W"

7ITH the signing of the preliminary articles of peace at Paris, the struggle for independence was practically ended, and the United States was a free nation. The struggle had been long and arduous; the patriots had endured indescribable hardships and had overcome stern and bitter trials; but perseverance had gained the meed, and patience had won the race. They were now free from foreign domination, in possession of a vast domain the possibilities of which they had not even the slightest conception, and before them lay the future which was their own to do with as they saw fit. It only depended upon themselves as to whether that future was to be bright or dark.*

Writing to Monroe from Paris, June 17, 1785, Jefferson said: "It [a sojourn in France] will make you adore your own country, it's soil, it's climate, it's equality, liberty, laws, people & man

Yet the actual conditions existing at the present time were far from encouraging, for the people had been compelled to win independence at the point of the sword, and the natural outcome was that the country should be in a deplorable state, lands desolated, poverty general and homes broken up by deaths. Resources were to a great extent dried up, finances in a deplorable condition, trade and commerce practically destroyed, agri

ners. My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy. I confess I had no idea of it myself. While we shall see multiplied instances of Europeans going to live in America, I will venture to say no man now living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe & continuing there. Come then, & see the proofs of this, and on your return add your testimony of every thinking American, in order to satisfy our countrymen how much it is their interest to preserve uninfected by contagion those peculiarities in their government & manners to which they are indebted for these blessings."- Ford's ed. of Jefferson's Writings, vol. iv., p. 59.

326

culture almost ruined,* and to make matters still worse there was practically no central authority to which the inhabitants could appeal to secure justice and equity. A mountain of debt was pressing upon what little upon what little central authority there was, but even this government was on the brink of destruction and no one could tell the exact status of political affairs. The statesmen of the period saw that there was a large work yet to be done and that a crisis had to be met which was of prime importance to the welfare of the whole nation and only secondary to the struggle for existence itself. Madison said that, "unless some amicable and adequate arrangements be speedily taken for adjusting all the subsisting accounts and discharging the public engagements, a dissolution of the Union will be inevitable." +

In 1783 the love of Union, as a sentiment for which men would undergo all manner of hardship, had scarcely come into existence among the people of the emancipated colonies. But nine years had elapsed since in the first Continental Congress the States had begun to act in concert, under the severe pressure of common fear and an immediate necessity of action. Even then the war was allowed to languish and had almost failed because of the difficulty of securing concerted action; the

Ford's ed. of Jefferson's Writings, vol. iv.,

p. 140.

Gay, Life of Madison, p. 36.

length of the war was due chiefly to this lack of organization. Congress had steadily declined in power and was much weaker at the end than at the beginning of the war. There was also much fear that with the war so happily concluded, what little interest the people had in the Confederation would die out altogether and the need for concerted action cease to be felt, whereupon the Union would break to pieces. As Fiske says: "Unless the most profound and delicate statesmanship should be forthcoming to take this sentiment under its guidance, there was much reason to fear that the release from the common adhesion to Great Britain would end in setting up thirteen little republics, ripe for endless squabbling, like the republics of ancient Greece and medieval Italy, and ready to become the prey of England and Spain, even as Greece became the prey of Macedonia."* Fiske quotes the remarks of Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, in which he says: "The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They can never be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little

Fiske, Critical Period of American History, p. 57 (4th ed., 1889, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes and ranges of mountains." How mistaken! And yet Tucker was only one among many who thought so, while the events for several years after the conclusion of peace seemed to indicate the fulfilment of his prophecy. George III. believed we would get into such a snarl that the States one by one would ask to be taken back into the British fold, while Frederick of Prussia said that the mere extent of territory from Maine to Georgia would in itself be sufficient either to break up the country or to make a monarchy necessary.* Would that he could return to life at the present time!

The treaty of 1783 by which America secured independence from England clearly defined the boundaries of the region surrendered by the mother country. This region stretched from the Atlantic Ocean west to the banks of the Mississippi, and from the Great Lakes on the north southward to the 31st parallel and the southern border of Georgia. Of the thirteen original States among whom this vast tract was parcelled seven had well-defined boundaries, while some of the remaining six claimed the lands now comprising other States, and the rest claimed lands which were only limited by the waters of the Mississippi.t

* Ibid, p. 58.

John B. McMaster, A History of the People

327

The present generation can scarcely conceive the wild conditions prevailing at that time in this vast territory. The country was in effect an Atlantic confederacy, as every State bordered upon that ocean or its tide-waters and the Alleghanies "seemed as remote as did the Pillars of Hercules to the ancients."* Along the coastline from Maine to Georgia there was a narrow line of towns and hamlets. Maine, still owned by Massachusetts, contained not more than 100,000 population. Outside of Portland and Falmouth, scarcely a settlement of any size existed, and such as did, consisted of a few fishermen's cots of the rudest type. Thence toward the St. Lawrence stretched an almost unbroken solitude. New Hampshire contained but few settlements of any size, chiefly in the White Mountains region. Albany and Schenectady were the principal towns in Northern New York, but the rich valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee had hardly as yet begun to produce food products for the nourishment of the large cities and were still covered by dense forests. the hunting grounds of the Cayugas, the Oneidas and the Mohawks. Western Pennsylvania, though having given some indication of vast mineral wealth, had not as yet brought forth her rich deposits of