XLVI. granted by all the states except Delaware, South Caro- CHAPTER lina, and Georgia; but in several cases the grant was partial or conditional. The grant of the impost, strongly 1786. pressed upon the defaulting states, was presently obtained from Rhode Island, Maryland, and Georgia. New York also yielded to the importunities of Congress, but reserved the collection to her own officers, and made the duties payable in her own newly-issued paper moneyreservations considered by Congress as completely vitiating the grant. 1785. Nov. 28. 1786. Commissioners appointed for that purpose had lately negotiated treaties with the Cherokees, the Choctaws, Jan. 4. and the Chickasaws, by which those nations, acknowl- Jan. 11. edging the sovereignty of the United States, were confirmed in possession of by far the larger part of the present states of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, with portions of Georgia and North Carolina, A treaty had also been formed with the lately hostile Shawanese, by Jan. 31. which they were limited to a tract between the Miami and the Wabash. The Indian bureau was presently re- Aug. 7. organized by ordinance, and made subordinate, as till lately it remained, to the Department of War. Two superintendents were to be appointed, one for the district north of the Ohio, the other for the region south of that river, whose business it was to see that the regulations of Congress were enforced; to keep the Indians quiet by doing them justice; and to prevent those encroachments and that misconduct on the part of the frontier settlers by which Indian hostilities were generally provoked. There was exhibited, indeed, even on the part of the state authorities, a strong disposition to intermeddle with that exclusive control over Indian affairs bestowed upon Congress by the Articles of Confederation. Georgia claimed the right to make treaties of peace and war with. CHAPTER her neighbors, the Creeks, at her own pleasure. North XLVI. Carolina, having undertaken, of her own authority, to as1786. sign boundaries to the Cherokees and to grant a part of their lands, was much offended at the concessions lately made to them. Virginia presently called upon the confederacy to pay the expense of an expedition by the Kentuckians against the Shawanese, undertaken without any authority from Congress. The consent of Congress to accept the cession of Sept. 11. Connecticut, notwithstanding the reservation which she claimed, completed the title of the Union to the lands northwest of the Ohio. This concession to Connecticut was perhaps partially due to her quiet submission to the decision of the federal court in the Wyoming controversy. An ordinance had been reported for the government of the Western Territory, but the surveys and explorations now going on had exposed the total disregard of all local boundaries, and the consequent inconveniences which would result from cutting up the western country into small states, according to the scheme proposed in the Virginia act of cession, adopted in that of Massachusetts, and sanctioned in Jefferson's accepted report. Virginia and Sept. 29. Massachusetts were therefore called upon to modify their cessions, so as to allow the division of the country northwest of the Ohio into three or five states, at the option of Congress. Aug. 3. The estimate for the current year, including the payment of two installments of the foreign debt, falling due on the first of January following, amounted to $3,777,000, and that sum was accordingly required of the states, $1,606,000 of it being made payable in indents. The requisition of the last year still remained in a great part unpaid. Rhode Island had made her Continental taxes receivable in lately-issued paper money, which XLVI. circulated at a great discount. New Jersey positively CHAPTER refused to pay at all till New York consented to the federal impost. Though persuaded to recall this re- 1786. fusal, she made no provision for collecting the money. Pennsylvania objected to pay, on the ground that a disproportionate amount had been assigned to her; South Carolina claimed credit for supplies furnished to Greene's army in 1782 and 1783, a part payment, as she alleged, of the eight million requisition of 1781. The unsettled condition of the state accounts allowed each state to set up the old pretense of being already in advance of her just proportion. To get rid of this excuse, a measure was proposed in Congress, and completed at the next session, for bringing the several state accounts to a close, by the appointment of commissioners with full powers for that purpose. But, as the proposed amendment to the Articles of Confederation touching the ratio of distribution had as yet been agreed to by only eleven states, and as the appraisement required by the original articles had never been made, even after the accounts were all settled, it would still remain impossible to strike the balance between the respective states and the Union. The emptiness of the federal treasury did not prevent Congress from exercising the power conferred by the Ar- Aug. 8. ticles of Confederation to regulate the currency and coinage of the country. The dollar, being the coin most common and best known in America, was taken as the money unit; and that decimal scale was now adopted, so superior to all other monetary subdivisions. Originally proposed by Jefferson during his short membership of Congress, it was now preferred to a more complicated scheme suggested by Gouverneur Morris. A mint was presently established, but the poverty of Congress allow- Oct. 10. ed no coinage except a few tons of copper cents. CHAPTER Troubles meanwhile were breeding with Spain in relation to boundaries and the navigation of the Mississippi 1786. a matter of great prospective importance to the rising settlements of Kentucky and Tennessee, and not without its effect, also, on the value of the federal lands northwest of the Ohio. Spain denied the competency of Great Britain to cede to the United States territory conquered and occupied by Spanish troops. She still held the settlements about Natchez, and she claimed that Florida, to which, by her treaty of peace with Great Britain, she had regained the title, extended on the Mississippi as far north at least as the mouth of the Yazoo-a fact con ceded, as she alleged, by the secret article in the treaty between Great Britain and the United States. Nor would she allow any claim to the navigation of that part of the Mississippi within exclusively Spanish territory. On the departure of Jay, Carmichael had remained at Madrid as American chargé des affaires. Some of fense had been taken by that proud court at the representation there of the United States by a minister of such inferior rank, and it was only on the remonstrances of La Fayette that Carmichael had been allowed to remain. 1785. Spain presently sent as minister to the United States M. July. Gardoqui, a Spanish merchant, and the negotiation had been renewed between him and Jay as secretary for foreign affairs. Meanwhile the jealousy of the southern states, particularly of Georgia, was greatly excited by the negotiation of a close treaty of alliance between the Spanish authorities of Florida and the Creeks, to whom belonged all the eastern part of the present state of Alabama, and all that part of the present state of Georgia west of the Altamaha and Oconee Rivers. The set tlers on the Cumberland were severely harassed by the Creeks, supplied with arms and ammunition, and stim ulated to hostilities, as was alleged, by French and Span- CHAPTER ish traders. The five XLVI. Aug. For the sake of peace, an arrangement of bounda- 1786. ries with Spain, and a treaty of commerce which was very much desired, the delegates in Congress from the northern states were willing to relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi for a limited period of twenty-five or thirty years. The delegates of the seven northern states approved a plan of that sort submitted by Jay. southern states warmly opposed it; and they insisted that, under the Articles of Confederation, no authority could be given to make such a concession without the vote of nine states. The same feeling animated the southern Legislatures, and the southern and western people; and a great sectional jealousy was aroused as to the intentions of the northern and eastern states. The seizure by the Spanish garrison at Natchez of some American boats descending the Mississippi produced a great excitement among the western settlers. Great Britain still delayed to send a minister to the United States; nor had any progress as yet been made by Adams at London toward a settlement of the points in dispute. As the obstacles to the recovery of British debts were not yet removed, the British still retained the western posts. In New York, however, the Trespass Act of 1783 was declared void by the Supreme Court, as being in conflict with the British treaty a decision procured by the efforts of Hamilton, who had engaged in the study of the law subsequently to the peace, and had already risen to decided eminence at the bar. This decision at first raised a loud clamor; but Hamilton ably defended it in a series of newspaper essays. One large portion of the wealthy men of colonial times had been expatriated, and another part had been impovIII.-G G |