With great bonfires and a general illumination, Philadelphia celebrated the victory, and set herself to clear up the débris of the war. A better spirit began to prevail. John Dickinson, who had been almost exiled, was elected to the council from the County of Philadelphia, and by a vote of forty-one to thirty-one of council and assembly was made president, practically the governor of the State. The AntiConstitutionalists were again in power. Provost Smith also felt the smiles of fortune, and though some years elapsed before he again received the charter of his college, it was withheld by technical opposition against the wish of the assembly. Robert Morris, who had never lost the confidence of Washington, was put in charge of the finances of the confederation in 1781, and wrought a wonderful transformation. Troops were fed, clothed, and paid, and order came out of chaos. To aid in the work, he established in the same year the Bank of North America, which received a charter both from his State and the Confederation. The first was annulled by the jealousy of the Constitutionalists, but he managed to secure other charters, and the bank maintains its existence to the present day. He resigned his place as superintendent of finance in 1784. At the close of the war, Pennsylvania contained nearly three hundred and fifty thousand people. Its wealth may be adjudged by its position in the list, when the Continental Congress called for the quotas of the State. Thus in 1783 Massachusetts was placed first, with a quota of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars; Pennsylvania second, with three hundred thousand dollars; and Virginia third, with two hundred and ninety thousand dollars. In Philadelphia there were about six thousand houses and forty thousand people. The old Tory aristocracy was almost destroyed, but there were other people who had become rich by the war, and gaiety and high living prevailed. It was, moreover, the capital city, and this brought many people and some business. The interest of the Penns had been bought out by the assembly in 1779 for one hundred and thirty thousand pounds, not an illiberal sum when it is remembered that they were royalists, and that the purchase did not include their private estates and their manors, some of which are in possession of the family to this day. Another event of these years shows the growth of humane sentiment, even in the midst of war. The Friends had been working with their members and others to set all their own slaves free, and had finally accomplished the result during the war. In 1778, George Bryan, then vice-president of the council and acting president, urged the assembly to pass a bill freeing all slaves born after date. Reed, the next president, renewed the recommendation: Bryan was then a member of the assembly. He vigorously urged the movement, and on March 1, 1780, it was carried by a vote of thirty-four to twenty-one. Pennsylvania led the way, and Massachusetts was only a few months behind. "Our bill," Bryan wrote to Samuel Adams, "astonishes and pleases the Quakers. They looked for no such benevolent issue of our new government, exercised by Presbyterians." The Friends were certainly pleased, and began again to take an interest in politics. By the bill all children of negroes born after its passage, became free at twenty-one years of age. In June, 1783, three hundred old Continental soldiers marched in from Lancaster, demanding a settlement of their accounts. It was a mutiny, but the poor fellows had endured the sufferings of the war, and, now that peace was declared, asked their arrears of pay. They called on the council and issued a peremptory demand for an answer within twenty minutes, which was unanimously rejected. They paraded around the State house where Congress sat, and that body considered that they were "grossly insulted," and adjourned to meet in Princeton, advising the council to call out the militia. But the temper of the militia could not be relied on unless the mutineers should attempt some disorder, and, except to talk and bluster, they did not seem likely to do anything serious. The matter ended with some sensible advice from John Dickinson to the soldiers, the intervention of General St. Clair with them, and their return to Lancaster. The event probably hastened the settlement of revolutionary claims. Congress was invited to return, but sat in New York and elsewhere till 1790. The test of allegiance required by the law of 1777 was probably unconstitutional, but it had served its purpose to give to the revolutionary party the complete control of the State government. About one-half of the voters of the State, otherwise qualified, were deprived of the right of suffrage, and now that the war was over, as many of them were the most conscientious citizens, it was thought it might be safe to repeal the act. The attempt was made in 1784, and strongly urged by General Wayne, though not accomplished till five years later. Dickinson was re-elected president of the State in 1783, and again in 1784. In 1783 the Presbyterians, not satisfied with the condition of things in the Philadelphia colleges, asked and received a charter for a new institution in their centre of population in the Cumberland Valley. Dr. Benjamin Rush was most active in forwarding the cause, and the president of the State made a personal donation, and encouraged it in every way possible. Though of Friendly connection he was a great lover of education, and in his honor it was named Dickinson College. Like Princeton of New Jersey, and Hampden and Sydney of Virginia, and later, Washington and Jefferson of Pennsylvania, its friends like to trace its impulse back to the "Log College" of Tennent. In 1833 it was transferred to the Methodists. In 1785 Franklin returned from France, full of years and honors. His suavity and diplomatic skill, combined with the hard sense of John Adams and John Jay, had concluded the treaty with England, which secured independence and retained the friendship of France. He was made president of the council immediately on his return, and re-elected in 1786 and 1787, an honor only, in his case, for he allowed much of the work to be done by the vice-president. He was Pennsylvania's great man, and spent his old age, disturbed by disease it is true, the recipient of honorable attention by all. Mifflin succeeded him as president in 1788, and continued in the place till a new constitution in 1790 abolished the post. Philadelphia was the meeting-place of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States in 1787. The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1776, in the hurry of the early days of the war, but never fully ratified till its close, had performed the useful task of a temporary government. But it was evident they would not last much longer. In several respects they were hopelessly faulty. It required nine of the States to perform any act of legislation. The majority of the members of five of the smallest States could block any and all actions, no matter how important. Again, there was no way of enforcing obedience. There was practically no executive or judiciary. If they wanted troops or if they wanted money they could only appeal to the States, which did as they chose. It was impossible to collect funds pledged for the payment of the soldiers, for the principal of the debt when due, for the ordinary expenses of government. Thus the estimated expenses of 1782 were nine million dollars. It was proposed to borrow four million dollars of this, and raise the balance by taxation. But only about four hundred thousand dollars were given by the States, and there was no means of inducing them to forward the rest. The paper money was almost worthless. Thus the country, while growing rapidly in wealth and population, was losing its credit and drifting into anarchy. These were the considerations which prompted the convention of 1787. The convention met in the State house in May. Washington was President, no other name was mentioned. Pennsylvania sent Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, George Clymer, with others of less note. John Dickinson came from Delaware, for prior to 1790 the public men of the two States were largely interchangeable, and defended with great ability the rights of the small States. others. With him came his friend George Read, and three |