Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 / Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched

by John Frederick Schroeder; Benson John Lossing

The military gentlemen of each State were to constitute a distinct society, deputies from which were to assemble triennially in order to form a general meeting for the regulation of general concerns.

Without encountering any open opposition this institution was carried into complete effect, and its honors were sought, especially by the foreign officers, with great avidity. But soon after it was organized those jealousies, which in its first moments had been concealed, burst forth into open view. In October, 1783, a pamphlet was published by Mr. Burk of South Carolina, for the purpose of rousing the apprehensions of the public, and of directing its resentments against the society. In this work its was denounced as an attempt to form an order of nobility. The hereditary feature of the constitution and the power of conferring its honors on distinguished personages, not descended from the officers of the army, were considered particularly inconsistent with the genius of our republican institutions. In Massachusetts the subject was even taken up by the Legislature, and it was well understood that, in Congress, the society was viewed with secret disapprobation.

It was impossible for Washington to view with indifference this state of the public feeling. Bound to the officers of his army by the strictest ties of esteem and affection, conscious of their merits and assured of their attachment to his person, he was alive to everything which might affect their reputation or their interests. However innocent the institution might be in itself or however laudable its real objects, if the impression it made on the public mind was such as to draw a line of distinction between the military men of America and their fellow-citizens, he was earnest in his wishes to adopt such measures as would efface that impression. However ill founded the public prejudices might be he thought this a case in which they ought to be respected, and, if it should be found impracticable to convince the people that their fears were misplaced, he was disposed "to yield to them in a degree, and not to suffer that which was intended for the best of purposes to produce a bad one."

A general meeting was to be held in Philadelphia in May, 1784, and, in the meantime, he had been appointed the temporary president. Washington was too much in the habit of considering subjects of difficulty in various points of view, and of deciding on them with coolness and deliberation, to permit his affections to influence his judgment. The most exact inquiries, assiduously made into the true state of the public mind, resulted in a conviction that opinions unfriendly to the institution, in its actual form, were extensively entertained, and that those opinions were founded, not in hostility to the late army, but in real apprehensions for equal liberty.

A wise and necessary policy required, he thought, the removal of these apprehensions, and, at the general meeting in May, the hereditary principle, and the power of adopting honorary members, were relinquished. The result demonstrated the propriety of this alteration. Although a few, who always perceive most danger where none exists, and the visionaries then abounding in Europe, continued their prophetic denunciations against the order, America dismissed her fears, and, notwithstanding the refusal of several of the State societies to adopt the measures recommended by the general meeting, the members of the Cincinnati were received as brethren into the bosom of their country. {3}

While Washington was engaged in the cultivation of his extensive estate his thoughts were by no means withdrawn from the political concerns of the country, which at this time were assuming rather an ominous aspect. His correspondence evinces that his advice was much sought for by the leading men in the country, and that his opinions on the aspect of the public affairs were freely given. The want of power in the central government, arising from the defects of the old confederation, was becoming more and more apparent, and the evils arising from this want of power were pressing severely on every side. While the war lasted the external pressure held the government together, but on the return of peace its dissolution had become imminent. Large debts had been contracted to pay the expenses of the war, and, although an attempt had been made to establish a general system of revenue from duties on imports, individual States had obstructed the prosecution of this plan, and the government had found itself unable to raise the funds necessary to pay the interest on the public debt. It had, in fact, no power to regulate commerce or collect a revenue. This made it incapable of executing treaties, fulfilling its foreign engagements, or causing itself to be respected by foreign nations. While at home its weakness was disgusting the public creditors and raising a clamor of discontent and disaffection on every side. An alarming crisis was rapidly approaching.

By the enlightened friends of republican government, this gloomy state of things was viewed with deep chagrin. Many became apprehensive that those plans from which so much happiness to the human race had been anticipated would produce only real misery, and would maintain but a short and a turbulent existence. Meanwhile, the wise and thinking part of the community, who could trace evils to their source, labored unceasingly to inculcate opinions favorable to the incorporation of some principles into the political system which might correct the obvious vices, without endangering the free spirit of the existing institutions.

While the advocates for union were exerting themselves to impress its necessity on the public mind, measures were taken in Virginia, which, though originating in different views, terminated in a proposition for a general convention to revise the state of the Union.

To form a compact relative to the navigation of the rivers Potomac and Pocomoke, and of part of Chesapeake Bay, commissioners were appointed by the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, who assembled in Alexandria in March, 1785. While at Mount Vernon on a visit {4} they agreed to propose to their respective governments the appointment of other commissioners, with power to make conjoint arrangements, to which the assent of Congress was to be solicited, for maintaining a naval force in the Chesapeake, and to establish a tariff of duties on imports to which the laws of both States should conform. When these propositions received the assent of the Legislature of Virginia an additional resolution was passed, directing that which respected the duties on imports to be communicated to all the States in the Union, who were invited to send deputies to the meeting.

On the 21st of January, 1786, a few days after the passage of these resolutions, another was adopted appointing Edmund Randolph, James Madison, Walter Jones, St. George Tucker, and Meriwether Smith, commissioners, "who were to meet such as might be appointed by the other States in the Union, at a time and place to be agreed on, to take into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the relative situation and trade of the said States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial relations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony, and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object, as, when unanimously ratified by them, will enable the United States in Congress assembled effectually to provide for the same."