FOOTNOTES:
[893] Writings: Conway, i, 69 et seq.
[894] "Common Sense had a prodigious effect." (Franklin to Le Veillard, April 15, 1787; Writings: Smyth, ix, 558.) "Its popularity was unexampled.... The author was hailed as our angel sent from Heaven to save all from the horrors of Slavery.... His pen was an appendage [to the army] almost as necessary and formidable as its cannon." (Cheetenham, 46-47, 55.) In America alone 125,000 copies of Common Sense were sold within three months after the pamphlet appeared. (Belcher, i, 235.)
"Can nothing be done in our Assembly for poor Paine? Must the merits of Common Sense continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by this country? His writings certainly have had a powerful effect upon the public mind. Ought they not, then, to meet an adequate return?" (Washington to Madison, June 12, 1784; Writings: Ford, x, 393; and see Tyler, i, 458-62.) In the Virginia Legislature Marshall introduced a bill for Paine's relief. (Supra, chap, VI.)
[895] Graydon, 358.
[896] Common Sense: Paine; Writings: Conway, i, 61. Paine's genius for phrase is illustrated in the Crisis, which next appeared. "These are the times that try men's souls"; "Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered"; "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot," are examples of Paine's brilliant gift.
[897] Moore's Diary, ii, 143-44. Although this was a British opinion, yet it was entirely accurate.
[898] "They will rise and for lack of argument, say, Mṛ Speaker, this measure will never do, the People Sir, will never bear it.... These small Politicians, returned home, ... tell their Constituents such & such measures are taking place altho' I did my utmost to prevent it—The People must take care of themselves or they are undone. Stir up a County Convention and by Trumpeting lies from Town to Town get one Hist. Mag. (2d Series), vi, 257.)
[899] More than a decade after the slander was set afoot against Colonel Levin Powell of Loudoun County, Virginia, one of the patriot soldiers of the Revolution and an officer of Washington, that he favored establishing a monarchy, one of his constituents wrote that "detraction & defamation are generally resorted to promote views injurious to you.... Can you believe it, but it is really true that the old & often refuted story of your predilection for Monarchy is again revived." (Thomas Sims to Colonel Levin Powell, Leesburg, Virginia, Feb. 5 and 20, 1801; Branch Historical Papers, i, 58, 61.)
[900] Watson, 262-64. This comic prophecy that the National Capital was to be the fortified home of a standing army was seriously believed by the people. Patrick Henry urged the same objection with all his dramatic power in the Virginia Convention of 1788. So did the scholarly Mason. (See infra, chaps. XI and XII.)
[901] Graydon, 392-93.
[902] Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati, 1790, 3-24.
[903] Jefferson to Washington, Nov. 14, 1786; Works: Ford, v, 222-23; and see Jefferson's denunciation of the Cincinnati in Jefferson to Madison, Dec. 28, 1794; ib., viii, 156-57. But see Jefferson's fair and moderate account of the Cincinnati before he had learned of its unpopularity in America. (Jefferson to Meusnier, June 22, 1786; ib., v, 50-56.)
[904] The same who broke the quorum in the Continental Congress. (Supra, chap. IV.)
[905] Burke: Considerations on the Society of the Order of Cincinnati; 1784.
[906] Mirabeau: Considerations on the Order of Cincinnati; 1786. Mirabeau here refers to the rule of the Cincinnati that the officer's eldest son might become a member of the order, as in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the present time.
[907] As quoted in Hudson: Journalism in the United States, 158.
[908] Madison to James Madison, Nov. 1, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 278.
[909] Jay to Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 212.
[910] See Weld, i, 114-15, as a fair example of foreign estimate of this American characteristic at that period.
[911] See chap. II, vol. II, of this work.
[912] Private debts which Virginia planters alone owed British merchants were "20 or 30 times the amount of all money in circulation in that state." (Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; Works: Ford, v, 17-18; and see Jefferson to McCaul, April 19, 1786; ib., 88.)
[913] "It cannot perhaps be affirmed that there is gold & silver eno in the Country to pay the next tax." (Madison to Monroe, June 4, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 245.)
[914] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; Works: Ford, v, 27.
[915] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786: Works: Ford, v, 27.
[916] Moore's Diary, ii, 425-26. The merchants of Philadelphia shut their shops; and it was agreed that if Congress did not substitute "solid money" for paper, "all further resistance to" Great Britain "must be given up." (Ib.)
[917] Jefferson to McCaul, April 19, 1786; Works: Ford, v, 90; also to Wm. Jones, Jan. 5, 1787; ib., 247.—"Paiment was made me in this money when it was but a shadow."
[918] Livingston to Jay, July 30, 1789; Jay: Johnston, iii, 373-74.
[919] Fithian, 91.
[920] Virginia's paper money experiment was the source of many lawsuits in which Marshall was counsel. See, for example, Pickett vs. Claiborne (Call, iv, 99-106); Taliaferro vs. Minor (Call, i, 456-62).
[921] The House of Delegates toward the end of 1786 voted 84 to 17 against the paper money resolution. (Madison to James Madison, Nov. 1, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 277.)
[922] "The advocates for paper money are making the most of this handle. I begin to fear exceedingly that no efforts will be sufficient to parry this evil." (Madison to Monroe, June 4, 1786; ib., 245.)
[923] Madison to Jefferson, Aug. 12, 1786; ib., 259.
[924] "Enclosed are one hundred Dollars of new Emmission Money which Col. Steward desires me to have exchanged for Specie. Pray, inform him they are all counterfeit." (Gerry to King, April 7, 1785; King, i, 87.)
[925] Washington to Grayson, Aug. 22, 1785; Writings: Ford, X, 493-94.
[926] Knox to Washington, Oct. 28, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, footnote to p. 407-08.
[927] Minot: History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts in 1786 (2d ed.), 1810.
[928] Printed in the first edition (1807) "enormous"—a good example of the haste of the first printing of Marshall's Life of Washington. (See vol. III of this work.)
[929] Marshall, ii, 117.
[930] Ib., 118.
[931] Knox to Washington, Oct. 28, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, footnote to 408.
[932] Shays's Rebellion was only a local outburst of a general feeling throughout the United States. Marshall says, "those causes of discontent ... existed in every part of the union." (Marshall, ii, 117.)
[933] Jay to Jefferson, Oct. 27, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 213.
[934] Jay to Reed, Dec. 12, 1786; ib., 222.
[935] Jay to Price, Sept. 27, 1786; ib., 168.
[936] Madison to Randolph, Jan. 10, 1788; Writings: Hunt, v, 81.
[937] Washington to Lee, Oct. 31, 1786; Writings: Ford, xi, 76-77.
[938] Washington to Madison, Nov. 5, 1786; ib., 81.
[939] Washington to Knox, Dec. 26, 1786; ib., 103-04. And Washington wrote to Lafayette that "There are seeds of discontent in every part of the Union." (Writings: Sparks, ix, 263.)
[940] Marshall to James Wilkinson, Jan. 5, 1787; Amer. Hist. Rev., xii, 347-48.
[941] Jefferson to Mrs. Adams, Feb. 22, 1787; Works: Ford, v, 265.
[942] Jefferson to Mrs. Adams, Feb. 22, 1787; Works: Ford, v, 263.
[943] Jefferson to Smith, Nov. 13, 1787; ib., 362.
[944] "The payments from the States under the calls of Congress have in no year borne any proportion to the public wants. During the last year ... the aggregate payments ... fell short of 400,000 dollrs, a sum neither equal to the interest due on the foreign debts, nor even to the current expenses of the federal Government. The greatest part of this sum too went from Virga, which will not supply a single shilling the present year." (Madison to Jefferson, March 18, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 228.)
[945] Washington to Jay, Aug. 1, 1786; Writings: Ford, xi, 54-55.
[946] Jay (Secretary of State under the Confederation) to Jefferson, Dec. 14, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 223.
[947] "We are wasting our time & labour in vain efforts to do business" (because of State delegates not attending), wrote Jefferson in 1784. (Jefferson to Washington, March 15, 1784; Works: Ford, iv, 266.) And at the very climax of our difficulties "a sufficient number of States to do business have not been represented in Congress." (Jay to Wm. Carmichael, Jan. 4, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 225.) During half of September and all of October, November, December, January, and February, nine States "have not been represented in congress"; and this even after the Constitution had been adopted. (Jay to Jefferson, March 9, 1789; Jay: Johnston, iii, 365.)
[948] Jay to Jefferson, Dec. 14, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 223-24. And Melancton Smith declared that "the farmer cultivates his land and reaps the fruit.... The merchant drives his commerce and none can deprive him of the gain he honestly acquires.... The mechanic is exercised in his art, and receives the reward of his labour." (1797-98; Ford: P. on C., 94.) Of the prosperity of Virginia, Grigsby says, "our agriculture was most prosperous, and our harbors and rivers were filled with ships. The shipping interest ... was really advancing most rapidly to a degree of success never known in the colony." (Grigsby, i, footnote to p. 82; and see his brilliant account of Virginia's prosperity at this time; ib., 9-19.) "The spirit of industry throughout the country was never greater. The productions of the earth abound," wrote Jay to B. Vaughan, Sept. 2, 1784. (Jay: Johnston, iii, 132.)
[949] Jay to John Adams, Feb. 21, 1787; Jay: Johnston, iii, 235. Jay thought that the bottom of the trouble was that "relaxation in government and extravagance in individuals create much public and private distress, and much public and private want of good faith." (Ib., 224.)
[950] Madison to Jefferson, Dec. 4, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 293. "This indulgence to the people as it is called & considered was so warmly wished for out of doors, and so strenuously pressed within that it could not be rejected without danger of exciting some worse project of a popular cast." (Ib.)
[951] Madison to Washington, Dec. 24, 1786; ib., 301. "My acquiescence in the measure was against every general principle which I have embraced, and was extorted by a fear that some greater evil under the name of relief to the people would be substituted." (Ib.)
[952] Rutledge to Jay, May 2, 1789; Jay: Johnston, iii, 368.
[953] Washington to Jay, May 18, 1786; Writings: Ford, xi, 31-32.
[954] Jay to Washington, June 27, 1786; Jay: Johnston, iii, 204.
[955] Ib., 205.
[956] Washington to Harrison, Jan. 18, 1784; Writings: Ford, x, 345.
[957] Ib.
[958] See Madison's masterful summary of the wickedness, weakness, and folly of the State Governments in Writings: Hunt, ii, 361-69.
[959] Washington to Jay, March 10, 1787; Writings: Ford, xi, 125.
[960] See supra, chap. VI.
[961] Madison to Jefferson, March 18, 1786; Writings: Hunt, ii, 228. "Another unhappy effect of a continuance of the present anarchy of our commerces will be a continuance of the unfavorable balance on it, which by draining us of our metals, furnishes pretexts for the pernicious substitution of paper money, for indulgencies to debtors, for postponements of taxes." (Ib.)
[962] Virginia carefully defined her revenue boundaries as against Pennsylvania and Maryland; and provided that any vessel failing to enter and pay duties as provided by the Virginia tariff laws might be seized by any person and prosecuted "one half to the use of the informer, and the other half to the use of the commonwealth." (Va. Statutes at Large (1785), chap. 14, 46.)
Virginia strengthened her tariff laws against importations by land. "If any such importer or owner shall unload any such wagon or other carriage containing any of the above goods, wares, or merchandise brought into this state by land without first having entered the same as directed above, every such wagon or other carriage, together with the horses thereto belonging and all such goods wares and merchandise as shall be brought therein, shall be forfeited and recovered by information in the court of the county; two-thirds to the informer and one-third toward lessening the levy of the county where such conviction shall be made." (Ib.)
Even Pennsylvania, already the principal workshop of the country, while enacting an avowedly protective tariff on "Manufactures of Europe and Other foreign parts," included "cider, malted barley or grain, fish, salted or dried, cheese, butter, beef, pork, barley, peas, mustard, manufactured tobacco" which came, mostly, from sister States. The preamble declares that the duties are imposed to protect "the artisans and mechanics of this state" without whose products "the war could not have been carried on."
In addition to agricultural articles named above, the law includes "playing cards, hair powder, wrought gold or silver utensils, polished or cut stones, musical instruments, walking canes, testaments, psalters, spelling books or primers, romances, novels and plays, and horn or tortoise shell combs," none of which could be called absolutely indispensable to the conduct of the war. The preamble gives the usual arguments for protective tariffs. It is the first protective tariff law, in the present-day sense, ever passed. (Pa. Statutes at Large (1785), 99.)
[963] Even at the present time the various States have not recovered from this anti-National and uneconomic practice, as witness the tax laws and other statutes in almost every State designed to prevent investments by the citizens of that State in industries located in other States. Worse, still, are the multitude of State laws providing variable control over railways that are essentially National.
[964] Writings: Hunt, ii, 395.
[965] Marshall (1st ed.), v, 76-79.
[966] Madison to Washington, April 16, 1787; Writings: Hunt, ii, 345-46. This ultra-Nationalist opinion is an interesting contrast to Madison's States' Rights views a few years later. (See infra, vol. II, chaps. II, III, and IV.)
[967] Minton Collins at Richmond to Stephen Collins at Philadelphia, May 8, 1788; MS., Lib. Cong.
[968] Sam Smith in London to Stephen Collins in Philadelphia, July 21, 1788; ib.
[969] Minton Collins to Stephen Collins, Aug. 9, 1788; ib.
[970] "Vergennes complained, and with a good deal of stress, that they did not find a sufficient dependence on arrangements taken with us. This was the third time, too, he had done it.... He observed too, that the administration of justice with us was tardy, insomuch that their merchants, when they had money due to them within our States, considered it as desperate; and that our commercial regulations, in general, were disgusting to them." (Jefferson's Report; Works: Ford, iv, 487.)
[971] Jefferson to Stuart, Jan. 25, 1786; ib., v, 74.
[972] Jefferson to Madison, Dec. 16, 1786; ib., v, 230.
[973] Jefferson to Carrington, Paris, Aug. 4, 1787; ib., 318; also 332; and Jefferson to Wythe, Sept. 16, 1787; ib., 340.
[974] Jefferson to Carrington, Paris, Aug. 4, 1787; ib., 318.
[975] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; ib., 8.
[976] Jefferson to Meusnier, Jan. 24, 1786; Works: Ford, v, 8.
[977] Jefferson to Madison, Dec. 20, 1787; ib., 373-74. Jefferson concluded, prophetically, that when the people "get piled upon one another, in large cities, as in Europe, they will become as corrupt as Europe." (Ib.)
[978] Jefferson to Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785; ib., iv, 469.
[979] Jefferson to Stuart, Jan. 25, 1786; ib., v, 74.
[980] See infra, chap. IX.
[981] For a careful study of this important but neglected subject see Professor Edward Payson Smith's paper in Jameson, 46-115.