Union and Democracy | Page 7

the
Potomac with the tributaries of the Ohio, if the trade and allegiance of
the people of Kentucky were to be secured to Virginia and to the Union.

"The western States," he wrote to Governor Harrison of Virginia,
"stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them
any way." The situation in Kentucky became more acute as intimations
reached the people that John Jay was proposing to renounce the free
navigation of the Mississippi.
In the summer of 1785, Don Diego de Gardoqui, the first accredited
Minister from Spain, arrived in the United States to settle all
outstanding differences between the two countries. Congress appointed
John Jay as its diplomatic agent and instructed him to hold insistently
to the thirty-first parallel as the southern boundary of the States and to
the free navigation of the Mississippi. The prospect of agreement was
very slight. The American claims were based solely on the Treaty of
1783 which the King of Spain was determined not to recognize.
Negotiations dragged on for months. Reporting to Congress in August,
1786, Jay advised the abandonment of the claim of free navigation of
the Mississippi for the sake of securing an advantageous commercial
treaty with Spain. The delegates from Northern States were ready to
barter away the Southwest; but the Southern delegates succeeded in
postponing action until the impotent Confederation gave way to a more
perfect union.
At the Court of St. James, John Adams was having no better luck in
pressing the rights of the moribund Confederation. Notwithstanding the
explicit terms of the Treaty of 1783, British garrisons still held strategic
posts along the Great Lakes, exercising a strong influence upon the
Indians and guarding the interests of British fur traders. Such a
situation would have been intolerable to a self-respecting nation.
Smothering his pride, Adams mustered all the diplomacy which his
nature permitted and sought an explanation of this extraordinary
conduct from the ministers. He was finally told that he need not expect
Great Britain to relinquish the Western posts so long as the States
continued to put obstacles in the way of the collection of British debts.
A general reluctance to meet financial obligations was a deplorable
aspect of the depression to which American society had succumbed. In
all the States there was a more or less numerous class of debtors who

were convinced that the Government could help them out of all their
distresses. As the cause of all their woes was the scarcity of money,
why, let the Government manufacture money and so put an end to the
stringency. What Madison called "the general rage for paper money"
seized upon Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas,
and Georgia. Coupled with paper-money acts were others designed to
alleviate the distress of the unfortunate. Stay laws of one sort or another
were devised to keep the wolf, in the guise of the sheriff, from the door.
Legal-tender acts made cattle and produce equivalent to money when
offered in payment of debts. Nor was this legislation inspired altogether
by dishonest intent. Many believed with Luther Martin, of Maryland,
that there were times of great public distress and extreme scarcity of
specie when it was the duty of the Government to pass stay laws and
legal-tender acts, "to prevent the wealthy creditor and the moneyed
man from totally destroying the poor, though even industrious, debtor."
No State suffered more from the paper-money aberration than Rhode
Island. Under pressure from the radical elements the legislature passed
an act for the emission of bills of credit which were to be issued to any
freeholder who would offer as security real estate of any sort to double
the amount of the loan. "Many from all parts of the State made haste to
avail themselves of their good fortune, and mortgaged fields strewn
thick with stones and covered with cedars and stunted pines for sums
such as could not have been obtained for the richest pastures." But
when they sought their creditors, not a merchant nor a shop-keeper
could be found. Nobody fished to have a just debt discharged in such
currency. Not to be thwarted in their purpose, the radicals then enacted
a law which threatened with a summary trial and a heavy fine any one
who refused to accept paper money in payment of debt.
Under this Force Act, one John Weeden, a butcher, was brought to trial
for refusing to receive the paper offered by a customer in payment for
meat. To the discomfiture of the legislature the court refused to enforce
the law in this instance, on the ground that the statute was contrary to
the constitution of Rhode Island; and when summoned before the
legislature to answer for their defiance, the judges boldly stood their
ground. The case of Trevett