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Wythe (search for this): chapter 20
n be conducted at all, while the powers of congress Chap. XIX.} 1781. March. are only recommendatory. Our independence, our respectability and consequence in Europe, our greatness as a nation hereafter, depend upon vesting congress with competent powers. That body, after hearing the views of the several states fairly discussed, must dictate and not merely recommend. And now that the confederation was established, he addressed himself to the great statesmen of Virginia, to Pendleton, Wythe, and Jefferson, to give adequate powers to the representative body of the states, especially a control over refractory states, to compel their compliance with the requisitions made upon them. Danger, he wrote, may spring from delay; good, from a timely application of a remedy. The present temper of the states is friendly to the establishment of a lasting union; the moment should be improved: if suffered to pass away, it may never return; and, after gloriously and successfully contending ag
Witherspoon (search for this): chapter 20
member from New York, Jan. 31. Washington traced to their source the evils under which the country was sinking, and invited their correction. There can be no radical cure, wrote he, till congress is vested by the several states with full and ample powers to enact laws for general purposes, and till the executive business is placed in the hands of able and responsible men. Requisitions then will be supported by law. Congress began to be of the same opinion. On the fifth of February, Witherspoon of New Jersey, Feb. 5. seconded by Burke of North Carolina, proposed to vest in that body the power to regulate commerce, and to lay duties upon imported articles. The proposition was negatived, but it was resolved to be indispensably necessary for the states to vest a power in congress to levy a duty of five per cent on importations of articles of foreign growth and manufacture. Before that power could be so vested, the separate approval of every one of the thirteen states must be gai
Pelatiah Webster (search for this): chapter 20
or the measure as assigned in the preamble was to cement and invigorate the federal union that it might be established on the most immutable basis. From that day Madison never ceased his efforts till a better system was established; but the most reflecting and far-seeing observers of the inadequacy of the powers allowed to congress dared not hope that its members would be able to remodel the confederacy. In a pamphlet published in May, 1781, at the city in which they were assembled, Pelatiah Webster, an able though not a conspicuous citizen, pointed out to them the necessity of their calling a continental convention for the express purpose of ascertaining, defining, enlarging, and limiting the duties and powers of their constitution. The American people were bent on having a government, though their road to it lay through humiliation and sorrow. But, while the United States Chap. XIX.} 1781. May. were slowly sounding their way to union, Washington on the first day of May mad
Virginia Washington (search for this): chapter 20
e several days without a single pound of it. Washington appealed to the president of the rich state and kept him at bay. Certain I am, wrote Washington in May, to his friend Joseph Jones, a delegaispleasure, and soon after, on the advice of Washington, appointed him to the command of the southerton, who for three and a half years had been Washington's most able and confidential secretary; and,ve of good were those in which he acted with Washington, who was the head. the leader, and the guididely extended territory. Two days later, Washington, with Duane at his side, gazed from Weehawkes. Again on the twenty-second of October, Washington, to guide his native state towards union, pod states, of which Knox was made the bearer, Washington laid open the aggravated calamities and distnger Laurens of South Carolina. To the agent Washington confided a statement of the condition of y assures me that there can be no doubt that Washington wrote the above letter. Written by H. B. G.[6 more...]
Vergennes (search for this): chapter 20
or had, under the seal of the commonwealth, notified the French minister at Philadelphia of the act. On this procedure, Vergennes in September instructed the French minister at Phil- Sept. adelphia in these words: During the war it is essential botay every state will be found separately connected with us, whatever may be the fortune of the general confederation. Vergennes to Luzerne, 27 Sept., 1779. Maryland was the only other state to take notice of treaties, and it did no more than ahe officers of the staff it returned to salaries instead of commissions. Gerard, in reporting the cost of the war to Vergennes, writes: L'Intendant de l'arinee ou quartier-maitre General a cinq % sur totes ses depenses, et ses agens ont autant. casion to contract. To Franklin he wrote in the same strain; and Lafayette addressed a like memorial of ripe wisdom to Vergennes. While the United States thus importuned a foreign prince for help, their people, in proportion to numbers, was rich
Staten Island (New York, United States) (search for this): chapter 20
s, and hutted at Morristown, revolted, and, under the lead of their non-commissioned officers, marched with six fieldpieces to Princeton. The want of clothes in winter, of pay for nearly a year, the not infrequent want of food, the compulsion imposed upon some of them to Chap. XIX.} 1781. Jan. remain in service beyond the three years for which they believed they had engaged, were extremities which they would no longer endure. Informed of the mutiny, Sir Henry Clinton passed over to Staten Island with a body of troops for its support; but two emissaries whom he sent to them with tempting offers were given up by the mutineers, and after trial were hanged as spies. Reed, the president of Pennsylvania, repaired to the spot, though it was beyond his jurisdiction; and without authority, and without due examination of each case, he discharged those who professed to have served out their specified term, while measures were taken by the state of Pennsylvania to clothe and pay the rest.
Mississippi (United States) (search for this): chapter 20
es to vest a power in congress to levy a duty of five per cent on importations of articles of foreign growth and manufacture. Before that power could be so vested, the separate approval of every one of the thirteen states must be gained. The assent of Virginia was promptly given. That great commonwealth, having Jefferson for its governor, sought to promote peace and union. To advance the former, it even instructed its delegates in congress to surrender the right of navigating the Mississippi river below the thirty-first degree of north latitude, provided Spain in return would guarantee the navigation of the river above that parallel. Madison, obeying the instruction, voted for the measure contrary to his private judgment. Massachusetts,Chap. XIX.} 1781. Feb. Connecticut, and North Carolina alone opposed, New York being divided. Virginia did more. Avowing her regard for a federal union, and preferring the good of the country to every object of smaller importance, it resolved
Fort Hamilton (Ohio, United States) (search for this): chapter 20
oposed confederation; and that they invest their delegates in congress with powers competent for the government and direction of all those common and national affairs which do not nor can come within the jurisdiction of the particular states. Hamilton's Republic, II. 83. To these resolutions Washington invited the attention of Bowdoin, then president of the council of Massachusetts. If adopted, said he, they will Chap. XIX.} 1780. be the means, most likely, to rescue our affairs from th leader, and the guide of a nation in a manner which he was not only incapable of, but could never even fully comprehend. While the weightiest testimony that has ever been borne to the ability of Hamilton is by Washington, there never fell from Hamilton's pen during the lifetime of the latter one line which adequately expressed the character of Washington, or gave proof that he had had the patience to verify the immense power that lay concealed beneath the uniform moderation and method of his c
York, Pa. (Pennsylvania, United States) (search for this): chapter 20
tter or thing subversive of the internal policy, civil government, or sovereignty of this or any other of the United American States, or unwarranted by the articles of confederation. Congress, on mature consideration, declined the discussion of the remonstrance. To counterbalance the sturdy resistance of Virginia, 1780. the legislature of New York took the field. They founded claims to western territory on the discoveries of the Dutch; on the grant from Charles the Second to the Duke of York; on the capitulation of the Dutch; on the acquisition of the rights of the Five Nations and their tributaries as the native proprietors. Desirous to accelerate the federal alliance, on the nineteenth of April, 1780, they authorized con- April 19. gress to restrict their boundaries on the west. This Chap. XIX.} 1780. is the first important act of the states in surrendering public lands to the federal union. At the opening of the year 1780, congress found itself utterly helpless, and th
New England (United States) (search for this): chapter 20
portioned by the states to their towns, and in towns to individuals. Men of small means in a New England village would club together to buy an ox of a weight equal to their collective quotas, and henviting Duane, a member of congress from New York, to hold up to that body the example of the New England states, and to call on the first day of the next November a convention of all the states, wit; but it was of evil tendency that they gained it by a revolt. In a circular letter to the New England states, of which Knox was made the bearer, Washington laid open the aggravated calamities andhowed signs of being influenced by the bad example; but Washington interposed. The troops of New England, which had twenty regiments in the continental service, had equal reasons for discontent; butdiers, the hardiest and most patient that are to be found in the world. Knox reported from New England zealous efforts to enlist men for the war. Congress could do nothing, and confessed that it c
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