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Browsing named entities in a specific section of George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10. Search the whole document.

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Robert Livingston (search for this): chapter 20
ne give to a nation unity? Is freedom necessarily anarchical? Can liberty not administer and rule? Are authority and the hopes of humanity for ever at variance? Can Louis the Sixteenth have revenues, armies, and fleets; and are American statesmen powerless to bring out the resources of their collective states? Are the people of Chap. XIX.} 1781. the United States, who so excel that of France in liberty, doomed to hopeless inferiority in respect of administration? For the eye of Robert Livingston, then the most influential 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 opinio
Americans (search for this): chapter 20
exert every means I am possessed of to prevent an extension of the mischief; but I can neither foretell nor be answerable for the issue. Troops of New Jersey, whose ranks next to the Pennsylvania line included the largest proportion of foreigners, showed 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; but they were almost every one of them native Americans, freeholders or sons of freeholders. Chap. XIX.} 1781 Jan. In spite of their nakedness, they marched through deep snows, over mountainous roads, and suppressed the incipient revolt. The passions of the army were quieted by their patriotism; and order and discipline returned. Human patience has its limits, wrote Lafayette to his wife on the occasion; no European army would suffer the tenth part of what the American troops suffer. It takes citizens to support hunger, nakedness, toil, and
William Franklin (search for this): chapter 20
uccor in money, such were his words, we may make a feeble and expiring effort in our next campaign, in all probability the period of our opposition. Next to a loan of money, a constant naval superiority on these coasts is the object most interesting; and without exaggeration he explained the rapid advancement of his country in population and prosperity, and the certainty of its redeeming in a short term of years the comparatively inconsiderable debts it might have occasion 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 richer than the people to whose king from their own want of government they were obliged to appeal. Can France organize its resources, and are the people of the republican America incapable of doing so? Can monarchy alone give to a nation unity? Is freedom necessarily anarchical?
Henry Clinton (search for this): chapter 20
large degree of Irish immigrants, 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 Pennsylvan
Joseph Reed (search for this): chapter 20
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. They, for the most part, obtained no more than was due them; but it was of evil tendency that they gained it by a revolt. In a circular letter to the New England states, of whic
Dickinson (search for this): chapter 20
ified the articles; and the United States of America, each and every of them, adopted, confirmed, and ratified their confederation and perpetual union. A new era of the United States assembled in congress was begun. It is terrible when a state, long crushed by sufferings, struggles for that which promises relief, and on attaining it finds it an illusion. The people of the United States thought that they had established a government, and there was no government. In the form drafted by Dickinson, the confederation was to be only an alliance of sovereign states: every Chap. XIX.} 1781. March. change that had been made had still further impaired its relative consideration. The original report permitted each separate state to impose duties on imports and exports, provided they did not interfere with stipulations in treaties; and the confederation, as adopted, confined this restriction to the treaties already proposed to France and Spain. No power to prohibit the slave-trade was
Greene (search for this): chapter 20
efficient government. While the powers of congress, wrote Greene, are so incompetent to the duty required of them, I have bched by the war; but it was in vain. The great man, wrote Greene secretly to the president of Pennsylvania, is confounded a not meet its ever-recurring wants. The congress, wrote Greene towards the end of have lost their influence. I have for ed the want of organized power. Even with the energy of Greene, there could be no efficient administration in the quarter accepting unusual emoluments, among reasons of no weight, Greene pleads that he was poor, with a family to provide for. It he country from that day to this has approved the reform. Greene, to whom his office had for more than a year become grievont of government. If France lends not a speedy aid, wrote Greene from the south to her minister in Philadelphia, I fear the country will be for ever lost; and Greene was not of a desponding spirit or idle temper. It was therefore resolved, for
Thomas Jefferson (search for this): chapter 20
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 thnds north-west of the Ohio, on condition that the territories should be formed into distinct republican states, and be admitted members of the federal union; and Jefferson, who from the first had pledged himself to the measure, announced to congress the great act of his administration in a letter full of hope for the completion of te 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
Duane (search for this): chapter 20
eir style in debate and in writing was devoid of ornament, attractive only by strength of thought and clearness of expression. On the third of September, 1780, Hamilton took Sept. 3. the field as a maker of a national constitution by inviting 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, with full authority to conclude finally upon a general confederable from the hopefulness which beamed through his words. No doubt crossed his mind, or, indeed, that of any of his countrymen, that a republic of united states could be formed over a widely extended territory. Two days later, Washington, with Duane at his side, gazed from Weehawken heights on the half-ruined city of New York in her bondage. He may not have fully foreseen how the wealth and commercial representatives of all the nations of the world would be gathered on that island and the n
Lafayette (search for this): chapter 20
their nakedness, they marched through deep snows, over mountainous roads, and suppressed the incipient revolt. The passions of the army were quieted by their patriotism; and order and discipline returned. Human patience has its limits, wrote Lafayette to his wife on the occasion; no European army would suffer the tenth part of what the American troops suffer. It takes citizens to support hunger, nakedness, toil, and the total want of pay, which constitute the condition of our soldiers, the rapid advancement of his country in population and prosperity, and the certainty of its redeeming in a short term of years the comparatively inconsiderable debts it might have occasion 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 richer than the people to whose king from their own want of government they
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