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address of congress to the states on the impost I think a too early and too strong attempt to overleap those fences established by the confederation to secure the liberties of the respective states. Give the purse to an aristocratic assembly, the sword will follow, and liberty become an empty name. As for increasing the power of congress, I would answer as the discerning men of old, with the change of a word only: 'Nolumus leges confederationis mutari—we forbid change in the laws of the confederation.'"* But, in the time afforded for reflection, Washington's valedictory letter, which Jefferson describes as “deservedly applauded by the world," + gained more and more power; at the adjourned session, the legislature of Virginia, with absolute unanimity, reversed its decision and granted by law the continental impost. "Everything will come right at last," said Washington, as he heard the gladdening news.#

Never," said George Mason, "have I heard one single man deny the necessity and propriety of the union. No object can be lost when the mind of every man in the country is strongly attached to it." "I do not believe," witnesses Jefferson, "there has ever been a moment when a single whig in any one state would not have shuddered at the very idea of a separation of their state from the confederacy." A A proposition had been made in June to revoke the release to the United States of the territory north-west of the river Ohio. Patrick Henry was for bounding the state reasonably enough, but, instead of ceding the parts lopped off, he was for forming them into small republics ◊ under the direction of Virginia. Nevertheless, the legislature, guided by the sincerity and perseverance of Joseph Jones of King George county, conformed to the wishes of congress, and, on the nineteenth and twentieth of December, cheerfully amended and confirmed their former cession.t

The last legislature to address Washington in his public

*R. H. Lee to William Whipple, 1 July 1783.

Hening, xi., 313.

Jefferson's Works, ix., 266. * Sparks, ix., 5.

George Mason in the Virginia Convention, 11 June 1788. A Jefferson, ix., 251.

Journals of House of Delegates, 71, 79.

◊ Jefferson to Madison, 17 June 1788.

character was Maryland, and they said: "By your letter you have taught us how to value, preserve, and improve that liberty which your services under the smiles of Providence have secured. If the powers given to congress by the confederation should be found incompetent to the purposes of the union, our constituents will readily consent to enlarge them."*

On the part of congress, its president, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, transmitted to the ministers of America in Europe the circular letter of Washington as the most perfect evidence of "his inimitable character." +

Before the end of June, raw recruits of the Pennsylvania line, in the barracks at Philadelphia, many of them foreign born, joined by others from Lancaster,‡ "soldiers of a day, who could have very few hardships to complain of," # with some returning veterans whom they forced into their ranks, | encouraged by no officer of note, surrounding congress ◊ and the council of Pennsylvania, mutinously presented to them demands for pay. Congress insisted with the state authorities that the militia should be called out to restore order, and, the request being refused, it adjourned to Princeton. On the rumor that the commander-in-chief was sending troops to quell the mutiny, the insurgents, about three hundred in number, made their submission to the president of the state.

The incident hastened the selection of a place for the permanent residence of congress. The articles of confederation left congress free to meet where it would. With the knowledge of the treaty of peace, the idea naturally arose of a federal town, and for its site there were many competitors. Of the thirteen states which at that time fringed the Atlantic, the central point was in Maryland or Virginia. In March 1783, New York tendered Kingston; in May, Maryland urged the choice of Annapolis; in June, New Jersey offered a district below the falls of the Delaware. Virginia, having George* Address of the Maryland legislature, 22 December 1783. MS.

+ Diplomatic Correspondence, 1783–1789, i., 14. Ibid., i., 9.

#Sparks, viii., 455.

Diplomatic Correspondence, 1783–1789, i., 10, 22, 23; Hamilton, i., 387.

A Diplomatic Correspondence, ii., 514; i., 37, 50.

◊ Gilpin, 548; Colonial Records, xiii., 655.

Diplomatic Correspondence, i., 12.

VOL. VI.-7

Hamilton, ii., 276.

town for its object,* invited Maryland to join in a cession of equal portions of territory lying together on the Potomac; leaving congress to fix its residence on either side. +

During the summer, congress appointed a committee to consider what jurisdiction it should exercise in its abidingplace. Madison took counsel with Randolph, and especially with Jefferson; and in September the committee of which he was a member reported that the state ceding the territory must give up all jurisdiction over it; the inhabitants were to be assured of a government of laws made by representatives of their own election.# In October, congress took up the question of its permanent residence. Gerry struggled hard for the district on the Potomac; but, by the vote of Delaware and all the northern states, "a place on the Delaware near the falls" was selected. Within a few days the fear of an overpowering influence of the middle states led to what was called "the happy coalition;" on the seventeenth Gerry insisted that the alternate residence of congress in two places would secure the mutual confidence and affections of the states and preserve the federal balance of power. After a debate of several days, New England, with Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas, decided that congress should reside for equal periods on the Delaware and near the lower falls of the Potomac. Till buildings for its use should be erected, it was to meet alternately in Annapolis and Trenton. To carry out the engagement, a committee, of which James Monroe was a member, made an excursion from Annapolis in the following May to view the country round Georgetown; and they reported in favor of the position on which the city of Washington now stands. ◊

The farewell circular letter of Washington addressed to all his countrymen had attracted the attention of congress, and in particular of Hamilton, who roused himself from his own

* Madison to Randolph, 13 October 1783. Gilpin, 578.

Journals of the Virginia House of Delegates, 28 June 1783, p. 97.
Madison to Jefferson, 20 September 1783. Gilpin, 573.

* Gilpin, 559, 571–575.

Madison to Randolph, 13 October 1783. Gilpin, 576.

A Higginson to Bland, January 1784. Bland Papers, ii., 113, 114. Compare Boudinot to R. R. Livingston, 23 October 1783.

◊ Monroe to Jefferson, 20 May and 25 May 1784.

desponding mood when he saw the great chieftain go forth alone to combat "the epidemic phrenzy" of the supreme "of sovereignty of the separate states. During the time of disturbances in the army, "could force have availed, he had almost wished to see it employed."+ Knowing nothing beforehand of Washington's intention to address the people, he had favored some combined action of congress and the general to compel the states forthwith to choose between national anarchy and a consolidated union. No sooner had congress established itself in Princeton # than the youthful statesman drafted a most elaborate and comprehensive series of resolutions embodying in clear and definite language the defects in the confederation as a form of federal government; and closing with an earnest recommendation to the several states to appoint a convention to meet at a fixed time and place, with full powers to revise the confederation, and adopt and propose such alterations as to them should appear necessary; to be finally approved or rejected by the states respectively.

But in the congress of that day he found little disposition to second an immediate effort for a new constitution. Of the committee elected on the twenty-eighth of April, which counted among its members the great names of Ellsworth, Wilson, and Hamilton, Wilson and two others had gone home; Ellsworth followed in the first half of July, but not till he had announced to the governor of Connecticut: "It will soon be of very little consequence where congress go, if they are not made respectable as well as responsible; which can never be done without giving them a power to perform engagements as well as make them. There must be a revenue somehow established that can be relied on and applied for national purposes, independent of the will of a single state, or it will be impossible to support national faith, or national existence. The powers of congress must be adequate to the purposes of their constitution. It is possible there may be abuses and misapplications; still it is better to hazard something than to hazard

+ Ibid., i., 352.

Ibid., i., 402.

# Hamilton, i., 403. # Hamilton's endorsement on his own paper is: "Resolutions intended to be submitted to congress at Princeton in 1783, but abandoned for want of support." MS.

all.” * Nearly at the same moment Hamilton wrote to Greene: "There is so little disposition, either in or out of congress, to give solidity to our national system, that there is no motive to a man to lose his time in the public service who has no other view than to promote its welfare. Experience must convince us that our present establishments are utopian before we shall be ready to part with them for better." To Jay his words were: "It is to be hoped that, when prejudice and folly have run themselves out of breath, we may return to reason and correct our errors." + Confirmed in "his ill forebodings as to the future system of the country," + "he abandoned his resolutions for the want of support."

In congress, which he left near the end of July, three months before the period for which he was chosen expired, we know through an ardent friend that "his homilies were recollected with pleasure;" that his extreme zeal made impressions in favor of his integrity, honor, and republican principles; that he had displayed various knowledge, had been sometimes intemperate and sometimes, though rarely, visionary; that cautious statesmen thought, if he could pursue an object with as much cold perseverance as he could defend it with ardor and argument, he would prove irresistible.# From the goodness of his heart, his pride, and his sense of duty, he gave up "future views of public life," || to toil for the support of his wife and children in a profession of which to him the labors were alike engrossing and irksome. In four successive years, with few to heed him, he had written and spoken for a constituent federal convention. His last official word to Clinton was: "Strengthen the confederation."◊

On the second of September, more than a month after Hamilton had withdrawn, the remnant of the committee of the twenty-eighth of April, increased by Samuel Huntington, of Connecticut, reported that "until the effect of the resolu† Johnson, ii., 442. Jay's Jay, ii., 123.

*Ellsworth, infra, 324.

Hamilton, i., 352.

#McHenry to Hamilton, 22 October 1783. Hamilton, i., 411.

Hamilton to Clinton, 14 May 1783. Hamilton, i., 368.

A That Hamilton disliked the labors of a lawyer, I received from Eliphalet

Nott.

◊ Hamilton to Clinton, 3 October 1783. Hamilton, i., 407.

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