Sunday, December 8, 2024

ARP335 State of Franklin

335 State of Franklin

Last week, we covered the Continental Congress’ focus on setting up some form of governance for what would be called the Northwest Territory. There were, however, other western territories whose fate was still undecided. This week, we’re going to talk about another of those western territories that was proclaimed the state of Franklin.

Land Grab

North Carolina had some basis for a land claim that reached all the way to the Mississippi River. Most of its population, however, lived near the coast. Settlers had moved as far west as the Appalachian mountains, but few had crossed those mountains into what was regarded as Cherokee Territory.

Like all of the new states, North Carolina was deeply in debt from the costs of fighting the war. The Continental Congress was encouraging states to cede western lands as a way of providing an asset to pay off war debt.

The North Carolina state legislators had a different idea. They argued that the Cherokee had given up any legal claims to the land since they had backed the British during the war. In April 1783, the legislature opened up millions of acres of western lands for the bargain price of 10 pounds per 100 acres. The money could be paid using specie certificates. These were certificates issued during the war that could be exchanged for gold or silver at some later time. Since the state did not have that specie, it offered certificate holders this land in exchange.

Part of the problem with this is that most people had already sold their certificates at a discount to speculators who had paid them pennies on the dollar. These speculators, many of whom were also legislators, or their friends and relatives, had the inside track on western land purchases. Land buyers, mostly insiders, bought up four million acres in a matter of months. The Act that permitted this quickly became known as the Land Grab Act.

Overmountain Men

At the time, all this was happening, there were already quite a few settlements in these western lands. Those who had settled there were known as the Overmountain men. These men had played a critical role, not only in keeping the Cherokee contained and not overrunning the rest of North Carolina, they had also played an important role in fighting the British, particularly at Kings Mountain.

The state owed many of these men money for their wartime service, but had not paid them, not even with those paper specie certificates that they could have used to buy western lands. Instead, the insiders were able to buy up the land before the war debts got paid.

In the spring of 1784, groups of Overmountain men petitioned the state legislature for payment of the money owed to them from the war. The easterners, of course, preferred not to pay and accused the Overmountain men of fabricating claims that would have to be paid off through higher taxes on the larger eastern population.

Land Cession

Instead, in May, 1784, the legislature shut down the land office that was selling western lands. A few weeks later, it voted to cede 29 million acres west of the Alleghenies to Congress to form new western territories. They did not do this out of the goodness of their heart. They were hoping to use thig grant to pay of debts that they owed to congress, and also to reduce the overall valuation of the state since Congress was assessing payments of debt based on the total value of the state. This gave them the additional argument that they were no longer liable for the claims made by the Overmountain men since those men were no longer part of North Carolina. This was now land controlled by Congress, and Congress should be responsible for paying off the war debts for defending it.

The legislature also voted to renege on making promised payments to the Cherokee as compensation for any claims they still had to the land. When these payments stopped, the Cherokee began attacking the frontier settlements again, killing settlers and looting property.

Since Congress had not yet accepted this land, the settlers living in the region had no government protection from either the state or Congress. They were on their own.

Jonesboro Convention

In August, local community leaders from Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties met in Jonesboro to come up with a new government for the region. They opted to form a new state, separate from North Carolina. They would name the new state "Franklin" in honor of Benjamin Franklin.

There are no good records of the convention. The only information we have consists of documents that were written at a later time.

The delegates elected John Sevier as the convention president. I’ve discussed Sevier in earlier episodes. He was a leader among the Overmountain men. He had fought in Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774, and was a colonel of militia during the American Revolution. One of his more notable contributions was as one of the commanding officers at King’s Mountain. Most of Sevier’s combat experience came as an Indian fighter. In recent years, he had led several campaigns against the Chickamauga who were fighting under Dragging Canoe.

Sevier had also served in the North Carolina legislature during the Revolutionary War. He had grown frustrated by the Assembly’s unwillingness to protect the interests of the Overmountain men. They would not open any courthouses in the west, and provided little support for the continued fighting with the Indians on the frontier.

At the convention, several delegates made speeches for secession and forming an independent state. One delegate read from a copy of the Declaration of Independence and then explained that many of the same reasons that caused the colonies to seek independence from Britain also applied to their need to be independent of North Carolina. The delegates voted unanimously in favor of independence.

Delegates then voted on rules for holding a Constitutional Convention a few months later. They agreed to select delegates based on the size of militia companies. They also agreed to send a delegate to the Continental Congress in New York to enter into negotiations to join the union as the fourteenth state. There was also some debate about whether portions of southwestern Virginia should be included as part of the new state of Franklin.

Delegates also voted that sheriffs and tax collectors should hold any public monies already collected for North Carolina and not send the money east until a proper accounting and division of money could be made. The delegates would return home to let the people vote on new delegates for a constitutional convention that would meet in December.

Repeal of Cession

Even before the August meeting was over, officials in North Carolina were expressing concerns about what was happening. The independence movement in the west was based on North Carolina’s decision to cede these western lands to Congress. The vote to cede these lands had been a close one, with many of those on the losing side feeling very strongly that this was a mistake.

Over the summer of 1784, new delegates were elected to the North Carolina legislature. Western independence was the big issue in many campaigns. Quite a few delegates who had voted for the cession were replaced by opponents of cession.

When the new legislature met in October, both the assembly and the Senate voted to reconsider the cession of western lands and voted decisively to repeal the cession. Of course, there were no delegates from the western counties present, since they had already declared their independence.

A large minority of delegates objected to these votes on the age-old rule of “no take-backs”. As one delegate put it, “the grant by the act of cession is irrevocable on the part of the State, and therefore the repeal is disgraceful.”

There is no specific reference to the independence votes that had taken place in Jonesboro, but the delegates were likely well aware of the independence movement in the west. To help mollify the situation, the delegate voted to create a judicial district for the western counties, something they had demanded for a long time. They also voted to form the western militia into a new brigade, naming John Sevier as the new brigadier general in command of this militia.

Constitutional Convention

While the eastern part of the state was trying to undo everything and go back to being one big happy state again, the westerners were moving forward with their plans for Independence. Following elections, the western delegates met in Jonesboro again in December. Once again, they elected John Sevier to preside over the convention.

Again, the delegates voted on independence. Perhaps based on North Carolina’s decision to repeal the land cession and pass conciliatory measures for the western counties,, the vote was not unanimous this time. Even so, the vote “forming ourselves into a separate and distinct State, independent of the State of North Carolina” won the vote 28 to 15.

The convention voted on a constitution for their new state, that was quite similar to that of the North Carolina Constitution. The document began with a declaration of independence. The declaration cited North Carolina’s decision to cede their lands left them without a government. It noted the state’s failure to provide resources sufficient to keep the Indians on the frontier contented, thus resulting in threats to their communities. They also noted how far removed they were from the eastern part of the state, and separated by a mountain range.

After the declaration, came a 25 part bill of rights. It was very similar to the North Carolina Bill of Rights, calling for a government derived from the people, with separation of powers, rule of law, free elections, due process - including bail, warrants, and jury trials, the right to bear arms, fore a free press and free assembly, the right to worship God according to one’s own conscience, regular elections, a ban on emoluments and monopolies, and the right of the people through their representatives to enact laws that “encourage virtue & suppress vice and immorality.”

Following the bill of rights was the new state constitution. Once again, they borrowed very heavily from the North Carolina Constitution, setting up a Senate and House, a governor, and an independent judiciary. One important change they made was the elimination of a property requirement to vote for members of the House, and a greatly reduced property requirement to vote for the Senate. It also reduced the property requirement to be eligible to serve as governor. By and large, the constitution was the same as North Carolina’s. The westerners were not looking for a very different government, just one of their own.

This may have been more a matter of convenience, wanting to get something in place quickly. The delegates also provided that there would be a second convention a year later to decide whether to make this constitution permanent or to make amendments that the people wanted.

The New Government

Following elections under the new constitution, the new elected assembly met in March, 1785 in Jonesboro. One of their first actions was to select John Sevier as the state’s governor.

I've mentioned Sevier several time at the head if several of these conventions. But he was not a leading advocate of the independence movement. In fact, after he learned that North Carolina had repealed its land cession and offered him a commission as a brigadier general, he seemed to make efforts to have the counties rejoin North Carolina. This included trying to stop the elections.

Despite his reluctance on the issue of independence, Sevier was the most respected leader in the new state, and was elected governor. Believing it his duty to carry out the will of the people, Sevier took office and organized his administration.

The new assembly passed laws establishing that private property claims under the laws of North Carolina would continue to be respected by the Franklin government. It divided the three counties to create a total of seven counties in the new state, including Sevier county, named for the new governor. The legislature established a state militia and a public school system, appointed very government officials and allowed for the circulation of North Carolina currency. It established property taxes and poll taxes to fund the state government and established salaries for the governor and other state officials.

Perhaps the biggest issue for the new government was dealing with its neighbor, North Carolina, which refused to accept Franklin’s independence. North Carolina Governor Alexander Martin, hoping to avoid an all-out war, sent a letter to Governor Sevier, who he addressed as General Sevier.

He sent Major Samuel Henderson, who had lived on the frontier for many years to deliver the letter. Martin also wanted Henderson to give him some intelligence about what was happening. There was still some debate over whether the Franklin government had acted based on the land cession that had been repealed and might be convinced to return to North Carolina rule. Henderson also had instructions to put together a list of names of leaders of the new government and get a sense if this was the work of a few powerful men, or a more broad based movement.

Henderson arrived in Jonesboro, finding the Franklin Assembly in session. He presented his letter to Sevier, who then turned it over to the Assembly. Martin’s letter essentially said North Carolina offered the ceded territory to Congress for financial reasons that Congress was not willing to accept. Therefore, the cession was reversed and you guys are all still part of North Carolina.

The Franklin Assembly responded to the letter with one of their own, again citing the rule of “no take-backs.” They did not care if the reasons for the initial land cession weren’t right. The fact was that North Carolina had declared that these lands were not part of North Carolina and that they had every right to form their own government. The response also complained about North Carolina simply using these western counties as a place to collect tax revenue, without ever providing government services or assistance with Indian conflicts. They ended the letter by quoting their own declaration of independence and asserting that Franklin was, and would remain, an independent state.

Fight for Statehood

Governor Martin realized that the western counties were not going to submit peacefully. In April of 1785, he released a Manifesto to the people of western North Carolina that they were being led astray by designing men and that their revolt against the government of North Carolina would not be tolerated. Martin appealed to them not to abandon the North Carolina that they had fought for during the Revolution. If they had complaints about North Carolina’s rule, they could talk about reforms. Independence, however, was off the table. He called on the people to accept North Carolina’s rule, or he would be forced to do so by military force and civil war.

North Carolina printed and circulated Martin’s manifesto to the western counties. In response, Franklin Governor Sevier printed his own proclamation, calling the manifesto an attempt to spread sedition and stir up insurrection against the Franklin government.

That summer, the people of Franklin reelected Governor Sevier. The people of North Carolina replaced Governor Martin with Richard Caswell, who had also served as governor during the Revolutionary War. The new governor took a softer tone, distancing himself from Martin’s Manifesto. He did, however, write to Sevier after taking office in June, 1785, hoping they could address the western counties political concerns and restore political harmony under North Carolina’s government. He was not ready to recognize Franklin’s independence either.

Franklin’s leaders continued to press their case. That spring, they had sent William Cocke to New York to petition the Continental Congress to accept North Carolina’s cession of land and to admit Franklin as the 14th State in the Union. Cocke was the ideological father of Franklin. When Governor Sevier had waffled on the issue of independence, Cocke had convinced him to remain firmly in support of the state and to accept the governorship. Cocke was a lawyer. He owned a large plantation in Franklin, and had served in the North Carolina assembly before independence.

Knowing North Carolina’s opposition, the Continental Congress tried to table the request to accept North Carolina’s land cession, despite the repeal. Seven states voted to consider the matter. After some debate, supporters could not get the support of two-thirds of the states to adopt the resolution. Instead, they passed a resolution asking North Carolina to reconsider its repeal of the land cession.

Encouraged by the apparent support of the majority of states in the Union, the people of Franklin continued their fight for Independence. After a second annual election in the summer of 1785, a new session of the Franklin legislature met.

As the first Constitutional Convention had provided, a second constitutional convention met that fall. The Reverend Samuel Houston offered up several amendments including a ban on office holders who engaged in swearing, gambling, drunkenness, or breaking the sabbath. He also wanted a legislature of just a single house, and a rule that all laws must be printed and circulated to the public before they could be voted into law. I should mention that this Sam Houston is not related to the Sam Houston who later became governor of Tennessee and later Texas.

The convention voted down these changes, but the dispute led to a public fight, with both sides publishing pamphlets to promote their views. One pamphlet was even ordered burned by the court after finding it to be “treasonable, wicked, false, and seditious libel.” Despite the controversy, the old constitution remained largely intact.

For the next few years, Franklin continued to operate as an independent state. North Carolina never conceded independence. Like Vermont, Franklin operated as a sovereign state but was denied membership in the Union. Governor Sevier made treaties with the Cherokee, encouraged immigration from neighboring states, and helped the new state to continue to grow.

Next week, we continue the discussion of westward expansion as the Congress finalizes the treaty of Fort McIntosh and the Land Ordinance of 1785.

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Next Episode 336 Treaty of Fort McIntosh (Available December 15, 2024)

Previous Episode 334 Land Ordinance of 1784

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Sunday, November 17, 2024

ARP334 Land Ordinance of 1784

With the Revolutionary war having come to an end, the Continental Congress still needed to deal with issues related to promises made to the Continental Army. Part of those promises would be dealt with by giving veterans western lands To do that, it needed to deal with conflicting state claims to western lands.

States Cede Territories

Back in 1763, London had tried to prevent western migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Prior to that, British colonial charters had been vague on western borders, or sometimes clearly in conflict with other charters. Part of the reason for this is that Britain wanted to push western claims as far as possible when it was competing with French claims from Quebec. As a result, states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Virginia all had documents that pushed far into the west, by some interpretations, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The newly ratified treaty of Paris set the western border at the Mississippi River. That left the question as to what to do with all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, where Spanish control began.

Jefferson's Proposed New States

During the debates over ratification of the Articles of Confederation, states without claims to western lands demanded that all states cede these claims in order to prevent small states from being overwhelmed by larger neighbors who claimed large portions of North America. The result of part of this was Maryland’s refusal to ratify the Articles until Virginia ceded much of its claims to western lands. Maryland demanded that these western lands be ceded to the United States with all other states abandoning their claims to the land.

Despite these demands, Virginia opened up a land claims court in Kentucky. It also had people like Colonel George Rogers Clarke on the ground claiming lands along the Mississippi, in what is today Illinois, as Virginia territory. The impasse remained for years, until Virginia finally agreed to give up its claims to land north of the Ohio River on the condition that all states ratify the Articles of Confederation. This left only what is today West Virginia and Kentucky within Virginia’s state borders. Finally, because of this concession in 1781, Maryland ratified the Articles, bringing them into effect.

Even after that, Congress had trouble negotiating details of various state borders and making sure all other state claims were turned over to Congress. New York fought for some time to condition its cession on the guarantee that the other states would recognize its claims to Vermont. Virginia was still focused on border disputes in the southwest corner of the state which conflicted with claims from North Carolina. There were also claims of private land companies which also might pose legal problems for Congress.

Eventually, New York dropped the condition of other states agreeing to its claim of Vermont. It did not drop the Vermont claims. It simply said it wouldn’t hold up the western land issue until the Vermont issue was resolved. Virginia similarly did not condition its border dispute with North Carolina on its cession of lands north of the Ohio River.

The Congressional Committee trying to resolve all matters also tried to get concessions from Massachusetts and Connecticut that they would give up claims to these lands as well. Both states failed to give such an assurance for several years.

Return of Jefferson

I’ve mentioned before that many of the more distinguished delegates to the Continental Congress had left by the end of the war. One big reason for this was the imposition of term limits. The fact that delegate pay could not even cover living expenses also meant that those who were not independently wealthy often had to find some other job that would help pay the bills.

One notable name that did return to Congress around this time, was Thomas Jefferson. The young Virginian had been a delegate early in the war, when he penned the Declaration of Independence. Shortly afterward, he returned to Virginia.

The end of the war was also a pretty low point in Jefferson’s life. He had left the office of the Governor in the summer of 1781, after getting pretty universal low marks for his term of office. Voters were particularly unhappy with his handling of the British invasion of the state and the government’s inability to mount an effective defense.

Jefferson spent the next two years as a private citizen. He devoted much of his time to his plantation, and to writing his Notes on the State of Virginia. During the summer of 1782, domestic tragedy came in the form of his wife Martha becoming gravely ill and bedridden. She had given birth to her seventh child that May and never seemed to recover. In September, she died.

Jefferson had remained with Martha through her illness. He had been asked several times to serve as a foreign minister in France, but refused to leave his wife. After her passing, Congress once again asked him to go to France to work on the peace treaty. This time, Jefferson agreed. He left his two younger daughters with relatives, and took his eldest, ten year old Patsy, to accompany him to Europe.

They hoped to catch a ship to France from Baltimore, but found the harbor frozen so that no ships could leave. Instead, Jefferson headed to Philadelphia. There, he stayed in a boarding house with Virginia delegate James Madison. Jefferson occupied his time by reading up on the secret correspondence between Congress and the American Peace delegation in France.

Jefferson and Madison knew each other before this, but became closer during this time. Jefferson encouraged Madison in a love interest during this time. The 32 year old bachelor had become infatuated with Kitty Floyd, the 15 year old daughter of New York Delegate William Floyd, who was living in the same boarding house as Jefferson and Madison. With Jefferson’s encouragement, Madison and Floyd became engaged.

Shortly after that, word arrived in Philadelphia that the Peace Commissioners had agreed to a preliminary peace treaty with Britain. This resulted in both Jefferson’s and Madison’s plans being thwarted. With the treaty already finalized, Jefferson saw no reason to go to France and decided to return home to Virginia.

The news of the peace treaty also caused Floyd to take his family back to Long Island for the first time since the British had captured the island seven years earlier. Kitty, having turned 16, went back to New York with her father. While separated from her fiancé, Kitty fell in love with a medical student and broke off her engagement with Madison.

After Jefferson returned home, the Virginia legislature voted for Jefferson to serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress in June, so Jefferson planned his return to Philadelphia once again. Before he could leave Virginia, Congress moved to Princeton following the mutiny of Continental Soldiers in Philadelphia in late June. Jefferson headed north in November, but went to Philadelphia around the same time that Congress was preparing to move to from Princeton to Annapolis. It seems that Jefferson did make a showing in Princeton to take his seat in Congress, but he very quickly returned to Philadelphia.

While in Philadelphia, Jefferson met up again with Madison and found a tutor for his daughter Patsy. Leaving his daughter in Philadelphia, Jefferson and Madison left for Annapolis in late November, planning to arrive just before the opening of the new session of Congress there.

Jefferson seemed to be on the same page as Madison, believing that the Articles of Confederation needed to be strengthened, with more power over the states. Jefferson had been assigned to a committee to ratify the final peace treaty. I mentioned a few episodes back that the treaty had arrived in November, and had to be ratified and sent back to Europe by March 3, 1784. Jefferson wrote repeatedly about his frustration that Congress could not get nine state delegations to show up and ratify the treaty in a timely manner.

Once the delegates finally showed up in January, 1784, and ratified the treaty, Jefferson could focus more on other issues. During this time, he regularly corresponded with George Washington. The former general asked Jefferson’s advice about The Society of the Cincinnati. Jefferson thought Washington should distance himself from the Society. Jefferson also encouraged Washington to get more involved in a project that would link the Potomac and Ohio Rivers, believing that trade with the west would be a key commercial center of growth in the post-war era.

Governing Western Lands

While Jefferson and Washington were considering how to link Virginia to the Northwest territories, Jefferson also sat on the Congressional committee that was deciding how this territory would be governed.

By the time Jefferson arrived in Congress in late November, 1783, various committees and advisors had already put forward quite a few suggestions on how to handle the new territories. While he was in Princeton, awaiting the evacuation of New York, George Washington had suggested that much of the area be established as one or two large inland states, which would be areas being opened to white settlement while other areas being reserved for the Indian tribes that lived in the region.

There also had been a debate on how the territories would be governed. Congress would institute a temporary government that would remain in place until the territories had a population sufficient to form its own state government. At that time, the people could apply to Congress for statehood and admission to the union as an equal partner to the existing states. There was no serious consideration of keeping the territories in a perpetual colonial status. There was, however, a debate over the process by which they became states.

There would have to be some period of time when Congress governed the region directly. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts offered an amendment to ensure that Congress would be solely responsible for governing the territory. Individual states would have no direct say over the region.

Samuel Huntington of Connecticut offered another amendment which required that the new governments be based on republican principles. The people could not choose to form a monarchy or a dictatorship. David Howell of Rhode Island wanted a slightly different solution, giving the residents a greater say in the initial government to the people who lived there. This was voted down since Congress did not really trust the frontiersmen who made the initial settlers to be capable of establishing a government under republican principles and respectful of the rights and liberties of the people. Congress would have to control the region until a sufficient population settled and created real civilization to form a proper state government.

When Jefferson arrived, he was given the chairmanship of a succession of committees that were responsible for sorting out these issues. By February of 1784, Jefferson was working on a committee with Howell, as well as Jeremiah Chase of Maryland. By that time, it seemed that the committee had already worked out most of the details, but it took several more weeks before the committee issued its final report.

Land Ordinance of 1784

In March 1784, Jefferson’s committee issued its report. Around this same time, Congress formally accepted the Virginia session of western territories that today make up Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.

While initial proposals suggested that settlers define the actual borders of the new territories, Jefferson disagreed with this approach. His final report suggested drawing relatively straight lines through the territory, creating a series of rectangular shapes without regard to natural boundaries.

The report mapped out about ten states and gave all of them names. A few of the state names are similar to ones actually used, like Michigania and Illinoia. Another was named after the hero of the Revolution (Washington) and another for a critical event in the war (Saratoga). The rest of the state names seemed to flow from Jefferson’s imagination, combined with his appreciation for Greek and Latin: Cherronesus, Sylvania, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.

Within each territory, the settlers could establish their own constitution and laws, and that when the population of the territory reached 20,000, they could hold a state convention to establish a temporary constitution. When the population grew to be the size of the least populous state already in the Union, it could apply for statehood. At the time, the least populous state was Delaware, with a population of around 50,000.

The report also recommended that slavery be banned from the new territories beginning in 1800. This change would have required the support of nine states. In the end, only eight supported the prohibition on slavery. Maryland, South Carolina voted against this. Virginia’s delegation left Jefferson in the minority and also voted against it. North Carolina’s delegation was divided and, therefore, could not support it. New Jersey did not have a full delegation present to vote.

Jefferson later wrote about the absence of one New Jersey delegate whose illness prevented the adoption of the prohibition on slavery “Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment.” The debate, however, did have a strong impact on Jefferson. Around this same time, he also submitted a draft constitution to the Virginia Assembly which would have ended slavery by granting freedom to the children of any slaves born after 1800. We touched on this issue a couple of weeks ago. The notion of abolition in Virginia was, of course, rejected.

He wrote later that he would no longer risk his “usefulness” fighting against slavery. Although he retained his concerns on the matter, and continued to write against it privately, he realized that such issues would hold him back in politics, and would also make it more difficult for him to champion many other policies.

Debate over the bill continued for nearly two months. The final ordinance which Congress adopted on April 23, 1784, mostly relied on the principles set forth by the committee.

The new state would be required to remain forever part of the United States. They would be subject to the Articles of Confederation and all laws passed by Congress. Congress would remain in charge of all lands until sold. New states would be liable for their share of repaying all of the public debt that Congress had to repay. New states could not impose a tax on land owned by the United States. Any governments created had to be republican. Non-residents could not be taxed on land at a higher rate than residents.

Territories could send a delegate to Congress for purposes of debate, but could not vote until admitted as a state with the approval of two-thirds of the existing states. Until new territories had been established, Congress would remain the sole authority over laws for the region.

The final ordinance left out the exact borders of each state, as well as the names that the committee had recommended, but it did include language spelling out the use of straight lines and maintaining relatively small states.

With the controversial provision about slavery removed, the Ordinance passed easily. Only one state voted against the ordinance, South Carolina.

Further Plans

Jefferson also thought that western plans should go beyond the territories already ceded. He was making plans for western territories south of the Ohio River, on lands that were still claimed by Virginia, as well as the Carolinas and Georgia. He wrote to Madison, who had returned to the Virginia Assembly at the beginning of 1784, urging him to get the Assembly to cede additional western lands, so Congress could form new territories. He also wrote to George Washington, expressing the same hope.

Part of the reason for this is that Jefferson did not want states so large that there were different regional interests within the state. Smaller states would remain more homogenous and more likely to maintain a republican government that did not attempt to force policies on unwilling minorities in distant parts of a state. Because settlers in the western parts of Virginia had different interests than those in the east, it made sense for them to form their own states.

Jefferson’s interest in the west, however, would be set aside after the passage of this ordinance. A few weeks later, in May, Congress appointed Jefferson to join Adams and Franklin in France as part of a larger effort to establish more alliances and trade agreements in Europe.

Jefferson almost immediately submitted his resignation to Congress. He spent the next few weeks preparing for his departure, collecting his daughter Polly from Philadelphia, and bringing with him to Europe one of his teen aged slaves, James Hemings, to be trained as a French chef in Paris. James was the half brother of Jefferson’s wife Martha, but because his mother was a slave, he remained a slave.

Jefferson made his way to Boston. On July 5, after celebrating America’s eighth Independence Day, he boarded a ship for France.

The Ordinance Languishes

Although the Land Ordinance of 1784 made some progress toward resolving how the western territories would evolve, there was still plenty of work to do on the matter. Treaties needed to be worked out with the natives who still claimed most of this land. British soldiers still occupied parts of it. How the new land would be sold or distributed to land owners still needed to be resolved. There were even still some land claims by Massachusetts and Connecticut that needed to be terminated.

While the Ordinance had made some progress, there was still work to do before any of this could be implemented. Congress ended its session in June, planning to take up further issues in the next Congress.

Americans, however, were very much looking west as America’s future. We’ll see more of that next week as Americans try to establish a fourteenth state, called Franklin.

- - -

Next Episode 335 The State of Franklin

Previous Episode 333 Slavery and Revolution

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Sunday, November 10, 2024

ARP333 Revolution and Slavery

Way back in Episode 58, we looked at the way slavery was seen in the colonial era. The basic point in that episode was that slavery was pretty generally accepted. The Quakers had begun to express moral reservations about the institution, but by and large, colonists did not question the institution and there was not much of any abolition movement. The notion that one’s birth largely established one’s station in life was a generally accepted norm.

Mum Bett

Slavery was practiced in all of the colonies, as well as Britain itself. I know that people claim that Britain never allowed slavery, but a great many slave owners from various colonies traveled and even settled in Britain, bringing slaves with them. British officials accepted this practice and did not try to liberate the slaves. So even though, slavery was not officially sanctioned, officials, and almost no one else, saw it as the moral evil that is the common view today.

Since the revolution and independence were based on the ideals of inalienable rights and equality, the institution of slavery became much more suspect. While the Revolution had not really focused on ending slavery, people saw how incompatible the institution was with the principles of the revolution.

Vermont declared its own independence during the war. Its constitution was the first to ban slavery explicitly in 1777. But since none of the other states recognized Vermont as a sovereign state, it was debatable whether this prohibition even would be recognized.

Pennsylvania was the only state that took action to end slavery during the war. Back in Episode 241 we covered the 1780 Pennsylvania law that set slavery in the state on a slow path to abolition. The law did not free any slaves, but provided that their children would be free once they reached adulthood. As the existing generation of slaves grew old and died, the institution would die with it.

Massachusetts Slavery

Along with Pennsylvania, Massachusetts was a center of the abolition movement in the decades leading up to the Civil War. But during the Revolutionary War, slavery was still legal and well established in the state. Slave owners had settled in the region even before the 1630 founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Boston merchants had gotten involved early in the slave trade, carrying slaves from Africa to the West Indies, the Carolinas, and Virginia.

Although slavery in Massachusetts did not grow like it did in southern colonies, there was a substantial slave population throughout the colonial era. The colony passed special laws regulating the behavior of slaves. One early law which put limits on what slaves could do, prefaced its law by saying the rules “which the law of God, established in Israel concerning such people, doth morally require.” In other words, slavery was sanctioned by the Bible. By the time of the Revolution, slaves made up about 2% of the population.

As the movement toward revolution evolved in Massachusetts, and words like liberty and freedom were being thrown about, those held in slavery naturally thought that such ideas should apply to them. In 1773 a group of enslaved Bostonians drafted a petition to Colonial Governor Thomas Hutchinson, asserting they shared a common and natural right to be free, just as the white colonists demanded.

In 1774, two more petitions went to the new Governor Thomas Gage, asserting that they had a natural right to freedom. They also called on the governor to recognize their basic rights. In 1777, a similar petition made similar demands to the state legislature. All of these petitions were ignored. The government, for a whole range of reasons, was unwilling to deal with the issue of slavery.

When Massachusetts adopted its first State Constitution in 1780, Article I read:

All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Those lines were not directed at the institution of slavery. The thinking behind them really was that of the rights of the former colonists which had been threatened by Britain. There was no mention of slavery or race in the Constitution. Since slavery was still widely practiced within the state, one would think it would have been explicitly banned if that was the intent.

After the adoption of the Constitution, people continued to hold others in bondage. This led to several court cases to determine if the language in Article I of the Constitution actually did mean that all men being born free and equal with certain unalienable rights meant that enslavement could not be legally enforced in the state.

Mum Bett

The first legal test was brought by a woman known to most as Mum Bett. She was born a slave in New York in 1744. Her owner gave her as a wedding gift to his son-in-law, John Ashley, who lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

Bett worked as a domestic servant for the family, but of course heard public readings of many documents during the Revolution that proclaimed liberty and equality for all. Her owner, Colonel Ashley, had served as a local judge and had moderated the meeting that produced the Sheffield Resolves against British tyranny and in support of individual rights. In part it declared that “mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other.”

Inspired by such language, Bett believed those words also applied to her. In 1781, she approached a local attorney, Theodore Sedgwick, who lived nearby.

Sedgwick had served as a major in the Continental Army. He had also held a seat in the state legislature and in 1780 had served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.

Sedgwick had been a slave owner himself, but was amenable to bringing this lawsuit. Bett and another male slave named Brom, also owned by Colonel Ashley, were named as plaintiffs in a suit against Ashley filed in May, 1781.

Suits brought by slaves seeking freedom were not unprecedented. In the past slaves had brought suits based on other legal issues such as the mother’s slave status, contractual agreements, or other technicalities.

This case was different, Sedgwick filed a writ of replevin, essentially demanding that the court order Ashley to turn over property that was not his. Specifically, his ownership was not legal because Bett and Brom owned themselves as free people. Sedgwick based his argument on Article I of the State Constitution.

It took several months for the case to go to trial. On August 22, 1781, a jury agreed that Bett and Brom were free people. In addition to their freedom, Ashley had to pay each of them 30 shillings in damages.

Quock Walker

Another case that was litigated in Massachusetts around the same time was that of Quock Walker. The name derives from an African name: Kwaku in Akan, which means in Ghanaian “boy born on Wednesday.” Although his parents were brought from Africa to America as slaves, Walker was born into slavery in America. His owner, James Caldwell, had promised him his freedom at age 25. This was actually rather common. Many slave owners treated children of slaves as indentured servants, held until adulthood.

Caldwell died when the boy was only 10 years old. His widow remarried Nathaniel Jennison. Then she died when Walker was 19. When he turned 25, Jennison refused to free him. A few years later, in 1781, Walker ran away and began living on a farm that belonged to Seth and John Caldwell, the brothers of his original owner.

Jennison found out where the runaway was staying. He gathered several of his friends, went to the Caldwell farm, and found Walker. They beat the young man severely, and forcibly took him back to Jennison’s farm.

This action kicked off two lawsuits. First, Walker brought suit against Jennison for assault and battery in June, 1781. The premise of his case was that he was a free man under the Massachusetts Constitution and that Jennison had no right to beat him and drag him away from the place that he chose to live. Walker sued Jennison for 300 pounds in damages.

In his defense, Jennison produced paperwork proving that he owned Walker as a slave and that a disciplinary beating was well within his legal rights. Jennison also filed a lawsuit against the Caldwells. His complaint accused the brothers of enticing Walker to desert his legal master so that they could benefit by employing him.

The two cases reached contradictory results. The jury in the case brought by Walker determined that he was, in fact, a free man under the Massachusetts Constitution and awarded him 50 pounds in damages against Jennison for the assault on his person. In the second case, the jury found for Jennison, awarding him 25 pounds against the Caldwells for luring away his slave. For some reason, in this second case, the defense never raised the constitutional issue of Walker’s freedom.

Both parties appealed their cases. That fall, an appeals court took up both cases. Jennison’s appeal ended up being dismissed on technical grounds. The Caldwells’ appeal of Jennison’s case did get heard. While the lower court simply tried to look at the facts of whether the Caldwells had actually tried to entice Walker, the appeals court was more interested in taking up the issue of whether Walker was Jennison’s property in the first place.

The arguments on appeal became a great debate over the morality of slavery - each side citing the Bible and appealing to natural law. The judge asked the jury to focus on the “free and equal” clause in the Constitution. In the end, the jury found that Walker was a free man under the Constitution, and that therefore the Caldwells could not have illegally enticed him from his owner. He did not have an owner.

In June, 1782, Jennison petitioned the state legislature for a reinstatement of the appeal that he had lost on technical grounds. By that time there were several petitions before the legislature demanding a clear declaration that slavery in Massachusetts was not legal. One petition even argued that slavery had never been legal and that all slaves should be compensated for their past service.

The legislature was not sure what to do. In the end, they did what they did best with the past petitions on slavery. They took no action on any of the petitions, including Jennison’s. This meant that he was liable to pay the damages to Walker for the assault.

That, however, was not the end of the matter. The Massachusetts Attorney General Robert Treat Paine, brought a criminal indictment against Jennison for his assault on Walker.

The evidence of the assault was indisputable by this time. Jennison had already testified about the beatings in earlier cases and had freely admitted to them. The defense, once again, brought up the evidence that showed Walker had been Jennison’s slave and that the beating as part of a disciplinary punishment was permissible under the law. The defense pointed out that there were still state laws on the books regarding the treatment of slaves and that the defendant had no way of knowing the Constitution would later be interpreted to have ended slavery in the state.

The judge’s instructions to the jury essentially said that the assault was not in dispute and that the Constitution had guaranteed that Walker was a free man. Therefore, the jury need not consider any arguments that the beating was a justifiable disciplining of a slave. Unsurprisingly, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.

These cases made clear to all that slavery was no longer legal in Massachusetts. Courts would not enforce any such actions, and would punish anyone who attempted to hold a person in slavery. This is not to say that all were free. Many people, including many African Americans, continued to be held to indentures. Poor people could indenture themselves or their children for many reasons, including payment of debts, and often these indentures were entered into involuntarily. Indentures would allow many to be held to service for a period of years. Chattel slavery, however that began at birth and that was passed on to children, had come to an end in Massachusetts.

Northern States Follow

The rest of the New England states also moved in the direction of ending slavery. New Hampshire’s 1783 constitution used language very similar to that of Massachusetts: proclaiming all men free and equal and with natural rights. However, there is not record of any court cases that applied these principles to slaves. That said, slavery seemed to be on the way out. In 1790, there were only 158 slaves reported to the Census. By 1800 there were eight, and by 1810, it was zero. Clearly slavery was being phased out, even without a specific statute or landmark case.

Antislavery sentiment in Connecticut also took hold. The colony had banned the importation of slaves in 1774. It considered emancipation bills in 1777, 1779, and 1780, but none of these passed. The owners of slaves were unwilling to take the financial loss. Finally, in 1784, a much more gradual bill passed, similar to the one that had passed in Pennsylvania. Children born after March 1 of that year, would automatically become free at age 25. This would allow slavery to die with the current generation of slaves.

Rhode Island had more slaves than any other New England state. Slaves accounted for more than 6% of the population during the Revolutionary War. There were several large plantations that ran on slave labor, and a large merchant fleet that engaged in the slave trade. A fairly large Quaker population, however, provided a center for the growing movement for emancipation.

At around the same time Connecticut passed its emancipation bill, Rhode Island passed a similar one. Any child of a slave born after March 1 would be an apprentice until age 21 for boys or 18 for girls. This would force the existing generation of slaves to be the last.

New York addressed the slavery issue in 1785. Aaron Burr led the fight for immediate emancipation of all slaves. Instead, the Assembly passed a more gradual bill that granted freedom to the children of slaves born after 1785. This bill languished in the Senate over fears of black people getting the right to vote. It eventually passed but then died after a veto. A gradual emancipation bill in New York would not pass until 1799.

Similarly in New Jersey an abolition movement took hold during the war. Governor Livingston proposed a gradual abolition bill in 1778, which failed. A growing abolition movement in the 1780s kept the issue alive, but could not get a law passed. It was not until 1804 until the state passed a gradual emancipation bill for the children of slaves.

Southern Slavery

The six southern states, of course, maintained slavery. While support for abolition in the south gained a little ground during and immediately after the American Revolution, the economic importance of slave labor made any attempts, even at gradual emancipation, just about impossible. Succeeding generations, however, strengthened support for what became known and the peculiar institution until abolition was finally forced on these states after the Civil War.

For a time, many thought that Virginia might pass a law shortly after the Revolution that would outlaw slavery gradually, much like what happened in most northern states. George Washington famously granted freedom to his slaves upon his death. As early as 1786, Washington wrote letters in support of Virginia adopting a gradual emancipation law. Despite his moral qualms, Washington never got to the point where he was willing to free his own slaves during his lifetime. He also spent considerable time and money attempting to track down slaves who escaped his service.

Other prominent Virginians like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison also continued to own slaves, even though each of them were conflicted in light of the principles for which they had fought. The generation that fought in the Revolution, however, seemed to be the high water mark for the support of abolition in the southern states.

During this immediate post-war era, Virginia, at least, took the small step in a 1783 law that confirmed the emancipation of slaves who had fought in the Revolutionary War. Many slave owners either permitted slaves to join the army or sent them as substitutes when drafted. Virginia law prohibited slaves from enlisting, but as a practice did not prevent it.

When the war ended and the army disbanded, many owners attempted to force the returning veterans back into slavery. The Virginia legislature prohibited this by statute, thus guaranteeing freedom for any soldier who had enlisted at the request of his owner or as a substitute for his owner and who had also completed his term of service. Virginia also passed a law around the same time providing for the voluntary manumission of slaves by their owners. That was as far as it got.

In the deeper south, the Carolinas and Georgia, there was never any serious effort to abolish slavery during this period. While southern patriots proclaimed the same rhetoric of freedom and equality, they seemed to have a harder time applying those principles to slavery.

Some veterans of the war came home with abolitionist ideals. John Laurens, killed at the end of the war, was a good example of this. Those who survived the war quickly accepted that they could not convince a majority, or even a sizable minority, to make any real changes to the institution of slavery in the south.

The opposition to ending slavery in the south was likely the result of the economic dependence on slave labor. Large plantations with such a large investment in slave workforce could not see how that way of life could continue with paid labor. There was also a great concern about free blacks. Racist ideas that blacks were simply incapable of living unsupervised by owners became much more vocal during this period. So while slavery did become more controversial, even in the south, the vast majority only grew in their determination to maintain the institution.

This north-south divide on the issue would only grow more stark over the next few generations. It was only another decisive war, four score and seven years later that would resolve this debate by force, once and for all.

Next week: The Continental Congress looks west as it considers the establishment of the Northwest Territory.

- - -

Next Episode 334 Land Ordinance of 1784

Previous Episode 331 Washington Goes Home

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Sunday, December 8, 2024

ARP335 State of Franklin

Land Grab

Overmountain Men

Land Cession

Jonesboro Convention

Repeal of Cession

Constitutional Convention

The New Government

Fight for Statehood

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Sunday, November 17, 2024

ARP334 Land Ordinance of 1784

States Cede Territories

Return of Jefferson

Governing Western Lands

Land Ordinance of 1784

Further Plans

The Ordinance Languishes

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Sunday, November 10, 2024

ARP333 Revolution and Slavery

Massachusetts Slavery

Mum Bett

Quock Walker

Northern States Follow

Southern Slavery

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