is that it means an

importance of the word "compact agreement which loses its force when any one of the parties ceases to observe it; a compact is little more than a treaty. Those who framed the Constitution appeared to consider it no compact; for on May 30, 1787, they voted that "no treaty or treaties among the whole or part of the States, as separate sovereignties, would be sufficient." In fact, the reason for the violent opposition to the ratification of the Constitution was that when once ratified, the States could not withdraw from it.

Another view is presented by Webster in his reply to Hayne: "It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's Constitution government, made for the people, made by the theory. people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law." It is plain that the Constitution does not rest simply upon the consent of the majority of the nation. No popular vote was taken or thought of; each act of ratification set forth that it proceeded from a convention of the people of a State.

The real nature of the new Constitution appears in the light of the previous history of the country. The Basis of the Articles of Confederation had been a comConstitution. pact. One of the principal reasons why the Confederation was weak was that there was no way of compelling the States to perform their duties. The new Constitution was meant to be stronger and more permanent. The Constitution was, then, not a compact, but an instrument of government similar in its origin to the constitutions of the States. The difference was that, by general agreement, it was not to take effect until it was shown that in at least nine States the people were willing to live under it. Whatever the defects of the Confederation, however humiliating its weakness to our national

1788.] Was the Constitution a Compact?

135

pride, it had performed an indispensable service: it had educated the American people to the point where they were willing to accept a permanent federal union. As the "Federalist" put it, "A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle."

CHAPTER VII.

ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT

(1789-1793).

69. References.

Bibliographies. W. E. Foster's References to Presidential Administrations, pp. 1-5; Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vii. 299–309, 323-329, 413-418, 446, 454, viii. App. ; P. L. Ford's Bibliotheca Hamiltonia; W. E. Foster's References to the Constitution, pp. 18-19.

Historical Maps. Nos. 1 and 3, this volume, and No. I, Wilson's Division and Reunion (Epoch Maps, Nos. 6, 7, and 8); MacCoun's Historical Geography; Scribner's Statistical Atlas, Plate 13. General Accounts. McMaster's History of the People of the United States, i. 525-604; ii. 1–88; Hildreth's History of the United States, iv. 25-410; Schouler's History of the United States, i. 74-220; Von Holst's Constitutional History, i. 64-111; Pitkin's Political and Civil History, in 317-355; Tucker's History of the United States, i. 384-503; Landon's Constitutional History, pp. 97-119; Bryant and Gay's Popular History of the United States, iv, 100-123.

Special Histories. - George Gibbs's Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, i. 28-88; J. C. Hamilton's History of the Republic, vol. iv.; W. G. Sumner's Alexander Hamilton; H. C. Adams's Taxation in the United States [1789-1816]; W. G. Sumner's Financier and Finances of the American Revolution, vol. ii. chaps. xviii.-xxxii.; H. C. Lodge's Hamilton, pp. 84-152; H. C. Lodge's Washington, ii. 1-128; J. T. Morse's Jefferson, pp. 96-145; S. H. Gay's Madison, pp. 128-192; J. T. Morse's Life of Hamilton; W. G. Sumner's Hamilton.

Contemporary Accounts. - W. Maclay's Journal [1789-1791] (a racy account of the Senate in the First Congress); Thomas Jefferson's Anas (Works, ix. 87-185), (confessedly made up twenty-five years later); William Sullivan's Familiar Letters on Public Characters, pp. 36-47 (written in reply to Jefferson); Joel Barlow's Vision of Columbus, 1787 (an epic poem); correspondence in works of Washing ton, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, and John Jay; newspapers, especially the Columbian Centinel, Gazette of the United States, National Gazette.

1789.]

Geography in 1789.

137

Boundary

70. Geography of the United States in 1789.

established?

WHAT were the physical, social, and political conditions under which the new government was to be In 1789 the exterior boundaries questions. of the country were loosely defined by treaty (§ 46), but were not yet marked out, and there were several serious controversies. From the mouth of the St. Croix River to the head of the Connecticut the boundary was in confusion, and no progress had been made towards settling it. The water-line through the St. Lawrence and the Lakes was still unadjusted. It was found that the headwaters of the Mississippi lay to the south of the Lake of the Woods, so that there was a gap on the northwest. On the south Spain disputed the right of Great Britain to establish the boundary, insisted that her own undoubted settlements lay within the territory claimed by the United States, and declined to grant the free navigation of the lower Mississippi to the sea. Still more humiliating was the presence of British garrisons at Fort Niagara, Detroit, and other points within the un disputed boundaries of the United States.

The interior boundaries of the country were in a like unsettled condition. Neither North Carolina nor Georgia Interior had yielded up their western claims (§ 52). boundaries. Vermont had not yet been recognized by New York as outside of her jurisdiction, and the Western Reserve lay along the southern shore of Lake Erie as an outlying part of Connecticut. No territorial government had been established for the Northwest territory, although settlement had begun to pour in. The southern territory was in complete confusion: Kentucky and the Tennessee valley were practically independent communities; and Georgia claimed the whole region south of them.

71. The People of the United States in 1789.

A census taken in 1790 gives us the number of inhabitants as a little under 4,000,000. Of these, 750,000 nearly one-fifth of the whole population

were

Population. negroes. Of the 3,170,000 whites, the ancestors of eight-tenths were probably English, and most of the others spoke English and were a homogeneous part of the community. Counting by sections, the States north of Maryland had a population of 1,968,000, and those south of Pennsylvania had 1,925,000; the States which were to be permanently slave-holding contained, therefore. a population about equal to that of New England and the Middle States. Only a small part of this population was to be found west of the mountains. Settlement was working into central New York, southwest Pennsylvania, the neighboring parts of Virginia, and the upper waters of the Tennessee; but the only considerable western community was in Kentucky. These distant settlers had an important influence on the Union, since they lay within easy reach of the Spanish settlements, and occasionally threatened to withdraw.

Intellectual life.

The intellectual life of the people was little developed. Schools had not sensibly improved since colonial times. The graduating classes of all the colleges in 1789 count up to about 170. There were but two schools of medicine in the country, and no regular school of law. In one department of literature alone were the Americans eminent: the state papers of public men such as Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson are written with the force and directness of the best school of English. Poetry there was; its character may be judged by a single quotation from Barlow's "Vision of Columbus," a favorite epic, published in 1787: –