The rise of the American people; a philosophical interpretation of American history

Preface

In these days of specialization, the community is divided for nearly all purposes into only two classes — the specialists and the laymen; and all the specialists are laymen in every subject but their own. In those manifold subjects in which he is a layman, the modern reader demands a lucid, vivid account of results and not of processes, a brief statement of the meaning of the development, which can be deduced from the array of facts and dates marching down upon him out of the past. Assuming these facts to be true and important, what do they mean, he asks? Assuming these to be the essential parts of the puzzle, what is the picture like? A specialist himself, the reader knows the value of processes, but he has neither the time, inclination, nor skill to perform the historical process for himself with even adequate material'?. Hfi asks for results first, for broad outlines and fundaiuental factors, and is willing to waive for the moment the question of authorities and the verification of data. He washes to learn at once what competent authorities consider to be true and cares comparatively little by what precise road they reached their conclusions.

In writing this book it has therefore been my aim to give the reader a lucid account of results and not of processes; to explain briefly the meaning of the facts of national development, rather than to chronicle the mere sequence of events — for, from my point of view, the founding of colonies, the granting of charters, the battles, debates and constitutions are not in themselves history, but simply the material

PREFACE

out of which history must be made. I conceive it to be my business, not to describe the pieces of the puzzle-picture, nor to tell the reader their number nor even their relationship, but to give him some point of view where the pieces cease to be pieces and blend together into a picture. I believe that the essential and elementary "facts" in history are not the actual events but the more complex conclusions which are to be deduced from a series of such events.

My indebtedness to the instruction and writings of my teacher, Edward Channing, to the works of Rhodes, Van Tyne, Beard, Turner, Hart and many others will be only too manifest. Here and there I have added foot-notes to expand and elucidate the text but without any idea of furnishing adequate information of the extent or whereabouts of the available or valuable material upon the subject. The Guide to American History by Channing, Hart, and Turner, the bibliographies in Hart's American Nation, will give the reader, anxious to verify or expand my narrative, access to the literature of the subject. I have used only material that is accessible to all, except on a few minor points, and I do not claim any novelty or originality for this volume or for the ideas expressed in it, beyond the general point of view and a much fuller treatment and different emphasis than is usual in brief histories upon such topics as States' sovereignty, the growth of nationality, commercial relations with the West Indies, the influence of economic and geographical factors, and the growth of democracy.

Washington University, St. Louis, January, 1914.

I PAGE

The place of the United States in universal history 3

Its place in European history 3

Its chief subject the achieving of nationality 5

Definition of a nation 5-6

Slowness of national growth in America 6

The Revolution and States' rights anti-national 8

Nationality achieved through the Civil War; Lincoln, the father

of American nationality 9

II Spanish and French exert no influence on the history of the United

States 11

Explanation lies in their purpose in coming 12

in their character 14

in the strength of the Indians 14

in the weakness of Spain 15

The French in the South and in the St. Lawrence 16

III THE ENGLISH GENESIS OF THE UNITED STATES 18-30

Tlie United States made possible by the control of the Atlantic

acquired by England in 1588 18

Emigration was the result of economic forces which made people

willing to come 19

and of religious beliefs 21

and of the reports of explorers 22

The settlement of Jamestown 23

The Pilgrims and the settlement of Plymouth 24

The Puritans and the settlement of Boston 25

Other colonies founded before 1660 26

Colonies were made permanent

by the geographical advantages of the Atlantic coast ... 26

by the absence of powerful Indian tribes 27

by the size of Massachusetts 27

by maize, tobacco, fish, and furs 28

IV THE ECONOMIC GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 31^4

The most fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the economic

strength of the colonies in 1776 31

The extent of the growth in population 32

Rapidity of growth explained by immigration 33

CX)NTENTS

PA6B

Foreign elements: Germans, Scotch-Irish, Portuguese .... 34

Indented servants, criminals, adventurers 36

Radicalism and restless spirit of immigrants 36

Only little patches of settlement by 1760 37

Only common interests: the lack of a medium of exchange with

Europe 38

and a dependence upon the West India trade 39

Character of colonial commerce 39

The Navigation Acts 41

Smuggling 42

The result was a creditor and debtor class in each colony ... 43

V

Second fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the ability of

the colonies to govern themselves 45

Democracy a natural indigenous growth 45

Town government in Massachusetts 46

Coimty government at the South 48

Origin of the belief in States' rights 49

Origin of State governments 50

Evolution of representative government 52

The wilderness produces essentially the same forms in all colonies . 55

Graft, corrupMon, and "rings" 56

Divergence of institutional development between England and

America 57

The men produced by colonial democracy: Washington .... 58

Franklin 59

VI STATES' SOVEREIGNTY 61-72

Third fundamental cause of the Revolution lies in the determination of Americans from the first to govern themselves without

actual interference from England 61

The Colonies always considered themeelves sovereign 61

Nullification in Massachusetts in 1665 63

Antiquity of opposition to English interference 64

Reasons for inefficiency of English supervision 65

Nullification of the Navigation Acts 68

English origin of schemes for colonial union 69

Invariably defeated by principle of States' sovereignty .... 70

Entire lack of nationality in 1760 71

VII THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 73-91

The expulsion of the French from Canada made English assistance

unnecessary and actual independence possible .... 74

Danger of Indian uprisings past 76

Active opposition roused by English plans to replace States'

sovereignty by administrative imion 77

by the decision to enforce the Navigation Acts and so destroy

colonial commerce with the West Indies 81

PAGE

Prompt nullification of the Sugar and Stamp Acts ..... 82

The American idea of the English Constitution 86

Taxation without representation 88

The real justificaiion of the Revolution ... 90

VIII THE ORGANIZATION OF RESISTANCE 92-105

Resistance neither national nor spontaneous 92

Generality of the belief that it was inexpedient . . . . . .92

Resistance before 1772 sporadic and unorganized 94

Armed resistance organized by Samuel Adams through Committees

of Correspondence 97

The Boston Tea Party a demonstration of intent to resist ... 99

The Coercive Acts of 1774 101

Active preparations for resistance begun 103

Lexington and Concord 103

Bunker Hill 104

IX

States and individuals stand aloof 106

Real obstacle in way of cooperation a difference of opinion as to the

relations of States to each other 107

All existing organizations extra-legal 107

Tacit acceptance of Congress and Committees in 1775 by the people 109

Difficulties in way of instituting central government 110

Great accession of strength from adhesion to the Revolution of the

debtor party in each colony 113

Pressure put upon creditors 114

Confiscations, robbery 116

States' sovereignty the real obstacle in the way of the Revolution 117 Independt.nce imderstood to mean cooperation through some form of

central government 117

The Declaration of Independence affirms States' sovereignty . . .118

Formation of State constitutions 119

Central administration begun 120

The French Alliance and the Confederation 121

X

The war was not won by superior force or generalship . . . .123

A record of defeats. Lack of popular support 124

The victory due to the fact that the English did not push the war to the width of the Atlantic 131

to the strategical geography of the Atlantic coast .... 132 to the ability of Washington and Greene at wilderness-campaigning 133

XI

The country grew populous and wealthy. A comparatively small

number of individuals bore the costs and losses of the war 140

PAGE The balance of wealth and political power swung from the old creditor to the old debtor party, putting the radicals in

the majority 144

The victory decided that England should not influence the decision of American issues and put the creation of a central government, the settlement of commercial and monetary questions, the definition of the relations of the States to each other into the hands of the radicals, who declined to meet financial and treaty obligations and adopted States' sovereignty as the basis of central and State government 146

XII THE CRITICAL PERIOD 151-167

The definitive failure of the radical policy . . 151

Difliculties were superficial and economic 152

Accentuated by the commercial crisis 152

by overproduction 153

by hostile state legislation 155

by dislocation of business through paper money, interference

with the collection debts 156

Necessity of administrative reform 158

Strong central government a prerequisite 160

Radical defects of the Confederation 160

Economic and geographical factors making for imion 162

The Federal Convention called 166

XIII THE CONSTITUTION 168-181

The Constitution based upon equality of condition 169

Character of American life in 1787 ^ . 169

The people made sovereign -"^' . . 172

Relation of the States to the Federal government . . P '"^ . . 173

Relation of the Federal government to the people 174

"The people" limited to men of property and good character . . . 175

Powers conferred on Federal government 175

Federal government to be controlled:

by the separation of powers 176

by reservation of local government to the States 176

by checks and balances 178

Opposition to the adoption of the Constitution 179

First elections and the inauguration of Washington 180

XIV

THE ESTABLISHMENT OP PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION

182-195

The success of the new government due to economic conditions . . 182 Hamilton's solution of the administrative issues:

the funding of the Federal and State debts 184

the provision of a Federal income from the tariff and excise

taxes 188

the payment of the army 188

the provision for currency and fiscal control through the national Bank 188

Jefferson reconciles the Anti-Federalists to the Constitution by his

principle of looee construction 190

XV PAGE

Its causes: as a war between England and America in the economic dependence of America upon the European and West India

trade 196

as a war between parties in America in the division of interests between the commercial and agricultural classes, and between the English and French sympathizers .... 201

The incidents leading to the outbreak: the Jay Treaty, the movement to annex Canada, rights of neutral shipping, the press-gang, the Louisiana Purchase, the Chesapeake, the Embargo 1!38

The United States defeated:

by the geographical factors which won the Revolution . . . 206 by the outbreak of civil war and the attempt of New England

to secede 207

XVI

THE AlVIERICAN SYSTEM 211-228

Results of the War of 1812 were to make clear the consequences

of our economic dependence upon Europe 211

Cotton: its history; and growth to 1815 212

Manufacturing in New England the creation of the War .... 213

Demand for roads and canals in the West 214

The demand for the protective tariff 215

The demand for the extension of slavery: the Missouri Compromise 218

The demand for Internal Improvements 220

Effect of protection and Internal Improvements upon the interests

of the South 221

The Union and the Constitution attacked by Randolph and Hayne 223 Webster proclaims the national significance of the Constitution, 1830 225 The difficulties c-ompromised : the demands of all refused .... 227

XVII

JACKSO>r[AN DEMOCRACY 229-240

Causes of Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism 229

The Twelfth Amendment and the popular election of the President 230 New difficulties and the creation of the caucus to obviate them . .231

The caucus robs the people of the right to choose 232

Jackson against the caucus 232

The origin of national parties 233

Jacksonian and Jeflersonian democracy contrasted 234

Webster shows that the Constitution made the people sovereign and

that States' sovereignty was undemocratic 235

Growth of Committees in Congress and of the Speakership . . . 236

Interpretation of the Constitution by Marshall 237

Democratic radicalism in the States 238

The Spoils System introduced 238

Subconscious growth of nationality 239

xvrii

THE TWO DR^RGING SECTIONS 241-256

The possibilities of cotton-culture 241

Effects of cotton on slavery : methods of culture ; 242

(X)NTENTS

PAGE

value of land and slaves trebled ; demand for virgin soil . . . 243

Expansion and growth of the Gulf States 243

The South becomes a country of one crop 244

Statistics of Alabama in 1850 245

Agitation about slavery: Anti-slavery 245

Arguments concerning slavery compared 24&

Character of development in North and West of diversified industry

and scientific intensive agriculture 248

Machinery and transportation; canals and railroads 249

New complexity of economic fabric 250

Results upon social and intellectual life 251

Geographical and geological factors causing a division of economic

life along Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio River . 252

Results of these factors upon institutional life 255

The Civil War a misunderstanding between honest, sincere men . . 256

XIX TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 257-268

By 1835 it was clear to the South that the profits of cotton-culture were limited only by the amount of virgin soil, and that the supply of virgin soil eaft of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri Compromise line was already exhausted 257

Movement to colonize and tlien to annex Texas 259

The Mexican War adds more territory . > 261

The settlement of Canadian and Oregonian bbundaries adds still

more 262

The fight to open the territories to slavery 263

The complex tangle of interests 263

The Compromise of 1850 267

Secession openly preached at the South 268

XX

The growth at the North of the belief that slavery was wrong . . 269

Uncle Tom's Cabin 269

Kansas-Nebraska; the sack of Lawrence; the assault on Sumner;

the South accepts the responsibility 270-273

The formation of the Republican Party 275

Dred Scott Case 275

Lincoln-Douglas debates put the matter plainly and unmistakably . 277

Helper's Impending Crisis 279

The agitation for the reopening of the slave-trade 280

John Brown's Raid 280,

XXI

The antiquity of the belief in the Tightness and legality of secession 282

Early schemes for two or more confederacies 283

Fundamental causes economic and geographical 284

Immediate causes of the War 285

belief tliat the political tie of the Federal government alone

stood in the way of the extension of slavery 287

CONTENTS /

PAGE

realization that the South must fight before the disparity between North and South became greater j the sections

compared 288

the belief that cotton was king 292

the belief that the Mississippi would force the western States

to market their produce in the South and compel secession 293 Lincoln's election the signal not the cause of secession .... 296

XXII

SECESSION AND COMPROMISE 297-307

The South secedes 297

The Confederacy based upon slavery 299

Northern attempts at compromise 299

The Southern leaders reject compromise 301

Why the War did not break out in March 1861 303

The casus belli: the firing on Sumter 304

The North arms . i. , 305

XXIII THE ClVJh WAR AS A MILITARY EVENT 308-316

The strategical geography of ihe Southern States 308

Why Virginia became the cjiief field of war 309

Strategical geography of Virginia 309

The importance of the Shenandoah Valley 311

Strategical geography of the Mississippi Valley 312

The general strategy of the War 314

XXIV WHY THE NORTH WON 317-339

The physical and economic preponderance of the North . . . .317

The failure of the border States to secede 318

The rapid recovery of the North from the comimercial Crisis of

1861-2 318

The neutrality of England and France 320

The blockade prevents the exportation of cotton and the importation of anything else 322

Administrative inefficiency at the South 324

Financial mismanagement at the South 329

Arbitrary infringement of liberty of individuals and States . . .331

The reasons for the length of the War 333

XXV

The achieving of nationality 340

Lincoln the father of American nationality 344

How the War "created" the nation 345

Geographical factors making for nationality 347

The development and enriching of the North 350

Tlie collapse of the old regime at the South 351

The artificiality of the slave power proved 351

PAGE

Lack of community life at the South revealed 353

Slavery seen to be undemocratic and abolished 354

The extreme economic exhaustion of the South 356

The effect of the logic of "facts" upon popular sentiment North

and South 357

XXVI

Complexity of the problem 360

Influence of actual conditions 362

Attitude of the Republican Party 364

The issue places a new obstacle in the way of nationality . . . 365

Presidential Reconstruction 366

XXVII

CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION: ITS CAUSES AND METHODS 369-391

Objections to the Presidential solution 369

Hatred of the executive and of Johnson 370

Realization that the Southern States had actually been out of

the Union 370

Fear that the South meant to reenslave the negro as a punishment for crime 371

Fear that the Southern and Northern Democrats would outnumber the Republicans in Congress and undo the results

of the War by statute 375

Suspicions of the new Southern militia 375

The Reconstruction Acts and the Fourteenth Amendment . . . 37Q

The execution of the Acts 379

The election of 1867 and the Fifteenth Amendment 380

XXVIII THE SOLID SOUTH 382^391

Solithem feeling towards Congressional Reconstruction .... 382

Character of Reconstructed State governments 383

The South saved by the creation of the Solid South 385

The practical disfranchisement of the negro 386

Southern problems really at bottom economic and solved by economic

forces 388

The negro problem 388

The emancipation of the poor white 391

XXIX

The fundamental problems of American development 392

Their solution by economic forces 392

Economic dependence on Europe was due to the backwardness of the country and was obviated by its growth in population and wealth 392

Divergence of interests resulted from the existence of sections in different phases of economic growth and was solved by the rapid growth of the West and South 393

PAGE

And by the discovery of gold and silver 394

Quarrels of States, of sections, and of individuals due to racial, economic, and institutional differences have been obviated . by the shifting of population and economic interdependence 395

New national Problems:

The Nationalization of industry and its effect on institutions

and parties 397

The effect of the size of the country upon the premises of

democracy 398

The effect of the inequality of property on the premises of

democracy 399

The worst fears of the fathers realized 401

The new conception of the function of government .... 402 The new concept of the State 403

INDEX 407

When", in the year 1890, within our own memories, the frontier in the United States officially ceased to exist, the great westward march of the Aryan race, begun thousands of years ago, came to an end and definitely closed the only period of the world's history which man himself has recorded. The tide of westward movement, which had streamed out of the East into the West for so many centuries, breasted the peaks of that lofty mountain-range which Benton used to call the "shining mountains," and West met East. The history of the United States is the story of the last and geographically longest stage in this westward progress of the Aryan race. Considering the vastness of the area reclaimed from the wilderness and the development there of an advanced civilization within the brief space of three centuries, the achievement is without parallel in the records of the race. Such is the place of the United States in universal history.

A nation becomes, however, a great factor in human development as much by the splendor of its ideals as by reason of its actual achievement. Homer placed the Elysian Fields, the abode of supreme happiness, in the West, the land of the setting sun. Out to those unknown regions, where Phoebus Apollo stabled his steeds at evening, went Odysseus to talk with his father's spirit; out into the West Virgil led ^neas to see the dead heroes, riding and leaping in the green meadows under perpetual sunshine. The grim sagas of the Norsemen tell us how the dead chieftain was laid upon a couch on board his long ship ; how the great sail was hoisted and how the raven standard flapped sinister wings against the mast; how the flaring torches flung a beam of light to guide the ship on its last long journey out into the West across the great water to that shore where Odin waited to welcome his chosen warrior to the halls of Valhalla. Some prophetic impulse led the bards to make the West symbolic of the hopes and ideals of the Aryan race. There, the dreamer of dreams has built his castle; there, the seer of visions has beheld great empires, boundless wealth, inconceivable happiness. The dull eyes of struggling European peasants have for three centuries seen in the United States the Elysian Fields. The search for them in the West had been unremitting; only from America came back word that Elysium had been found, a land truly flowing with milk and honey. America has been the hope of the despairing, the refuge of the pursued ; here the homeless have found shelter ; the hungry, food; the sick at heart, courage; and the oppressed, liberty. No one who has asked in faith has been turned empty away. The United States holds the unique and superb position of embodying for millions of men and women the racial vision of an abode of the Blessed in the West. Such is her place in the history of Western Europe.

But for this deep and abiding racial belief in the location of the Elysian Fields, the present United States would not exist. The first explorers would never have agreed that their hopes could find realization in the cotton fields and rice swamps of the South, in the wheat fields of Dakota and in the cod fisheries of New England. The incentive for the toil and suffering indispensable to the discovery and exploration of this continent came rather from the expectation, firm in the minds of Spaniard and Englishman, that he would next day see gleaming upon the distant horizon the silver walls of the Seven Cities of Cibola, or the deep red glow of the enormous carbuncle that lighted the broad halls of the wondrous palace of Prester John. The expectations of standing upon the shores of the sea that washed the island of Cipango, where the streets were paved with sheets of solid gold, lured Champlain up the St. Lawrence and brought La Salle into the Mississippi Valley. The search for the fabulous wealth and mythological personages did not cease until the eighteenth century. The dreams and visions of men, the persistent search for a will-o'-the-wisp can alone explain much of the exploration and development of the United States. Only the dissatisfaction of men with what they found, their abiding faith in something better further west could have colonized a great continent in three centuries. This splendid westward progress which gives us our place in the history of the Aryan race, the ideal of liberty and freedom which has created for us a unique place in the history of Western Europe, are not the chief facts in American history. The history of the United States is in the truest sense the story of the assemblage of the crude materials for a great people and of the development in them of a national consciousness. We shall entirely miss the most vital fact about this story if we allow ourselves to assume even for an instant that anything deserving the name of nation existed in North America in 1660, in 1760, in 1789, or even in 1861. American history does not describe the life story of a nation, nor even the development or growth of a nation, but the very birth of the nation, which, as such, is still in its infancy. The fortuitous collection of many individuals upon the same sea-coast does not of itself create a nation, nor do these people become a nation when they first grudgingly permit a common government to perform certain limited functions which none of them could individually perform at all. A nation is not made by the adoption of constitutions nor by obedience to law; its existence is not manifested by conventions nor legislatures; for it is a spiritual bond between the people of a community and does not exist simply in the physical, geographical, economic, or constitutional factors necessary to its existence and expression.

e THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

A nation exists only in the spiritual consciousness of a great people and consists literally of the ideals, aspirations, hopes, and fears which they have in common. Nor is this nation made with hands. Its constituent parts think the same, not because they vote to agree, but because they do agree in very fact. They possess the same aspirations and ideals, are loyal and patriotic to their common government, not from policy or from desire, but because such psychological factors are realities. Until this spiritual bond exists, until the people become conscious of its actuality, no sentient, conscious national existence can be predicated. No amount of fervent wishing by individuals that it might be, no eager attempts to make it so, can be accepted as proof of its existence. A nation either is or is not. It cannot be "created"; it must grow into being. Certainly, the very least we can demand as proof of its existence, is the expressed conviction of all classes of the people in all parts of the country that a national tie is desirable and possible. So long as men could fiercely debate, as Washington phrased it, "whether we are one nation or thirteen," so long as one great section of the community could maintain with threats and at last with arms its complete independence of and difference from the rest of the people, no true national bond could exist.

But no one who reflects can be surprised that nationality is as yet young in this country. "We have scarcely possessed for decades the outward physical and political expressions of nationality which most European countries have had for centuries: — ^territorial unity; continuous settlement throughout the whole area ; something approaching stability of population; — which can alone make possible the actual experience in living together from which community of sentiment must come. For two centuries and more, the American people has been struggling into physical existence and has needed all the energy of its members to cope with the essentials of individual and community life. Nationally, we have been undeveloped rather than wrongly developed ; we have lacked national consciousness from the same inevitable reasons that prevent the man from preceding the child. In Burke's expressive phrase, we were "a people still, as it were, in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone." We had to become a nation by feeling, thinking, living, and by developing through the experience of decade after decade that unity of ideals and aims whose expression" is patriotism. As a nation, we have yet to share each other's crusts, drink to the dregs the cup of national humiliation, be welded one to another by the devastation of sword and fire, by those horrible catastrophes that make nations old in experience before their time. As yet we have suffered as parts, never as an entity; we have not yet rejoiced as a people with such a delirious, spontaneous outburst as thrilled England after the defeat of the Armada or Germany after the victory at Sedan.

Ours has been a growth, unspoiled and lovely, the natural, normal growth of the child, protected from luxury in its adolescence, furnished with every necessity as manhood approached; lacking experience, not knowing how or when to utilize his resources, but sane, strong, courageous, indomitable. There is something of an epic splendor about this growth to rugged physical manhood of a great people. Like Anta3us, we drew our strength from the ground. "We built our house with our bare hands and fashioned our national physical body in an incredibly short time out in a cleansing wilderness far from the sins and lusts of the race and out of materials unstained by the drums and tramplings of European conquest. Thus were we purged of the dross and freed from the subtle temptations of the old world. Our sins were the animal cravings of the boy for too much food, too many clothes, — the revel of the child in the riotous pleasures of the race, from curiosity rather than from wickedness.

The events of American history are more obviously concerned with the relationship of entities than with their attempts to unite into a whole. Perforce we study Massachusetts and Virginia, the ideas of the North and the views of the South, not as parts in relation to the whole, but as separate entities whose relation to each other has yet to be defined. The debates in Congress were occupied with the interests of sections of the country, not as parts of a whole but as antagonistic entities whose common interest and bond must be discovered and could never be assumed to exist. Indeed, it is impossible, as Webster and Lincoln pointed out, to reconcile the ideas of States' sovereignty and of Nullification with any other conception of a central government than that of a fortuitous, anomalous, and technical bond of dubious value.^ The theory of States' rights meant nothing if it did not assert the superiority of the interests of a single State over those of the aggregation of States ; Nullification was an empty form unless it meant that each State possessed vital interests so widely divergent from those of other States that its very existence would be at stake if it was to admit the right of the central government to adopt and enforce any policy which a majority of the other States might deem expedient. Both States' rights and Nullification premised the absence of that normal community of interests, of that essential uniformity of thought and ideals, upon which alone one nation in the proper sense of the word could be based. They denied the existence of a whole of which they were severally parts ; they solemnly affirmed the existence of a formal relationship between entities absolutely complete within themselves. Secession stated in actual words the contention of a great section of the country that two nations really existed within the bond of the Federal Government and that the formal recog-