The War of Independence

by John Fiske

The northwestern territory; the first national domain, 1780-87.

Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union from falling to pieces in 1786 was the Northwestern Territory, which George Rogers Clark had conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy had enabled us to keep when the treaty was drawn up in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory and actually held it, but New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also had claims upon it. It was the idea of Maryland that such a vast region ought not to be added to any one state, or divided between two or three of the states, but ought to be the common property of the Union. Maryland had refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the four states that claimed the northwestern territory should yield their claims to the United States. This was done between 1780 and 1785, and thus for the first time the United States government was put in possession of valuable property which could be made to yield an income and pay debts. This piece of property was about the first thing in which all the American people were alike interested, after they had won their independence. It could be opened to immigration and made to pay the whole cost of the war and much more. During these troubled years Congress was busy with plans for organizing this territory, which at length resulted in the famous Ordinance of 1787 laying down fundamental laws for the government of what has since developed into the five great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. While other questions tended to break up the Union, the questions that arose in connection with this work tended to hold it together.

The convention at Annapolis, Sept. 11, 1786.

The need for easy means of communication between the old Atlantic states and this new country behind the mountains led to schemes which ripened in course of time into the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie canals. In discussing such schemes, Maryland and Virginia found it necessary to agree upon some kind of commercial policy to be pursued by both states. Then it was thought best to seize the occasion for calling a general convention of the states to decide upon a uniform system of regulations for commerce. This convention was held at Annapolis in September, 1786, but only five states had sent delegates, and so the convention adjourned after adopting an address written by Alexander Hamilton, calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

The Shays rebellion and the quarrel about the Mississippi river had by this time alarmed people so that it began to be generally admitted that the federal government must be in some way strengthened. If there were any doubt as to this, it was removed by the action of New York. An amendment to the Articles of Confederation had been proposed, giving Congress the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors. By the summer of 1786 all the states except New York had consented to this. But in order to amend the articles, unanimous consent was necessary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal defeated the amendment. Congress was thus left without any immediate means of raising a revenue, and it became quite clear that something must be done without delay.

The Federal Convention at Philadelphia, May-Sept., 1787.

The famous Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and remained in session four months, with Washington presiding. Its work was the framing of the government under which we are now living, and in which the evils of the old confederation have been avoided. The trouble had all the while been how to get the whole American people represented in some body that could thus rightfully tax the whole American people. This was the question which the Albany Congress had tried to settle in 1754, and which the Federal Convention did settle in 1787.

In the old confederation, starting with the Continental Congress in 1774, the government was all vested in a single body which represented states, but did not represent individual persons. It was for that reason that it was called a congress rather than a parliament. It was more like a congress of European states than the legislative body of a nation, such as the English parliament was. It had no executive and no judiciary. It could not tax, and it could not enforce its decrees.

The new government, in which the Revolution was consummated, 1789.

The new constitution changed all this by creating the House of Representatives which stood in the same relation to the whole American people as the legislative assembly of each single state to the people of that state. In this body the people were represented, and could therefore tax themselves. At the same time in the Senate the old equality between the states was preserved. All control over commerce, currency, and finance was lodged in this new Congress, and absolute free trade was established between the states. In the office of President a strong executive was created. And besides all this there was a system of federal courts for deciding questions arising under federal laws. Most remarkable of all, in some respects, was the power given to the federal Supreme Court, of deciding, in special cases, whether laws passed by the several states, or by Congress itself, were conformable to the Federal Constitution.