USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Municipal government history and politics, Vol. V > Part 19
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1 Since the remarks in the text were penned, I have had an opportunity of reading a paper on the Town and City Government of New Haven by C. H. Levermore, Ph. D., in which the impracticability of the old town system of New England under modern conditions is clearly proved. In New Haven, there is a dual system of town and city government. The annual town-meeting, the ancient general court for the town (the folkmoot of all the voters resident in the Republic of New Haven), is still periodi- cally held for the election of town's officers, authorizing and estimating expenditures, and determining the annual town tax for 75,000 people. The author cited says (p. 69) :- "This most venerable institution in the community appears to-day in the guise of a gathering of a few citizens, who do the work of as many thousands. Only a few understand the sub-
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of population, and the numerous demands of our complex civilization, have forced on us a municipal, system which must be representative in its character-which must entrust to a chosen few the management of the affairs of the whole community. The dangers of the system are obvious to all, and should be carefully borne in mind by the intelligent and sagacious leaders and thinkers of every community. Hap- pily, as the peril is apparent, so the remedy is always open to the majority. The security of our local institutions rests on the vigilance of an outspoken press, on the watchfulness of the superior legislative bodies, and on the frequency of elec- tions, during which the people have abundant opportunity of criticising and investigating the administration of municipal affairs. On the whole, then, it would be difficult to devise and mature a system better calculated to develop a spirit of self-reliance and enterprise in a community, or to educate the people in the administration of public affairs. It is not too much to say that the municipal bodies of this country are so many schools where men may gain a valuable experience, which will make them more useful, should they at any time win a place in that larger field of action which the Legislature offers to the ambitious Canadian.
jects which are under discussion. But citizens of all parties and of all grades of respectability ignore the town-meeting and school-meeting alike. Not one-seventieth part of the citizens of the town has attended an annual town-meeting; they hardly know when it is held." The proposal to abol- ish this dual system where it exist in New England, and substitute a simple administration, is now familiar to every one. The old system, in fact, has outlived its usefulness.
APPENDIX.
SUCCESS OF THE MUNICIPAL SYSTEM OF ONTARIO.
The author has had permission to make the following extracts from an interesting letter received by him from the Honorable J. R. Gowan, LL. D., of Barrie, Ontario, who was for over forty years actively engaged in the judi- cial office, and who, in the course of his useful career, had very much to do with perfecting the flexible system of local government which the province now enjoys:
"I have been familiar with our modern municipal system since it was instituted, and with the exception of the first statute passed in 1841 had something to do with the preparation or criticism of nearly every amending Act up to the time of Mr. John Sandfield Macdonald's administration.
" I was rather opposed to the measure of decentralization-the establish- ment of Township Councils which did not work at all well at first. Many of the men selected for some time thereafter had neither the education nor the experience to enable them to work advantageously under the law, and as respects County Councils, though the number of members was large, their proceedings were in effect shaped and directed by a very few leading men. All that is changed, and the new generation are, for the most part, trained very fairly in the work of deliberative bodies; first, as school trustees, then in the Town and Township Councils. Above all other things, our excellent school system has diffused the benefits of a sound education and given the new men enlarged views. Without these advantages the municipal institu- tions of Ontario, with their large powers and the indisposition of men of means to take part in them, would have been ere this a curse to the country. The County Councils are now practically schools in which men are graduated in procedure and debate, and taught something of the art of self-government. It is largely from these bodies that aspirants for the House of Commons and Legislative Assembly come. I can remember that in my own county some eight men of this class have, in the course of years, presented themselves for the former body, and of these five were elected,
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and that nine men have been returned out of twelve candidates who offered for the local Legislature.
"I take some credit to myself for an effort from the first to inspire the body in my own county with a respect for the position. I endeavored to impress on them my views of the advantages of doing things decently and in order-especially the value of well-defined rules of procedure and the importance of a strict adherence to them, and of being governed in matters not fully defined by the usages of Parliament. Even in the matter of externals the County Council of my county has shown a proper spirit, for some forty years ago the Warden assumed gown and cocked hat while in the chair-a usage kept up by all the officials ever since.
"The result of the establishment of local government in Ontario has exceeded my most sanguine expectations. I have on several occasions listened to debates in the County Council conducted with considerable ability and with as much decorum as one finds in the highest deliberative bodies in the country. The County Council sitting at Barrie is the largest body of the kind in Canada, numbering some sixty Reeves and Deputy Reeves; and the proportion of fair debaters is quite up to that of any Legislature I know of. But the number is now too great; that arises from the rapid increase in the population of many municipalities. As good and perhaps better work might be done with half the number. The time is fast approaching when the number must be limited; but it is difficult to settle the proper basis of representation, so marked is the difference in the popu- lations of the several townships and towns. Taking it all in all, however, municipal government in Ontario is a success; there is nothing elsewhere equal to our system. It has its evils; amongst them, the mode of assess- ment by officers appointed in and acting for each locality. "Log-rolling" is not unusual when the assessment of the county comes to be equalized. But on the whole, I repeat, the system has turned out well on account of the diffusion of education and the general distribution of property, not to speak of the race of British blood who have developed it. These causes, together with annual elections, have been the great safeguards for the due execution of the large powers conferred on the municipal bodies."
To, the foregoing testimony, I may add the following passage from an answer by the same high authority to an address presented to him not long since by the Council of the County of Simcoe, where the municipal system has been worked out in its completest form :
"We can now fairly claim that we possess the most perfect system of municipal government enjoyed by any country, and have proved that an intelligent and educated people may be safely entrusted with the manage- ment of important matters demanding local administration-matters that would but retard and embarrass the proceedings of the higher legislative bodies, if indeed they were there able to secure the attentions they deserved. In many respects our County stands foremost, and having watched its pro- gress from the primitive condition of a 'new settlement,' I am filled with
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admiration of the patient industry and intelligent energy that have accom- plished so much in a period of forty-one years. You know that at first we had barely passable roadways through the 'woods,' that farming operations were conducted in a very imperfect way, that commerce and manufactures were scarcely in the bud, that the few schools which existed were imperfectly served and ill-regulated, while the municipal system was a recent creation, and moreover that ready submission to the law of the land was not uni- versal. Many of you will remember the time when this state of things prevailed, and will know what a contrast presents itself as you now look around you-the whole country accessible by excellent roads, and more than that, netted all' over with railroads, agriculture in its various aspects carried on intelligently by an educated farming community, free public schools, with efficient teachers under a uniform system, within easy access of all, the laws everywhere respected and cheerfully obeyed, and last though not least, our municipal system permeating every part with its healthy influences-yes, when you look around you you cannot help feeling that ours is a happy and honorable position, and must bless God every day that your lot is cast in a free country, where there is work for all, and bread for all; where honest labor meets its appropriate reward, and where any deserving man in the community may aspire to the highest place and the largest power for serving his country."
VII
THE EFFECT OF THE WAR OF 1812
UPON THE
Consolidation of the Union
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor
History is past Politics and Politics present History - Freeman
FIFTH SERIES
VII
The Effect of the War of 1812
UPON THE
CONSOLIDATION OF THE UNION
BY NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph. D. Tutor in Philosophy in Columbia College President of the Industrial Education Association's College for the Training of Teachers
BALTIMORE PUBLICATION AGENCY OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY JULY, 1887
COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY N. MURRAY.
JOHN MURPHY & CO., PRINTERS BALTIMORE.
THE EFFECT OF THE WAR OF 1812
UPON THE
CONSOLIDATION OF THE UNION.
The two great motive forces in American politics during the first century of the national existence were the questions of state sovereignty and of slavery. The pressure of the first was almost wholly, yet but temporarily, relieved by the second war with Great Britain, and it was reserved for the great civil war of 1861-5 to put an effectual quietus upon both.
The course of the conflict over these questions shows that until the war of 1812 that of state sovereignty, pure and sim- ple, occupied the foremost place in the nation's political activity. From the conclusion of that war period until 1861 the question of slavery, with all its far-reaching collateral issues, asserted its preëminence, and in its disastrous overthrow and complete downfall carried the state sovereignty heresy with it to a common ruin.
The concrete question with which we are to deal at present is the effect of the war of 1812 on the consolidation of the Union. To understand this intelligently we must acquaint ourselves with the positions taken in reference to the state- sovereignty dispute down to the time when war was declared, and with the condition of the Union at that time in respect to real unity. We must examine the political character and motives of the war itself, and discover the status of the
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national unity in the years immediately succeeding the war. When all this is done we shall be entitled to pronounce upon the effect of the war of 1812 on the consolidation of the Union.
It is probable that in the light of historical fact, and the full discussion which the question has since received, culmi- nating in the irrevocable verdict of a terrible civil war, no one will care to deny that the Declaration of Independence of July 4th, 1776, was the act of an ethnographically and geograph- ically unified nation, and not the separate though synchronous deed of thirteen constituent parts of that nation. Moreover, the authority of the Continental Congress as a revolutionary body cannot be questioned. It was this Congress that drew up and adopted the Articles of Confederation of 1781. But even at the time of the original adoption of these Articles by Con- gress, November 14th, 1777, the enthusiasm of 1776 was abated; the national ardor had cooled and had been superseded by more particularistic and selfish feelings. Thus the infant nation of 1776, even before it had risen from its cradle, seemed sickening to its death.
" The preponderance of the anti-national tendencies during the early life of the Union undoubtedly had its origin in the political and social development of the states, in their want of political connection before the Revolution, in the little intercourse, commercial and other, between them, and lastly in various differences in their natural situation which rendered a rapid intergrowth of the several States impossible and the collisions attendant thereon unavoidable." 1
When the time came to form a national government it was but natural that two opposing views should be taken as to the extent of the powers to be conferred upon that government.
To begin with, the very nature of the question provoked, if it did not reqrire, the formation of two opposing parties ;
1 Von Holst, The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Chicago, 1877, Vol. I. pp. 106, 107.
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then, the selfish feelings of a particular state or states, loth to give up natural advantages to the common weal, would oppose a strong central government, and in any such move- ment as the American Revolution, an ultra-democratic party, large or small as the case may be, is sure to develop. But in this case fact proved more powerful than theory. The stern necessities of the case and the ably-defended opinions of Ham- ilton, Madison, and their coadjutors, in spite of the technical provisions of the Articles of Confederation, carried through the proposition for the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and in it sounder political science prevailed. As a result our present Constitution was promulgated.
The great Constitutional Party, as we may appropriately describe the Federalists, immediately after the organization. of the government under the instrument of 1787, put forth by word and deed a theory of government deduced from their interpretation of the Constitution, which in reality they had framed. The occasion of the crystallization of the ele- ments of this party into an unified whole was the struggle for the adoption and adjustment of the system of 1787. Their theory was, in brief, that the government was based on a national popular sovereignty, that the central government should be independent in all its machinery of the local gov- ernments, exercising all general powers and interpreting by its own constituted agents what was local and what was gen- eral, under such limitations as were put upon it in the Con- stitution itself by the national popular sovereignty. But in the struggle this party was obliged to give up, if indeed it ever distinctly held, a wholly national doctrine and ground itself for the purpose of victory on a federal system, midway between confederation and nationalism, though strongly lean- ing toward the latter. This federal system, though still hold- ing to the sovereignty of the people of the United States as ultimate, yet admitted that a system of local commonwealth governments was fundamental in our political system. In other words, it allowed that the Union was one of states, but not of state governments.
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The original opponents of this doctrine cannot be dignified with the name party. Their nucleus was a few extremists of the Rousseau stamp, who believed or pretended to believe that the state of nature was the only perfect state and that all society had originated in a social compact ; that government, which is in its very nature tyrannical and oppressive, had grown up from an exaggeration of powers originally relin- quished by the individual in the compact. Around such men and opinions as these the opposition to Federalism began to collect. It acquired strength and definiteness by the debates on the Funding1 and Assumption 2 bills, the Slavery Peti- tion 3 debate of 1790, the Excise Tax,4 the National Bank bill,5 and from the complications in foreign affairs in which the administration became involved. In addition "the French Revolution introduced from abroad an element which, inde- pendent of the actual condition of affairs and partly in conflict with it, kept excitement at the boiling point during many years.6 The French Revolution was at first hailed with delight by all parties in the United States ; when, however, after the death of Mirabeau, the impossibility of control and the mis- takes of the helpless court transferred the preponderance of power to the radicals and when the anarchical elements daily grew bolder, the Federalists began to turn away. The anti-
1 Von Holst, I. 85, 86. Hildreth, History of the United States of America. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1851, Vol. IV. 152-171, 213-220. This and most of the following references to Hildreth are given to show where fuller information on the subjects referred to may be found.
2 Hildreth, IV. 171-174, 213-220.
3 Von Holst, I. 89-93; "Hildreth, IV. 174-204. In this debate the threat of civil war was uttered on the floor of the House of Representatives for perhaps the first time. The speaker was Tucker of South Carolina, and his words were: "Do these men expect a general emancipation by law ? This would never be submitted to by the Southern States without a civil war." See Benton, Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, I. 208.
4 Von Holst, I. 94, 95; Hildreth, IV. 253-256.
5 Von Holst, I. 104-106; Hildreth, IV. 256-267.
6 Hildreth, IV. 411-413.
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Federalists on the other hand clung more dearly to it than ever. The farther France proceeded, by the adoption of brutal measures, in the direction of political idealism, the more rank was the growth in the United States of the most radical doc- trinarianism ; the more attentively the legislators of France listened to Danton's voice of thunder and Marat's fierce cry for blood, the more boldly did demagogism in its most repul- sive form rage in the United States." 1
Many of the objections to the Federalist measures were closely bordering on the ridiculous, while but a few were defensible. " But no reasoning was too absurd to find credu- lous hearers when the rights of the States were alleged to be in danger and the services of the phantom 'consolidation' were required. The politicians would not, however, in a matter of such importance have dared to wage so strong a war of opposition and they could not have carried it on for ten years and have finally conquered, if they had not had as a broad and firm foundation to build upon, the anti-national- istic tendencies which prevailed among the people." 2
The word anti-nationalistic is used advisedly ; for by it is meant that among the people there was a strong feeling that any dissatisfied state or number of states might secede or withdraw at pleasure from the Union. Nor was this idea by any means confined to the anti-Federalists or to that section of the country in which their strength mainly lay. It is also a mistake to suppose that these feelings never found vent in words until the great slavery contest, many years later. In point of fact, as early as 1793, when peace with England was endangered by Genet's machinations and their consequences,3 there were those in the New England States who in no covert language urged that a dissolution of the Union was preferable to war with Great Britain. Here are the words of Th. Dwight,
1 Von Holst, I. 107.
2 Von Holst, I. 106.
3 Von Holst, I. 112-118; Hildreth, IV. 412-440, 477, 478.
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writing at this time to Wolcott : "A war with Great Britain, we, at least in New England, will not enter into. Sooner would ninety-nine out of one hundred of our inhabitants sep- arate from the Union than plunge themselves into an abyss of misery."1 Hence it is evident that the geographical grouping of the friends and enemies of the Jay treaty 2 did not escape them in spite of appearances which were at first deceptive. Going beyond the limits of the question immediately under considera- tion they pointed to a division of the republic into two great sections and declared an understanding between them to be a condition precedent to the continuation of the Union. Wolcott writes to his father the following, August 10th, 1795: "I am, however, almost discouraged with respect to the southern states ; the effect of the slave system has been such that I fear our government will never operate with efficacy. . . . . Indeed we must of necessity soon come to a sober explanation with the people and know upon what we are to depend." 3
It was reserved for the Alien and Sedition laws of 17984 to call forth from the opposition their first definite declaration of political principles. This is contained in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and in the supplements thereto passed on receipt of the replies from other State Legislatures. But we find another instance of definite talk concerning disruption before these resolutions were passed. In May of 1798, the idea of separation arose in the South as a means of escape from the supremacy of Massachusetts and Connecticut, which had to the Southern States become unbearable. John Taylor of Virginia, by no means an unimportant man, said " it was not unwise now to estimate the separate mass of Virginia and North Carolina with a view to their separate existence."5 Jefferson wrote him in relation to this matter, June 1st, 1798,
1 Gibbs, Mem. of Walcott, I. 107. Quoted by Von Holst.
2 Von Holst, I. 122-128; Hildreth, IV. 488, 539-556, 590-616.
3 Gibbs, Mem. of Walcott, I. 224.
4 Von Holst, I. 142; Hildreth, V. 216, 225-228.
5 Von Holst, I. 143.
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that it would not be wise to proceed immediately to a dis- ruption of the Union when party passion was at such a height. 1
The Kentucky Resolutions2 of November 10th, 1798, and November 14th, 1799, really sounded the keynote of the Federalists' opponents, who had now come to be called Re- publicans. In brief their position was that the Constitution was a compact to which the states were integral parties, and that each party had an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions of that compact as of the mode and measures of redress; and that the rightful remedy against the oppres- sion of the central government or the exercise by it of any ungranted powers, was the nullification of any obnoxious act by the state or states objecting thereto. This was distinct and exact as far as it went, but it left to Calhoun and a greater crisis the logical pursuance of the doctrines to their farthest conclusions.
If the claim to the right of nullification as set forth in 1799 was well-grounded, the Constitution was indeed different from the Articles of Confederation in particulars, but the political character of the Union was essentially unchanged, and it was now as before, a confederation of the loosest structure. On this very point the comment has been well made: "to the extent that practice was in accord with theory a mere mechani- cal motion would have taken the place of organic life. Sooner or later even that would have ceased, for the state is an organ- ism, not a machine." 3
Washington now, December 25th, 1798, in writing to Lafayette, declared that "the Constitution, according to their [the anti-Federalists'] interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher."ª Three weeks later he wrote to Patrick Henry :
1 Jefferson, Works, IV. 245-248.
2 Von Holst, I. 144-155; Hildreth, V. 272-277, 296, 319-321.
3 Von Holst, I. 151, 152.
4 Washington, Works, XI. 378.
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" Measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued which must eventually dissolve the Union or produce coer- cion." 1
Very shortly afterward the ultimate consequences of the Kentucky interpretation of the Constitution were boldly drawn.2 Tucker, whose edition of Blackstone appeared in 1803, writes : "The Federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communi- cate with foreign nations and with each other. Their sub- mission to its operation is voluntary ; its councils, its engage- ments, its authority are theirs, modified and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame in which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they have been swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sover- eign, still independent and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions in the most unlimited extent."3 Surely there is little here that marks any degree of consolidation. This makes the Constitution but a bond of straw and the nation to be no nation ; nothing but a mere conglomeration of independent commonwealths. And when we recollect that this view was that of a large majority of the people at that time, and then read anew the Constitution and its exposition as given by its framers, we must agree with John Quincy Adams in saying that "the Constitution itself had been extorted from the grinding neces- sity of a reluctant nation." 4
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