CHAPTER V. A CALL ON THE ARMY TO INTERPOSE. JANUARY-MARCH 1783. In the fall of 1782 the main army was moved for winter quarters to the wooded hills in the rear of Newburg. No part of the community had undergone equal hardships or borne injustice with equal patriotism. In the leisure of the camp they brooded over their wrongs and their chances of redress, and at the close of the year the officers sent to Philadelphia as their committee Major-General Macdougall and Colonels Ogden and Brooks, who, in their address of the sixth of January 1783, used these words: "To the United States in congress assembled: We, the officers of the army of the United States, in behalf of ourselves and our brethren the soldiers, beg leave freely to state to the supreme power, our head and sovereign, the great distress under which we labor. Our embarrassments thicken so fast that many of us are unable to go farther. Shadows have been offered to us, while the substance has been gleaned by others. The citizens murmur at the greatness of their taxes, and no part reaches the army. We have borne all that men can bear. Our property is expended; our private resources are at an end. We therefore beg that a supply of money may be forwarded to the army as soon as possible. "The uneasiness of the soldiers for want of pay is great and dangerous; further experiments on their patience may have fatal effects. There is a balance due for retained rations, forage, and arrearages on the score of clothing. Whenever there has been a real want of means, defect in system, or neglect in execution, we have invariably been the sufferers by hunger and nakedness, and by languishing in a hospital. We beg leave to urge an immediate adjustment of all dues. "We see with chagrin the odious point of view in which the citizens of too many of the states endeavor to place the men entitled to half-pay. For the honor of human nature we hope that there are none so hardened in the sin of ingratitude as to deny the justice of the reward. To prevent altercations, we are willing to commute the half-pay pledged for full-pay for a certain number of years, or for a sum in gross. And in this we pray that the disabled officers and soldiers, with the widows and orphans of those who have expended, or may expend, their lives in the service of their country, may be fully comprehended. "General dissatisfaction is gaining ground in the army, from evils and injuries which, in the course of seven long years, have made their condition in many instances wretched. They therefore entreat that congress, to convince the army and the world that the independence of America shall not be placed on the ruin of any particular class of her citizens, will point out a mode for immediate redress." The grand committee to whom the memorial was referred held a conference with the superintendent of finance. He declared peremptorily that it was impossible, in the present state of the finances, to make any payment to the army, and that it would be imprudent to give assurances with regard to future pay until funds that could be relied upon should be established. Not only had he no money in hand, but he had overdrawn his account in Europe to the amount of three and a half millions of livres. He therefore asked a decision on the expediency of staking the public credit on further drafts to be met by the contingent proceeds of a loan from the Dutch and by the friendship of France. On the tenth of January, congress, under an injunction of secrecy, authorized the superintendent to draw bills on the credit of applications for loans in Europe. Dyer of Connecticut alone opposed the measure as unwarranted and dishonorable, but allowed the resolution to be entered as unanimous.* * Gilpin, 248-252, 299; Elliot, 21, 22, 38; Secret Journals of Congress, i., 253. In an interview with the grand committee on the evening of the thirteenth,* the deputies from the army explained that, without an immediate payment of some part of the overdue pay, the discontent alike of officers and soldiers could not be soothed; that a mutiny might ensue; and that it would be hard to punish soldiers for a breach of engagements to the public which the public itself had already flagrantly broken. "The army," said Macdougall," is verging to that state which, we are told, will make a wise man mad." It was a source of irritation that the members of the legislatures never adjourned till they had paid themselves fully, that all on the civil lists of the United States regularly received their salaries, and that all on the military lists were as regularly left unpaid. † The deputies animadverted with surprise and even indignation on the repugnance of some of the states to establish federal revenue for discharging federal engagements, while the affluence of the people indicated adequate resources. Speaking with peculiar emphasis and making a strong impression by his manner, General Macdougall declared "that the most intelligent part of the army were deeply touched by the debility of the federal government and the unwillingness of the states to invigorate it; in case of its dissolution, the benefits expected from the revolution would be greatly impaired; and the contests which might ensue among the states would be sure to embroil their respective officers." Hamilton had for himself renounced the half-pay. The grand committee, in their report which he drafted, advised some payment to the army as soon as possible; for the rest, they were to have no priority over other creditors; all were to wait alike for the funding of the whole debt of the United States by general revenues. The officers were to have the option of preserving their claim to half-pay as it then stood, or accepting a commutation. + "A great majority of the members of congress," avowed Robert Morris, "will not adopt the necessary measures because they are afraid of offending their states;" and he un * Gilpin, 256, 257; Elliot, 23. + Gilpin, 256-258; Elliot, 23, 24; Washington to J. Jones, Sparks, viii., 370. ‡ Hamilton, i., 274; Gilpin, 276, 277; Elliot, 29, 30. dertook to drive them to decisive action. Accordingly, on the twenty-fourth, the day on which the report was taken up, he sent to them his resignation of office in these words: "The funding the public debts on solid revenues, I fear, will never be made. If before the end of May effectual measures to make permanent provision for the public debts of every kind are not taken, congress will be pleased to appoint some other man to be the superintendent of their finances: I will never be the minister of injustice." The design of Robert Morris required the immediate publication of his letter, that, by uniting the army with all other creditors, congress and the states might be coerced into an efficient system; but congress reasoned that this authoritative statement of the financial ruin of the country would encourage the enemy, annihilate foreign and domestic credit, and provoke the army to mutiny. They therefore placed the communication under the injunction of secrecy.* Resuming the consideration of the report of their grand committee on the memorial from the army, they referred a present payment to the discretion of the superintendent of finance; and, on the fifth of February, he issued a warrant, out of which the officers received one month's pay in notes and the private soldiers one month's pay in weekly instalments of half a dollar. + The annual amount of the half-pay promised to the officers for life was nearly five hundred thousand dollars. The validity of the engagement was questioned. The grant was disliked by the common soldiers; it found no favor in the legislature of Massachusetts; the delegates of Connecticut and Rhode Island were instructed to oppose it altogether. To avoid defeat, this article was laid over till there should be a fuller representation. Delegates from the states in which chiefly held hoped for efficient coPennsylvania was the largest credit the domestic debt was operation from the army. or; Massachusetts ranked next; South Carolina, Georgia, and * Diplomatic Correspondence, xii., 325-328. Report of the deputies in Sparks, viii., 552. Gilpin, 274, 275; Elliot, 29. pay was 253,232.86 dollars. Old account-books in Treasury department. Waste book D, Ledger B. MS. Gilpin, 281, 321; Elliot, 81, 45. Delaware were the lowest; Virginia was but the ninth, holding less than New Hampshire and not half so much as Rhode Island. The zeal for the equal support of all classes of public creditors culminated in those states whose citizens originally owned nearly four times as much as those of all the six southern states, and by transfers were constantly acquiring more.* Adopting unanimously a resolution which Hamilton had prepared, congress pledged itself to consider immediately the most likely mode of obtaining revenues adequate to the funding of the whole debt of the United States.† Encouraged by this seeming heartiness, Wilson of Pennsylvania, on the twenty-seventh, proposed "the establishment of general funds. to be collected by congress." To the dismay of the friends of a general revenue, Theodorick Bland of Virginia interposed and officially presented the act of his state repealing the grant of the impost, and a resolution of both its houses declaring its present inability to pay more than fifty thousand pounds Virginia currency toward the demands of congress for 1782.# The debate, nevertheless, went on. Gorham of Massachusetts suggested polls and commerce as most proper objects of taxation. Hamilton, discussing the subject in a comprehensive manner, spoke for permanent sources of revenue which should extend uniformly throughout the United States, and be collected by the authority of congress. Dyer strongly disliked the appointment of collectors by congress; the states would never consent to it. Ramsay of South Carolina supported Gorham and Hamilton. Again Bland placed himself in the way, saying: "The states are so averse to a general revenue in the hands of congress that, even if it were proper, it is unattainable." He therefore advised congress to pursue the rule of the confederation and ground requisitions on an actual valuation of houses and lands in the several states. At this stage of the discussion, an efficient reply could be made only by one who was of Virginia. To Randolph, then in Richmond, Madison had already written: "Virginia could never have cut off the impost at a more unlucky crisis than Gilpin, 364, note; Elliot, 60. Gilpin, 277, 280; Elliot, 30, 31. * Gilpin, 282, 285; Elliot, 32. # Resolution of 28 December 1782, in Journal of the Delegates, 80, 90. |