conflicting theories held at the time respecting the true basis of those institutions, but with slight, almost with no experience in the administration of government. And yet, as Franklin said, in the closing moments of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, "there is no form of government that may not be a blessing to the people if well administered." This remark, made in 1787, expressed a conviction understood by few in the United States at the time. A reading of the debates and discussions of the early Congresses; those from 1774 to 1787, and of the correspondence of public men in America during these years justifies the assertion that during the first decade of American independence, the people of this country North and South concerned themselves very little with the problems of civil administration, but became very familiar with the theories of republican government. And yet it is the administration of a plan or constitution of government which is the one supreme test of the worth of that government. If the people might differ among themselves respecting their civil institutions, they would be likely to differ according as they imputed administrable qualities to the plan or constitution of government in force. It is well known that the Confederation of 1777 failed to work and that it was supplanted by a government the plan or constitution of which was made in convention at Philadelphia during the summer of 1787, and that this constitution, at last ratified by the requisite number of States, took effect on the fourth of March, 1789, from which day dates the government under which we now live.

Was this new government thus inaugurated in 1789 a National Government or a Confederation?

The answer to this question goes far to bring into clear definition some of the causes of the Civil War.

By the treaty of 1783, the United States extended from Canada to the Floridas; from the Atlantic Coast to Mississippi River. The thirteen colonies had become thirteen States, each organized in the form of republican government,

and by republican government a representative government is meant. The boundaries of the several States were in confusion; portions, here and there, had been surveyed or tacitly agreed upon, but the western boundaries of all the States excepting Rhode Island and Maryland, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania-coincided with the western boundary line of the United States. Thus nine of the States claimed vast domains to the west of them and reaching to the Mississippi. The entire area of the United States under the terms of the treaty was about 830,000 square miles, of which 488,248 square miles comprised the western lands, or "Western Territory." Thus considerably more than half of the public domain lay to the west and outside of the thirteen States as known to us to-day.

While yet the States were loosely united as the Confederation, five States, New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina ceded their title and claims to western lands to the United States (March 1, 1781-August 9, 1787); North Carolina followed in 1790, and in 1802, Georgia sold to the United States the 88,578 square miles of western lands which that State claimed. Thus almost with the opening of the new century, the United States became owner of more than half of the national domain—that is, of all except the area now comprised within the thirteen original States. This acquisition and ownership by the Federal government will be found to have a distinct bearing and operative force as a cause, later, in discussions and disputes of an administrative character, concerning the relations of the States to the United States. At the time the United States acquired this western territory, the land was considered as a public asset which should be utilized to pay the debts of the United States, public and private: that is, money owing to public creditors-France, Holland-and to private-the revolutionary soldiers.

At the first census, in 1790, the year following the inauguration of the present national government, the population of the United States consisted of 3,929,214 persons, of whom

697,879 were negro slaves, and 50,466 free persons of color. In the order of population, Virginia was first, 748,308, of whom 293,427 were slave, and 12,766 free colored; Pennsylvania second, 434,373, of whom 3,737 were slave, and 6,537 free colored; North Carolina third, 393,751, of whom 100,572 were slave, and 4,975 free colored; Massachusetts fourth, 378,717, of whom 5,463 were free colored; New York fifth, 340,120, of whom 21,324 were slave, and 4,654 free colored; Maryland sixth, 319,728, of whom 103,036 were slave, and 8,043 free colored; South Carolina seventh, 249,073, of whom 107,094 were slave, and 1,801 free colored; Connecticut eighth, 238,141, of whom 2,759 were slave, and 2,801 free colored; New Jersey ninth, 184,139, of whom 11,423 were slave, and 2,762 free colored; New Hampshire tenth, 141,899, of whom 158 were slave, and 630 free colored; Vermont (admitted, 1791) eleventh, 85,416, of whom 17 were slave, and 255 free colored; Georgia twelfth, 82,548, of whom 29,264 were slave, and 398 free colored; Kentucky (admitted, 1792) thirteenth, 73,077, of whom 11,830 were slave, and 114 free colored; Rhode Island fourteenth, 69,110, of whom 952 were slave, and 3,469 free colored; Delaware fifteenth, 59,096, of whom 8,887 were slave, and 3,899 free colored; Tennessee (admitted, 1796) sixteenth, 35,791, of whom 3,417 were slave, and 361 free colored. The District of Maine belonged to Massachusetts and contained 96,540, of whom 538 were free colored. Adding the population of this District to that of Massachusetts, the latter ranks second, thus making Pennsylvania third, and North Carolina fourth.

By this census the United States was disclosed to the world as a slaveholding nation: Massachusetts alone of the sixteen States having no slaves. By the census of 1800 Vermont drops out of the column of slaveholding States, but there appear the Territory of Indiana, with 135 slaves; that of Mississippi, with 3,489; that is, a Union of sixteen States in only three of which, Massachusetts, Vermont and Ohio (admitted, 1802) no slaves were held.

In 1810, there were seventeen States; New Hampshire drops out of the slaveholding column, so that the free soil column includes Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Ohio. In 1820, of the twenty-three States, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Ohio are not in the slaveholding column; the new States since 1810 are Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Maine; Indiana is reported as having 190 slaves; Illinois, 917, though both were created out of territory in which, by the ordinance of 1787, slavery was forbidden.

In 1830, the Union comprised twenty-four States, Missouri having been admitted in 1821. Massachusetts is in the slaveholding column with one slave; Ohio has six; Indiana, three. Ten years later, two States have been added to the Union, Arkansas and Michigan: the States which do not appear in the slaveholding column are Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Vermont. Connecticut has seventeen slaves; Indiana, three; New Hampshire, one; New York, four; Ohio, three; Rhode Island, five; Pennsylvania, sixty-four. That is, between 1830 and 1840 slavery quite disappeared in these States.

In 1850, thirty-one States comprised the Union, of which sixteen were free and fifteen slaveholding. New Jersey with 236 slaves was the only Northern State in the slaveholding column. Ten years later, 1860, New Jersey reported eighteen. The Union then consisted of thirty-three States Minnesota and Oregon, both free States, having been admitted, the one in 1858, the other, in 1859.

Thus it appears that in 1790, judging alone by the actual presence of slaves in a State, slavery-that is the right to hold slaves-was almost universal in the Union, but in 1860 it no longer existed at the North. Yet in 1790, if the actual number of slaves in the several States be considered, the prospect of the perpetuity of slavery in New Jersey was as portentous as in Kentucky-the respective number of slaves in the two States being a few over 11,000; Connecticut and Tennessee had about an equal

number and New York only about 8000 fewer than Georgia. In the aggregate, in 1790, New England contained 2,934 negro slaves; New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 36,524; and the remaining States about 630,000.

Though the census of 1840 is the last in which a New England State (Rhode Island, 4; New Hampshire, 1) is entered in the slaveholding column, New Jersey alone of the Northern States remaining in the column for 1860, we know that all slaves in Northern States of whom the census took notice after 1840 were either temporary residents of the State with their masters, or slaves who under existing laws had not yet attained the period at which they were entitled to enfranchisement. There was no introduction of new slaves into any Northern State, as property, after 1840. Texas was the last slave State admitted into the Union, 1845, a date which not only fixes the time when the State extension of slavery was limited, but also the time when, excepting in New Jersey, the last slave disappears in the free States. Texas was the twenty-eighth State and was followed in 1846 by Iowa, in 1848 by Wisconsin, both free States, at which time the Union comprised fifteen slave and fifteen free States. The admission of California, in 1850, as a free State, gave the free States the control of the Senate. It is interesting to note that the date of the admission of California coincides quite closely with that of the disappearance of a slave population at the North-there then remaining 236 slaves in New Jersey, which diminished to 18 by 1860.

As against these eighteen survivors at the North, in 1860, there were 3,950,531 slaves at the South. The free colored population was almost equally divided, in 1860, between the North and the South: there being 268,817 in the free States and 247,817 in the slaveholding States. But this apportionment derives its true significance from the actual distribution of free persons of color; thus they were a negligible quantity in the Gulf States-Texas, 355, as against 182,566 slaves; Mississippi, 773, as against 436,631