CHAPTER XXVI. XXVI. Nov. THE CONFEDERATION. NOVEMBER 15, 1777. CHAP. WHILE the winter-quarters of the British in Philadelphia were rendered secure by the posses1777. sion of the river Delaware, the congress which was scoffed at in the British house of lords as a vagrant" horde resumed at Yorktown the work of confederation. Of the committee who, in June, 1776, had been appointed to prepare the plan, Samuel Adams alone remained a member; and even he was absent when, on the fifteenth of November, 1777,"articles of confederation and perpetual union" were adopted, to be submitted for approbation to the several states. The present is always the lineal descendant of the past. A new form of political life never appears but as a growth out of its antecedents, just as in nature there is no animal life without a seed or a spore. In civil affairs, as much as in husbandry, seed-time goes before the harvest, and the harvest may be seen in the seed, the seed in XXVI. 1777. the harvest. According to the American theory, CHAP. the unity of the colonies had, before the declaration of independence, resided in the British king. Nov. The congress of the United States was the king's successor, and it inherited only such powers as the colonies themselves acknowledged to have belonged to the crown. The vastness of America interfered with the instincts of local attachment. Affection could not twine itself round a continental domain of which the greatest part was a wilderness, associated with no recollections. The sentiment of unity existed only in the germ. Gadsden of South Carolina had advised all to be, not Carolinians or New Yorkers, but Americans; yet "my country," in the mouth of Washington, in the early part of 1776, meant Virginia only; and though with the declaration of independence he learned to embrace all the states in that name, the narrower usage was still kept up by Patrick Henry. The confederacy was formed under the influence of political ideas which had been developed by a contest of centu ries for individual and local liberties against an irresponsible central authority. Now that power passed to the people, new institutions were required strong enough to protect the state, while they should leave untouched the liberties of the individual. But America, misled by what belonged to the past, took for her organizing principle the principle of resistance to power, which in all the thirteen colonies had been hardened into stubbornness by a succession of common jealousies and struggles. CHAP. XXVI. 1777. During the sixteen months that followed the introduction of the plan for confederation prepared Nov. by Dickinson, the spirit of separation, fostered by uncontrolled indulgence, by opposing interests, by fears on the part of the south of the more homogeneous and compact population of the northeast, by the dissimilar impulses under which the different sections of the country had been colonized, and by a dread of interference with the реculiar institutions of each colony, visibly increased in congress, and every change in his draught, which of itself proposed only a league of states, darkened more and more the prospect of that energetic authority which is the first guaranty of liberty. The possessions of the British crown had extended from the Saint Mary's to the extreme north of the habitable continent, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi or even to the Pacific; the United States of America included within their jurisdiction so much of that territory as had belonged to any of the thirteen colonies; and if Canada would so choose, they were ready to annex Canada. In the republics of Greece, citizenship had in theory been confined to a body of kindred families, which formed an hereditary caste, a multitudinous aristocracy. Such a system could have no permanent vitality; and the Greek republics, as the Italian republics in after-ages, died out for want of citizens. America adopted at once the greatest result of modern civilization, the principle of the all-embracing unity of society. As the American territory was that of the old thirteen colonies, so the free people residing upon it formed XXVI. 1777. Nov. the free people of the United States. Subject CHAP. and citizen were correlative terms, and subjects of the monarchy became citizens of the republic. He that had owed primary allegiance to the king of England, now owed primary allegiance to united America; yet, as the republic was the sudden birth of a revolution, the moderation of congress did not name it treason for the former subjects of the king to adhere to his government; only, it was held, that whoever chose to remain on the soil, by resi dence accepted the protection of America, and in return owed it allegiance. This is the reason why, for twelve years, free inhabitants and citizens were in American state-papers convertible terms, sometimes used one for the other, and sometimes, for the sake of perspicuity, redundantly joined together. The king of England, according to the rule of modern civilization, claimed as his subjects all persons born within his dominions: in like manner every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural-born citizen; but the power of naturalization, which, under the king, each colony had claimed to regulate by its own laws, remained under the confederacy with the separate states. The king had extended protection to every one of his lieges in any one of the thirteen colonies; now that congress was the successor of the king in America, the right to equal protection was continued to every free inhabitant in whatever state he might sojourn or dwell. It had been held under the monarchy that each American colony was as independent of England as the electorate of Hanover; now, therefore, in XXVI. 1777. CHAP. the confederacy of "the United States of America," each state was to remain an independent sovereign, Nov. and the union was to be no more than an alliance. This theory decided the manner in which congress should vote. Pennsylvania and Virginia asked, that, while each state might have at least one delegate, the rule should be one for every fifty thousand inhabitants; but the amendment was rejected by nine states against two, Delaware being absent and North Carolina divided. Virginia would have allowed one member of congress to each state for every thirty thousand of its inhabitants, and in this she was supported by John Adams; but his colleagues cast the vote of Massachusetts against it, and Virginia was left alone, North Carolina as before losing its vote by being equally divided. Virginia next desired that the representation for each state should be in proportion to its contribution to the public treasury; here again she was supported by John Adams, but was opposed by every other state, including North Carolina and Massachusetts. At last, with only one state divided and no negative voice but that of Virginia, an equal vote in congress was acknowl edged to belong to each sovereign state, though the number of delegates to give that vote might be not less than two nor more than seven for each state. The remedy for this inequality enhanced the evil and foreboded anarchy: while each state had one vote, "great and very interesting questions could be carried only by the concurrence of nine states. If the advice of Samuel Adams had been listened to, the vote of nine states would not have prevailed, unless they represented a majority of the |