ulated to hostilities, as was alleged, by French and Span- CHAPTER ish traders. XLVI. For the sake of peace, an arrangement of bounda- 1786. ries with Spain, and a treaty of commerce which was very much desired, the delegates in Congress from the northern states were willing to relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi for a limited period of twenty-five or thirty years. The delegates of the seven northern states approved a plan of that sort submitted by Jay. The five Aug. southern states warmly opposed it; and they insisted that, under the Articles of Confederation, no authority could be given to make such a concession without the vote of nine states. The same feeling animated the southern Legislatures, and the southern and western people; and a great sectional jealousy was aroused as to the intentions of the northern and eastern states. The seizure by the Spanish garrison at Natchez of some American boats descending the Mississippi produced a great excitement among the western settlers. Great Britain still delayed to send a minister to the United States; nor had any progress as yet been made by Adams at London toward a settlement of the points in dispute. As the obstacles to the recovery of British debts were not yet removed, the British still retained the western posts. In New York, however, the Trespass Act of 1783 was declared void by the Supreme Court, as being in conflict with the British treaty-a decision procured by the efforts of Hamilton, who had engaged in the study of the law subsequently to the peace, and had already risen to decided eminence at the bar. This decision at first raised a loud clamor; but Hamilton ably defended it in a series of newspaper essays. One large portion of the wealthy men of colonial times had been expatriated, and another part had been impovIII.-G G XLVI. CHAPTER erished by the Revolution. In their place a new moneyed class had sprung up, especially in the eastern states, 1786. men who had grown rich in the course of the war as sutlers, by privateering, by speculations in the fluctuating paper money, and by other operations not always of the most honorable kind. Large claims against their less fortunate neighbors had accumulated in the hands of these men, many of whom were disposed to press their legal rights to the utmost. The sudden fortunes made by the war had introduced a spirit of luxury into the maritime towns, and even the taste and manners of the rural inhabitants had been tainted by the effects of military service, in which so large a part of the male population had been more or less engaged. The fisheries, formerly a chief resource of New England, broken up by the war, had not yet been re-established. The farmers no longer found that market for their produce which the French, American, and British armies had furnished. The large importation of foreign goods, subject to little or no duty, and sold at peace prices, was proving ruinous to all those domestic manufactures and mechanical employments which the non-consumption agreements and the war had created and fostered. Immediately after the peace, the country had been flooded with imported goods, and debts had been unwarily contracted for which there was no means to pay. The imports from Great Britain in the years 1784 and 1785 had amounted in value to thirty millions of dollars, while the exports thither had not exceeded nine millions. The lawyers, whose fees were thought enormous, and who were fast growing rich from the multiplicity of suits with which all the courts abounded, were regarded with no very favorable eyes by the mass of the citizens, impoverished by the same causes to which they owed their wealth. There ors: XLVI. was an abundance of discontented persons more or less CHAPTER connected with the late army, deprived by the peace of their accustomed means of support, and without oppor- 1786. tunity to engage in productive industry. The community, from these various causes, was fast becoming divided into two embittered factions of creditors and debtThe certificates.of the public debt, parted with at a great discount by the officers and others to whom they had been given, were fast accumulating in the hands of a few speculators able to wait for better times. With the example of the old tenor paper money before their eyes, an opinion gained ground among the people, oppressed by taxes to meet the interest on these debts, that the holders of certificates by purchase were only entitled to receive what they had paid—an opinion which tended to still further depreciation. Others of the debtor party had more extensive views. Stop and tender laws were called for, and in some states were passed. New issues of paper money were demanded, which, by their depreciation, might sweep off the whole mass of debt, public and private. Such issues were made in New York and Rhode Island, in which latter state John Collins had just been elected governor. The Rhode Island paper soon depreciated to eight for one. Laws were enacted to enforce its circulation; but, though similar to those formerly recommended by Congress to support the credit of the Continental money, they were now generally denounced as oppressive and unjust, and obtained for Rhode Island an unenviable notoriety. Even those states which issued no paper were far from enjoying a sound currency. The excessive importation of foreign goods had drained the country of specie. The circulating medium consisted principally of treasury orders on the state tax collectors, and depreciated certifi XLVI. CHAPTER cates of state and federal debt. Even among those in favor of meeting the public liabilities by taxation, there 1786. was a lack of agreement as to the way in which taxes should be raised. The excessive importation of foreign goods, and the consequent pressure upon domestic manufacturers, had diminished a good deal the old prejudice against customs duties. A party had sprung up in favor of raising a large part of the public revenue in that way, thus reviving the old colonial schemes for the protection of domestic industry by duties upon foreign goods. This, however, was opposed by the merchants as injurious to their interests. They came forward as the champions of free trade, and insisted upon the old system of direct taxation. A large part of the people seemed quite disinclined to submit to either method. The weakness, for some years past so evident in Congress, had begun to extend to the states. Not only was the idea in circulation of separating into two or three confederacies, but some of the principal states seemed themselves in danger of splitting into fragments. Immediately after the act of cession passed by North Carolina in 1784, the people of East Tennessee, piqued at being thus disposed of, and alleging that no sufficient provision was made for their defense or the administration of justice, had assembled in convention at Jonesborough to take measures for constituting themselves into an independent state. Notwithstanding the speedy repeal of the act of cession the same year it was passed, and the erection, by the North Carolina Assembly, of the Tennessee counties into a separate judicial and military district, with a Superior Court and a brigadier 1784. general of their own, a second convention assembled at Dec. 14. Jonesborough, and determined to organize an independent government under the name of the State of FRANK XLVI. March. LAND OF FRANKLIN, for both names appear to have been CHAPTER used. A provisional organization was made on the basis of the Constitution of North Carolina, the subject of a 1784. permanent constitution being referred to a new convention to meet the next year. Under this provisional arrangement an Assembly met; John Sevier, one of the 1785. heroes of King's Mountain, was chosen governor; laws were passed; courts were constituted; new counties were erected; and an address, signed by the speakers of the two houses of Assembly, was transmitted to Governor Martin, informing him that the inhabitants of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene, now the State of Frankland, had declared themselves independent of North Carolina, and no longer considered themselves under her jurisdiction. Governor Martin immediately issued a manifesto, in which April. he went at length into the alleged grounds of separation, and exhorted all concerned in it to return to their duty. The Assembly of North Carolina, at their next session, though they insisted on their authority, yet adopted moderate measures only, and passed an act of oblivion as to all such as would submit. The Convention for framing a constitution for the new state having met, a draft, proposed by a committee, and very elaborately prepared to secure "the poor and the ruled from being trampled on by the rich and the rulers," was rejected by the Convention, and the provisional form of government already in operation, based on the Constitution of North Carolina, was adopted as the permanent one. The rejected draft had given rise to warm debates, and the partisans of the new government became thus divided into two parties. A third party, in favor of adhering to North Carolina, began now to appear, at the head of which Colonel Tipton placed himself. William Cocke was deputed by the Convention of the new state as a delegate to Congress, with Nov. |