Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature

by Unknown

AMERICANA

The Norse Adventures

“What parts of the American coasts that adventurous Icelander, Bjarne Herjulfson, saw cannot be determined with certainty,” says that learned antiquarian, Professor R. B. Anderson, “but from the circumstances of the voyage, the course of the winds, the direction of the currents, and the presumed distance between each sight of land, there is reason to believe that the first land that Bjarne saw in the year 986 was the present Nantucket; the second, Nova Scotia; and the third, Newfoundland. Thus he was the first European whose eyes beheld any part of the American continent.”

But Bjarne made no exploration of the shores, and could take back no definite report of them. What little he had to say, however, stimulated the curiosity of Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red, and aroused a determination to go in quest of the unknown lands. He bought Bjarne’s ship and set sail, in the year 1000, with a crew of thirty-five men, far away to the southwest of Greenland. They landed in Helluland (Newfoundland), afterwards in Markland (Nova Scotia), and eventually found their way to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, or Buzzard’s Bay, or Narragansett Bay, the exact locality being disputed by local antiquarians. The likelihood seems to favor Fall River. Finding abundance of grapes, they called the place of their sojourn Vinland. They remained there two years, and on their return to Greenland, another expedition was fitted out by Leif’s brother Thorwald. But Leif is entitled to the credit of being the first pale-faced man who planted his feet on the American continent.

The Icelandic Sagas

The old Norse narrative writings are called “Sagas,” a word which, as John Fiske remarks, we are in the habit of using in English as equivalent to legendary or semi-mythical narratives. To cite a saga as authority for a statement seems, therefore, to some people as inadmissible as to cite a fairy-tale. In the class of Icelandic sagas to which that of Erik the Red belongs, we have quiet and sober narrative, not in the least like a fairy-tale, but often much like a ship’s log. Whatever such narrative may be, it is not folk-lore. These sagas are divisible into two well-marked classes. In the one class are the mythical or romantic sagas, composed of legendary materials; they belong essentially to the literature of folk-lore. In the other class are the historical sagas, with their biographies and annals. These writings give us history, and often very good history. They come down to us in a narrative form which stamps them as accurate and trustworthy chronicles.

Foreknowledge

Strenuous efforts have been made in the interest of the Portuguese descendants of Columbus to depreciate the importance of the Norse discoveries of America. Not only has the Americanist Society—whose members devote much of their time to the study of the pre-Columbian history of the Western Continent—traced in genuine sagas full particulars of the voyages and settlements of the Norsemen, from the first expedition in 986 to the last in 1347, but they have shown that Columbus, during a visit to Iceland in 1477, must have been informed of the Norse discoveries, and must have profited by the knowledge thus acquired.

Erikson and Columbus

If we are bound by circumstances to put Columbus in the forefront, we are not bound to ignore an early discovery for the reality of which there is so much authentic evidence. Sceptical comments come from critics who have not sufficient knowledge of Norse customs or of Norse literature, and are consequently not in a position to judge fairly the amount of credence to be put in Scandinavian tradition. Experience with oral tradition as exhibited among the Aryans of India might have suggested that the old Western mistrust of that method of transmitting information was founded in ignorance alone. For we now know that it is quite possible to hand down the longest statements through ages, without loss or change. But in the present case the written word has come in aid of oral tradition, and the oldest records of Leif Erikson’s discovery of Vinland are so near the period of the event that the chain of testimony may be regarded as practically complete. It is all but certain that Leif Erikson landed on the main continent, whereas it is not at all certain, but extremely problematical, whether Columbus ever saw, much less set foot on, the continent of America. The probability is that he did not get nearer than the Bahamas.

The result of modern investigation has been to reduce the glory of Columbus considerably, and to raise questions and doubts concerning him which, if they cannot be answered satisfactorily, must carry the depreciating movement farther. The prior discovery of the Northmen has been taken out of the realm of fable and established as an historical fact. On the other hand, the visit of the Northmen did not lead to permanent settlement. They may have colonized a little. They may have had relations with some of the American Indians, and even have taught the aborigines some of the Norse sagas. But they did not stay in the new land. After a longer or shorter period they sailed away, and left it finally, and no emigration from Iceland to Vinland was incited by the tales they told on their return home.

The incident was ended so far as they were concerned, and it was not reopened. Now, in the case of Columbus, it may be said that the first step was quickly followed up, and that there was no solution of continuity in the development of the new world. Certainty and perfectly clear demonstration is not to be had in the matter, but Columbus has the advantage of tradition, of familiarity, of the facility with which an at least apparent connection is established between the man and what came after him.

The Cabots

On the 24th of June, 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian merchant, living in England, with his young son Sebastian, first saw, from the deck of a British vessel, “the dismal cliffs of Labrador,” through the early morning mist. This was nearly fourteen months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the mainland of South America. Thenceforth the continent of North America belonged to England by right of discovery. Sailing along the coast many leagues without the sight of a human being, but observing that the country was inhabited, he landed and planted a large cross with the standard of England, and by its side the Venetian banner of St. Mark,—the one in loyalty to his king, Henry VII., the other in affection for Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic. From that hour the fortunes of this continent were to be swayed by the Anglo-Saxon race. The name of Cabot’s vessel—the first to touch our American shores—was Matteo (Matthew).

The Name America

Amalric was the name which compacted the old ideal of heroism and leadership common to all Germanic tribes, the ideal that stands out most clearly in the character of Beowulf—the Amal of Sweden, Denmark, and Saxon England. It meant what the North European hero stories described,—“The man who ruled because he labored for the benefit of all.”

In Norman France this name was softened to Amaury. Thus, a certain theologian who was born in the twelfth century at Bène, near Chartres, is called indifferently Amalric of Bène or Amaury of Chartres. England in the thirteenth century could show no more commanding figure than Simon of Montfort l’Amaury, Earl of Leicester, to whom King Henry once said, “If I fear the thunder, I fear you, Sir Earl, more than all the thunder in the world.” A Norman Amalric was that Earl Simon, creator of a new force, and in its outcome a democratic one, too, in English politics. J. R. Green says, “It was the writ issued by Earl Simon that first summoned the merchant and trader to sit beside the knight of the shire, the baron, and the bishop in the parliament of the realm.” In Italy, after the Gothic invasion, the northern name suffered comparatively slight euphonic changes, which can be easily traced. As borne by a bishop of Como in 865 it became Amelrico or Amelrigo. But the juxtaposition of the two consonants “l” and “r” presented a difficulty in pronunciation which the Italians avoided: they changed “lr,” first, to double “r,” and then to a single “r.” Nevertheless, six hundred years after Bishop Amelrigo died, the Florentine merchant, explorer, and author—third son of Anastasio Vespucius, notary of Florence—usually retained the double “r” in his own signature, writing “Amerrigo Vespucci,” and, by the way, accenting his Gothic name on the penultimate (Ameri´go, not Ame´rigo).

The orthography of Amelric was still in this transitional stage in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. In Spain the name must have been rare, since it was often used alone to designate the Florentine during his residence in that country, the audit books in the archives of Seville containing entries in this form: “Ha de haber Amerigo.” There was, apparently, no other Amerigo or Amerrigo in the Spanish public service early in the sixteenth century.

We must look again toward the north for the scene of the next important change, and among the men of a northern race for its author. Martin Waldseemueller, a young German geographer at St. Dié, in the Vosgian Mountains, whose imagination had been stirred by reading, as news of the day, Amerigo’s account of his voyages to the New World, bestowed the name America upon the continental regions brought to light by the Florentine. It is not enough to say, with John Boyd Thacher (in his “Columbus,” Volume III.; compare also Thacher’s valuable “Continent of America”), that Waldseemueller “suggested” this designation. As editor of the Latin work, the “Cosmographiæ Introductio” (May 5, 1507), he stated most distinctly, with emphatic reiteration, his reasons for this name-giving; placed conspicuously in the margin the perfect geographical name, “America,” and at the end of the volume put Vespucci’s narrative. Further, on a large map of the world, separately published, he drew that fourth part of the earth “quarta orbis pars,” which was the “Introductio’s” novel feature, and marked it firmly “America.”

The contention of Professor von der Hagen (in his letter to Humboldt, published in 1835 in “Neues Jahrbuch der Berliner Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache,” Heft 1, pp. 13–17), that Waldseemueller was distinctly conscious of giving the new continent a name of Germanic origin, may appeal to enthusiastic Germanists, but the original text clearly opposes that conclusion. “Quia Americus invenit,” says the Introductio, “Americi terra sive America nuncupare licet.” But the case stands otherwise, when we ask why Europeans generally caught up the word, as a name appropriate to the new Terra Firma of vaguely intimated contours, but of defined and appalling difficulty—a vaster, untried field for the exercise of proved Amal ability. Its association with so many men before Vespucci certainly commended the name to northern taste.

We may be thankful that no one has succeeded in the various attempts that have been made to call our part of the world by the relatively very weak name Columbia, which signifies Land of the Dove. We may be thankful that “America” means so much more than “Europe”—in respect to which Meredith Townsend says, “The people of the ‘setting sun’—that seems to be the most probable explanation of the word Europe.” The “setting sun” is precisely the wrong thing. And if we wish to get somewhat nearer to the time of the name-giving of the Old World Continents, we shall find that Herodotus says, “Nor can I conjecture why, as the earth is one, it has received three names, Asia, Europe, and Libya—the names of women; ... nor can I learn who it was that established these artificial distinctions, or whence were derived these appellations.”

We scarcely need to point out the appropriateness of a name which exactly fits the Saxon, Teutonic, and Latin conditions here. It is also clear that we need not ask whether Amerigo Vespucci was worthy to have his name given to a hemisphere. His name, it has been shown plainly, was but the cup that held the essence.

What it Cost to Discover America

As John Fiske remarks, “It is not easy to give an accurate account of the cost of this most epoch-making voyage in all history. Conflicting statements by different authorities combine with the fluctuating values of different kinds of money to puzzle and mislead us.” Historians are inclined to accept the statement of Las Casas with regard to the amount of Queen Isabella’s contribution, whether it came from a pledge of the crown jewels, or from the Castile treasury, but the amount of the loan from Santangel, and of the levy upon the port of Palos, is open to question. The researches of Harrisse have been considered authoritative, but now comes the German investigator, Professor Ruge, whose estimates involve a large reduction from calculations heretofore made. He says,—

“The cost of the armament of the first fleet of Columbus, consisting of three small vessels, is given in all the documents as 1,140,000 maravedis. What this sum represents in our own money, however, is not so easy to determine, as the opinions upon the value of a maravedi vary greatly. The maravedi—the name is of Moorish origin—was a small coin used at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century. All prices were expressed in maravedis, even if they ran into the millions. It is, however, a fact well known that almost all coins which continue to bear one name decrease in value in the course of centuries. The Roman silver denarius sank finally to common copper coins, known in France as ‘dermer,’ in England as ‘d’ and in Germany as ‘pfennig.’ The original gulden-gold, as the name indicates—has long since become a silver piece which nowhere has the value of fifty cents. So, also, the value of the maravedi became less and less, until a century ago it was hardly equal to a pfennig (one-quarter of a cent). One may also reason backward that it was much more valuable four centuries ago.”

Ruge comes to the conclusion, after the examination of various decrees of Ferdinand, that the value of a maravedi was about 2.56 pfennig, or less than three-quarters of a cent in modern money. Therefore the contribution of 1,140,000 maravedis made by Queen Isabella was, he says, 29,184 marks, or about $7296, without taking into consideration the higher purchasing power of money in Columbus’s days. “The city of Palos also,” adds the article, “had to furnish out of its own means two small ships manned for twelve months. The cost to the State, therefore, of the journey of discovery was not more than 30,000 marks ($7500). Of this sum the admiral received an annual salary of 1280 marks ($320); the captains, Martin, Juan, and Anton Perez, each 768 marks ($192); the pilots, 542 to 614 marks each ($128 to $153), and a physician only 153 marks and 60 pfennigs ($38.50). The sailors received for the necessaries of life, etc., each month 1 ducat, valued at 375 maravedis, about 9 marks and 60 pfennigs ($2.45).”

The American Indians

With reference to the ancestors of the native tribes, and their probable origin, the following syllabus of Charles Hallock’s paper in the American Antiquarian is interesting:

The Indians, or Indigenes, of both North and South America, originated from a civilization of high degree which occupied the subequatorial belt some ten thousand years ago, while the glacial sheet was still on. Population spread northward as the ice receded. Routes of exodus diverging from the central point of departure are plainly marked by ruins and lithic records. The subsequent settlements in Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California indicate the successive stages of advance, as well as the persistent struggle to maintain the ancient civilization against reversion and the catastrophes of nature. The varying architecture of the valleys, cliffs, and mesas is an intelligible expression of the exigencies which stimulated the builders. The gradual distribution of population over the higher latitudes in after years was supplemented by accretions from Europe and Northern Asia centuries before the coming of Columbus. Wars and reprisals were the natural and inevitable results of a mixed and degenerated population with different dialects. The mounds which cover the midcontinental areas, isolated and in groups, tell the story thereof. The Korean immigration of the year 544, historically cited, which led to the founding of the Mexican empire in 1325, was but an incidental contribution to the growing population of North America. So also were the very much earlier migrations from Central America by water across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and Arkansas.

The Landing of the Pilgrims

The actual authorities upon this subject are very few. But they have been carefully collated by Mr. Gay, in his “Bryant’s History of the United States,” and the story is there clearly told. Mr. Gay says that the Pilgrims probably did not land first at Plymouth, and certainly not on the 22d of December, a date erroneously perpetuated as Forefathers’ Day in celebration of the event. In summarizing the results of careful investigation G. W. Curtis says it was on the 21st of November, 1621, new style, that the “Mayflower” cast anchor in the bay which is now the harbor of Provincetown, Cape Cod. The Pilgrims went ashore, but found no water fit for drinking, and in a little shallop which the “Mayflower” had brought, a party began to explore the coast to find a proper place for a settlement, and on the 16th of December, N. S., they put off for a more extended search. On Saturday, the 19th, they reached Clark’s Island, in Plymouth Bay or Harbor, so called from Clark, the chief mate, who first stepped ashore, and on Sunday, the 20th, they rested and worshipped God. On Monday, the 21st, they crossed from the island to the mainland, somewhere probably in Duxbury or Kingston, which was the nearest point, and coasted along the shore, finding in some spots fields cleared for maize by the Indians, and copious streams. They decided that somewhere upon that shore it would be best to land and begin the settlement, but precisely where they did not determine, and sailed away again on the same day, the 21st, to rejoin the “Mayflower” at Cape Cod.

The next day, therefore, the 22d of December, the Plymouth shore and waters relapsed into the customary solitude, and the little band of Pilgrims were once more assembled upon the “Mayflower,” many miles away. It was not until the 25th of December that the famous ship left Cape Cod, and on the 26th she dropped anchor between Plymouth and Clark’s Island. Not before the 30th was Plymouth finally selected as the spot for settlement, and it was not until the 4th of January, 1621, that the Pilgrims generally went ashore, and began to build the common house. But it was not until the 31st of March that all the company left the ship.

The First Legislative Assembly

Jamestown, the first English settlement in the United States, was founded in 1607. The story of the early colonists during the first twelve years is a record of continuous misfortune; it is a story of oppressive government, of severe hardships, of famine, and Indian massacre. After languishing under such distressful conditions, the colony was reinforced with emigrants and supplies, the despotic governor, Argall, was displaced, and the mild and popular Sir George Yeardley was made captain-general. He arrived in April, 1619, and under the instructions he had received “for the better establishing of a commonwealth,” he issued a proclamation “that those cruel laws, by which the planters had so long been governed, were now abrogated, and that they were to be governed by those free laws which his majesty’s subjects lived under in England. That the planters might have a hand in the governing of themselves, it was granted that a general assembly should be held yearly, whereat were to be present the governor and council, with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assembly to have power to make and ordain whatsoever laws and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence.”

In conformity with this “charter of rights and liberties,” summonses were sent out to hold elections of burgesses, and on July 30, 1619, delegates from each of the eleven plantations assembled at Jamestown. Under this administrative change, this inauguration of legislative power, salutary enactments were adopted, and the new representatives proved their capacity and their readiness to meet their responsibilities. It was the first legislative assembly in America, the beginning of self-government in the English colonies.

The Signing of the Declaration

“July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence having been read was agreed to as follows: [Here should appear the Declaration without any signatures or authentication, as is the case with one of the manuscript journals.]

“Ordered, That the Declaration be authenticated and printed. That the committee appointed to prepare the Declaration superintend and correct the press, etc.

“July 19. Resolved, That the Declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title, etc., and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.

“Aug. 2. The Declaration agreed to on July 4, being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed by the members, agreeably to the resolution of July 19.

“Nov. 4. The Hon. Matthew Thornton, Esq., a delegate from New Hampshire, attended and produced his credentials.

“Ordered, That Mr. Thornton be directed, agreeably to the resolve passed July 19, to affix his signature to the engrossed copy of the Declaration, with the date of his subscription.

“Jan. 18, 1777. Ordered, That an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence, with the names of the members of Congress subscribing the same, be sent to each of the United States, and they be desired to have the same put upon record.

“——, 1781. Whereas, It has been made to appear to this present Congress that the Hon. Thomas McKean was a member of Congress from Delaware in the year 1776, and that on July 4 of that year he was present and voted for the Declaration of Independence, but being absent with the army at the time of the general subscription of that instrument on Aug. 2: therefore,

“Resolved, That the said Hon. Thomas McKean be allowed to affix his signature to the aforesaid Declaration, he adding thereto the date of such subscription.”

The engrossed copy of the Declaration reads: “In Congress, July 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America——” and after the Declaration follow the signatures. To make the record accurate and true to history, the signatures should have been preceded by some such recital as this: “The foregoing Declaration having been agreed to on July 4, by the delegates of the thirteen United Colonies, in Congress assembled, and the same having been engrossed, is now subscribed, agreeably to a resolution passed July 19, by the members of Congress present this 2d day of August, 1776.”

The Authorship of the Declaration

In the inscription prepared by Thomas Jefferson for his tomb, he preferred to be remembered as the “author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” With regard to the first of these claims to originality two questions have been in controversy,—the first upon the substance of the document, and the second concerning its phraseology in connection with the Mecklenburg declaration of May, 1775. The latter, Mr. Jefferson declared he had not seen at the time, and as to the germ, it is obvious in the conclusions upon government of the leading thinkers of the age in Europe and America. The assumption that Jefferson unaided wrote the great state paper, unequalled as it is in eloquence and dignity, is based upon weak evidence, and it is noteworthy that he did not make a positive claim until after his eightieth year.

In the early days of the republic there were many who believed that he did not write it; but for reasons which have been set forth, as follows, the real author was unknown.

Six months before independence was declared, an anonymous pamphlet was published, entitled “Common Sense.” Its success was unprecedented. The copyright was assigned to the colonies by the author, and not until several editions were issued was it accredited to Thomas Paine. In a literary point of view it was one of the finest productions in the English language. But the author was not an aspirant for literary fame; his sole aim was the achievement of American independence.

Paine was the bosom friend of Franklin. They were both very secretive men, and Franklin, who had induced Paine to come to America, knew that he could trust him. Franklin was a member of the committee to draft a declaration. The task was assigned to Jefferson, and in a very few days it was completed.

Franklin handed to Jefferson a draft already prepared by Paine, and assured him that he could trust the writer never to lay claim to its authorship. What could Jefferson do but use it? It was far superior in style to anything he could produce. So with a few verbal changes be reported it, and it was adopted by the Congress, after striking out several passages more eloquent than any that remain, as, for instance, one about the slave trade.

The adoption of this declaration placed Jefferson in an embarrassing position. Not daring to say outright that he was its author, he studiously evaded that point whenever it became necessary to allude to the subject. But at last, when Franklin had been dead thirty-three years and Paine fourteen years, Jefferson ventured to claim what no one then disputed. It would never have done for him to name the real author, and who could be harmed, he doubtless thought, by taking the credit to himself? But the science of criticism, like the spectrum analysis which reveals the composition of the stars, points unerringly to Thomas Paine as the only man who could indite that greatest of literary masterpieces, the Declaration of American Independence.

Eminent Domain—National Sovereignty

It is well known to the students of our history that, though Maryland was fully represented in the Continental Congress and took an active part in all the deliberations of that body and answered every requisition which was made upon her for money and troops, sending more than 20,000 of her best sons to the army under Washington, whose courage and conduct on every battle-field of the Revolution elicited the warm commendation of their great commander, she did not sign, and for years resolutely refused to sign, the Articles of Confederation, and did not sign those articles until March 1, 1781, about eight months before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which marked the close of our revolutionary struggle.

In a vague and general way the reason of that refusal was also known. Intimations of it crop out occasionally in the pages of some of our annalists. But the full meaning and the subsequent and most important effect of that refusal and of that reason were not fully understood and realized until they were explained and unfolded by the investigations of two of the most accomplished scholars of our time. The late Herbert B. Adams, professor of history, Johns Hopkins University, in a paper read before the Maryland Historical Society April 9, 1877, entitled “Maryland’s Influence upon the Land Cessions to the United States,” and also published in the Johns Hopkins University studies, third series, No. 1, in January, 1885, and the late Professor John Fiske, of Harvard University, in his work entitled “The Critical Period of American History,” published in 1888, for the first time fully investigated and discussed this question of the public lands and the profound significance of the action of Maryland in the Continental Congress in regard to it.

Of the vastly important, but to his time little understood, effect of this action on the part of Maryland, Professor Adams says, page 67 of his paper: “The acquisition of a territorial commonwealth by these States was the foundation of a permanent union; it was the first solid arch upon which the framers of our Constitution could build. When we now consider the practical results arising from Maryland’s prudence in laying the keystone to the old confederation only after the land claims of the larger States had been placed through her influence upon a national basis, we may say with truth that it was a national commonwealth which Maryland founded.” And again, on page 30 of the same paper, Professor Adams observes: “The credit of suggesting and successfully urging in Congress that policy which has made this country a great national commonwealth, composed of free, convenient, and independent governments, bound together by ties of permanent territorial interests, the credit of originating this policy belongs to Maryland, and to her alone. Absolutely nothing had been effected by Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware, before they ratified the articles, toward breaking down the selfish claims of the larger States and placing the confederation upon a national basis.... Maryland was left to fight out the battle alone, and with what success we shall shortly see.”

The history of the struggle which Maryland made, single-handed and alone in the Congress of the States, to compel the surrender of the Western lands to the United States by the States which claimed them, namely Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Georgia, is graphically told in this interesting paper, and reflects the highest credit on the courage, resolution, statesmanship, and patriotism of the General Assembly of Maryland and her representatives in the Congress. The struggle was a long and arduous one, but in the end Maryland won. Her position was that, without regard to the titles more or less doubtful and defective on which these claims were founded or pretended to be founded, and which, by the way, she utterly denied, the fact remained that when these lands were acquired from Great Britain, as one of the results of the war we were waging, they would be won by the common expenditure of the blood and treasure of the people of all the States, and that therefore they should become the common property and the inheritance of all the States, as a national domain to be governed and controlled by the national sovereignty, and to be parcelled out ultimately into “free, convenient, and independent States,” and to become members of the federal Union, on an equality with the other States, whenever their population and circumstances should justify. Maryland thus formulated the elemental idea of territorial acquisition and the purposes of that acquisition, namely, the creation out of such territory, the common property of all the States, of new and independent Commonwealths and coequal members of the federal Union, for that purpose, and that purpose only, and the idea of a national sovereignty as a logical consequence of such acquisition for that purpose.

The struggle was begun by Maryland by the passage, in her General Assembly, of instructions to her delegates in Congress on December 15, 1778,—instructions which were read and submitted to that Congress on May 21, 1779. A declaration of the same tenor and effect as the instructions had been previously adopted and transmitted to Congress by Maryland and laid before that body without debate on January 6, 1779. Virginia answered these instructions and declaration by a remonstrance from her House of Burgesses, in which she alluded, with something of arrogance, to these papers and protested against any attempt or design by the Congress to diminish any of her territory, and reasserted all her exorbitant and unfounded claims to the Western lands and her purpose to relinquish none of them. She had even gone so far as to organize Illinois and Kentucky into counties of Virginia.

The fight was now on. In the beginning Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware had supported Maryland, and with her had protested against these pretensions of the larger States; but under influences which it is now difficult to account for they soon fell from her side and left her to make that fight alone. She encountered vehement opposition from the landed States, as they grew to be denominated.

“But of these protesting States,” says Professor John Fiske, in the work referred to, page 191, “it was only Maryland that fairly rose to the occasion and suggested an idea, which seemed startling at first, but from which mighty and unforeseen consequences were soon to follow.” A motion had been made in the Congress to the effect that the United States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of the States making claim to the Mississippi, and lay out the land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent States, from time to time, as the numbers and circumstances of the people may require. This motion was submitted by Maryland, and no State but Maryland voted for it.

Professor Fiske subsequently observes: “This acquisition of a common territory speedily led to results not at all contemplated in the theory of union upon which the Articles of Confederation were based. It led to ‘the exercise of national sovereignty in the sense of eminent domain,’ as shown in the ordinances of 1784 and 1787, and prepared men’s minds for the work of the Federal Convention. Great credit is due to Maryland for her resolute course in setting in motion this train of events. It aroused fierce indignation at the time, as to many people it looked unfriendly to the Union. Some hotheads were even heard to say that, if Maryland should persist any longer in her refusal to join the Confederation, she ought to be summarily divided up between the neighboring States and her name erased from the map. (Maryland had heard such threats before in her colonial period and had been unjustly stripped of large parts of her territory, as laid down in her charter, by both Virginia and Pennsylvania.) But the brave little State had earned a better fate than Poland. When we have come to trace out the result of her action we shall see that just as it was Massachusetts that took the decisive step in bringing on the Revolutionary War, when she threw the tea into the Boston harbor, so it was Maryland that, by leading the way toward the creation of a national domain, laid the corner-stone of our federal Union.”

Maryland, unawed by these threats, resolutely adhered to her determination, as announced by her repeatedly in the General Assembly of the State and through her representatives in the Congress, not to sign the Articles of Confederation until this great wrong should be righted, until these Western lands should be ceded to the United States for the common benefit of all the States. Her resolution was rewarded. Maryland finally won. The great States yielded, some cheerfully, some with reluctance, and surrendered their Western lands to the United States, New York leading the way, followed by Massachusetts, and finally by Virginia and the other States. Maryland, having accomplished her great purpose, instructed her two distinguished sons, then representatives in the Congress, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll, to sign the Articles of Confederation on her behalf, which they did on March 1, 1781, and thus the Articles of Confederation were completed. The satisfaction which this action of Maryland gave was very general, and Madison gives expression to it in a letter to Thomas Jefferson when subsequently the negotiations were begun between Maryland and Virginia which culminated ultimately in the Federal Convention, the formation of our Constitution, and the establishment of the government of the United States.

Gun Flints Wanted

On the 4th of July, 1776, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence was not the only event of the day during the session of the Continental Congress. Attention was given to other important matters, among them the passage of the following resolution:

“That the Board of War be empowered to employ such a number of persons as they shall find necessary to manufacture flints for the continent, and for this purpose to apply to the respective Assemblies, Conventions, and Councils or Committees of Safety of the United American States, or committees of inspection of the counties and towns thereunto belonging, for the names and places of abode of persons skilled in the manufacture aforesaid, and of the places in their respective States where the best flint-stones are to be obtained, with samples of the same.”

The flint-lock of the old-time muskets and pistols has long since been superseded by the detonating or percussion cap. It passed out of use when goose-quills gave way to metallic pens, sand boxes to blotters, and red wafers to mucilage or paste in convenient jars.

The Master Spirit of the Revolution

In his “Historical View of the American Revolution,” George W. Greene says: “When the colonists resolved upon resistance to British invasion, the first question that presented itself, in the effort to organize the independent militia of the different States for the general defence was, who should command this motley army? As long as each colony provided for its own men, it was difficult to infuse a spirit of unity into discordant elements. There could be no strength without union, and of union the only adequate representative was the Continental Congress. To induce the Congress to adopt the army in the name of the United Colonies was one of the objects toward which John Adams directed his attention. With the question of adoption came the question of commander-in-chief; and here personal ambition and sectional jealousies were manifest in various ways.”

Washington’s was, of course, the first name that occurred to Northern and Southern men alike; for it was the only name that had won a continental reputation. But some New England men thought that they would do better service under a New England commander, like General Ward, of Massachusetts; and some Southern men were not prepared to see Washington put so prominently forward. Then New England was divided against itself. While Ward had warm advocates, John Hancock had aspirations for the high place which were not always concealed from the keen eyes of his colleagues. Among Washington’s opponents were some “of his own household,” Pendleton of Virginia being the most persistent of them all. At last John Adams moved to adopt the army, and appoint a general; and a few days after, June 5—the interval having been actively used to win over the little band of dissenters—Washington was chosen by a unanimous vote.

In a memorable address, Edward Everett remarked: “The war was conducted by Washington under every possible disadvantage. He engaged in it without any personal experience in the handling of large bodies of men, and this was equally the case with all his subordinates. The Continental Congress, under whose authority the war was waged, was destitute of all the attributes of an efficient government. It had no power of taxation, and no right to compel the obedience of the individual. The country was nearly as destitute of the material of war as of the means of procuring it; it had no foundries, no arsenals, no forts, no navy, no means, no credit. The opposing power had all the prestige of an ancient monarchy, of the legitimate authority of disciplined and veteran armies, of a powerful navy, of the military possession of most of the large towns, and the machinery of government for peace and war. It had also the undoubted sympathy of a considerable portion of the people, especially of the wealthy class. That Washington, carrying on the war under these circumstances, met with frequent reverses, and that the progress of the Revolution as conducted by him seemed often languid and inert, is less wonderful than that he rose superior to such formidable obstacles, and was able, with unexhausted patience and matchless skill, to bring the contest eventually to an auspicious and honorable close.”

The Constitutional Convention

In his admirable memorial of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Constitution of the United States, Hampton L. Carson says: “During the years of bankruptcy, anarchy, and civil paralysis, which preceded the formation of a more lasting Union, Washington constantly urged the establishment of a stronger national government. He saw the folly, the weakness, and the insignificance of a government powerless to enforce its decrees, dependent upon the discretion of thirteen different Legislatures, swayed by conflicting interests, and therefore unable to provide for the public safety, or for the honorable payment of the national debt. He clearly saw the necessity for a government which could command the obedience of individuals by operating directly upon them, and not upon sovereign States. In his private as well as official correspondence during an early period of the war, in his last words to his officers at Newburgh, in his speech when resigning his commission at Annapolis, and after his return to Mount Vernon, in his letters to Hamilton, Jefferson, Mason, and Madison, he constantly and vigorously urged the idea of a stronger Union, and a surrender of a portion of the sovereignty of the States. When the Federal Convention was determined on, it was natural as well as appropriate that he should be selected as one of the delegates from Virginia, and, as a proof of the magnitude and solemnity of the duty to be performed, he was placed at the head of the State delegation. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, in May, 1787, he called upon the venerable Franklin, then eighty-one years of age, and the great soldier and the great philosopher conferred together upon the evils which had befallen their beloved country and threatened it with dangers far greater than those of war. Upon the nomination of Robert Morris, Washington was unanimously chosen president of the Convention,—an honor for which he expressed his thanks in a few simple words, reminding his colleagues of the novelty of the scene of business in which he was to act, lamenting his want of better qualifications, and claiming indulgence towards the involuntary errors which his inexperience might occasion. In that body of fifty-five statesmen and jurists—such men as Hamilton, Madison, Dickinson, Rutledge, Morris, and Carroll—Washington did not shine as a debater. Of oratorical talents he had none, but the breadth and sagacity of his views, his calmness of judgment, his exalted character, and the vast grasp of his national sympathy, exerted a powerful influence upon the labors of the Convention. So far as the record shows, he seems to have broken silence but twice,—once when he disapproved of the exclusive origination of money-bills in the House of Representatives, a view which he abandoned for the sake of harmony, and again when he wished the ratio of representation reduced. The proceedings were held in secret, and not until after four months of arduous and continuous toil did the people know how great or how wonderful was the work of the men who builded better than they knew. When the Constitution was before the people for adoption, and the result was in doubt, Gouverneur Morris wrote to Washington as follows:

“I have observed that your name to the Constitution has been of infinite service. Indeed, I am convinced that if you had not attended the Convention, and the same paper had been handed out to the world, it would have met with a colder reception, with fewer and weaker advocates, and with more and more strenuous opponents. As it is, should the idea prevail that you will not accept the Presidency, it will prove fatal in many parts. The truth is that your great and decided superiority leads men willingly to put you in a place which will not add to your present dignity, nor raise you higher than you already stand.”

In the interval neither the voice nor the pen of Washington was idle. In many of his most interesting letters he constantly urged upon his countrymen the necessity of adopting the work of the Convention as the only remedy for the evils with which the country was afflicted. When the new government went into operation he was unanimously chosen as the first President, and was sworn into office in the city of New York, April 30, 1789. In 1792, though anxious to retire, he was again chosen to the executive chair by the unanimous vote of every electoral college; and for a third time, in 1796, was earnestly entreated to consent to a re-election, but firmly declined, thus establishing by the force of his example a custom which has remained unbroken, and which has become a part of the unwritten law of the Republic.

Division of Legislative Authority

The late Francis Lieber related the following story in a letter to a friend:

“An incident of more than usual interest occurred to-day, just after the class in constitutional law was dismissed, at the university. I had been lecturing upon the advantages of the bicameral system, had dismissed the class, and was about to leave the room, when a young man, whom I knew had taken instructions under Laboulaye, in Paris, approached me, and said that what I had urged in regard to the bicameral system reminded him of a story which he had heard Laboulaye relate. I was interested, of course, and, as the class gathered around, he proceeded with the following: Laboulaye said, in one of his lectures, that Jefferson, who had become so completely imbued with French ideas as even to admire the uni-cameral system of legislation, one day visited Washington at Mount Vernon, and, in the course of the conversation that ensued, the comparative excellence of the two systems came up for consideration. After considerable had been said on both sides, finally, at the tea-table, Washington, turning sharply to Jefferson, said,—

“‘You, sir, have just demonstrated the superior excellence of the bicameral system, by your own hand.’

“‘I! How is that?’ said Jefferson, not a little surprised.

“‘You have poured your tea from your cup out into the saucer to cool. We want the bicameral system to cool things. A measure originates in one house, and in heat is passed. The other house will serve as a wonderful cooler; and, by the time it is debated and modified by various amendments there, it is much more likely to become an equitable law. No, we can’t get along without the saucer in our system.’

“Jefferson, of course, saw that a point had been made against his argument; but whether he was frank enough to say so, the story-teller did not relate.”

Progress toward Position as a World Power

In the case of the North American colonies, connection with the main stream of history may be said to have taken place in the latter half of the eighteenth century, especially during the Seven Years’ War and the war of Independence. Consequently, the earlier history of North America would naturally be considered about the close of the reign of Louis XV. and immediately before the French Revolution. But, although an intimate relation between America and Europe was established during the period 1756–83, and although the outbreak of the French Revolution was partly due to this connection, it was severed after the Peace of Versailles to be renewed only occasionally during many years. For upwards of a century from that date the United States remained in a sense an isolated political entity, standing forth, indeed, as a primary example of a successful and progressive federated republic, and, as such, exerting a constant influence on the political thought of Europe, but not otherwise affecting the course of European affairs, and little affected by them in return. The United States seldom came into close political contact even with Great Britain during the greater part of the nineteenth century, and still more rarely with other Powers. It is only during the last generation that an extraordinary industrial and commercial development has brought the United States into immediate contact and rivalry with European nations; and it is still more recently that, through the acquisition of transmarine dependencies and the recognition of far-reaching interests abroad, the American people have practically abandoned the policy of isolation, and have definitely, because inevitably, taken their place among the great Powers of the world.