The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (128 page)

Although the Spanish really offered very little in the commercial treaty, Jay proved willing to talk about it before turning to the details of navigation of the Mississippi. And before the negotiations were old, He had virtually agreed to a commercial treaty on Gardoqui's terms. Jay, like many easterners, feared western growth, which he thought would come at the expense of the old established regions of the seaboard. He also argued in his explanations to Congress that, in event of a showdown with Spain, France would most likely oppose the United States.

Watching Jay in action, Monroe soon came to suspect that he was not following instructions. Jay confirmed these suspicions when he asked for a new commission which would permit him to agree to a treaty giving up the American rights of navigation to the Mississippi for at least twenty-five years. Monroe fought off this request in Congress but not without antagonizing colleagues from New England and New York who sought to protect eastern interests. Rufus King of Massachusetts may have felt especially bitter over Monroe's opposition. For Monroe accused him of favoring the treaty -- and favoring the exclusion of the West from the Mississippi -- because of his marriage to "a woman of fortune in New York so that if he secures a market for fish and turns the commerce of the western country down this river [the Mohawk and Hudson] he obtains his object." Whatever the sources of King's convictions, he was eager to aid the fisheries, for as he wrote Elbridge Gerry in August 1786, "our fish, and every article we sell in Spain, is sold upon the footing of the most favored nation in that country -this is favor, and not right. Should we embarrass ourselves in the attempts of imprudent men to navigate the Mississippi below the northern boundary of Florida, we can expect no favors from the Spanish government. England is our Rival in the Fisheries, France does not wish us prosperity in this branch of commerce. If we embroil ourselves with Spain, what have we to expect on this subject?"
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Both King and Monroe represented sectional interests and the division

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held steady in the debates in Congress over Jay's instructions. The five southern states, though facing seven in the North ( Delaware had no delegation in the Congress at this time), had one advantage: the Articles of Confederation required that treaties must have the approval of nine states. Thus though the northern states might vote to revoke Jay's original instructions -- and did, thereby permitting him to agree to closing the Mississippi -- they had no way of securing the ratification of an agreement with Spain. Before King and others came to the realization that the southern states would block a treaty which sacrificed the West to the commercial interests of the East, they had bred deep suspicions in Monroe and others from the southern states. Monroe smelled plots everywhere and soon was convinced that one was afoot which would carry the northern opposition into a separate confederacy.
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The mistrust of the two groups festered long after Jay dropped the negotiations with Gardoqui. Jay had been shocked by the vehemence of the southern delegates. When the question of voting and approval of treaties was raised in Congress, he saw that the game was up. There would be no treaty which recognized Spain's action in shutting Americans off from the Mississippi. And there was anger and suspicion that would make further cooperation in Congress increasingly difficult.

Congress did enjoy one major success after the conclusion of peace. It arranged for the settlement and government of the West. The arrangements entailed the reconciliation of a number of diverse -- and competing-interests. That these interests could be satisfied owed much to Congress's skill in manipulating what they all had in common -- a powerful acquisitive impulse -- and to the fact that Congress began its work of disposing of the West before the atmosphere was fouled by Jay-Gardoqui.

The national domain had come into being on March 1, 1784, when Congress accepted Virginia's cession of the territory northwest of the Ohio claimed by the state under its seventeenth-century charters. Virginia had first ceded its claim to the Northwest in 1781, but this cession did not arouse gratitude throughout the United States because it required that all purchases from the Indians and all royal grants within the territory should be "declared absolutely void and of no Effect." At least three land companies located in other states had already made such claims,

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and Virginia aimed to deny satisfaction of their large appetites. These companies -- the Illinois-Wabash, Vandalia, and the Indiana -- responded by urging Congress to reject the cession.
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There were others who wanted a share of the Old Northwest. Soldiers -- later veterans -- suggested strongly that lands be set aside for them as a reward for their service. One group from other states urged that a colony be created, with soldiers serving as colonists. For a time, George Washington, who wanted to see his troops reimbursed for their sacrifices, supported this proposal.

Immediately after accepting Virginia 's cession, Congress acted to provide government in the territory. The development of congressional plans involved a complicated story whose leading character was Thomas Jefferson. The essential fact of this story was that Jefferson proposed an ordinance providing that new states, like the old republic in form, would be established out of the West. After a period of territorial government they would enter the Union with a status equal to the original thirteen. Jefferson called the terms of the ordinance "fundamental constitutions between the thirteen original states, and those now newly described," words which made their way into the statute Congress finally approved.
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Jefferson also served on the committee of Congress which was charged with the responsibility of devising a means of disposing of the new lands. He had hoped that western lands might be given to settlers -not sold to them -- and thereby provide new recruits to the class of sturdy freeholders he admired so deeply. Jefferson left for Europe on a diplomatic mission before the committee finished its work, but even had he not, it is unlikely that he could have persuaded Congress to fulfill his noble hope. The national debt stood in the way of giving anything away. In an early report the committee declared that returns from land sales "shall be applied to the sinking such part of the principal of the national debt as Congress shall from time to time direct, and to no other purpose whatsoever."
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In May 1785 Congress adopted the ordinance which it hoped would regulate the sale of western lands.
The Ordinance of 1785 provided

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that the land was to be divided into townships six miles square. Each township would consist of thirty-six lots, or sections, one mile square. After the territory was surveyed it would be sold at public auction in lots for not less than one dollar an acre in specie or the various certificates issued by the United States. The Ordinance set aside lands for bounties which had been promised to soldiers during the war, and it reserved lot sixteen in each township for public schools. The United States was to receive four sections in each township and one-third of any gold, silver, and copper which were discovered.
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Although surveys began almost at once, the Ordinance did not work as it was intended to. It ran afoul almost immediately of speculators, who urged its suspension. Leading the speculators was a new Ohio Company founded in Boston, and leading the Company was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler, formerly a chaplain in the army. Cutler had the foresight to recommend that the president of the Congress, Arthur St. Clair, be made head of the Company. That touch and much skillful lobbying persuaded Congress to allow the Ohio Company to purchase a large tract carved from still unsurveyed lands. Terms of payment were especially encouraging to the Company and included the use of certificates of the United States at their face value, certificates selling in the market for ten cents on the dollar.
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The Ohio Company operated on a large scale. Squatters were less ambitious, but in the aggregate just as destructive of plans of orderly settlement. These men and women brought with them a craving for land and a hatred of the Indians to whom it belonged. Small-scale warfare occurred when the two peoples met, and sometimes soldiers fought both groups.

In this rough way the Old Northwest began to fill up. The Ordinance of 1784, which had provided self-government in the territorial stage, was one of the casualties. Dismayed by the barbarism in the West and convinced by the speculators that land titles were endangered by the incessant upheavals, Congress repealed the ordinance, replacing it with a new one in 1787, the so-called Northwest Ordinance. This ordinance lifted control from the hands of settlers and placed it with Congress. Officials slated to be elected locally were now to be appointed. Full self-government would not be obtained until a territory became a state.
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The high distinction Congress attained in formulating the land policies went unrecognized at the time. Rather, by 1786 a feeling of crisis pervaded Congress and much of the nation. At the center of this feeling lay a disenchantment with public finance and commercial policy which in turn bred doubts about the adequacy of republican institutions of government. Most doubts, of course, hung around Congress itself, though strong nationalists also entertained fears of the adequacy of local institutions -- in particular, state legislatures and the public policies created by them. In this mood, some Americans came to fear that the American Revolution and its natural child, the republic, might soon be destroyed.

The concern about public finance extended to the economy, and for much of the period before 1789, complaints echoed in the newspapers, Congress, and in private about the decline of trade. As is so often the case, popular perceptions did not recognize the realities. And what were the economic realities? They cannot be charted precisely -- given the scarcity of quantifiable data -- but they indicate that, despite the damages of war and the exclusion of American ships from the British West Indies, recovery was rapid, though uneven. The middle Atlantic states may have enjoyed the quickest resurgence of business. These states-Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York -- had long produced agricultural products for the market, especially the West Indies. They now began processing their farm commodities for local markets, for example, cereals into beer, porter, and whiskey to slake republican thirsts. They also began to manufacture goods for themselves and the South.
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