106. REVIEW More important than the military events of the Revolution is the building up of the new nation, in which the western settlements took a part. The organized patriots were led by such men as Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. Early in the war independence was urged by such writers as Thomas Paine, and such statesmen as Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. In June, 1776, a Declaration of Independence was drawn by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia; and it was adopted by Congress, July 4, 1776. This Declaration set forth the fundamental rights of man, and the recent violations of those rights. To carry out this Declaration, new state and national governments were needed. All the thirteen states, and also Vermont, adopted constitutions. Congress also drew up Articles of Confederation, as a federal constitution for the Union (November, 1777); they were not adopted by all the states till 1781. A new element in American history was the West, where in the Illinois country and in Kentucky and Tennessee flourishing little settlements were made by Daniel Boone and other noted pioneers. A large part of the Six Nations took the British side in the Revolution, and were therefore invaded and almost annihilated. Virginia entered into the conquest of the West by sending out George Rogers Clark in 1778, who captured several British posts in what is now southern Illinois and Indiana. This revived the confused claims to the western country, parts of which were claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Congress urged the states to surrender their claims, and the process was begun by cessions from New York and Virginia in 1781. References Bearing on the Text and Topics Geography and Maps. See references in ch. viii. Secondary. Becker, Beginnings, 247-254, 262-267, 270-274. Channing, U.S., III. chs. vii, xiv. — Hart, Formation of the Union, §§ 36-39, 43-45. - Hazelton, Declaration of Independence. Morse, References and Topics 167 Benjamin Franklin, chs. viii, xii; John Adams, chs. iv-vi; Thomas Jefferson, chs. iii-vi. Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, II.· Schouler, Americans of 1776.- Thwaites, Daniel Boone. - Tyler, Am. Revolution (literary), I. chs. xix-xxiii, II; Patrick Henry, chs. xii-xv. · Van Tyne, Am. Rev., chs. iv-vi, ix-xi, xiv, xv; Loyalists. Sources. Am. Hist. Leaflets, nos. 11, 20. — Beard, Readings, §§ 1013. —- Caldwell, Terr. Development, 26–48. - Hart, Contemporaries, II. §§ 134-137, 159–169, 184–190, 205-210; Patriots and Statesmen, II. 15-50, 59-61, 68–74, 78-96, 123–139, 142–149, 153–166, 193–197, 216– 223. Hill, Liberty Docs., chs. xiii-xv. James, Readings, §§ 32-35. - Johnson, Readings, §§ 13-17, 22-25. — MacDonald, Select Docs., nos. 1, 2. — Old South Leaflets, 2, 3, 43, 97, 152. Illustrative. Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming. - Eggleston, Am. War Ballads, I. 23-101. - Ford, Janice Meredith. Kennedy, Horseshoe Robinson (loyalists). - Freneau, Poems. Matthews, Poems of Am. Patriotism, 8-82. — Mitchell, Hugh Wynne. - Thompson, Alice of Old See also refs. to ch. viii. Wilson, Am. Topics Answerable from the References Above (1) Early settlers in Kentucky, or in Tennessee. [§ 96] · (2) Treatment of the loyalists. [§ 96] -- (3) Contemporary accounts of the Declaration of Independence. [§ 98] — (4) Franklin's plan of a federal constitution. [§ 101] (5) Pontiac's war with the English. [§ 102] — (6) French colonial towns in the West. [§ 102] — (7) Adventures of Daniel Boone, or of John Sevier. [§ 102] (8) Life of the early western settlers. [§ 103] - (9) Indian and British frontier raids. [§ 103] — (10) Sullivan's raid. [§ 103] — (11) George Rogers Clark's campaign. [§ 104] Topics for Further Search (12) Influence on the Revolution of one of the following men : Patrick Henry; Thomas Paine; John Dickinson; John Adams; Samuel Adams; Robert Morris; Richard Henry Lee; Franklin; Jefferson. [88 97, 98]—(13) Influence of the Declaration of Independence on the world. [§ 99] (14) Account of the Revolutionary Congress or Convention in one of the thirteen original states. [§ 100] — (15) Maryland's objections to the Articles of Confederation. [§ 101] — (16) Account of the Cherokee Indians. [§ 103] — (17) Did the eastern states have good claims to western territory? [§ 105] CHAPTER X CONFEDERATION AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTION (1781-1788) 107. CONGRESS AND THE CONFEDERATION FOR many months before the Articles of Confederation were finally adopted, Congress had been acting on the supposition that they would be ratified, and people hardly realized that this constitution went into effect on March 1, 1781. The government thus established suffered from so many troubles that it has been looked upon as a failure. In fact it was the best organized and most thoroughgoing confederation that the world had ever seen, though far inferior in efficiency to its successor. Although Congress was the only recognized federal authority under the Articles, it chose to act through three departments as follows: (1) Congress itself was made up of delegates appointed by the state legislatures, each state delegation casting one vote. On several vital questions, no motion could be carried except by the affirmative vote of nine states. (2) Congress created executive offices and commissioned officials, particularly the Secretary at War, the Superintendent of Finance, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Postmaster-General. (3) Congress set up a Court of Appeals in Prize Cases, to which cases concerning captured vessels could be carried from the state courts. Congress had no fixed place of meeting, but held sessions at Philadelphia, Trenton, Annapolis, and other places. From 1785 it sat at New York. Membership was not much prized, and it was hard to get first-class men to enter Congress; but Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, later Presidents of the United States, all showed their great abilities as members of Congress. 108. TREATY OF PEACE (1782-1783) One of the most important duties of Congress was to secure a peace with Great Britain. When Lord North, the Prime Minister, heard of the Yorktown surrender (94) he cried out, "O God, it is all over!" The merchants in England had suffered enormous losses by captures of their shipping, and therefore strongly urged a peace; and King George III was obliged to accept. an opposition ministry, which was determined to end the war. A strong commission commission - Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens was selected to represent this country in peace negotiations at Paris in 1782. Though their instructions provided that these envoys should take no steps without the approval of the French government, they became satisfied that the French did not desire to give a good boundary west of the GROWTH OF THE FLAG. Appalachians. In consultation in their rooms one day, Franklin said to Jay, "Would you break your instructions?" "Yes, as I break this pipe." The pipe went into the fire, and the instructions were ignored; an unexpectedly favorable treaty with Great Britain was secured without the aid of France, under date of November 30, 1782. The main features of this treaty were as follows: (1) Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. (2) The boundary was to run from the river St. Croix northward to the watershed of the St. Lawrence; thence along that ridge and on the 45th parallel to the St. Lawrence River; thence up that river and the Great Lakes to the Lake of the Woods; thence down the Mississippi to the 31st parallel; thence eastward to the head of St. Marys River, and by that river to the Atlantic Ocean. (3) "The right to take fish of every kind" from the grand banks of Newfoundland was acknowledged, together with the "liberty" to dry and cure fish on the neighboring unsettled bays and creeks of Canada. (4) British merchants were to have the right to collect debts due when the Revolution broke out, and on the other hand the British agreed to withdraw their armies from the United States without taking away "negroes or other property of the Americans." (5) Congress was to recommend the states to receive and treat well the loyalists who had not taken arms in the British service. This so-called Preliminary Treaty of 1782 practically ended the Revolutionary War. A year later a "Definitive Treaty" to the same effect was signed and in due time was ratified by Congress. New York was evacuated by the British in 1783. The United States of America had at last fully proved that the Declaration of Independence was real. 109. NATIONAL FINANCES (1776-1788) Upon Congress fell the serious responsibility of providing for the finances of the Revolutionary War and for the debt left at the end of the war. During the Revolution every device was The states laid taxes which were collected used to raise money. |