John Fiske - The critical period of American history, 1783-1789

The Critical Period of

American History 1783-1789

John Fiske

I am uneasy and apprehensive,

more so than during the war

Jay to Washington, June 27, 1786.

To My Dear Classmates,

Francis Lee Higginson

and

Charles Cabot Jackson,

I Dedicate this Book.

Boston & New York

Houghton, Mifflin & Company

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1896

Preface

This book contains the substance of the course of lectures given in the Old South Meeting-House in Boston in December, 1884, at the Washington University in St Louis in May, 1885, and in the theatre of the University Club in New York in march, 1886. In its present shape it may serve as a sketch of the political history of the United States from the end of the revolutionary war to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It makes no pretensions to completeness, either as a summary of the events of that period or as a discussion of the political questions involved in them. I have aimed especially at grouping facts in such a way as to bring out and emphasize their casual sequence, and it is accordingly hoped that the book may prove useful to the student of American history.

My title was suggested by the fact of Thomas Paines stopping the publication of the Crisis, on hearing the news of the treaty of 1783, with the remark, The times that tried mens souls are over. Commenting upon this, on page 55 of the present work, I observed that so far from the crisis being over in 1783, the next five years were to be [begin page vi] the most critical time of all. I had not seen Mr. Truscotts Diplomatic History of the Administrations of Washington and Adams, on page 9 of which he used almost the same words: It must not be supposed that the treaty of peace secured the national life. Indeed, it would be more correct to say that the most critical period of the countrys history embraced the time between 1783 and the adoption of the Constitution in 1788.

That period was pre-eminently the turning-point in the development of political society in the western hemisphere. Though small in their mere dimensions, the events here summarized were in a remarkable degree germinal events, fraught with more tremendous alternatives of future welfare or misery for mankind than it is easy for the imagination to grasp. As we now stand upon the threshold of that mighty future, in the light of which all events of the past are clearly destined to seem dwindled in dimensions and significant only in the ratio of their potency of causes; as we discern how large a part of that future must be the outcome of the creative work, for good or ill, of men of English speech; we are put into the proper mood for estimating the significance of the causes which determined a century ago that the continent of North America should be dominated by a single powerful and pacific federal nation instead of being parcelled out among forty or fifty small communities, wasting their strength and lowering their moral [begin page vii] tone by perpetual warfare, like the states of ancient Greece, or by perpetual preparation for warfare, like the nations of modern Europe. In my book entitled

American Political Ideas, viewed from the standpoint of Universal History, I have tried to indicate the pacific influence likely to be exerted upon the world by the creation and maintenance of such a political structure as out Federal Union. the present narrative may serve as a commentary upon what I had in mind on page 133 of that book, in speaking of the work of our Federal Convention as the finest specimen of constructive statesmanship that the world has ever seen. On such a point it is pleasant to find ones self in accord with a statesman so wise and noble as Mr. Gladstone, whose opinions is here quoted on page 233.

To some persons it may seem as if the years 1861-65 were of more cardinal importance that the years 1783-89. Our civil war was indeed an event of prodigious magnitude, as measured by any standard that history affords; and there can be little doubt as to its decisiveness. The measure of that decisiveness is to be found in the completeness of the reconciliation that has already, despite the feeble walls of unscrupulous place-hunters and unteachable bigots, cemented the Federal Union so powerfully that all likelihood of its disruption may be said to have disappeared forever. when we consider this wonderful harmony which so soon [begin page viii] has followed the deadly struggle, we may well believe to be the index of such a stride toward the ultimate pacification of mankind as was never made before. But it was the work done in the years 1783-89 that created a federal union capable of enduring the storm and stress of the years 186165. It was in the earlier crisis that the pliant twig was bent; and as it was bent, so has it grown; until it has become a goodly and a sturdy tree. Cambridge, October 10, 1888.

Contents

Page

Preface

Chapter 1 Results of Yorktown

Fall of Lord Norths ministry.

Sympathy between British Whigs and the revolutionary

party in America.

It Weakened the Whig party in England.

Character of Lord Shelburne

Political Instability of the Rockingham Ministry.

5,6

Obstacles in the way of a treaty of peace.

7,8

Oswald talks with Franklin.

9-11

Grenville has an interview with Vergennes.

Effects of Rodneys Victory

Misunderstanding between Fox & Shelbourne

Fall of the Rockingham Ministry

Shelbourne becomes prime Minister.

Defeat of the Spaniards and French at Gibraltar

French policy opposed to American Interests.

The Valley of the Mississippi; Arandas policy.

The Newfoundland fisheries.

Jay detects the schemes of Vergennes

And sends Dr. Vaughn to visit Shelbourne

John Adams arrives in Paris and joins with Jay

in insisting upon a separate negotiation with England 23,24

The separate American treaty, as agreed upon:

1. Boundaries.

2. Fisheries; commercial intercourse.

3. Private debts.

4. Compensation of loyalists.

28-32

Secret article relating to the Yazoo boundary.

Vergennes does not like the way

in which it has been done.

On the part of the Americans

it was a great diplomatic victory.

Which commissioners won by disregarding

the instructions of Congress and acting

on their own responsibility.

The Spanish treaty.

The French treaty.

Coalition of Fox with North.

38-42

They attack the American treaty in Parliament.

And compel Shelbourne to resign.

Which leaves England without a government, while for

several weeks the king is too angry to appoint

ministers.

Until at length he succumbs to the coalition, which

presently adopts and ratifies the American treaty.

The coalition ministry is wrecked upon Foxs India Bill. 46

Constitutional crisis ends in the overwhelming victory 47

of Pitt in the elections of May, 1784.

And this, although apparently a triumph for the King,

was really a death-blow to his system of personal

48,49

government.

Chapter 2 The Thirteen Commonwealths

Cessation of hostilities in America.

Departure of the British troops.

Washington resigns his command.

And goes home to Mount Vernon.

His legacy to the American people.

The next five years were the most critical years

in American history.

Absence of a sentiment of union,

56, 57

and subsequent danger of anarchy.

European statesmen, whether hostile or friendly,

had little faith in the stability of the union.

False historic analogies.

Influence of railroad and telegraph

upon the perpetuity of the union.

Difficulty of travelling a hundred years ago.

Local jealousies and antipathies,