The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (127 page)

Earlier in the year, in March, at Newburgh, New York, a small number of officers, spurred on by a handful of representatives in Congress, had seemed about ready to attempt a coup. These officers, like most in the army, felt outraged that their pay was months in arrears and that Congress opposed pensions for them. In and out of Congress a small, shadowy group resolved to tap this discontent in order to force through an accretion to the powers of Congress. Just how far each group was prepared to go is not clear -- and probably was not clear at the time to either one. The officers seem not to have realized that they were being used, and the group in Philadelphia, where Congress then met, may not have known how dangerous the game was. Those in Philadelphia

counted Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton in their number; those at Newburgh had the sympathy, but probably not the support, of Horatio Gates.
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The army officers wanted money more than power. Washington knew of their need and had long urged that Congress come to their aid. He knew nothing of the beginnings of the plot in Philadelphia to use the army to threaten military action unless the states granted Congress the authority to tax. When he learned of what was going on, he waited until just the right moment and then confronted the officers in such a way as to bring home to them the enormity of what they seemed prepared to do. That moment occurred in a meeting at Newburgh at which Washington appeared before the officers and made clear his opposition to any military action against civilian authority. In a speech which suggested that the Revolution itself was at stake, Washington urged the officers "to rely on the plighted faith of your Country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress. . . . And let me conjure you, in the name of our common Country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the Military and National character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the Man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our Country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood Gates of Civil discord, and deluge our rising Empire in blood."
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This appeal and the example of their commander's own selflessness restrained the hotheads in the army at Newburgh. Shortly afterwards news of peace arrived. With the end of the war the worst of the threat against civil government disappeared, but Washington and others, especially those in Congress, remained uneasy. That anxiety no doubt contributed to the scene played at Annapolis in December.
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And a telling scene it was. After careful preparations ensuring that all knew their parts, General Washington appeared before Congress and galleries crowded with Annapolis gentry at noon, Tuesday, December

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23. The secretary announced him and then seated him opposite the president. After the crowd quieted, President Mifflin addressed Washington in the following words, "Congress sir are prepared to receive your communications." Washington rose, bowed to Congress, who uncovered but did not bow. He then read his speech in a manner that, according to contemporary observers, brought tears to many eyes. Washington himself felt deep emotion -- his hand holding the speech trembled throughout, and when he spoke of his aides, those dear members of his military "family," he gripped the paper with both hands. His deepest feeling, however, was reserved for an even finer moment -- when, commending "the Interests of our dearest Country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping," he faltered and was almost unable to continue. He managed the final sentence with greater strength: "Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."
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Mifflin's reply on behalf of Congress was composed by a delegate with a skillful pen and full awareness of the symbolic significance of this occasion. That delegate, Thomas Jefferson, put the following sentence in Mifflin's mouth, which underscored the importance of all that had taken place between the General and the Congress over the preceding eight years -- "You have," Mifflin told Washington, "conducted the great military contest with wisdom and fortitude invariably regarding the rights of the civil power through all disasters and changes."
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That the civil power survived the Revolution as well as it did must in part be credited to Washington. But Congress itself could also claim much credit. It was a jealous body reflecting the suspicions most Americans had long felt of the military. Some of these feelings must have helped shape Congressional attitudes toward demobilization of the army, attitudes that to veterans seemed little more than mean-spirited niggardliness.

The problem for the army and the Congress was not unusual. The army had not been paid, and many of its men faced civilian life with

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no resources. Officers felt especially badly treated. Three years earlier the Congress had promised half-pay for life to officers who served for the duration. Since then, Congress had slowly retreated from what was widely regarded as both a foolish extravagance and an importation of a European practice inappropriate to a republic. Late in the month of the Newburgh conspiracy, Congress, still frightened, approved commutation of half-pay for life to full pay for five years. And over the next three months most of the army, unpaid as yet, was either furloughed or discharged. A bad moment in the life of the young republic had passed.
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Equally dangerous times lay just ahead. The national debt and the lack of a revenue promised the worst. The size of the debt remained a mystery. One sort of public obligation could be calculated fairly accurately, even though it had been incurred during the war in various currencies, virtually all of which had depreciated. This debt, called "liquidated," consisted of army pay and the principal of and interest on, loan office certificates and foreign loans. The size of the second sort, "unliquidated" debt, owed for money, goods, or services supplied by citizens or the states could not be accurately determined. The evidence for this debt was not always clear -- besides vouchers, claims based on lost or destroyed vouchers and even more shaky testimony were made.
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What the national government needed to meet its annual expenses was not known either. Early in 1783, the best estimates had it that meeting the calls of soldiers' pay, interest on loans, and day-to-day operating expenses amounted to around three million dollars. Raising this sum through requisitions once news of peace arrived was impossible. The nationalists, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison among them, argued that another attempt to secure a 5 percent impost on imports was worth a try. (The first had been made in 1781 -- and failed.) But with peace, suspicions of central authority rose again, and the measure Congress passed in April carried severe restrictions on the use of the revenue -- provided of course that the states approved it. The impost of 1783 was to be in effect for twenty-five years; the revenues could be applied only toward the payment of the debt; and the states would appoint the collectors.

For the next two years the Congress lived in the expectation that the states would approve the impost.
Nine did approve fairly soon after

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its passage, and by 1786 only New York and Pennsylvania had not. In that year New York approved but with such paralyzing conditions that the Congress declined its terms. Pennsylvania had also imposed rigid terms and in effect was relieved of compliance by New York's action. By 1787 there clearly was no hope that the impost would win approval by all the states.
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The failure of the impost disappointed the nationalists in the Congress. The failure of the Congress to achieve American sovereignty in the West disappointed almost all its members -- and most Americans. By far the greatest expanse of this territory conceded to the United States by the treaty of peace lay more or less under American control. The British army, however, continued to hold strategically located posts along the Lakes from which the fur trade could be managed. Though unstated, the British claim to trade and land seemed clear.

South of the Ohio River, the territory east of the Mississippi also threatened to be lifted from American control. Here Spain, which had not recognized the cession of this land to the United States in the treaty of peace, supplied the threat. The year following peace saw the Spanish close the lower Mississippi to American navigation. The Spanish expected, or at least hoped, that the settlers in what later became Kentucky and Tennessee would give up their American citizenship in favor of a Spanish connection which would allow them to do business through New Orleans. Secession from the United States was a possibility -- these settlers felt neglected by Congress and the East.
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When news of the disaffection in the Southwest filtered back to Congress, it ordered John Jay, who had succeeded Robert Livingston as secretary of foreign affairs, to negotiate a treaty with Don Diego de Gardoqui of Spain, who had been sent to convince Congress to ratify the closing of the Mississippi. Jay's instructions were composed by a committee headed by James Monroe of Virginia. Monroe felt no sympathy for the Spanish case, and he was determined to placate the Southwest. The instructions he and his committee gave Jay took the commonsense line that the treaty of peace with Britain justly represented American interest. Hence Jay was "to stipulate the right of the United States to their territorial bounds, and the free navigation of the Mississippi, from the source to the ocean, as established in their Treaties with Great

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Britain." Gardoqui came with firm instructions to stipulate Spain's claim to the territory east of the Mississippi and to the exclusive right to navigation of the river. The two diplomats had not discussed the conflicting claims very long when Jay decided that there was little chance of altering the Spanish position. Gardoqui insisted that the United States concede the validity of the Spanish claims -- in return Spain would agree to a commercial treaty.