Chapter VI

"SHAYS'S REBELLION"--KENT ON MASSACHUSETTS--CONDUCT OF A NORTHERN GOVERNMENT TO NORTHERN REBELS--THE "WHISKY INSURRECTION"--HOW WASHINGTON TREATED A REBELLION--SECESSION OF NEW-ENGLAND BIRTH--THE WAR OF 1812--BANCROFT ON 1676--THE BACONISTS--AN APPEAL.

By the last of March General Sherman had entered Goldsboro, and effected his long meditated junction with General Schofield. He himself at once proceeded to Southern Virginia to hold a conference with General Grant, while the grand army lay quiet a few days to rest, recruit, and prepare for its further advance. Leaving them there, I venture to make a digression, suggested by the concluding lines of the preceding number of these sketches--a digression having for its object the consideration of the present policy of the Federal Government toward vanquished rebels, as compared with its policy in former cases of rebellion against its authority, even more inexcusable and unprovoked.

Chancellor Kent, adverting to the first rebellion against the government of this country, known in history as "Shays's Rebellion," pays the State of Massachusetts the following well-merited compliment on her conduct upon its suppression: "The clemency of Massachusetts in 1786, after an unprovoked and wanton rebellion, in not inflicting a single capital punishment, contributed, by the judicious manner in which its clemency was applied, to the more firm establishment of their government." (Com. on Am. Law. Vol. i. p. 283.) What were the circumstances of this first rebellion?

In 1786, the Legislature of that State laid taxes which were expected to produce near a million of dollars. The country had just emerged from the war of the Revolution in an exhausted and impoverished condition. Litigation abounded, and the people, galled by the pressure of their debts and of these taxes, manifested a spirit of revolt against their government. From loudly-expressed complaints they proceeded to meetings, and finally took up arms. They insisted that the courts should be closed; they clamored against the lawyers and their exorbitant fees, against salaried public officers; and they demanded the issue of paper money. The Governor of Massachusetts, John Bowdoin, convened the Legislature, and endeavored to allay the general and growing mutiny by concessions; but the excitement still increasing, the militia were ordered out, and Congress voted a supply of thirteen thousand men to aid the State Government. The leader of the insurrection was Daniel Shays, late a captain in the Continental army. At the head of one thousand men he prevented the session of the Supreme Court at Worcester, and his army soon increasing to two thousand, they marched to Springfield, to seize the national arsenal. Being promptly repulsed by the commandant there, they fled, leaving several killed and wounded. General Lincoln, at the head of four thousand militia, pursued them to Amherst, and thence to Pelham. On his approach they offered to disperse on condition of a general pardon; but General Lincoln had no authority to treat. They then retreated to Petersham. Lincoln pursued, and pushing on all night through intense cold and a driving snow-storm, he accomplished an unprecedented march of forty miles, and early next morning completely surprised the rebels in Petersham, taking one hundred and fifty prisoners, and dispersing the rest so effectually that they never rallied again. Many took refuge in New-Hampshire and the neighboring States, where they were afterward arrested on requisition of Massachusetts. This ill-sustained and wanton rebellion was easily quelled. Fourteen of the prisoners were convicted of treason, but not one was executed, and the terms of pardon imposed were so moderate that eight hundred took the benefit of them. Prudence dictated this moderation and clemency, for it was known that at least a third of the population sympathized with the rebels. It was a significant fact that at the ensuing election, Governor Bowdoin, who had distinguished himself by his zeal and energy, was defeated, and other public officers who had been especially active against the rebels lost their seats, and were replaced by more popular men. Daniel Shays lived to a good old age, and died still in the enjoyment of his revolutionary pension.[6] Such was the generous policy of a Northern government to Northern rebels in the first rebellion.

The second rebellion, commonly called the "Whisky Insurrection" of Western Pennsylvania, assumed more formidable proportions, and was instigated by even more sordid and inexcusable motives. In 1784, the distillers of that part of the State were resolved to deny the right of excise to the Federal Government. The excise law, though very unpopular, had been carried into execution in every part of the United States, and in most of the counties of Pennsylvania; but west of the Alleghany the people rose in arms against the Government officers, prevented them from exercising their functions, maltreated them, and compelled them to fly from the district, and finally called a meeting "to take into consideration the situation of the western country." They seized upon the mail, and opened the letters to discover what reports had been sent of their proceedings to Philadelphia, and by whom. They addressed a circular letter to the officers of the militia in the disaffected counties, calling on them to rendezvous at Braddock's Field on the first of August, with arms in good order, and four days' provisions, an "expedition," it was added, "in which they could have an opportunity of displaying their military talent, and of serving the country." This insurrection was headed by David Bradford, the prosecuting attorney for Washington county, and was secretly fomented by agents of the French Republic, who desired nothing better than to see the downfall of Washington's administration, and the reign of anarchy inaugurated on this continent. A large body of men, estimated at from five to ten thousand, met on the day appointed at Braddock's Field. Bradford took upon himself the military command. Albert Gallatin (lately a rejected United States Senator, on the ground that he had not been a resident of the State the length of time prescribed for foreigners) was appointed Secretary. "Cowards and traitors" were freely denounced, and those who advocated moderate measures were over-awed and silenced. The rioters then marched to Pittsburgh, which they would have burned but for the conciliatory conduct of the people of the town. They burned the houses of several obnoxious men, compelled them to leave the country, and then dispersed. It had been Bradford's design to get possession of Fort Pitt, and seize the arms and ammunition there; but not being supported in this by the militia officers, he had abandoned it. All the remaining excise officers in the district were now forced to leave. Many outrages were committed, houses burned, citizens insulted, and a reign of terror completely established.

The news of this formidable and wide-spread insurrection reaching Philadelphia, the President issued a proclamation reciting the acts of treason, commanding the insurgents to disperse, and warning others against abetting them. This was the first of such proclamations ever issued in this country, and was no doubt the model proposed, to himself, and followed by President Lincoln in 1861. But Washington, at the same time, appointed three commissioners--a member of his cabinet, a Pennsylvania United States Senator, and a judge of the Supreme Court in that State--to repair to the scene of action, confer with the insurgents, and make every practicable attempt toward a peaceful adjustment. The policy of calling out the militia was discussed in the Cabinet. Hamilton and Knox were in favor of it. Randolph opposed it, and so did Governor Mifflin, who was consulted, on the ground that a resort to force might influence and augment the excitement and unite the whole State in rebellion. Washington finally determined to take the responsibility on himself and act with vigor, since if such open and daring resistance to the laws were not met and checked at once, it might find many imitators in other parts of the country, then so agitated and unsettled. The commissioners having failed to come to any satisfactory terms with the rebels, the opinion rapidly gained ground that the interposition of an armed force was indispensable. A body of fifteen thousand militia was called out from the States of Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and the whole force put under the command of Governor (and General) Henry Lee, of Virginia,[7] the father of _our_ General Robert E. Lee. The news that this army was on the march materially increased the numbers and influence of the moderate party in Western Pennsylvania. The Standing Committee of the insurgents met and recommended submission, which was ably and zealously advocated by Albert Gallatin and Breckenridge. Nothing decisive was agreed upon, and pending another convention, many of the ring-leaders fled from the State; David Bradford, who had been foremost among them, being the first to seek safety in flight to New-Orleans.

A resolution of submission was passed at the second convention, and a committee of two, one of whom, Findley, was a member of Congress, appointed to convey it to the President at Carlisle. The President received this committee courteously, but the march of the troops was not arrested. A third convention being held, and resolutions to pay all excise duties and recommending the surrender of all delinquents having passed, General Lee issued a proclamation granting an amnesty to all who had submitted, and calling on the people to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Orders were issued and executed to seize those offenders who had not submitted, and send them to Philadelphia. Of those who were tried before the Circuit Court, only two were found guilty of capital offenses, one of arson and the other of robbing the mail; and both were ultimately pardoned by the President. In less than four months from the burning of the first house, the insurrection was completely defeated, and entire order restored. A force of twenty-five hundred militia was retained in the disaffected district during the ensuing winter, under command of General Morgan. Provision was made to indemnify those whose property had been destroyed, and an appropriation of more than a million of dollars was made by Congress to defray the expenses incurred. Albert Gallatin, who was then a hardly naturalized foreigner, notwithstanding the part he had taken in the earlier stages of the rebellion, by his subsequent moderate counsels had regained the confidence of the Government, and being the choice of the people of that district, was elected to the next Congress, taking his seat without any opposition or word of rebuke. His subsequent brilliant career is now part of our national history. Findley, who was a member of Congress at the time of the outbreak, and was at one time prominent among the sympathizers, though he acted at no time with decision, did not forfeit his seat by his participation in the revolt. He appeared in his place in Congress the ensuing November. He afterward wrote an elaborate history of the insurrection and a vindication of himself and his friends. According to him the troops sent to quell the rebellion would have left more emphatic tokens of their desire for vengeance on the rebels, "if it had not been for the moderation of Washington and his resistless weight of character in the execution of his purposes."[8]

The prompt, energetic, and efficient measures of the Administration in arresting the progress of this revolt, and its magnanimity and moderation toward the offenders afterward, contributed very materially to strengthen the Government at a critical period of its existence, to give it dignity and influence, and to rally round it the best affections of the people. And its patience and forbearance had been somewhat tried by the State of Pennsylvania in those days. There had been many symptoms of instability in the "Keystone" of the newly-erected arch of civil liberty. There were two examples of mutiny among the Pennsylvania troops during the Revolution, and two popular insurrections in regard to the excise laws, and this one had opened with the exhibition of a temper ferocious and reckless. The estimate by the Administration of the danger of the rebellion in 1794 may be inferred from the fact that the number of troops called for to suppress it was greater, in proportion to the then population of the United States, than the call made by President Lincoln in 1861 to the present population. In 1790, the white population of the United States was 3,172,464. The troops called out in '94 were 15,000. In 1860, the white population was 26,690,206. Troops ordered out, 75,000. The proportion in 1794 was greater, according to these figures, in the ratio of 389 to 354, without allowing for increase from 1790 to '94. And the magnitude of the danger did indeed fully justify all the apprehensions and precautions of the guardians of the state. The young republic was but newly formed, the Government scarcely settled. Many prominent and able men in different parts of the country were turning admiring eyes toward France in her wild career, others toward some vision of a monarchical form. Emissaries from the distracted states of the Old World were prompt and zealous to foment discords and disturbances, and precedents were wanting every day to meet new issues that arose continually. The situation needed all the wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity of the illustrious man called by Providence to guide the first steps of a great nation.

Does any one hesitate to believe that if we had had a Washington for President in 1860 and 1861, the late war would never have taken place; that secession would never have been accomplished? How vigorous and yet how conciliatory would have been the measures. The seventy-five thousand would no doubt have been called for, but commissioners of peace to the "wayward sisters" would have preceded them. In our day it was the insurgents who sent commissioners. The best men of the South were a month in Washington City, vainly endeavoring for a hearing, vainly hoping for some oiler of conciliation or adjustment, and deluded by promises from the highest officials that were never meant to be fulfilled.

Does any one doubt what would have been Washington's conduct of the grand army through its unparalleled and immortal march of triumph? Even had he not been guided by Christian principles of honor and humanity, he would at least have emulated the example and shared the glory of the noble heathen of whom it was said: "_Postremo signa, et tabulas, ceteraque ornamenta Græcorum oppidorum, quæ ceteri tollenda esse arbitrantur, ea sibi ille ne visenda quidem existimavit. Itaque omnes quidem nunc in his locis Cn. Pompeium sicut aliquem non ex hac urbe missum, sed de ælo delapsum, intuentur._"[9]

And finally, can any one doubt what his policy would now be toward the people so lately in arms against their Government? Alas! to him alone, first in war and first in peace, can the whole of the splendid eulogy of the Roman orator to the great captain of _his_ day be fittingly applied: "_Humanitati jam tantâ est, ut difficile dictu sit, utrum hostes magis virtutem ejus pugnantis timuerint, an mansuetudinem victi delixerint_."[10]

Just twenty years from the time of the second rebellion, the third, and by far the most evil-disposed, malignant, and far-reaching expression of hostility to the General Government was organized. The Hartford Convention indeed never proceeded so far as to make an appeal to arms, but the spirit that suggested it, and the temper displayed by its leaders, give it undoubtedly the best claim to have inaugurated the hateful doctrine of secession.

The war of 1812 with England was, in general, excessively unpopular in the New-England States. Their commerce was burned; their fisheries were broken up, and their merchants and ship-owners, who constituted the wealthiest and most influential class among them, were heavy losers. The Administration had always been unpopular with them, and now its policy of embargo, non-importation, non-intercourse, and finally of war, were sufficient to rouse them into active opposition. This was manifested in various ways; in the annual addresses of their governors; in reports of legislative committees; in laws to embarrass the action of the Federal Executive, as, for instance, forbidding it the use of any of their jails for the confinement of prisoners of war, and ordering all their jailers to liberate all British prisoners committed to their keeping; in refusing to contribute their quota of men for the support of the war, and even to allow them to march beyond the limits of their own State. The spirit of disaffection was diligently cherished by the leaders, and went on increasing in bitterness and extent till a convention was proposed and agreed upon. On the 15th of December, 1814, there assembled in the city of Hartford twelve delegates from Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island, three county delegates from New-Hampshire, and one from Vermont. They sat with closed doors till the 5th of January, 1815, when they adjourned, having issued a report setting forth their grievances and aims. The following extract from a report of the proceedings of the Legislature will exhibit the spirit that prevailed through the State:

"We believe that this war, so fertile in calamities, and so threatening in its consequences, has been waged with the worst possible views, and carried on in the worst possible manner, forming a union of wickedness and weakness which defies, for a parallel, the annals of the world. We believe also that its worst effects are yet to come; that loan upon loan, tax upon tax, and exaction upon exaction, must be imposed, until the comforts of the present and the hopes of the rising generation are destroyed. _An impoverished people will be an enslaved people._" Of the right of the State to prevent the exercise of unconstitutional power by the General Government, they had no doubt. "A power to regulate commerce is abused when employed to destroy it, and a voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance as much as a direct and palpable usurpation. The sovereignty reserved to the States was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign, and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, or to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthorized enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and to wrest from the oppressor its victim. This is the spirit of our Union."

The manifesto of the Convention did not, could not, use stronger language. After proposing seven amendments to the Constitution, and giving reasons for their adoption, they disclaimed all hostility to that Constitution, and professed only to aim to unite all the friends of the country of all parties, and obtain their aid in effecting a change of Federal rulers. Should this be hopeless, they hinted at the "necessity of more mighty efforts," which were plainly set forth in their resolutions, and everywhere understood to refer to a secession of the five New-England States, their consolidation into an independent government of their own, or alliance with England.[11]

The time chosen for such a display of enmity to the Union was most opportune for the purposes of the traitors. A war with a foreign foe, and that foe the most powerful nation on earth, was in progress; the Administration was greatly embarrassed; the country was rent with fierce party factions. What would be the issue no human wisdom could foresee; but that the ruin of the country was not then effected, can not be attributed to the patriotism of the New-England States. Three commissioners, appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, to whom Connecticut added two others, proceeded to Washington to lay their resolutions and applications before the Government. But, most happily, news of the treaty of Ghent and consequent peace arriving at the same time with these envoys, their mission became the theme of unsparing taunt and ridicule in the papers, and they returned home without disburdening themselves of their object. Thus the third rebellion was snuffed out by events; but its sparks were blown far and wide by viewless winds, and effected a lodgment where, though smothered for a generation or two, they yet burned in secret, and at length burst out in the great conflagration of 1860, which lit the whole horizon and dyed the very heavens with its crimson. The principles of the Hartford Convention were the seeds of nullification and secession.

The eminent historian from Massachusetts records in glowing pages the stifling of the earliest throbs of civil and religious liberty on this continent in 1676. The earliest martyr in the Bacon Rebellion against monarchical tyranny was William Drummond, the first Governor of North-Carolina. His name is written on the beautiful sheet of water that lies within the tangled brakes of the great swamp on the borders of the land he loved and served so well. In that rebellion the women (as at this day) shared the popular enthusiasm. "The child that is unborn," said Sarah Drummond, "shall rejoice for the good that will come by the rising of the country." She would not suffer a throb of fear in her bosom, and in the greatest perils to which her husband was exposed, she confidently exclaimed, "We shall do well enough," and continually encouraged the people and inspired the soldiers with her own enthusiasm. When Edmund Cheesman was arraigned for trial, his wife declared that but for her he never would have joined the rebellion, and on her knees begged that she might bear the punishment. Yet these devoted people saw the cause for which they had risked and lost every thing in the dust, overthrown, and trampled upon with vindictive fury by the triumphant royalists. In the judicial trials that followed, a rigor and merciless severity were exhibited, worthy of the gloomy judge whose "bloody assize," ten years later, on the western circuit of England, has left an indelible blot on her history. Twenty-two were hanged; three others died of cruelty in prison; three more fled before trial; two escaped after conviction. Nor is it certain when Sir William Berkeley's thirst for blood would have been appeased if the newly convened assembly had not voted an address that the Governor "should spill no more blood." On Berkeley's return to England he was received with coldness, and his cruelty openly disavowed by the government. "That old fool," said the kind-hearted Charles II., "has taken more lives in that naked country than I for the murder of my father."[12]

"More blood was shed," adds the historian, "than, on the action of our present political system, would be shed for political offenses in a thousand years." Alas! for the sunny South, the scorched and consumed South, alas for her! that the prediction of the great American historian is not history!

Considering this rebellion in the perspective afforded by nearly two hundred years, it is easy for us to understand how the severity with which it was punished by the fanatic old royal Governor only drove the entering-wedge of separation between the mother country and her colonies in America deeper. The principles of Bacon and his party had obtained a great hold on the popular mind; and though for years all tendency to a popular government appeared to be crusted out and forever silenced, yet they were there, in the hearts of men, silently growing, nurtured by a deep sense of injustice and wrong, and biding their time. Just a century from the suppression of the "Baconists," the Declaration of Independence was adopted; Sarah Drummond's words were verified, and Bacon and Drummond and Cheesman and Hansford were amply avenged.

It is to such pages of history as these that I would turn the attention of our Northern friends now. Here they may see how the Father of his country dealt with his wayward children. How a prompt and dignified and successful assertion of the rights of the Federal Government were followed by leniency and generous and prudent forbearance such as a great government can afford to show, and by which it best exhibits its strength and its claims to the love and veneration of its people. Here they may see how a brutal gratification of vengeance, a lust of blood, like the tiger's spring, overleaps its mark. The hardest lesson to be learned is moderation in the hour of triumph; the greatest victory to be achieved is the victory over self.

Where now are the Bowdoins, the Hancocks, the Dexters, the Ames, the Websters of Massachusetts? Has she no statesman now capable of rising to the magnanimity which characterized her early history? Has thrice revolting and thrice pardoned Pennsylvania no representative man who can rise to the height of the great argument, and vindicate the cause of a country pillaged and plundered and peeled to an extent of which the history of civilized humanity affords us no parallel? Is there no one now to stand up and advocate for Southerners the same measure of forbearance and generosity that was shown by a Southern President to Northern rebels?

"O thou that spoilest and wast not spoiled, that dealt treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee!" haste to the work of reconciliation and to build up the waste places! Even now on our thresholds are heard the sounds of the departing feet of those who in despair for their country, hopeless of peace or of justice, are leaving our broad, free, noble land for the semi-civilized haciendas of Mexico or of far-off tropical Brazil. Even now are their journals scattered freely among us--invitations, beckonings, sneers at the North, flattery of the South, fair promises, golden lures, every inducement held out to a high-hearted and fainting people to cast their lot in with them. Haste to arrest them by some display of returning fraternity and consideration, ere for them we raise the saddest lament yet born of the war: "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History of the United States, vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the United States, first series, vol. iii. chap. 45.]

[Footnote 7: My readers will remember the reference in the second chapter to the capture by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff on Haw River, while engaged in satisfying the claims of a countryman for forage. No member of General Sherman's command is known to have suffered a surprise under similar circumstances. Certainly not in this region!

Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the selection of General Lee as commander of the forces.]

[Footnote 8: Tucker's History, vol, i. chap. 7. Hildreth's History, second series, vol. i. chap. 7.]

[Footnote 9: "Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of Grecian cities, which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he indeed thought that they ought not even to have been looked at by him. Therefore now all the inhabitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey as one not sent from this city, but descended from heaven."]

[Footnote 10: "Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has become hard to say whether his enemies feared his valor more when they were fighting, or loved his humanity more when they were conquered."]

[Footnote 11: Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii. chap. 29.]

[Footnote 12: Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14.]