1 Stern Functions of the State lations? What interpretation would be put on the words of the national Constitution, that " The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States "? What conflict was latent in the fact and the condition of free negroes? American democracy, at the opening of the nineteenth century, gave little sign that it was conscious of the impending changes in the political estate which were to be effected in recognition of the rights of free persons of color. As yet no political party intimated that such persons had rights which democracy was bound to respect. From this brief survey of one aspect of the political estate at the opening of the new century, it appears that government, in American democracy, was at this time in the hands of the few who were conventionally restrained from political wrong-doing by social, religious, and property qualifications. The mass of the population was excluded from the estate. Yet few escaped taxation. The value of property, not the votes of electors, controlled the democracy of the day. Property was the electoral check and balance. What did the State do for the people? It is easier to tell what it did not do. It did not give them free schools, free hospitals, or free asylums. Its penal code was punitive, not remedial, save in Pennsylvania. Commerce, trade, and transportation were monopolized by individuals, and, as yet, competition but slightly benefited the public. The poor-house was the common receptacle for the insane, the imbecile, the orphan child, and the aged and decrepit pauper. Government of this kind fostered streaks of class and petty social distinctions. The landless, the laboring class, the mechanics, and the young apprentices were at the bottom; the landholders, the well-born, the merchants, the doctors, the ministers were high in the scale. The new wine of democracy was flowing over the country and a counter-revolution was at hand. Who was to gather together the masses and consolidate the disaffected into a powerful party? Who would advocate the extension of the suffrage, the abolition of property and religious tests? How long before democracy, the masses, would be demanding a share in the political estate? Thus, as the new century opened, though the power of property was in the saddle, the democracy of men was at hand. Unless America should be a government of men, the theories of the eighteenth century would have to be abandoned, and the new governments, in nation and commonwealth, would fail for lack of men. If all men were created equal, then the mass of provincial legislation which the commonwealths inherited must be in large measure discarded. New laws, consistent with the dominant ideas of democracy, must be made. The resolution of the New Hampshire Congress, eight months before the Declaration of Independence was written, was a hint of the way men were going and of impending changes in the organization of society. CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST MIGRATION WEST AMONG the fireside stories of the old Northwest none is more frequently told than that of General Wayne's victory over the Indians at Maumee,* his treaty with them at Greenville,† and how the defeated savages were forced to give up their lands to the whites. From that day the Western country could be travelled in safety, and immigrants could take up lands. For nearly a century and a half England and France had struggled for this region, and their struggle came to a strange ending. The brooding mind of Pontiac, "King and lord of all the Northwest," had conceived the terrible plot, only twenty-two years before, to drive the English over the Alleghany Mountains, and destroy every white person found west of Chautauqua Lake. Traditions of Pontiac's conspiracy still linger in the Northwest. From the day of Wayne's victory Indian attacks were no longer feared in Western Pennsyl * August 20, 1794. The treaty at Greenville, August 3, 1795, opened to settlement the country from Cleveland westward and southwestward, within the "Wilderness Road" shown on the map of the United States, 1796. See Map opposite p. 158. vania and in Eastern Ohio. Beyond Fort Wayne the country was infested by hostile tribes, and other victories must be won before it could be open to settlement. Wayne's victory was speedily followed by the settlement of the lake shore from Black Rock to Detroit. Western New York and the greater part of the Triangle in Pennsylvania were claimed by the Holland Land Company. Speculation in land was one of the chief vices of the time. Individuals and companies expected to reap fabulous wealth from the rise in land values. Before the eighteenth century closed every acre of land which Wayne's victory had brought within reach of immigration was entered in some scheme of speculation. Of the best of these companies the Harrisburg and Presque Isle was a type. It was formed on the 13th of August, 1796,* by ten men, who, under a written compact styled a constitution, agreed to pay, severally, the sum of two hundred pounds, as common stock, to be expended "in the purchase of in and out lots in the towns of Erie and others, and of lands in the State of Pennsylvania, north and west of the Ohio and Alleghany rivers." The purchases were at Erie. Waterford, and Franklin. In Erie the company paid from three to eighteen dollars for lots on Holland, German, State, French, and Parade streets, below Seventh; for the corner lot at Second and German, and for the opposite corner, "on the road to the Fort," two hundred and sixty * See Forster's Manuscript Letter-book for account of this company. |