded it as essential to its own interests to make common cause with the others, for the purpose of obtaining redress of its own grievances. The idea of separating themselves from the mother country had not been generally entertained by the people of any of the colonies. All their public proceedings, from the commencement of the disputes down to the election of delegates to the first Congress, including the instructions given to those delegates, prove, as we have seen, that they looked for redress and relief to means which they regarded as entirely consistent with the principles of the British Constitution.14

Still, although this Congress did not take upon themselves the functions of a government, or propose revolution as a remedy for the wrongs of their constituents, they regarded and styled themselves as "the guardians of the rights and liberties of the colonies";15 and in that capacity they proceeded to declare the causes of complaint, and to take the necessary steps to obtain redress, in what they believed to be a constitutional mode. These steps, however, although not directly revolutionary, had a revolutionary tendency.

On the 6th of September, 1774, a resolve was passed, that a committee be appointed to state the rights of the colonies in general, the several instances in which those rights had been violated or infringed, and the means most proper to be pursued for obtaining a restoration of them. Another committee was ordered on the same day, to examine and report the several statutes affecting the trade and manufactures of the colonies. On the following day, it was ordered that the first committee should consist of two members, and the second of one member, from each of the colonies.16 Two questions presented themselves to the first of these committees, and created a good deal of embarrassment. The first was, whether, in stating the rights of the colonies, they should recur to the law of nature, as well as to the British Constitution and the American charters and grants. The second question related to the authority which they should allow to be in Parliament;—whether they should deny it wholly, or deny it only as to internal affairs, admitting it as to external trade; and if the latter, to what extent and with what restrictions. It was soon felt that this question of the authority of Parliament was the essence of the whole controversy. Some denied it altogether. Others denied it as to every species of taxation; while others admitted it to extend to the regulation of external trade, but denied it as to all internal affairs. The discussions had not proceeded far, before it was perceived that this subject of the regulation of trade might lead directly to the question of the continuance of the colonial relations with the mother country. For this they were not prepared. It was apparent that the right of regulating the trade of the whole country, from the local circumstances of the colonies and their disconnection with each other, could not be exercised by the colonies themselves: it was thought that the aid, assistance, and protection of the mother country were necessary to them; and therefore, as a proper equivalent, that the colonies must admit the right of regulating the trade, to some extent and in some mode, to be in Parliament. The alternatives were, either to set up an American legislature, that could control and regulate the trade of the whole country, or else to give the power to Parliament. The Congress determined to do the latter; supposing that they could limit the admission, by denying that the power extended to taxation, but ceding at the same time the right to regulate the external trade of the colonies for the common benefit of the whole empire.17 They grounded this concession upon "the necessities of the case," and "the mutual interests of both countries";18 meaning by these expressions to assert that all legislative control over the external and internal trade of the colonies belonged of right to the colonies themselves, but, as they were part of an empire for which Parliament legislated, it was necessary that the common legislature of the whole empire should retain the regulation of the external trade, excluding all power of taxation for purposes of revenue, in order to secure the benefits of the trade of the whole empire to the mother country.

The Congress, therefore, after having determined to confine their statement to such rights as had been infringed by acts of Parliament since the year 1763, unanimously adopted a Declaration of Rights, in which they summed up the grievances and asserted the rights of the colonies. This document placed the rights of the colonies upon the laws of nature, the principles of the English Constitution, and the several charters or compacts. It declared, that, as the colonies were not, and from their local situation could not be, represented in the English Parliament, they were entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as had been before accustomed. At the same time, from the necessity of the case and from a regard to the mutual interests of both countries, they cheerfully consented to the operation of such acts of Parliament as were in good faith limited to the regulation of their external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole to the mother country, and the commercial benefit of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal and external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America, without their consent.19

In addition to this, they asserted, as great constitutional rights inherent in the people of all these colonies, that they were entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural-born subjects within the realm of England; to the common law of England, and especially to trial by a jury of the vicinage; to the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured by their several codes of provincial laws; and to the right of peaceably assembling to consider grievances and to petition the King.20

In order to enforce their complaints upon the attention of the government and people of Great Britain, and as the sole means which were open to them, short of actual revolution, of coercing the ministry into a change of measures, they resolved that after the 10th of September, 1775, the exportation of all merchandise, and every commodity whatsoever, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies, ought to cease, unless the grievances of America should be redressed before that time; and that after the first day of December, 1774, there should be no importation into British America, from Great Britain or Ireland, of any goods, wares, or merchandise whatever, or from any other place, of any such goods, wares, or merchandise as had been exported from Great Britain or Ireland, and that no such goods, wares, or merchandise be used or purchased.21 They then prepared an association, or agreement, of non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption, in order, as far as lay in their power, to cause a general compliance with their resolves. This association was subscribed by every member of the Congress, and was by them recommended for adoption to the people of the colonies, and was very generally adopted and acted upon.22 They resorted to this as the most speedy, effectual, and peaceable measure to obtain a redress of the grievances of which the colonies complained; and they entered into the agreement on behalf of the inhabitants of the several colonies for which they acted.

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This Congress, which sat from the 5th of September to the 26th of October, 1774, had thus made the restoration of commercial intercourse between the colonies and the other parts of the British empire to depend upon the repeal by Parliament of the obnoxious measures of which they complained, and upon the recognition of the rights which they asserted; for although their acts had not the foundation of laws, the general adoption of their recommendations throughout the colonies gave them a power that laws rarely possess. Before they adjourned, they recommended that another Congress of all the colonies should be held at Philadelphia on the 10th of the following May, unless their grievances were redressed before that time, and that the deputies to such new Congress should be chosen immediately.23

But while the Continental Congress were engaged in the adoption of these measures of constitutional resistance, and still acknowledged their colonial relations to the imperial government, the course of events in Massachusetts had put an end to the forms of law and government in that colony, as established or upheld by imperial authority. The last Assembly held in the Province upon the principles of its charter had been dissolved by the Governor's proclamation, at Salem, on the 17th of June, 1774. The new law for the alteration of the government had taken effect; and in August the Governor received from England a list of thirty-six councillors, who were to be called into office by the King's writ of mandamus, instead of being elected, as under the charter, by the House of Representatives. Two thirds of the number accepted their appointment; but popular indignation, treating them as enemies of their country, compelled the greater part of them to renounce their offices. The new judges were prevented everywhere from proceeding with the business of the courts, which were obstructed by assemblies of the people, who would permit no judge to exercise his functions, save in accordance with the ancient laws and usages of the Colony.

Writs had been issued for a new General Assembly, which was to meet at Salem in October; but it was found, that, while the old constitution had been taken away by act of Parliament, the new one had been rejected by the people. The compulsory resignation of so many of the councillors left that body without power, and the Governor deemed it expedient to countermand the writs by proclamation, and to defer the holding of the Assembly until the popular temper should have had time to cool. But the legality of the proclamation was denied; the elections were everywhere held, and the members elect assembled at Salem, pursuant to the precepts. There they waited a day for the Governor to attend, administer the oaths, and open the session; but as he did not appear, they resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress, to be joined by others who had been or might be elected for that purpose, and adjourned to the town of Cambridge, to take into consideration the affairs of the Colony, in which the regular and established government was now at an end. Their acts were at first couched in the form of recommendations to the people, whose ready compliance gave to them the weight and efficacy of laws, and there was thus formed something like a new and independent government. Under the form of recommendation and advice, they settled the militia, regulated the public revenue, provided arms, and prepared to resist the British troops. In December, 1774, they elected five persons to represent the Colony in the Continental Congress that was to assemble at Philadelphia in the ensuing May. They were met by a proclamation, issued by the Governor, in which their assembly was declared unlawful, and the people were prohibited, in the King's name, from complying with their recommendations, requisitions, or resolves. Through the winter, the Governor held the town of Boston, with a considerable body of royal troops, but the rest of the Province generally yielded obedience to the Provincial Congress. In this posture of affairs, the encounter between a detachment of the King's forces and a body of militia, commonly called the battle of Lexington, occurred, on the 19th of April, 1775.

CHAPTER III.

1776-1777.

On the 7th of June, 1776, after the Congress had in fact assumed and exercised sovereign powers with the assent of the people of America, a resolution was moved by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts, "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally suppressed."53 This resolution was referred to a committee of the whole, and was debated until the 10th, when it was adopted in committee. On the same day, a committee, consisting of five members,54 was instructed to prepare a declaration "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, dissolved." The resolution introduced by Mr. Lee on the 7th was postponed until the 1st of July, to give time for greater unanimity among the members, and to enable the people of the colonies to instruct and influence their delegates.

The postponement was immediately followed by proceedings in the colonies, in most of which the delegates in Congress were either instructed or authorized to vote for the resolution of Independence; and on the 2d of July that resolution received the assent in Congress of all the colonies, excepting Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Declaration of Independence was reported by the committee, who had been instructed to prepare it, on the 28th of June, and on the 4th of July it received the vote of every colony, and was published to the world.55

This celebrated instrument, regarded as a legislative proceeding, was the solemn enactment, by the representatives of all the colonies, of a complete dissolution of their allegiance to the British crown. It severed the political connection between the people of this country and the people of England, and at once erected the different colonies into free and independent states. The body by which this step was taken constituted the actual government of the nation, at the time, and its members had been directly invested with competent legislative power to take it, and had also been specially instructed to do so. The consequences flowing from its adoption were, that the local allegiance of the inhabitants of each colony became transferred and due to the colony itself, or, as it was expressed by the Congress, became due to the laws of the colony, from which they derived protection;56 that the people of the country became thenceforth the rightful sovereign of the country; that they became united in a national corporate capacity, as one people; that they could thereafter enter into treaties and contract alliances with foreign nations, could levy war and conclude peace, and do all other acts pertaining to the exercise of a national sovereignty; and finally, that, in their national corporate capacity, they became known and designated as the United States of America. This Declaration was the first national state paper in which these words were used as the style and title of the nation. In the enacting part of the instrument, the Congress styled themselves "the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled"; and from that period, the previously "United Colonies" have been known as a political community, both within their own borders and by the other nations of the world, by the title which they then assumed.57

On the same day on which the committee for preparing the Declaration of Independence was appointed, another committee, consisting of one member from each colony, was directed "to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies." This committee reported a draft of Articles of Confederation, on the 12th of July, which were debated in Congress on several occasions between that day and the 20th of August of the same year, at which time a new draft was reported, and ordered to be printed. The subject was not again resumed, until the 8th of April, 1777; but, between that date and the 15th of the following November, sundry amendments were discussed and adopted, and the whole of the articles, as amended, were printed for the use of the Congress and the State Legislatures. On the 17th of November, a circular letter was reported and adopted, to be addressed to the Legislatures of the thirteen States, recommending to them "to invest the delegates of the State with competent powers, ultimately, in the name and behalf of the State, to subscribe Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union of the United States, and to attend Congress for that purpose on or before the 10th day of March next."58

A year and five months had thus elapsed, between the agitation of the subject of a new form of national government, and the adoption and recommendation of a form, by the Congress, for the consideration of the States.59 During this interval, the affairs of the country were administered by the Revolutionary Congress, which had been instituted, originally, for the purpose of obtaining redress peaceably from the British ministry, but which afterwards became de facto the government of the country, for all the purposes of revolution and independence. In order to appreciate the objects of the Confederation, the obstacles which it had to encounter, and the mode in which those obstacles were finally overcome, it is necessary here to take a brief survey of the national affairs during the period beginning with the commencement of the war and the Declaration of Independence, and extending to the date of the submission of the Articles of Confederation to the State Legislatures. From no point of view can so much instruction be derived, as from the position in which Washington stood, during this period. By following the fortunes and appreciating the exertions of him who had been charged with the great military duty of achieving the liberties of the country, and especially by observing his relations with the government that had undertaken the war, we can best understand the fitness of that government for the great task to which it had been called.

The continental government, which commissioned and sent General Washington to take the command of the army which it had adopted, consisted solely of a body of delegates, chosen to represent the people of the several colonies or states, for certain purposes of national defence, safety, redress, and revolution. When the war had actually commenced, and the United Colonies were engaged in waging it, the Congress possessed, theoretically and rightfully, large political powers, of a vague revolutionary nature; but practically, they had little direct civil power, either legislative or executive. They were obliged to rely almost wholly on the legislatures, provincial congresses and committees, or other local bodies of the several colonies or states, to carry out their plans. When Washington arrived at Cambridge and found the army then encamped around Boston in a state requiring it to be entirely remodelled, he came as the general of a government which could do little more for him than recommend him to the Provincial Congress, to the Committee of Safety, and to the prominent citizens of Massachusetts Bay. The people of the United States, at the present day, surrounded by the apparatus of national power, can form some idea of Washington's position, and of that of the government which he served, from the fact that, when he left Philadelphia to take the command of the army, he requested the Massachusetts delegates to recommend to him bodies of men and respectable individuals, to whom he might apply, to get done, through voluntary coöperation, what was absolutely essential to the existence of that army.60 In truth, the whole of his residence in Massachusetts during the summer of 1775, and the winter of 1775-6, until he saw the British fleet go down the harbor of Boston, was filled with complicated difficulties, which sprang from the nature of the revolutionary government and the defects in its civil machinery, far more than from any and all other causes. These difficulties required the exertion of great intellectual and physical energy, the application of consummate prudence and forecast, and the patience and fortitude which in him were so happily combined with power. They would have broken down many of the greatest generals whom the world has seen; but it is our good fortune to be able to look back upon his efforts to encounter them as among the more prominent and striking manifestations of the strength of Washington's mind and character, and as among the most valuable proofs of what we owe to him.

On the one side of him was the body of delegates, sitting at Philadelphia, by whom he had been commissioned, who constituted the government of America, and from whom every direction, order, or requisition, concerning national affairs, necessarily proceeded. On the other side were the Provincial Congresses, and other public bodies of the New England colonies, on whom he and the Congress were obliged to rely for the execution of their plans. He was compelled to become the director of this complicated machinery. There were committees of the Congress, charged with the different branches of the public service; but General Washington was obliged to attend personally to every detail, and to suggest, to urge, and to entreat action upon all the subjects that concerned the army and the campaign. His letters, addressed to the President of Congress, were read in that body, and votes or resolutions were passed to give effect to his requests or recommendations. But this was not enough. Having obtained the proper order or requisition, he was next obliged to see that it was executed by the local bodies or magistrates, with whom he not infrequently was forced to discuss the whole subject anew. He met with great readiness of attention, and every disposition to make things personally convenient and agreeable to him; but he found, as he has recorded, a vital and inherent principle of delay, incompatible with military service, in the necessity he was under to transact business through such numerous and different channels.61 His applications to the Governor of Connecticut for hunting-shirts for the army;62 to the Governor of Rhode Island for powder;63 to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to apprehend deserters and to furnish supplies;64 and to the New York Provincial Congress to prevent their citizens from trading with the enemy in Boston,65—together with the earnest appeals which he was obliged to make on these and many other subjects, which should never have been permitted to embarrass him,—show how feeble were the powers and how defective was the machinery of the government which he served.

But there are two or three topics which it will be necessary to examine more particularly, in order fully to understand the character and working of the revolutionary government. The first of these is the formation of the army.

In order to carry on a war of any duration, it is the settled result of all experience, that the soldier should be bound to serve for a period long enough to insure discipline and skill, and should be under the influence of motives which look to substantial pecuniary rewards, as well as those founded on patriotism. According to Washington's experience, this is as true of officers as it is of common soldiers; and undoubtedly no army can be formed, and kept long enough in the field to be relied upon for the accomplishment of great purposes, if these maxims are neglected in its organization.

Unfortunately, the Revolutionary Congress, at the very commencement of the war, committed the serious error of enlisting soldiers for short periods. When Washington arrived at Cambridge, the army which the Congress had just adopted as the continental establishment consisted of certain regiments, raised on the spur of the moment by the provinces of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; acting under their respective officers; regulated by their own militia laws; and, with the exception of those from Massachusetts, under no legal obligation to obey the general then in command. The terms of service of most of these men would expire in the autumn; and as they had enlisted under their local governments for a special object, and had not been in service long enough to have merged their habits of thinking and feeling, as New England citizens, in the character of soldiers, they denied the power of their own governments or of the Congress to transfer them into another service, or to retain them after their enlistments had expired.66 The army was therefore to be entirely remodelled; or, to speak more correctly, an army was to be formed, by making enlistments under the Articles of War which had been adopted by the Congress, and by organizing new regiments and brigades under officers holding continental commissions. But the greatest difficulties had to be encountered in this undertaking. The continental Articles of War required a longer term of service than any of these troops had originally engaged for, and the rules and regulations were far more stringent than the discipline to which they had hitherto been subjected. There was, moreover, great reluctance, on the part of both officers and men, to serve in regiments consisting of the inhabitants of different colonies. A Connecticut captain would not serve under a Massachusetts colonel; a Massachusetts colonel was unwilling to command Rhode Island men; and the men were equally indisposed to serve under officers from another colony, or under any officers, in fact, but those of their own choosing.67

In this state of things, a committee, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Lynch, and Colonel Harrison, was sent by the Congress to confer with General Washington and with the local governments of the New England colonies, on the most effectual method of continuing, supporting, and regulating a continental army.68 This committee arrived at Cambridge on the 18th of October, and sat until the 24th.69 They rendered very important services to the commander-in-chief, in the organization of the army; but in forming this first military establishment of the Union, the strange error was committed by the Congress, of enlisting the men for the term of one year only, if not sooner discharged;—a capital mistake, the consequences of which were severely felt throughout the whole war.

There is no reason to suppose that General Washington concurred in the expediency of such short enlistments, then or at any other time; but he was obliged to yield to the pressure of the causes to which the mistake is fairly to be attributed. In fact, we find him, in a short time after the new system had been put into operation, pointing it out as a fatal error, in a letter to the President of Congress.70 The error may have been owing to the character of the government, to the opinions and prejudices prevailing in Congress, and to the delusive idea, which still lingered in the minds of many of the members, that, although the sword had been drawn, the scabbard was not wholly thrown aside, and that they should be able to coerce the British ministry into a redress of grievances, which might be followed by a restoration of the relations between the colonies and the mother country, upon a constitutional basis. No such idea was entertained by Washington, from the beginning. He entertained no thought of accommodation, after the measures adopted in consequence of the battle of Bunker's Hill.

But at the time of which we are treating, the issue had not been made, as Washington would have made it; and, when we consider the state of things before the Declaration of Independence was adopted, and look attentively at the objects for which the Congress had been assembled, and at the nature of their powers, we may perceive how they came to make the mistake of not organizing a military establishment on a more permanent footing.

The delegates to the first Congress were, as we have seen, sent with instructions, which were substantially the same in all the colonies. These instructions, in some instances, looked to "a redress of grievances," and in others, to "the recovery and establishment of the just rights and liberties of the colonies"; and the delegates were directed "to deliberate upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies," for the attainment of these objects. But with this was coupled the declared object of a "restoration of union and harmony" upon "constitutional principles." We have seen how far this body proceeded towards a revolution. The second, or Revolutionary Congress, was composed of delegates who were originally assembled under similar instructions; but the conflict of arms that had already taken place, between the times of their respective appointments and the date of their meeting, had materially changed the posture of affairs. Powers of a revolutionary nature had been cast upon them, by the force of circumstances; and when they finally resolved to take the field, the character of those powers, as understood and acted upon by themselves, is illustrated by the commission which they issued to their General-in-chief, which embraced in its scope the whole vast object of "the defence of American liberty, and the repelling every hostile invasion thereof," by force of arms, and "by the rules and discipline of war, as herewith given."