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The Founding of the American Republic: The Critical Period
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Sep 8, 2019 18:44:27 #
The Critical Critic wrote:
(Continued from above)
For example Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1786: "America never was in higher prosperity, her produce abundant and bearing a good price, her working people all employed and well paid, and all property in lands and houses of more than treble the value it bore before the war; and our commerce being no longer the monopoly of British merchants, we are furnished with all the foreign commodities we need, at much more reasonable rates than heretofore."[10] George Washington wrote in a similar vein in 1787: "In the old states, which were the theatres of hostility, it is wonderful to see how soon the ravages of war are repaired. Houses are rebuilt, fields enclosed, stocks of cattle which were destroyed are replaced, and many a desolated territory assumes again the cheerful appearance of cultivation."[11]
The t***h seems to be that some people were in distress, and some were prosperous. That is not an earthshaking conclusion, because much the same can be said at any time. But those not doing well at this time were frequently hurt in one way or another by the legacy from the war. Those who had gone into debt to buy real property on long terms during the inflation were undoubtedly often hard put to pay off in the much scarcer money that was now being used. For example, “in Worcester County in Massachusetts, there were over 2,000 suits taken to court for recovery of debt in one year."[12] Americans had not only to adjust to a reduced money supply but also to a new trading situation after the break from England. To many, the new situation provided new opportunities, but others tried to cling to and make a go of the old relations (particularly was this true of trade with England). The states were generally deeply in debt from the war, and some of them attempted to begin to retire their obligations by levying taxes. This could be particularly hard on those who owed debts for their land and had to pay high property taxes as well.
These things are relevant to a mounting crisis in the United States because they were the occasion for pressures on the governments to do something about them. Some of the functions people were accustomed to have government perform were either not being performed or were irregularly performed. Americans had not only a legacy of mercantilism but also of monetary manipulations. Debts, taxes, and trade regulations plagued the new governments. There was not even a standard currency throughout the United States.
When the Continental and state currencies were repudiated, people used coins primarily for a medium of exchange. There were few minted in America during this period, so that foreign coins circulated mostly: "English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and four-pence-ha’-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, carolins, ducats, and chequins."[13] In addition to the difficulty of calculating the respective value of each of these coins, there was the complication that coins were frequently worn or clipped. A man who accepted one of the latter at full value might have it discounted when he tried to use it. Americans did not have a medium of exchange; they had media through which exchanges of money for money were almost as precarious as exchanges in goods and were using coins whose sovereigns could not regulate and over whom Americans had no control.
There was hardly any reason, however, for the citizenry to have any confidence in the monetary actions of the Congress, nor, for that matter, of the legislatures of the states. Not only had the Confederation repudiated its currency, but the debts which it still recognized were poorly serviced. The total debt of the United States at the end of the war, foreign and domestic, was about $35,000,000. Far from being retired, it continued to grow. By way of requisitions from the states, Congress received $2,457,987.25 in the period from November 1, 1781 to January 1, 1786.[14] This was barely enough to pay current expenses for the government." Robert Morris sent along this comment when he resigned as head of the treasury in 1783: "To increase our debts while the prospect of paying them diminishes, does not consist with my ideas of integrity. I must, therefore, quit a situation which becomes utterly insupportable."[15] Those who succeeded him may have had less integrity than he professed, but they were hardly better supplied with money.
It was commonly held that the greatest deficiencies of Congress under the Confederation were the lack of the power to tax and the inability to regulate trade. There should be no doubt that the lack of the power to tax made the Congress almost impotent to perform the functions allotted to it. As to trade, Congress was almost powerless either to regulate or to prevent the states from doing so. Whether trade needed regulating was debatable, but if it did, a strong case could be made against the states doing it. Indeed, some states undertook to set up tariffs and to discriminate against ships of other lands, particularly those of England. But it was exceedingly difficult for states to set rates which would accomplish even those dubious advantages supposed to follow from them. If the tariffs were too high, in comparison with those of surrounding states, goods might come into the state from ports of entry located in other states. If imported goods were finally consumed in another state from the one imposing the tariff, the state was actually levying taxes on citizens of other states.
The regulation of trade by the states worked against a common market for all the United States and threatened to turn some states against others. John Fiske described the situation this way: Meanwhile, the different states, with their different tariff and tonnage acts, began to make commercial war upon one another. No sooner had the other three New England states virtually closed their ports to British shipping than Connecticut threw hers wide open, an act which she followed by laying duties upon imports from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against Delaware, and New Jersey, pillaged at once by both her greater neighbours, was compared to a cask tapped at both ends.[16]
Trade discriminations sometimes lead to war. Not only was there the possibility that one American state might go to war against its neighbor but also that discriminations against or by foreign countries might lead some country to go to war against a state. In such a case, the United States would be drawn into the war, for the authority to make war was vested in Congress. To say the least, the situation was anomalous.
It is strange, but true, that the events which finally provoked Americans to do something about the union did not directly involve the Congress and its ineffectiveness. Perhaps it is not so strange on reflection, for Congress rarely did anything. The failure to act may be indictable, but I think it would be hard to get a jury to convict. Congress presented a low silhouette to its critics. True, it repudiated its currency, could not pay its debts, could not force the states to meet their quotas, could not protect its citizens abroad, and did not do most of the things it was authorized to do with much energy. But, then, it seldom gave offense, and people spread over a vast land were more used to opposing government action than seeking it. It is most probable that if some crisis had swept the Congress away it would have gone with a whimper rather than a bang. In our day, we have seen exile governments seeking a country to govern; the United States was an exile country awaiting a government.
It was trouble in New England in 1786-87 that aroused fears which prompted men to action. Paper money, taxes, and debts were the occasion of challenges to some state governments. Most states were under pressure to make paper money issues. Seven had done so by 1787 but, as might be expected, there was considerable opposition to such actions Rhode Island not only issued paper money but revived harsh methods to try to make it circulate. Faced with fleeing creditors and merchants abandoning the state, the "legislature passed an act declaring that anyone refusing to take the money at face value would be fined £100 for a first offense and would have to pay a similar fine and lose his rights as a citizen for a second."[17] When the act was challenged, the court declared its opinion that the act was unconstitutional. The judges were called before the legislature, interrogated, and some of them dismissed. Rhode Island’s government was viewed with contempt by many Americans.
Rhode Islanders would probably have been left to suffer the disadvantages of their own government or get out — the latter was becoming an attractive option —but it was not easy to take so sanguine a view of events in Massachusetts. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the foreclosures on farms and imprisonment for debts. Some of the discontented wanted a moratorium on the collection of debts and/or paper money to be issued. Taxes were also levied in such a fashion as to arouse resistance to their collection. The discontent may have been agitated by British agents; certainly, money was made available for the discontented to use to take action, though who was behind this was never definitely established.
Overt action came when mobs began preventing courts from sitting. Beginning in early September of 1786, a succession of courts were disrupted and prevented from conducting business by large groups of armed men: at Worcester, at Concord, at Taunton, at Great Barrington, and at Springfield. The legislature did not take the desired action, and a rebel force was organized. The climax of these events came in January of 1787. It is known as Shays’ R*******n, taking its name from one of its leaders, Daniel Shays. Massachusetts authorized an armed force to put down the r*******n, and the rebel force was dispersed on January 25. New Hampshire was threatened by a rebel force, but the movement was quickly put down by decisive action by Governor John Sullivan who had been a general during the late war.
The call for a convention to deal with constitutional matters had been issued prior to these events. It came from some delegates to what was supposed to have been a convention at Annapolis in 1786. The convention was supposed to have dealt with commercial matters, but it lacked a quorum of states, so a call was issued for a more general convention for next year. It did not take Shays’ R*******n to awaken some Americans to the need for constitutional revision.
Anyone who wanted a government for the United States could see that Congress was not supplying it. "Between October 1, 1785, and January 31, 1786, Congress had a quorum on only ten days, and never were more than seven states represented. Between October 1, 1785, and April 30, 1786, nine states — the minimum required to do any serious business — were represented on only three days."[18] As mobs began to intimidate courts in Massachusetts, one historian notes that "the Congress of the United States had likewise ceased to function."[19] As the r**tous events moved to their culmination in early 1787, one state after another elected delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Finally, even Congress acted by recommending to the states that they send delegates. The fear of the r*******n spreading had apparently tipped the scales.
The site of the convention was Philadelphia, the time appointed to convene May 14, 1787, and the object was to contrive a government adequate to the common tasks of the United States.
By: Clarence Carson
Next: The Making of the Constitution
—FOOTNOTES—
1 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, 3d ed.), 265.
2 See Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 77-78.
3 Ibid., p. 75.
4 Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1962), p. 67.
5 Ibid.
6 Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), p. 303.
7 Nettels, op. cit., p. 65.
8 Ibid.
9 Jensen, op. cit., pp. 247-48.
10 Ibid., p. 249.
11 Ibid., p. 250.
12 Ibid., pp. 309-10.
13 John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 165.
14 McLaughlin, op. cit., pp. 64-65.
15 Ibid.. p. 51.
16 Fiske, op. cit., p. 145.
17 Jensen, op. cit., p. 324.
18 Forrest McDonald, The Formation of the American Republic (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965), p. 140.
19 Ibid., p. 147.
(Continued from above) br br For example Benjamin... (show quote)For example Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1786: "America never was in higher prosperity, her produce abundant and bearing a good price, her working people all employed and well paid, and all property in lands and houses of more than treble the value it bore before the war; and our commerce being no longer the monopoly of British merchants, we are furnished with all the foreign commodities we need, at much more reasonable rates than heretofore."[10] George Washington wrote in a similar vein in 1787: "In the old states, which were the theatres of hostility, it is wonderful to see how soon the ravages of war are repaired. Houses are rebuilt, fields enclosed, stocks of cattle which were destroyed are replaced, and many a desolated territory assumes again the cheerful appearance of cultivation."[11]
The t***h seems to be that some people were in distress, and some were prosperous. That is not an earthshaking conclusion, because much the same can be said at any time. But those not doing well at this time were frequently hurt in one way or another by the legacy from the war. Those who had gone into debt to buy real property on long terms during the inflation were undoubtedly often hard put to pay off in the much scarcer money that was now being used. For example, “in Worcester County in Massachusetts, there were over 2,000 suits taken to court for recovery of debt in one year."[12] Americans had not only to adjust to a reduced money supply but also to a new trading situation after the break from England. To many, the new situation provided new opportunities, but others tried to cling to and make a go of the old relations (particularly was this true of trade with England). The states were generally deeply in debt from the war, and some of them attempted to begin to retire their obligations by levying taxes. This could be particularly hard on those who owed debts for their land and had to pay high property taxes as well.
These things are relevant to a mounting crisis in the United States because they were the occasion for pressures on the governments to do something about them. Some of the functions people were accustomed to have government perform were either not being performed or were irregularly performed. Americans had not only a legacy of mercantilism but also of monetary manipulations. Debts, taxes, and trade regulations plagued the new governments. There was not even a standard currency throughout the United States.
When the Continental and state currencies were repudiated, people used coins primarily for a medium of exchange. There were few minted in America during this period, so that foreign coins circulated mostly: "English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and four-pence-ha’-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, carolins, ducats, and chequins."[13] In addition to the difficulty of calculating the respective value of each of these coins, there was the complication that coins were frequently worn or clipped. A man who accepted one of the latter at full value might have it discounted when he tried to use it. Americans did not have a medium of exchange; they had media through which exchanges of money for money were almost as precarious as exchanges in goods and were using coins whose sovereigns could not regulate and over whom Americans had no control.
There was hardly any reason, however, for the citizenry to have any confidence in the monetary actions of the Congress, nor, for that matter, of the legislatures of the states. Not only had the Confederation repudiated its currency, but the debts which it still recognized were poorly serviced. The total debt of the United States at the end of the war, foreign and domestic, was about $35,000,000. Far from being retired, it continued to grow. By way of requisitions from the states, Congress received $2,457,987.25 in the period from November 1, 1781 to January 1, 1786.[14] This was barely enough to pay current expenses for the government." Robert Morris sent along this comment when he resigned as head of the treasury in 1783: "To increase our debts while the prospect of paying them diminishes, does not consist with my ideas of integrity. I must, therefore, quit a situation which becomes utterly insupportable."[15] Those who succeeded him may have had less integrity than he professed, but they were hardly better supplied with money.
It was commonly held that the greatest deficiencies of Congress under the Confederation were the lack of the power to tax and the inability to regulate trade. There should be no doubt that the lack of the power to tax made the Congress almost impotent to perform the functions allotted to it. As to trade, Congress was almost powerless either to regulate or to prevent the states from doing so. Whether trade needed regulating was debatable, but if it did, a strong case could be made against the states doing it. Indeed, some states undertook to set up tariffs and to discriminate against ships of other lands, particularly those of England. But it was exceedingly difficult for states to set rates which would accomplish even those dubious advantages supposed to follow from them. If the tariffs were too high, in comparison with those of surrounding states, goods might come into the state from ports of entry located in other states. If imported goods were finally consumed in another state from the one imposing the tariff, the state was actually levying taxes on citizens of other states.
The regulation of trade by the states worked against a common market for all the United States and threatened to turn some states against others. John Fiske described the situation this way: Meanwhile, the different states, with their different tariff and tonnage acts, began to make commercial war upon one another. No sooner had the other three New England states virtually closed their ports to British shipping than Connecticut threw hers wide open, an act which she followed by laying duties upon imports from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against Delaware, and New Jersey, pillaged at once by both her greater neighbours, was compared to a cask tapped at both ends.[16]
Trade discriminations sometimes lead to war. Not only was there the possibility that one American state might go to war against its neighbor but also that discriminations against or by foreign countries might lead some country to go to war against a state. In such a case, the United States would be drawn into the war, for the authority to make war was vested in Congress. To say the least, the situation was anomalous.
It is strange, but true, that the events which finally provoked Americans to do something about the union did not directly involve the Congress and its ineffectiveness. Perhaps it is not so strange on reflection, for Congress rarely did anything. The failure to act may be indictable, but I think it would be hard to get a jury to convict. Congress presented a low silhouette to its critics. True, it repudiated its currency, could not pay its debts, could not force the states to meet their quotas, could not protect its citizens abroad, and did not do most of the things it was authorized to do with much energy. But, then, it seldom gave offense, and people spread over a vast land were more used to opposing government action than seeking it. It is most probable that if some crisis had swept the Congress away it would have gone with a whimper rather than a bang. In our day, we have seen exile governments seeking a country to govern; the United States was an exile country awaiting a government.
It was trouble in New England in 1786-87 that aroused fears which prompted men to action. Paper money, taxes, and debts were the occasion of challenges to some state governments. Most states were under pressure to make paper money issues. Seven had done so by 1787 but, as might be expected, there was considerable opposition to such actions Rhode Island not only issued paper money but revived harsh methods to try to make it circulate. Faced with fleeing creditors and merchants abandoning the state, the "legislature passed an act declaring that anyone refusing to take the money at face value would be fined £100 for a first offense and would have to pay a similar fine and lose his rights as a citizen for a second."[17] When the act was challenged, the court declared its opinion that the act was unconstitutional. The judges were called before the legislature, interrogated, and some of them dismissed. Rhode Island’s government was viewed with contempt by many Americans.
Rhode Islanders would probably have been left to suffer the disadvantages of their own government or get out — the latter was becoming an attractive option —but it was not easy to take so sanguine a view of events in Massachusetts. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the foreclosures on farms and imprisonment for debts. Some of the discontented wanted a moratorium on the collection of debts and/or paper money to be issued. Taxes were also levied in such a fashion as to arouse resistance to their collection. The discontent may have been agitated by British agents; certainly, money was made available for the discontented to use to take action, though who was behind this was never definitely established.
Overt action came when mobs began preventing courts from sitting. Beginning in early September of 1786, a succession of courts were disrupted and prevented from conducting business by large groups of armed men: at Worcester, at Concord, at Taunton, at Great Barrington, and at Springfield. The legislature did not take the desired action, and a rebel force was organized. The climax of these events came in January of 1787. It is known as Shays’ R*******n, taking its name from one of its leaders, Daniel Shays. Massachusetts authorized an armed force to put down the r*******n, and the rebel force was dispersed on January 25. New Hampshire was threatened by a rebel force, but the movement was quickly put down by decisive action by Governor John Sullivan who had been a general during the late war.
The call for a convention to deal with constitutional matters had been issued prior to these events. It came from some delegates to what was supposed to have been a convention at Annapolis in 1786. The convention was supposed to have dealt with commercial matters, but it lacked a quorum of states, so a call was issued for a more general convention for next year. It did not take Shays’ R*******n to awaken some Americans to the need for constitutional revision.
Anyone who wanted a government for the United States could see that Congress was not supplying it. "Between October 1, 1785, and January 31, 1786, Congress had a quorum on only ten days, and never were more than seven states represented. Between October 1, 1785, and April 30, 1786, nine states — the minimum required to do any serious business — were represented on only three days."[18] As mobs began to intimidate courts in Massachusetts, one historian notes that "the Congress of the United States had likewise ceased to function."[19] As the r**tous events moved to their culmination in early 1787, one state after another elected delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Finally, even Congress acted by recommending to the states that they send delegates. The fear of the r*******n spreading had apparently tipped the scales.
The site of the convention was Philadelphia, the time appointed to convene May 14, 1787, and the object was to contrive a government adequate to the common tasks of the United States.
By: Clarence Carson
Next: The Making of the Constitution
—FOOTNOTES—
1 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, 3d ed.), 265.
2 See Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 77-78.
3 Ibid., p. 75.
4 Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1962), p. 67.
5 Ibid.
6 Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), p. 303.
7 Nettels, op. cit., p. 65.
8 Ibid.
9 Jensen, op. cit., pp. 247-48.
10 Ibid., p. 249.
11 Ibid., p. 250.
12 Ibid., pp. 309-10.
13 John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 165.
14 McLaughlin, op. cit., pp. 64-65.
15 Ibid.. p. 51.
16 Fiske, op. cit., p. 145.
17 Jensen, op. cit., p. 324.
18 Forrest McDonald, The Formation of the American Republic (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965), p. 140.
19 Ibid., p. 147.
Thank you CC. Good info as it details what most of us know the edges of. Mike
Sep 8, 2019 22:52:27 #
The Critical Critic wrote:
(Continued from above)
For example Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1786: "America never was in higher prosperity, her produce abundant and bearing a good price, her working people all employed and well paid, and all property in lands and houses of more than treble the value it bore before the war; and our commerce being no longer the monopoly of British merchants, we are furnished with all the foreign commodities we need, at much more reasonable rates than heretofore."[10] George Washington wrote in a similar vein in 1787: "In the old states, which were the theatres of hostility, it is wonderful to see how soon the ravages of war are repaired. Houses are rebuilt, fields enclosed, stocks of cattle which were destroyed are replaced, and many a desolated territory assumes again the cheerful appearance of cultivation."[11]
The t***h seems to be that some people were in distress, and some were prosperous. That is not an earthshaking conclusion, because much the same can be said at any time. But those not doing well at this time were frequently hurt in one way or another by the legacy from the war. Those who had gone into debt to buy real property on long terms during the inflation were undoubtedly often hard put to pay off in the much scarcer money that was now being used. For example, “in Worcester County in Massachusetts, there were over 2,000 suits taken to court for recovery of debt in one year."[12] Americans had not only to adjust to a reduced money supply but also to a new trading situation after the break from England. To many, the new situation provided new opportunities, but others tried to cling to and make a go of the old relations (particularly was this true of trade with England). The states were generally deeply in debt from the war, and some of them attempted to begin to retire their obligations by levying taxes. This could be particularly hard on those who owed debts for their land and had to pay high property taxes as well.
These things are relevant to a mounting crisis in the United States because they were the occasion for pressures on the governments to do something about them. Some of the functions people were accustomed to have government perform were either not being performed or were irregularly performed. Americans had not only a legacy of mercantilism but also of monetary manipulations. Debts, taxes, and trade regulations plagued the new governments. There was not even a standard currency throughout the United States.
When the Continental and state currencies were repudiated, people used coins primarily for a medium of exchange. There were few minted in America during this period, so that foreign coins circulated mostly: "English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and four-pence-ha’-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, carolins, ducats, and chequins."[13] In addition to the difficulty of calculating the respective value of each of these coins, there was the complication that coins were frequently worn or clipped. A man who accepted one of the latter at full value might have it discounted when he tried to use it. Americans did not have a medium of exchange; they had media through which exchanges of money for money were almost as precarious as exchanges in goods and were using coins whose sovereigns could not regulate and over whom Americans had no control.
There was hardly any reason, however, for the citizenry to have any confidence in the monetary actions of the Congress, nor, for that matter, of the legislatures of the states. Not only had the Confederation repudiated its currency, but the debts which it still recognized were poorly serviced. The total debt of the United States at the end of the war, foreign and domestic, was about $35,000,000. Far from being retired, it continued to grow. By way of requisitions from the states, Congress received $2,457,987.25 in the period from November 1, 1781 to January 1, 1786.[14] This was barely enough to pay current expenses for the government." Robert Morris sent along this comment when he resigned as head of the treasury in 1783: "To increase our debts while the prospect of paying them diminishes, does not consist with my ideas of integrity. I must, therefore, quit a situation which becomes utterly insupportable."[15] Those who succeeded him may have had less integrity than he professed, but they were hardly better supplied with money.
It was commonly held that the greatest deficiencies of Congress under the Confederation were the lack of the power to tax and the inability to regulate trade. There should be no doubt that the lack of the power to tax made the Congress almost impotent to perform the functions allotted to it. As to trade, Congress was almost powerless either to regulate or to prevent the states from doing so. Whether trade needed regulating was debatable, but if it did, a strong case could be made against the states doing it. Indeed, some states undertook to set up tariffs and to discriminate against ships of other lands, particularly those of England. But it was exceedingly difficult for states to set rates which would accomplish even those dubious advantages supposed to follow from them. If the tariffs were too high, in comparison with those of surrounding states, goods might come into the state from ports of entry located in other states. If imported goods were finally consumed in another state from the one imposing the tariff, the state was actually levying taxes on citizens of other states.
The regulation of trade by the states worked against a common market for all the United States and threatened to turn some states against others. John Fiske described the situation this way: Meanwhile, the different states, with their different tariff and tonnage acts, began to make commercial war upon one another. No sooner had the other three New England states virtually closed their ports to British shipping than Connecticut threw hers wide open, an act which she followed by laying duties upon imports from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against Delaware, and New Jersey, pillaged at once by both her greater neighbours, was compared to a cask tapped at both ends.[16]
Trade discriminations sometimes lead to war. Not only was there the possibility that one American state might go to war against its neighbor but also that discriminations against or by foreign countries might lead some country to go to war against a state. In such a case, the United States would be drawn into the war, for the authority to make war was vested in Congress. To say the least, the situation was anomalous.
It is strange, but true, that the events which finally provoked Americans to do something about the union did not directly involve the Congress and its ineffectiveness. Perhaps it is not so strange on reflection, for Congress rarely did anything. The failure to act may be indictable, but I think it would be hard to get a jury to convict. Congress presented a low silhouette to its critics. True, it repudiated its currency, could not pay its debts, could not force the states to meet their quotas, could not protect its citizens abroad, and did not do most of the things it was authorized to do with much energy. But, then, it seldom gave offense, and people spread over a vast land were more used to opposing government action than seeking it. It is most probable that if some crisis had swept the Congress away it would have gone with a whimper rather than a bang. In our day, we have seen exile governments seeking a country to govern; the United States was an exile country awaiting a government.
It was trouble in New England in 1786-87 that aroused fears which prompted men to action. Paper money, taxes, and debts were the occasion of challenges to some state governments. Most states were under pressure to make paper money issues. Seven had done so by 1787 but, as might be expected, there was considerable opposition to such actions Rhode Island not only issued paper money but revived harsh methods to try to make it circulate. Faced with fleeing creditors and merchants abandoning the state, the "legislature passed an act declaring that anyone refusing to take the money at face value would be fined £100 for a first offense and would have to pay a similar fine and lose his rights as a citizen for a second."[17] When the act was challenged, the court declared its opinion that the act was unconstitutional. The judges were called before the legislature, interrogated, and some of them dismissed. Rhode Island’s government was viewed with contempt by many Americans.
Rhode Islanders would probably have been left to suffer the disadvantages of their own government or get out — the latter was becoming an attractive option —but it was not easy to take so sanguine a view of events in Massachusetts. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the foreclosures on farms and imprisonment for debts. Some of the discontented wanted a moratorium on the collection of debts and/or paper money to be issued. Taxes were also levied in such a fashion as to arouse resistance to their collection. The discontent may have been agitated by British agents; certainly, money was made available for the discontented to use to take action, though who was behind this was never definitely established.
Overt action came when mobs began preventing courts from sitting. Beginning in early September of 1786, a succession of courts were disrupted and prevented from conducting business by large groups of armed men: at Worcester, at Concord, at Taunton, at Great Barrington, and at Springfield. The legislature did not take the desired action, and a rebel force was organized. The climax of these events came in January of 1787. It is known as Shays’ R*******n, taking its name from one of its leaders, Daniel Shays. Massachusetts authorized an armed force to put down the r*******n, and the rebel force was dispersed on January 25. New Hampshire was threatened by a rebel force, but the movement was quickly put down by decisive action by Governor John Sullivan who had been a general during the late war.
The call for a convention to deal with constitutional matters had been issued prior to these events. It came from some delegates to what was supposed to have been a convention at Annapolis in 1786. The convention was supposed to have dealt with commercial matters, but it lacked a quorum of states, so a call was issued for a more general convention for next year. It did not take Shays’ R*******n to awaken some Americans to the need for constitutional revision.
Anyone who wanted a government for the United States could see that Congress was not supplying it. "Between October 1, 1785, and January 31, 1786, Congress had a quorum on only ten days, and never were more than seven states represented. Between October 1, 1785, and April 30, 1786, nine states — the minimum required to do any serious business — were represented on only three days."[18] As mobs began to intimidate courts in Massachusetts, one historian notes that "the Congress of the United States had likewise ceased to function."[19] As the r**tous events moved to their culmination in early 1787, one state after another elected delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Finally, even Congress acted by recommending to the states that they send delegates. The fear of the r*******n spreading had apparently tipped the scales.
The site of the convention was Philadelphia, the time appointed to convene May 14, 1787, and the object was to contrive a government adequate to the common tasks of the United States.
By: Clarence Carson
Next: The Making of the Constitution
—FOOTNOTES—
1 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, 3d ed.), 265.
2 See Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 77-78.
3 Ibid., p. 75.
4 Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1962), p. 67.
5 Ibid.
6 Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), p. 303.
7 Nettels, op. cit., p. 65.
8 Ibid.
9 Jensen, op. cit., pp. 247-48.
10 Ibid., p. 249.
11 Ibid., p. 250.
12 Ibid., pp. 309-10.
13 John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 165.
14 McLaughlin, op. cit., pp. 64-65.
15 Ibid.. p. 51.
16 Fiske, op. cit., p. 145.
17 Jensen, op. cit., p. 324.
18 Forrest McDonald, The Formation of the American Republic (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965), p. 140.
19 Ibid., p. 147.
(Continued from above) br br For example Benjamin... (show quote)For example Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1786: "America never was in higher prosperity, her produce abundant and bearing a good price, her working people all employed and well paid, and all property in lands and houses of more than treble the value it bore before the war; and our commerce being no longer the monopoly of British merchants, we are furnished with all the foreign commodities we need, at much more reasonable rates than heretofore."[10] George Washington wrote in a similar vein in 1787: "In the old states, which were the theatres of hostility, it is wonderful to see how soon the ravages of war are repaired. Houses are rebuilt, fields enclosed, stocks of cattle which were destroyed are replaced, and many a desolated territory assumes again the cheerful appearance of cultivation."[11]
The t***h seems to be that some people were in distress, and some were prosperous. That is not an earthshaking conclusion, because much the same can be said at any time. But those not doing well at this time were frequently hurt in one way or another by the legacy from the war. Those who had gone into debt to buy real property on long terms during the inflation were undoubtedly often hard put to pay off in the much scarcer money that was now being used. For example, “in Worcester County in Massachusetts, there were over 2,000 suits taken to court for recovery of debt in one year."[12] Americans had not only to adjust to a reduced money supply but also to a new trading situation after the break from England. To many, the new situation provided new opportunities, but others tried to cling to and make a go of the old relations (particularly was this true of trade with England). The states were generally deeply in debt from the war, and some of them attempted to begin to retire their obligations by levying taxes. This could be particularly hard on those who owed debts for their land and had to pay high property taxes as well.
These things are relevant to a mounting crisis in the United States because they were the occasion for pressures on the governments to do something about them. Some of the functions people were accustomed to have government perform were either not being performed or were irregularly performed. Americans had not only a legacy of mercantilism but also of monetary manipulations. Debts, taxes, and trade regulations plagued the new governments. There was not even a standard currency throughout the United States.
When the Continental and state currencies were repudiated, people used coins primarily for a medium of exchange. There were few minted in America during this period, so that foreign coins circulated mostly: "English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and four-pence-ha’-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, carolins, ducats, and chequins."[13] In addition to the difficulty of calculating the respective value of each of these coins, there was the complication that coins were frequently worn or clipped. A man who accepted one of the latter at full value might have it discounted when he tried to use it. Americans did not have a medium of exchange; they had media through which exchanges of money for money were almost as precarious as exchanges in goods and were using coins whose sovereigns could not regulate and over whom Americans had no control.
There was hardly any reason, however, for the citizenry to have any confidence in the monetary actions of the Congress, nor, for that matter, of the legislatures of the states. Not only had the Confederation repudiated its currency, but the debts which it still recognized were poorly serviced. The total debt of the United States at the end of the war, foreign and domestic, was about $35,000,000. Far from being retired, it continued to grow. By way of requisitions from the states, Congress received $2,457,987.25 in the period from November 1, 1781 to January 1, 1786.[14] This was barely enough to pay current expenses for the government." Robert Morris sent along this comment when he resigned as head of the treasury in 1783: "To increase our debts while the prospect of paying them diminishes, does not consist with my ideas of integrity. I must, therefore, quit a situation which becomes utterly insupportable."[15] Those who succeeded him may have had less integrity than he professed, but they were hardly better supplied with money.
It was commonly held that the greatest deficiencies of Congress under the Confederation were the lack of the power to tax and the inability to regulate trade. There should be no doubt that the lack of the power to tax made the Congress almost impotent to perform the functions allotted to it. As to trade, Congress was almost powerless either to regulate or to prevent the states from doing so. Whether trade needed regulating was debatable, but if it did, a strong case could be made against the states doing it. Indeed, some states undertook to set up tariffs and to discriminate against ships of other lands, particularly those of England. But it was exceedingly difficult for states to set rates which would accomplish even those dubious advantages supposed to follow from them. If the tariffs were too high, in comparison with those of surrounding states, goods might come into the state from ports of entry located in other states. If imported goods were finally consumed in another state from the one imposing the tariff, the state was actually levying taxes on citizens of other states.
The regulation of trade by the states worked against a common market for all the United States and threatened to turn some states against others. John Fiske described the situation this way: Meanwhile, the different states, with their different tariff and tonnage acts, began to make commercial war upon one another. No sooner had the other three New England states virtually closed their ports to British shipping than Connecticut threw hers wide open, an act which she followed by laying duties upon imports from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against Delaware, and New Jersey, pillaged at once by both her greater neighbours, was compared to a cask tapped at both ends.[16]
Trade discriminations sometimes lead to war. Not only was there the possibility that one American state might go to war against its neighbor but also that discriminations against or by foreign countries might lead some country to go to war against a state. In such a case, the United States would be drawn into the war, for the authority to make war was vested in Congress. To say the least, the situation was anomalous.
It is strange, but true, that the events which finally provoked Americans to do something about the union did not directly involve the Congress and its ineffectiveness. Perhaps it is not so strange on reflection, for Congress rarely did anything. The failure to act may be indictable, but I think it would be hard to get a jury to convict. Congress presented a low silhouette to its critics. True, it repudiated its currency, could not pay its debts, could not force the states to meet their quotas, could not protect its citizens abroad, and did not do most of the things it was authorized to do with much energy. But, then, it seldom gave offense, and people spread over a vast land were more used to opposing government action than seeking it. It is most probable that if some crisis had swept the Congress away it would have gone with a whimper rather than a bang. In our day, we have seen exile governments seeking a country to govern; the United States was an exile country awaiting a government.
It was trouble in New England in 1786-87 that aroused fears which prompted men to action. Paper money, taxes, and debts were the occasion of challenges to some state governments. Most states were under pressure to make paper money issues. Seven had done so by 1787 but, as might be expected, there was considerable opposition to such actions Rhode Island not only issued paper money but revived harsh methods to try to make it circulate. Faced with fleeing creditors and merchants abandoning the state, the "legislature passed an act declaring that anyone refusing to take the money at face value would be fined £100 for a first offense and would have to pay a similar fine and lose his rights as a citizen for a second."[17] When the act was challenged, the court declared its opinion that the act was unconstitutional. The judges were called before the legislature, interrogated, and some of them dismissed. Rhode Island’s government was viewed with contempt by many Americans.
Rhode Islanders would probably have been left to suffer the disadvantages of their own government or get out — the latter was becoming an attractive option —but it was not easy to take so sanguine a view of events in Massachusetts. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the foreclosures on farms and imprisonment for debts. Some of the discontented wanted a moratorium on the collection of debts and/or paper money to be issued. Taxes were also levied in such a fashion as to arouse resistance to their collection. The discontent may have been agitated by British agents; certainly, money was made available for the discontented to use to take action, though who was behind this was never definitely established.
Overt action came when mobs began preventing courts from sitting. Beginning in early September of 1786, a succession of courts were disrupted and prevented from conducting business by large groups of armed men: at Worcester, at Concord, at Taunton, at Great Barrington, and at Springfield. The legislature did not take the desired action, and a rebel force was organized. The climax of these events came in January of 1787. It is known as Shays’ R*******n, taking its name from one of its leaders, Daniel Shays. Massachusetts authorized an armed force to put down the r*******n, and the rebel force was dispersed on January 25. New Hampshire was threatened by a rebel force, but the movement was quickly put down by decisive action by Governor John Sullivan who had been a general during the late war.
The call for a convention to deal with constitutional matters had been issued prior to these events. It came from some delegates to what was supposed to have been a convention at Annapolis in 1786. The convention was supposed to have dealt with commercial matters, but it lacked a quorum of states, so a call was issued for a more general convention for next year. It did not take Shays’ R*******n to awaken some Americans to the need for constitutional revision.
Anyone who wanted a government for the United States could see that Congress was not supplying it. "Between October 1, 1785, and January 31, 1786, Congress had a quorum on only ten days, and never were more than seven states represented. Between October 1, 1785, and April 30, 1786, nine states — the minimum required to do any serious business — were represented on only three days."[18] As mobs began to intimidate courts in Massachusetts, one historian notes that "the Congress of the United States had likewise ceased to function."[19] As the r**tous events moved to their culmination in early 1787, one state after another elected delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Finally, even Congress acted by recommending to the states that they send delegates. The fear of the r*******n spreading had apparently tipped the scales.
The site of the convention was Philadelphia, the time appointed to convene May 14, 1787, and the object was to contrive a government adequate to the common tasks of the United States.
By: Clarence Carson
Next: The Making of the Constitution
—FOOTNOTES—
1 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S. Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942, 3d ed.), 265.
2 See Andrew C. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 77-78.
3 Ibid., p. 75.
4 Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1962), p. 67.
5 Ibid.
6 Merrill Jensen, The New Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 1950), p. 303.
7 Nettels, op. cit., p. 65.
8 Ibid.
9 Jensen, op. cit., pp. 247-48.
10 Ibid., p. 249.
11 Ibid., p. 250.
12 Ibid., pp. 309-10.
13 John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916), p. 165.
14 McLaughlin, op. cit., pp. 64-65.
15 Ibid.. p. 51.
16 Fiske, op. cit., p. 145.
17 Jensen, op. cit., p. 324.
18 Forrest McDonald, The Formation of the American Republic (Baltimore: Penguin, 1965), p. 140.
19 Ibid., p. 147.
======================
Great review. Thanks.
With this history, we learn to appreciate the struggles of the Founders at the beginning, the lack of centralized power, lack of budget, the debts, the struggles in commerce. I believe the next topic about the constitution will correct and eliminate most of these problems.
However, the separation from England left the US ships unprotected from the piracy of Barbaric Muslims at the Mediterranean. When president Jefferson was elected on 1801, he ordered a squadron led by Commodore Richard Dale to blockade Tripoli and to attack any interfering Barbary ship. Andrew Sterret, captain of the Enterprise, won the first American victory of the war.
Sep 8, 2019 23:27:47 #
PeterS wrote:
So disband our National government and military. Let's have a loose trade agreement between states and a common mutual defense treaty. The rest we can throw in the trash heap. Works for me...
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Be aware that after Obama won in 2008, effective 2009, the federal government hired thousands of the Obama campaign employees without specific qualifications. During GAO audit in 2010, they found out so many duplication of duties. Many employees doing similar jobs. We are paying them.
Those were placed by Obama as reward for working with him during his successful campaign.
That is why our government is so huge. It could be made smaller.
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