Real Life
Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) was born in Norwich, Connecticut, and served as a teenager in the French and Indian War. During the Revolution, he handled himself brilliantly, but became embittered when he was passed over for promotion. When he served as commander of forces in Philadelphia, Arnold was accused of overstepping his authority, and he made matters worse by marrying Margaret Shippen (1779), the daughter of a prominent Loyalist. His new wife, accustomed to affluence, encouraged Arnold to spend freely, and he was soon buried in debt. Arnold was the British as a means of gaining promotion and cash. He offered them a plan to betray the fortifications at West Point, New York, but his treachery was revealed when British Major John Andre was captured in September 1780 carrying the turncoat’s message in his boot. Andre was executed as a spy, but Arnold escaped to enemy lines and was commissioned a brigadier general in the British army. In that capacity, he led two expeditions, one that burned Richmond, Virginia, and another against New London in his native Connecticut. However, he never received all of the career advancement and fortune the British has promised. He went to England in 1781, was plagued by a “nervous disease,” and died in London in 1801.
From Many, One
(1787-1797)
For all intents and purposes, the Battle of Yorktown ended the American Revolution. Yet triumph here did not mean total victory for the Americans. Sir Henry Clinton still occupied key cities, and Britain continued to skirmish in this hemisphere with France and Spain. But Yorktown marked the end of Britain’s will to fight its colonies, and it put America’s treaty negotiators, Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) and John Jay (1745-1829), in a strong bargaining position. They understood that Britain was anxious to pry America free of the French sphere of influence; therefore, they correctly calculated that the British negotiators would be inclined to hammer out generous peace terms. Jay and Franklin obtained not only British recognition of American independence, but also the cession of the vast region from the Appalachians to the Mississippi River as part of the United States.
The treaty also made navigation of the Mississippi free to all signatories (France, Spain, and Holland), restored Florida to Spain and Senegal to France, and granted to the United States valuable fishing rights off Newfoundland. The definitive Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the Continental Congress on January 14, 1784.
Rope of Sand
Drafted in 1777 and ratified in 1781, the Articles of Confederation became the first constitution of the United States. As the document was conceived by John Dickinson (1732-1808) in 1776, it provided for a strong national government. But the states clamored for more rights—especially the power of taxation—and Dickinson’s document was watered down by revision and amendment. Instead of a nation, the Articles created a “firm league of friendship” among 13 sovereign states. The Articles provided for a permanent national Congress, consisting of two to seven delegates from each state (yet each state was given one vote, regardless of its size or population), but did not establish an executive or judicial branch. Congress was charged with conducting foreign relations, declaring war, making peace, maintaining an army and navy, and so on, yet it was essentially powerless, since it was wholly at the mercy of the states. Congress could issue directives and pass laws, but it could not enforce them. The states either chose to comply or not. Miraculously, the Articles held the states together during the Revolution, but it soon became clear that the Articles had created no union, but what various lawmakers called “a rope of sand.”
Northwest Ordinance
Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress enacted at least one momentous piece of legislation. The Northwest Ordinance (July 13, 1787) spelled out how territories and states were to be formed from the western lands won in the Revolution. What was then called the Northwest—the vast region bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and by the Great Lakes—was to be divided into three to five territories. Congress was empowered to appoint a governor, a secretary, and three judges to govern each territory. When the adult male population of a territory reached 5,000, elections would be held to form a territorial legislature and to send a nonvoting representative to Congress. When the territorial adult male population reached 60,000, a territory could write a constitution and apply for statehood. Whereas Britain had refused to make its American colonies full members of a national commonwealth, the Articles ensured that the frontier regions would never be mere colonies of the Tidewater, but equal partners in a common enterprise.
Of equal importance, the Ordinance was the first national stand against slavery. The law prohibited slavery in the territories and also guaranteed in them such basic rights as trial by jury and freedom of religion.
We the People…
Despite the boldness of the Northwest Ordinance, the weakness of Congress under the Articles of Confederation was demonstrated almost daily. For example, the federal government could do nothing to help Massachusetts, which was faced with its own minor insurrection when a farmer named Daniel Shays led an attack on the state judicial system. Nor could the government intervene when Rhode Island issued a mountain of absolutely worthless paper money. In 1786, a convention was held in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss problems of
