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The reply of Jefferson and other leaders representing the Non-Conformists, was direct and trenchant. No re- ligion, not even Christianity, they said, ought to be rec- ognized or supported by the State. Men should be left free to become Mohammedans if they chose. The true policy was to leave them to choose, not to force them to become Christians ; above all, not to impose penalties on them for not being Episcopalians, and com- pel them to support a Church which was not their own.
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These latter views prevailed, as they ought to have done, and the Bill for Exempting Dissenters passed. No person thereafter was to be obliged to contribute to the support of the Church of England; all denominations were free to worship and pay their own ministers ; there were to be no pains or penalties for non-conformity ; the question of " a general assessment for the support of religion," that is of Christianity, was to be decided by a vote of the people. This virtually ended the struggle ; and three years afterwards (1779) the scheme of a gen- eral assessment was rejected. This was followed by the Act for Religious Freedom (1785), which consoli- dated the principles of all the legislation ; and this, in 1802, by the law for the sale of the Episcopal glebes.
This was the final blow. The one hundred and sixty- four church edifices and chapels, in the ninety-five par- ishes, in which ninety-one clergymen officiated, were exempted from spoliation ; but this was disregarded. Churches, donations, sacramental vessels, all were swept away. The Episcopacy seemed to be extinguished as a relic of superstition, and no power on earth appeared strong enough to raise it up again.
From the question of religion the Convention passed to the question of entails. Under that little word there had come to smoulder an immense jealousy. What had once been a mere spark was now fanned into flame. From the earliest times land had been held in Virginia by a tenure in accordance with " the laws within this realm of England." This English law prescribed that the eldest son should inlierit the family estate, which could thus neither be alienated nor encumbered. Jeffer- son now attacked this system, on the grounds that it de- frauded creditors ; was unjust to the rest of the family ;
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THE OVERTURNERS.
and supported an aristocracy. The last was the burn- ing argument, and a modern writer sums up the whole matter in a few words. The great Virginia estates " descended from ancestor to heir, in endless line." The landed proprietor was " lord in his lifetime, and his son in expectancy and legal right." The English courts might cut off entails ; but in Virginia, by an old law of the Burgesses (1705), this was forbidden except by ex- press act of Assembly. Thus Virginia, it was said, had gone a bow-shot beyond class-ruled England ; and un- less the rights of man were to be denied, the system must be done away with.
Such arguments are always popular. It was found useless to urge that the system of entails defrauded no- body ; that those most affected by it fully approved of it ; and that the possession of property from generation to generation, by the same family, is not a public wrong. The greater consideration was behind. Entails sup- ported an aristocracy ; and one of the modern Virginia historians candidly admits that this was the great offense. To permit land to remain in the same family prevented " that equal distribution of property which was the legiti- mate reward of industry," and discouraged the poor from the hope of "ever gaining any part of the property guarded by entail." It seems not to have occurred to the writer that an equal distribution of property is not the legitimate reward of industry ; and that no one, however poor, has the right to hope to gain, which is to covet, his neighbor's possessions. Such a theory is equivalent to the maxim that " property is theft ; " that is to say, a short cut to social chaos. But in times of excitement short cuts are popular : the fact has often been seen in the past, and may become plainer in the future. What
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was evident, in this year 1776, in Virginia, was that the popular will was the strongest. The old régime was to be overthrown, and its enormities abolished. These are summed up, by the writer above quoted, in harrowing sentences: "Coaches drawn by four horses rolled from the doors of the aristocracy. Plate of gold and silver in the utmost profusion glittered on their boards . . . and Mr. Jefferson opened his batteries on this fortress of Virginia pride."
The fortress held out obstinately, refusing to sur- render until the last moment. Jefferson frankly stated afterwards that his object was to " eradicate every fibre of ancient and future aristocracy ; " and Pendleton, the conservative and friend of prescription, led the party opposed to him. It was the decisive wrestle between the past and the future, and the future conquered. Pen- dleton fought to the last and nearly defeated the bill, but seeing that entails were doomed, offered an amend- ment that the tenant in tail might convey, in fee simple, if he thought proper to do so. But the danger of this provision was seen ; the aristocratic sentiment might be counted on. The bill passed without the amendment ; " the axe was applied," exclaims the rejoiceful historian, "and the tree of entails, which had been growing for centuries, was leveled with the ground."
The friends of the new ideas had thus achieved a complete triumph over their old-world opponents. The sudden and immense change in government had been succeeded by as great a change in social affairs. From a royal province Virginia had become a republican com- monwealth ; and now the planters of the House of Bur- gesses who had been the objects of so much denuncia- tion had voted to do away with the last trace of "ancient and future aristocracy."
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The discussion of these great questions, religious and civil, carried the Convention into December. A por- tentous scheme then began to be agitated, growing out of the depression and excitement of the time. In every quarter the outlook was gloomy. There was little to encourage hopes of a successful issue of the conflict with England. Lord Howe had defeated Washington on Long Island and nearly captured his army ; had driven him from New York, which the enemy then proceeded to occupy ; and the Americans were now retreating through New Jersey.
This gloomy state of affairs, in the month of Decem- ber (1776), produced a profound excitement in Virginia. The public mind was agitated by that vague apprehen- sion of hidden danger which accompanies periods of con- vulsion. At such moments even men of strong heads and cool judgments seem to lose control of themselves and place faith in chimeras, - and this now happened. What followed has never been explained and probably never will be; but suddenly the plan was suggested of appointing a Dictator of Virginia. Of the existence of this scheme there can be no question. We have the direct testimony of Jefferson on the subject : " In De- cember 1776," he says, " our circumstances being much distressed it was proposed in the House of Delegates to create a Dictator, invested with every power legislative, executive, and judiciary, civil and military, of life and death over our persons and over our properties." The advocates of the measure, he adds, " had sought this precedent in the history of Rome."
Little further is known of the incident, which made a profound and bitter impression on all classes at that time. It is not denied that the person to be appointed
448 VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
Dictator was Patrick Henry, - but why his authority as Governor of Virginia was considered insufficient we are not informed. There was no Tory party of any strength in the colony. A few citizens had opposed the declaration of separation from England, but they had been promptly dealt with. They were confined in jail, or ordered not to leave their counties, and nothing fur- ther had been heard of them, nor were there any indica -. tions of opposition to the new government. But the plan of the dictatorship was set on foot ; hot passion ruled the hour ; those in favor of it and those opposed to it crossed the street, we are told, to avoid each other ; and Cary of Ampthill, a man of excitable temper, sent his famous message to Henry, that ou the day of his ap- pointment he should fall by his dagger. If a Roman precedent for action were needed there was one for that, - since Brutus had stabbed Cæsar.
The plan was abandoned as suddenly as it had been formed. There is no proof whatever that Patrick Henry approved it or would have accepted the appoint- ment. He was at home in the country from illness and may not even have heard of the scheme. Absurdest of all absurd things would have been the selection of Henry as " temporary tyrant under the name of dictator "-Jef- ferson's phrase in allusion to the plan - when the bur- den of his great speech on the Stamp Act had been that George III. was a tyrant and might meet with the fate of Cæsar. In the absence of nearly all information as to this curious affair, it may be conjectured that the plan came at last to Henry's ears, and that he desired his friends to abandon it.
So ended the year 1776 in Virginia : with great changes in her government and society ; with depres-
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THE HANNIBAL OF THE WEST.
sion, heart-burnings, and antagonisms among her public men ; and before her a future which looked stormy. Washington was retiring, with a handful of men, before the British army ; Congress had fled to Baltimore ; the war was advancing southward ; with the spring Virginia might expect to become the battle-field.
XVI.
THE HANNIBAL OF THE WEST.
VIRGINIA was not to become the field of actual fight- ing until some years afterwards. The enemy had se- lected the north as the scene of their operations, and the Commonwealth was only called upon to supply troops and stores for the Continental army. Her quota had been fixed by Congress at fifteen battalions, of which eight were already in service, and the additional seven about to be organized. The chief importance of Virginia was as a granary of provisions, to supply the necessities of the army, but she was prompt to furnish troops, and was represented upon every battle-field of the struggle. From the very first the spirit of the people had responded ardently to the call to arms. The min- ute-men of the Rappahannock had reflected the general sentiment in pledging themselves to defend not only Vir- ginia but "any sister colony." Volunteer companies sprung up in every quarter and marched with or with- out orders. An instance is the march of Morgan's rifle- men from the Shenandoah Valley to Boston. They were borderers, wearing hunting-shirts with " Liberty or Death " on their breasts in white letters. Washing- ton met them as he was riding along his lines, when
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450 VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
Morgan saluted and reported : "From the right bank of the Potomac, Gencral !" whereupon Washington dis- mounted, and with tears in his eyes went along the ranks, shaking hands in turn with each of the men. From this time to the end of the Revolution the Virginia troops were prominent, and often, as at Brandywine where the Third Virginia remained firm after both its flanks were turned, exhibited the best soldiership. They were es- pecially distinguished in the dark days of the retreat through the Jerseys; bore the sufferings of Valley Forge with unfailing cheerfulness ; and in the next year, and the one following, were the reliance of George Rogers Clarke in his remarkable movements against the enemy in the northwest.
What will now be briefly related was one of the most heroic achievements of an heroic epoch. The incident belongs to the history of Virginia, since the chief actor was a Virginian, his troops were Virginia troops, and the events took place on soil which was a part of Vir- ginia. By her charter she possessed the great extent of country north of the Ohio, and in the winter of 1777 General George Rogers Clarke, a Virginian residing in Kentucky, offered to lead an expedition against the posts of the enemy at Kaskaskia and Vincennes. Clarke was a native of Albemarle ; had commanded a company at the battle of Point Pleasant ; and was at this time about twenty-five. He was tall and powerful in person, a man of courage and ability, and seems to have realized the importance of driving the enemy from the great re- gion beyond the Ohio. He proposed the project to Pat- rick Henry, then Governor of Virginia ; was supplied with money and four companies of Virginia troops ; and in the summer of 1778 marched through the wilderness
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THE HANNIBAL OF THE WEST.
and surprised Kaskaskia, after which he proceeded to Vincennes, and took possession of that fort also. Father Gibault, a French priest, assembled the people in church, assured them that the Americans were friends, the popu- lation " took the oath of allegiance to the Common- wealth of Virginia," and placing a garrison in the fort General Clarke returned to Kentucky.
During the winter intelligence reached him that the fort had been recaptured by the enemy. Colonel Ham- ilton, Governor of Canada, had advanced from Detroit and surprised it; and was said to intend during the spring to also recapture Kaskaskia, and then march southward and invade Kentucky. Upon receiving this intelligence Clarke determined to take the initiative, and by a decisive winter campaign break up the British programme. Colonel Hamilton was very much detested for having offered the Indians a premium for American scalps ; was called for that reason the " Hair-buyer Gen- eral," and the borderers responded with alacrity to the summons to march against him. Clarke set out in Feb- ruary (1779), with one hundred and fifty men and two pieces of artillery ; and a march began nearly unparal- leled in history. The cannon and a detachment were embarked in boats to ascend the Wabash, and Clarke followed with the remainder by land. The country through which they were compelled to pass was a wil- derness, and the weather exceedingly cold; but the troops steadily advanced, and finally reached the point where the White River empties into the Wabash, fifteen or twenty miles from Vincennes. Any further advance now seemed impossible. The low grounds of the Wa- bash were under water to the depth of several feet, and it seemed out of the question to attempt to traverse
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them. Clarke however resolved to make the attempt. He went in advance himself ; the troops followed ; and the hard struggle began.
The water was nearly frozen and often reached to the . breasts of the troops, who were obliged to hold their rifles and powder above their heads as they struggled on. Boats had been provided to succor those who were exhausted ; but the attempt seemed desperate. As far as the eye could see stretched a nearly unbroken ex- panse of water. Here and there were spots of dry land, but they were often five miles apart. The brief state- ment of one who was present is the best description of the scene. On the twenty-third of February they " set off to cross a plain called Horse-shoe Plain, about four miles long, all covered with water breast high. Here we expected some of our brave men must certainly per- ish, the water being frozen in the night, and we so long fasting. Having no other resource but wading this lake of frozen water we plunged in with courage, Colonel Clarke being first. Never were men so animated with the thought of avenging the ravages done to their back settlements as this small army was."
At last the troops succeeded in plunging through, and reached a " hill of dry land," called Warren's Island, where they were nearly in sight of Vincennes, and heard the boom of the "evening gun." From this point Clarke sent forward a messenger who was directed to tell the people that his friends might remain in their homes ; the friends of the King were to " repair to the fort and join the Hair-buyer General." The wading was then resumed until sunset when they were in front of the place. Dividing his force Clarke advanced by the present Levee and Princeton roads, threw up breastworks, and opened fire on the fort.
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THE HANNIBAL OF THE WEST.
The appearance of the Americans was a complete sur- prise to Governor Hamilton. It seemed impossible that any troops could have passed through the " Drowned Lands ;" but there they were. They very much resem- bled devils too, for Clarke had ordered them to blacken their faces with gunpowder ; for what reason we are not informed. Hamilton bravely resisted. He opened with his artillery, and for fourteen hours, and long after night, the wild landscape was lit up by quick flashes. At last the firing ceased and the men slept on their arms. At dawn Clarke summoned Hamilton to surrender at once. If he was obliged to storm the place, he said, the Governor " might depend upon such treatment as is justly due to a murderer." He added in his note to Hamilton : " Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that are in your possession, or hurting one house in town. For by Heaven ! if you do, there shall be no mercy shown you." Hamilton's re- ply was a refusal to surrender ; he was not " disposed to be awed," he said ; and the fighting again began and was kept up obstinately.
But if not overawed the Governor at length lost hope. He sent proposing a truce, but Clarke refused to agree to it. He must "surrender at discretion ; " and Colo- nel Hamilton surrendered (February 25, 1779). The Americans marched in with loud cheers and raised the American flag ; and Hamilton was sent under guard to Williamsburg, in Virginia.1
1 Governor Hamilton enjoyed the bad notoriety of having sent Simon Girty, the renegade white, at the head of five hundred Indians, to de- stroy the settlement at Wheeling, Virginia, in 1777. A sudden attack was made, but the families reached the stockade near, in safety. It was on this occasion that a brave young girl, named Elizabeth Zane, volunteered to bring in a keg of powder from a house in the town, un-
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454 VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
The eapture of Vineennes has been related in detail, as the event was much more important than it may ap- pear. Fourteen hours of fighting between two incon- . siderable bodies of troops had deeided who was to pos- sess the entire region north of the Ohio. At the eon- elusion of peace in 1783, the principle of the uti possede- tis was adopted by the Commissioners, empowering Great Britain and the United States to remain in possession of all the territory which they held at the termination of the war. Under this provision the Northwest terri- tory was claimed by the American Commissioners on the ground of its capture by Clarke, and "the possession of it by the Americans at the date of the conference." The claim was acquieseed in, and the country accordingly fell to the United States.
Clarke received, in honor of his arduous march, the title of the " Hannibal of the West," and his achieve- ment entitles him to a distinet place in American his- tory.
XVII. LAFAYETTE AND CORNWALLIS.
WITH the opening of 1781, Virginia at last felt the pressure of invasion. Hitherto she had eseaped it,
der the Indian fire, and did, so escaping unharmed. The time and place were also made remarkable by the leap of Major McCulloch from a precipice one hundred feet high. It was made on horseback, and horse and rider fell into the water of a creek beneath, and reached the woods in safety under a hot fire from the enemy. These noble old leg- ends are the true glories of American history : the race lives in them, and is best illustrated by them. It was a very great race, and faced peril without shrinking, down to the very boys and girls; and what the long years of the future will remember is this heroic phase, not the treaties and protocols of American history.
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LAFAYETTE AND CORNWALLIS.
though her sea-coast was undefended, the country with- out military posts, and the population drained of its fighting material.
Few events of general interest had marked the years from the beginning of the war. The Assembly had been busy devising ways and means for supplying the Conti- nental army; had enacted that "no more slaves were to be imported into Virginia " (1778) ; and had adopted the singular course of attainting for treason a marauder, named Phillips, who, at the head of a band of outlaws had committed outrages in Princess Anne, alleging that he acted under authority from Lord Dunmore. This plea did not avail him, and he was hung as a traitor, when it would seem that his proper punishment ought to have been as a bandit.
With the exception of these intestine troubles, Vir- ginia remained at peace, although the enemy had landed once or twice and committed a few ravages. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson was elected Governor to succeed Pat- rick Henry, who was no longer eligible, and in the year 1781 came the last scenes of the war on the soil of Vir- ginia.
It is difficult to convey an impression of the gloom and despondency of the country at this moment. We are too much in the habit of remembering Yorktown and forgetting what preceded it. Never had the Ameri- can cause been in a more desperate condition. The country from north to south was nearly in despair. Its entire resources seemed to have been drained from it, and the bravest men began to ask themselves whether it were worth while to continue the struggle. The army was in a wretched condition : they were " poorly clothed, badly fed, and worse paid, some of them not having
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
received a paper dollar for near twelve months ; ex- posed to winter's piercing cold; to drifting snows and chilling blasts, with no protection but old worn-out coats, tattered linen overalls, and but one blanket between three men," according to the report of General Wayne. And worse than all, the enemy had seized the occasion to circulate proclamations among them, inviting them to desert their flag. Even Washington almost despaired, and all his hope now was from a foreign loan. He wrote to Colonel Laurens, American minister at Paris (March, 1781) :-
" Day does not follow night more certainly than it brings with it some additional proof of the impractica- bility of carrying on the war without the aids you were directed to solicit. As an honest and candid man I as- sert this, that without a foreign loan, our present force, which is but the remnant of an army, cannot be kept together this campaign. . . . We are at this hour sus- pended in the balance."
Such was the state of affairs when the enemy deter- mined to invade Virginia. It was singular that they had not done so before. The State was entirely defense- less ; she had stripped herself bare to supply the army with fighting material, and the whole country below the mountains was absolutely unprotected, except by the militia, composed for the most part of old men and boys.
With January (1781), the invasion came. In the De- cember preceding, General Benedict Arnold, who had betrayed André to his death while engaged in betray- ing the American cause, had been placed in command of about seventeen hundred men ; had landed at Ports- mouth in Chesapeake Bay ; and now in the first days
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of January (1781), sailed up James River to Westover, with a force of nine hundred men, and, landing there, marched on Richmoud, twenty-five miles above. There was nothing to oppose him. Baron Steuben, who had the general command of affairs in Virginia, hrad just sent off all the troops he could raise to General Greene ; and Arnold thus reached Richmond almost without re- sistance on the way. He entered the town, which was then a place of about three hundred houses, and was fired on by a body of militia numbering two hundred ; but these retreated up the river, and the place was occu- pied by the enemy (January 5, 1781).
This was long a sore subject with Jefferson and his friends. He was charged, not only with a want of mili- tary ability, and the loss of his self-possession, but with timidity. The last charge is unsupported ; the other criticisms may have been just. But it is difficult to see what more he could have done under the circumstances. He had promptly called out the militia, but the country had just been stripped of men to supply the army in the Carolinas. Only two hundred had assembled, and this force was insufficient to oppose a body of nine hundred regulars. Jefferson seeing that the place was defense- less, threw five pieces of cannon into the river, removed the gunpowder in the town to the arsenal at Westham, some miles above, and then rode down on horseback to watch the further movements of the enemy. Arnold now had possession of Richmond, and proceeded to burn the warehouses and public buildings. A cavalry detachment under Colonel Simcoe was sent to West- ham, where the powder was thrown into the canal and the arsenal burned. During the following night Rich- mond " resounded with the drunken orgies of the sol-
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