The United States of America, part 1 (1783-1830) | Page 2

DISPATCHES From the original in the Department of State.
THE CITY OF WASHINGTON From a drawing made about 1800, before the site was graded.
WESTERN ARKS AT NEW ORLEANS From Hall's "Etchings in America."
TAKING POSSESSION OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
WRITTEN LAW OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORY A law passed at Vincennes, now Indiana, against gambling..
PRESIDENT JEFFERSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS
BLANK COMMISSION FOR PRIVATEER IN WAR OF 1812
DISLOYALTY OF NEW ENGLAND DURING THE WAR
THE PRESIDENT'S TEMPORARY RESIDENCE, 1815
MAP SHOWING ADVANCE OF POPULATION
THE CAPITOL BURNED BY THE BRITISH ARMY From Torrey's "American Slave Trader."
WASHINGTON IRVING From the etching by Jacques Reich.
JOHN MARSHALL Chief Justice of the United States, 1801-1836.
WESTERN END OF THE GREAT ERIE CANAL Drawn with the Camera Lucida for Hairs "Etchings of the West."

CHAPTER I
A UNION IN FORM ONLY

When did the sovereign nation of the United States begin? From one point of view, it was called into existence by the motion for Independence passed by the Continental Congress on the second day of July, 1776, when the people of the rebelling British colonies in America, by action of their representatives, assumed a free and independent position. But a motion is intangible. It is an act, of which the announcement is the visible result. "A decent respect to the opinions of mankind" prompted the Congress on July 4, 1776, to "declare the causes" which impelled it to separation. This date is accepted in the popular mind, as well as by official action, as the beginning of national existence. If recognition by other powers be assumed as the criterion, the sovereignty began in 1778, when treaties of alliance and commerce were signed with France. But if the actions indicated above were incidental steps to the commencement of sovereignty, if a general recognition by nations be necessary, together with the consent of the former owner, and a restoration of peace and order, then the real story of the United States begins on September 3, 1783. This conclusion is reached by considering fact as well as form.
[Illustration: SIGNATURES TO THE DEFINITIVE TREATY OF 1783. Original in the Department of State Washington. D. Hartey was given power by the King of England and Adams, Franklin, and Jay by the Congress of the United States. Individual seals were used.]
A few days after that date, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay wrote from Paris to the president of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia:
"On the 3d instant, definite treaties were concluded between all the late belligerent powers except the Dutch, who the day before settled and signed preliminary articles of peace with Britain. We most sincerely and cordially congratulate Congress and our country in general on this happy event; and we hope that the same kind Providence which has led us through a vigorous war to an honourable peace will enable us to make a wise and moderate use of that inestimable blessing."
Thus happily ended more than eight years of warfare and almost two years of negotiation. The disturbed conditions of war gave way rapidly to the normal condition of peace. The four European powers, which had been drawn into war by the American cause, adjusted their disturbed relations. The King of England, at the next opening of Parliament, acknowledged the loss of a portion of his American possessions. John Adams with his family crossed from France to England to represent the new nation. The archives of the republic showed treaties with France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Sweden, soon to be followed by similar acknowledgments from Prussia and Morocco. A national frame of government had been adopted by the new power. Peace prevailed throughout the land. Local government was established in every State. In external appearance as well as internal form the career of the independent republic of the United States had most auspiciously begun.
But the course of events was soon to dispel the illusion; to show that it was a union in form only and not in affection. Conversion from provincial colonists into liberal-minded unionists was not to be so easily effected. A feeling of true nationality must await years of growth. Confidence in each other had not yet replaced fear and suspicion. That the first attempt to come into a union could have been a success, that a sacrifice to the god Provincialism could have been avoided, seems in retrospect impossible.
This period of fear of centralisation, which began even before the close of the Revolutionary War, a time of mutual distrust, of paramount individualism, is little known and rarely dwelt upon at present. Perhaps the omission is due to a happy nature, which recalls only the pleasant events of the past. The school-texts dismiss it with a few paragraphs; statesmen rarely turn to its valuable lessons of experience; and to the larger number of the American people, the statement that we have lived since our independence under a national frame