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(adopting, as their hasty statement put it, "the laws of God and Connecticut, until we have time to frame better”). This "Vermont" was not "recognized" by Congress or by any State government; but, in 1777, it adopted a constitution with manhood suffrage.

Military

III. CONGRESS AND THE WAR

England's task was a difficult one, even if she had had only America to deal with. Great Britain had then eight million people, -or about three times as many as problems the colonies had. But she had to wage war across three thousand miles of ocean in an age when it took eight or ten weeks to cross and when no ship carried more than four or five hundred people. The Americans, too, inhabited a large and scattered territory, with no vital centers. To conquer it, an invading army must hold much of it at one time. At one time or another, English troops held Boston, New York, Newport, Philadelphia, Savannah — but never more than one or two at once.

Lack of

union in America

The first great danger to the colonies lay, not in England's strength, but in American disunion. The Revolution was more of a civil war than was even the great "Civil War" of 1861. In 1776 every community was divided, and neighbor warred on neighbor. In New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia the Loyalists were a majority, and in the colonies as a whole they made at least every third man. They came mainly from the commercial, capitalistic, and professional classes, always timid regarding change, and from the easy-going, well-contented part of society. On the whole, they represented respectability and refinement. Society was moving rapidly: not all could keep the same pace. In July, 1776, the line was drawn. Men who that month stood where Washington or Jefferson had stood seven or eight months before (page 211) were Tories.

The other great danger to America was the inefficiency of Congress. Even with every third man siding with England,

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if we had had a central government able to gather and wield our resources, the British armies could have been driven into the sea in six months. From their 500,000 able- Inefficiency bodied White males, the Americans should have of Congress put in the field an army of 100,000 men. But if we leave out the militia, which now and again swarmed out for a few days to repel a local raid, the Continental forces hardly reached a third that number at any time. For the greater part of the war, indeed, the American armies numbered only about 10,000 men, and at times they sank to 5000.

Even these few were ill-paid, ill-fed, and worse clothed. And this, not so much from the poverty of the country, as from lack of organization. As John Fiske well says, in referring to the dreadful sufferings of Washington's army at Valley Forge, which "have called forth the pity and admiration of historians":

"The point of the story is lost unless we realize that this misery resulted from gross mismanagement rather than from the poverty of the country. As the soldiers marched on the seventeenth of December to their winter quarters, their route could be traced on the snow by the blood that oozed from bare, frost-bitten feet. Yet, at the same moment, . . . hogsheads of shoes, stockings, and clothing were lying at different places on the route and in the woods, perishing for want of teams."

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Fortunately the English commanders were of second or third rate ability. Lord North is reported to have said of them, "I don't know whether they frighten the enemy, but I am sure they frighten me." Among the Americans, the war developed some excellent generals of the second rank, Greene, Arnold, Marion, but many officers were incompetent or self-seeking or treacherous. After the first months, the faithful endurance of the common soldier was splendid. Said one observer, "Barefoot, he labors through Mud and Cold with a Song in his Mouth, extolling War and Washington." Yet at times even this soldiery was driven to conspiracy or open mutiny by the jealous unwillingness of Congress to make provision for their needs in the field or for their families at home.

George

Out of all this murkiness towers one bright and glorious figure. Pleading with Congress for justice to his soldiers, shaming or sternly compelling those justly dissatisWashington fied soldiers to their duty, quietly ignoring repeated slights of Congress to himself, facing outnumbering forces of perfectly equipped veterans when his own army was a mere shell, Washington, holding well in hand that fiery temper which still, on occasion, could make him swear "like an angel from heaven," was always great-minded, dignified, indefatigable, steadfastly indomitable; a devoted patriot; a sagacious statesman; a consummate soldier, patient to wait his chance and daring to seize it: the one indispensable man of the Revolution.

supplica

tion"

The best excuse for the misrule of Congress was its real weakness and its consequent feeling of irresponsibility. In all internal matters, it was limited to The " government of recommendations; and the States grew to regard its requests more and more lightly. It asked men to enlist, offering bounties to those who did so; but often it found its offers outbid by the State governments to increase their own troops. It had no power to draft men into the ranks: only the State governments could do that. So, too, in the matter of finances. Congress could not tax: it only called on the States for contributions, in a ratio agreed upon. Such contributions, even when reinforced by the loans from France, were not more than half of the amount necessary to carry on the war.

At the very beginning, Congress was forced to issue paper money. Each scrap of such money was merely an indefinite Continental promissory note from Congress to "bearer." In currency five years, printing presses supplied Congress with $241,000,000 of such "Continental currency";1 and, with this, perhaps $50,000,000 worth of services and supplies were bought. (After depreciation began, even with a new issue Congress could not get nearly a dollar's worth of supplies for

1 So called to distinguish this currency put forth by the central government from similar issues by the States. The State currency amounted to $200,000,000 more; but most of it had more value than the Continental paper.

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a paper dollar.) Congress itself had no power to compel people to take this currency; but, at the request of Congress, the States made it legal tender. The people, however, had little confidence in the promise to repay. In 1776 (when only twenty millions had been issued), depreciation set in. In 1778, a dollar would buy only twelve cents' worth of goods. In 1781 Thomas Paine paid $300 for a pair of woolen stockings, and Jefferson records a fee of $3000 to a physician for two visits. "Not worth a continental" became a byword. Before the close of 1781, this currency ceased to circulate except as speculators bought it up, at perhaps a thousand dollars for one in coin. A mob used it to "tar and feather" a dog; and we are told of an enterprising barber who papered his shop with Continental notes.

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All this meant a reign of terror in business. Men who, in 1775, had

loaned a neighbor $1000

in good money were

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compelled, three or four A CONTINENTAL BILL, from the original in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections. years later, to take in

payment a pile of paper almost without value, but named $1000. Prices varied fantastically from one day to another, and in neighboring localities on the same day. Wages and salaries rose more slowly than prices (as is always the case), and large classes of the people suffered exceedingly in consequence.

But it must be remembered that this "cheap money" was the only money Congress could get. If a "note" had ever been repaid, it would have been in reality a "forced loan." Since it never was repaid, it amounted to a tax, or a confiscation of private property for public uses, the tax being paid, not by one man, but by all the people through whose hands it passed. A sold a horse to the government for one

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hundred dollars in paper currency; when he passed the paper on to B, he received perhaps only ninety dollars in value for it. Ten dollars had been taken from him by tax, or confiscation. B perhaps got only seventy dollars' worth for the money; so he had been "taxed" twenty dollars. The government had secured the horse for a piece of paper, and eventually the horse was paid for by the various people in whose hands the paper depreciated. Such taxation was horribly wasteful and demoralizing; but it was the only kind of tax to which the people would have submitted in the amount required. Without the paper money, the Revolution could not have been won.

The War in '77-'78

The critical years of the war were '77 and '78. In 1777 Howe invaded Pennsylvania. Washington maneuvered his inferior forces admirably. He retreated when he had to; was robbed of a splendidly deserved, decisive victory at Germantown only by a mixture of chance and a lack of veteran discipline in his soldiers; and, after spinning out the campaign for months, went into winter quarters at Valley Forge then to grow famous for heroic suffering. Howe had won the empty glory of capturing "the Rebel Capital," -where he now settled down to a winter of feasting and dancing; but Washington had decoyed him from his chance to make safe Burgoyne's invasion from Canada, and so crush the American cause. Lacking the exBurgoyne's pected coöperation from the south, Burgoyne capture proved unable to secure the line of the Hudson, and was forced to surrender to the incompetent Gates.

This capture of an entire English army turned the wavering policy of France into firm alliance with America against her ancient rival. From the first, the French government had furnished the Americans with money and supplies, secretly and indirectly; and many adventurous young noblemen like Lafayette, imbued with the new liberal philosophy of Rousseau, had volunteered for service under Washington. Franklin had been acting as the American agent in Paris for some months without formal recognition.

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