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  (Available December 3, 2024)

Previous Episode 333 Slavery and Revolution

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Further Reading

Websites

Report from the Committee for the Western Territory to the United States Congress: http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00155

“III. Report of the Committee, 1 March 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0420-0004

Report from the Committee for the Western Territory to the United States Congress: http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00155

“V. The Ordinance of 1784, 23 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0420-0006

Ordinances Related to Western Lands: https://csac.history.wisc.edu/document-collections/confederation-period/ordinances-related-to-western-lands

Berkhofer, Robert F. “Jefferson, the Ordinance of 1784, and the Origins of the American Territorial System.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2, 1972, pp. 231–62. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1921145

Horsman, Reginald. “Thomas Jefferson and the Ordinance of 1784.” Illinois Historical Journal, vol. 79, no. 2, 1986, pp. 99–112. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40191942

McCormick, Richard P. “The ‘Ordinance’ of 1784?” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 1, 1993, pp. 112–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2947238


Free eBooks

(from archive.org unless noted)



Books Worth Buying

(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*





Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Journals of Congress: 3d day of Nov. 1783 to 3d day of June, 1784 (Google Books). 

Hulbert, Archer Butler Ohio in the time of the Confederation, Marietta Historical Commission, 1918. 

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Havighurst, Walter Land of Promise The Story of the Northwest Territory, Macmillan Company, 1946. 

Lindley, Harlow & Norris F Schneider & Milo M Quaife, History Of The Ordinance Of 1787 And The Old Northwest Territory, Kessinger Publishing, 2010. 

Meacham, Jon Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Random House, 2012. 

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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 333 Slavery and Revolution  (Available November 3, 2024)

Previous Episode 331 Washington Goes Home

 Contact me via email at mtroy.history@gmail.com

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Further Reading

Websites

Slavery in the North: http://slavenorth.com

The Struggle for Freedom: https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/struggle

The Legal End of Slavery in Massachusetts https://www.masshist.org/features/endofslavery/end_MA

Massachusetts Constitution https://malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution

Jennison v. Caldwell – Abolition and the Role of Courts in Eighteenth Century Massachusetts https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2021/07/jennison-v-caldwell-abolition-and-the-role-of-courts-in-eighteenth-century-massachusetts

Cushing, John D. “The Cushing Court and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts: More Notes on the ‘Quock Walker Case.’” The American Journal of Legal History, vol. 5, no. 2, 1961, pp. 118–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/844116

Commonwealth v. Jennison: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/commonwealth-v-nathaniel-jennison

Winthrop, Robert C., et al. “Special Meeting, April, 1874. Letter of Louis Agassiz; Description of the Washington Medals; The Commonwealth V. Nathaniel Jennison; Note by Chief Justice Gray; Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 13, 1873, pp. 282–304. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079475?seq=11

Zilversmit, Arthur. “Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 4, 1968, pp. 614–24. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1916801

Sesay, Chernoh M. “The Revolutionary Black Roots of Slavery’s Abolition in Massachusetts.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 87, no. 1, 2014, pp. 99–131. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43285055

Spector, Robert M. “The Quock Walker Cases (1781-83) -- Slavery, Its Abolition, and Negro Citizenship in Early Massachusetts.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 53, no. 1, 1968, pp. 12–32. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2716388

Blanck, Emily. “Seventeen Eighty-Three: The Turning Point in the Law of Slavery and Freedom in Massachusetts.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 1, 2002, pp. 24–51. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1559880

Wiecek, William M. “Antislavery during and after the American Revolution.” The Sources of Anti-Slavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848, Cornell University Press, 1977, pp. 40–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt207g6m0.7

Virginia Act Freeing Enslaved People who served as Soldiers, 1783: https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/138

Virginia Slaves Freed After 1782: https://freeafricanamericans.com/virginiafreeafter1782.htm

The Virginia Manumission Act, 1782 https://wisc.pb.unizin.org/ls261/chapter/ch-5-3-the-virginia-manumission-act-1782

“From George Washington to John Francis Mercer, 9 September 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0232.

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

[Archive.org has been offline due to hacking problems, therefore, I've been unable to find new resources there for this episode].

Moore, George H. Notes on the history of slavery in Massachusetts. New York City: D. Appleton & Co. 1866 (Google Books). 

The Connection of Massachusetts with Slavery and the Slave-trade, Worcester, Mass: Charles Hamilton, 1886.  

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Finkelman, Paul Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson, Routledge, 2013. 

Larson, Edward J. American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation 1765-1795, WW Norton & Co. 2023. 

MacLeod, Duncan J. Slavery, Race and the American Revolution, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975. 

Rose, Ben Z. Mother of Freedom: Mum Bett and the Roots of Abolition, Treeline Press, 2009. 

Tinucci, Malcolm Mum Bett: A Slave Who Won Her Own Freedom, self-published, 2022. 

Wiecek, William M. The Sources of Anti-Slavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848, Cornell University Press, 1977. 

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

ARP332 Society of the Cincinnati


Last week we covered the final breakup of the Continental Army in 1783.  During that final year, the officers and men not only suffered terrible deprivation, but also came to understand that promises made during the war involving pay, pensions, land grants, and other benefits, might not be kept.  The men were also looking for a way to maintain the bonds they had created during the war.

Formation

In the spring of 1783, many of the officers formed the Society of the Cincinnati.  The Society is named after the Roman leader: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.  According to his legend Cincinnatus was a farmer who left his farm to accept an appointment as a leader of Rome during a war.  After victory in battle and restoring peace, Cincinnatus restored power to the Senate and returned to his farm.  This personified the ideal of the civilians who had taken up service during the war, but were expected to return to civilian life and make sure all political power remained with the civilian government when the war ended.

Cincinnati Badge
Inspiration for the society is largely credited to General Henry Knox.  While the army was killing time in West Point, waiting for the war to come to an end, Knox proposed the establishment of a society that would allow the officers to continue to associate with one another after the war.  Knox had apparently been thinking about such an organization for some time, as had other officers.  News of the peace treaty, which reached the army in April, probably made the plan a priority if they were going to put anything into place before the army disbanded.

The first organizational meeting took place on May 10 at the Temple of Virtue, the same building that the Continental Army had built as a meeting hall only a few months earlier, and where General Washington gave his famous Newburgh Address only a few weeks prior.  General Friedrich von Steuben presided as the senior officer at the meeting for the formation of the Society. 

At the meeting, the officers present voted for Steuben, General Knox, Knox’s aide-de-camp Major Samuel Shaw, and General Jedediah Huntington to form a committee to put together a formal resolution about the society to circulate to the rest of the army.

Three days later, the officers met at Steuben’s headquarters.  The committee formally adopted the resolution thus creating the Society on May 13.

The society established itself with three basic goals in mind: 1) to protect the rights that they had  secured during the war, 2) to promote the continuation of a union between the states, and 3) to assist members in need, as well as their widows and orphans.

Membership would be limited to officers who were still serving at the war’s end, or who had served at least three years during the war in the Continental Army or Navy.  It was not open to enlisted men. It was not open to officers who had served only in state armies or militia.  The Society did permit certain high ranking officers in the French Army and Navy to join the society as well.

Officers who had died during the war were granted membership.  Their membership would be inherited by their oldest son.  Going forward, only the oldest son of any member of the Society could inherit membership.  A society would be set up in each state, with states given the authority to subdivide into districts within their state. Each state society would meet annually and set its own rules.  They would have the power to expel any member who acted dishonorably or against the interests of the community.  There would also be a national or general meeting every three years that all the states would attend.  The General Society would elect officers and also establish a fund for operations.

There was also a provision for honorary memberships to men who had proved eminent in their abilities and patriotism in some way other than service as a Continental officer.  Honorary memberships, however, could not be inherited, and were limited to one quarter of the total membership.

Each officer agreed to donate one month’s pay to their state society, so that the society could establish a fund and use the interest to cover any operating costs.  Anyone was also free to make donations to the state society or the national one.  Since none of the officers had actually been paid, they could pay the signup fee by directing the paymaster general to direct one month’s worth of pay to the Society once the army was ready to make those payments.

They also established a badge to identify members, a gold medal on a blue ribbon with white edging.  The medal would depict Cincinnatus receiving his powers on one side, and returning to his farm on the other side.  This was later amended so that there would be an eagle hanging on the ribbon, with the images of Cincinnatus appearing on the chest and back of the eagle.

The officers made an effort to get as many of their fellow officers to join as quickly as possible, spreading word of the Society to all of the regiments to establish a society in each state.  They had to work quickly.  The Society only really began recruitment after its organizational meeting on May 13.  On June 1, Washington announced that most of the army would be going home on furlough.

As the army was breaking up, the popular idea of the Society spread through the officers.  A committee consisting of Generals Heath, Von Steuben, and Knox met with General Washington to request that he lead the Society.  Washington agreed.  As second in command of the army, General Heath reached out to armies still in place in other parts of the country to inform them of the new Society.  General Alexander McDougall was elected Treasurer General, and Henry Knox as Secretary General.

The establishment of the Society nationwide grew quickly.  By November, there were state committees set up in all 13 states.

The group prepared to hold its first general meeting or all state leaders in May, 1784.  Almost all top officers who were eligible for membership in the society joined.  Among the founding members were George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, John Paul Jones, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Generals Anthony Wayne, Arthur St. Clair, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Benjamin Lincoln, Daniel Morgan, Lachlan McIntosh, Baron von Steuben, and Horatio Gates.  By the 1784 national meeting about half of the 5500 former Continental officers who were eligible for membership had joined and paid their membership fees.  

Opposition

Almost from the beginning, the Society had its critics.  General Heath, who had participated in the establishment of the Society, expressed some concerns about it.  Many of the comparisons to knightly orders in Europe made it seem unamerican and perhaps contrary to republican values.  Colonel Timothy Pickering, who was the army’s quartermaster general, also expressed concerns about the elitist nature of the society.  Despite their reluctance, both men joined the Society.

There had never been a veterans organization before, certainly not one at the national level.  The only historical reference people had were European orders where leading warriors formed orders of knighthood after serving together in battle.  These orders were seen as the basis of nobility and aristocracy.  After all, aristocrats were descended primarily from military leaders of the past who had performed some valuable service to the king.  

Many of the features of the Society of the Cincinnati shared features with the knightly orders of Europe.   The creation of such a group in America seemed, to many, to threaten the ideals of an equal citizenry without separate classes defined by accident of birth.  Aristocratic orders controlled Europe and were seen as a tool to keep commoners down.  That was antithetical to the goals of the Revolution.  For many Americans who had not served, the Society looked like it would become the tool of a counter-revolution that would undermine and eventually end the universal freedoms for which they had fought and sacrificed.

By the fall of 1783, the larger civilian population was learning about the Society and expressing its concerns.  A town meeting in Connecticut feared that the organization would be used to lobby on behalf of veterans benefits, which would mean they would have to pay higher taxes to support them.  General Arthur St. Clair wrote that he delayed forming a Pennsylvania chapter for fear that just creating it would have a negative impact on state considerations of passing veterans benefits.

In October, South Carolina Judge Aedanus Burke published a Pamphlet: Considerations on the Society or Order of the Cincinnati.  Burke expressed concerns that a hereditary organization of military leaders was the establishment of a class of nobles that threatened the idea of a democratic republic.  This permanent organization of military leaders and their descendants would threaten the idea of a government established by and for all the people.  It would establish an aristocratic class.

Burke’s pamphlet, which was originally targeted simply for South Carolina politics, was soon republished across the continent.  Elbridge Gerry, a delegate to the Continental Congress from Massachusetts wrote numerous letters to other leaders, saying he believed that the Society would become an instrument of tyranny.  Others, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, were all highly critical of what Franklin called the “hereditary knights” of America.

Public editorials and articles attacked the society.  One accused it of establishing a parallel power structure that was independent of elected government and one that would soon dominate the political system.  In February, the Massachusetts legislature began an inquiry to consider measures against any plans to “promote undue distinction among the citizens of this free state and tending to establish an hereditary nobility.”  A month later, the committee report condemned the Society. South Carolina Governor Benjamin Guerard expressed similar concerns, telling a joint session of the legislature that if left unchecked, the Society would endanger the success of the revolution.

Washington Concerned

The wave of criticism over the Society of the Cincinnati seemed to take some officers by surprise.  George Washington, who certainly kept up with the editorials and pamphlets on this topic, worried about his own reputation.  He had agreed to lead the Society, thinking it was an appropriate way for the officers to maintain the fraternal bonds they had established during their time in the army through a private organization.  He certainly did not want to be seen as leading an organization that threatened the results of the Revolution.

Washington wrote privately to many men whose opinions he valued, including Thomas Jefferson.  In response, Jefferson told him that the popular opinion believed that the Society was unconstitutional and subversive of the ideals of equality and liberty in the young republic.  He thought it should be abolished and recommended that Washington separate himself from it.

Personally, Washington was torn.  He was concerned about his reputation as a stalwart in favor of republicanism.  He did not want to be seen as a threat to that, even though he was not convinced the Society actually represented any such threat.  Beyond that, Washington did not want to resign, which might be seen as a betrayal to his fellow officers.

Washington remained as leader of the Society.  He traveled to Philadelphia to attend the first general meeting in May 1784.  At the meeting, Washington proposed a series of radical changes.

He called for the removal of anything political in its writings.  The Society should be seen as a fraternal organization.  Its involvement in politics, or even potential involvement, was a big source of criticism.

It should also discontinue the idea of hereditary memberships.  The hereditary nature of the society led to the comparisons to hereditary aristocracies in Europe.  There was no need for that. The society should also stop admitting honorary members.  Allowing powerful political figures to join the organization only heightened fears that it was becoming some sort of shadow government outside of elected leaders.

The Society should also reject donations from non-citizens.  Fears that outside interests might try to gain influence in America through such donations had been another expressed concern.  Any funds raised to assist veterans in need should be put in the hands of the state legislature for dissemination.  The creation of some sort of private pension system could be seen as a way to maintain influence through the use of the money.

Washington also called for an end to the general meeting.  In the original plans, the various state organizations would meet at an national event every three years, this being the first.  The national meetings made the organization appear to be more powerful and would probably only end up sowing dissension between the various state organizations.

The General Meeting began on May 4 at City Tavern in Philadelphia.  On the second day, Washington presented his recommendations on reform to the entire group of those meeting.  The leaders were reluctant to make the changes, but Washington suggested that he might resign if the changes were not made.  The group met in committee for about a week before presenting their response.  The members adopted some of the reforms but seemed to want to water them down.  Again, Washington pressed the issue, not wanting to be part of a group that would be seen as controversial and a threat to the principles of the Revolution.

By the end of the two week meeting, the assembly adopted Washington’s reforms and sent them to the state committees.  Since the men at this meeting were the leaders of the state committees one would have thought that would have been the end of it.

As Washington had hoped, his reforms did seem to reduce national criticism of the Society.  However, most of the state committees ended up not adopting the reforms.  The leaders did not want to make the changes and only agreed to carry them back to their state committees out of deference to Washington.  In the end, the society ended up continuing much as it had originally been established.

Some states agreed not to accept foreign donations.  Originally, the members expected to wear their medals at all times.  This changed so that they were only worn on special occasions.  Overall though, the controversial features such as hereditary memberships, national meetings, and private funds largely continued with all the state societies.

Criticism Continues

Failure to enact these reforms only invited more attacks on the Society.  Some states considered adding a prohibition that members of the Society would be ineligible to run for public office.  In 1785, John Adams announced that he was considering retiring from public life because he believed the Society threatened to transform the republic into an aristocracy, thus destroying everything he had worked for.

That same year, The French Count de Mirabeau published a revised version of Burke’s critical pamphlet, including new criticisms by Franklin and others.  It reaffirmed the idea that the Cincinnati were attempting to transform America into a hereditary aristocracy.  Thomas Jefferson publicly joined the argument a year later, writing that the Society posed a threat to the political stability of the United States.

Some critics believed that the Society was part of a French plot to spread its influence in America.  The Society had a chapter of French officers who met in France.  The King of France permitted officers to wear the order of the Society of the Cincinnati on their uniforms.  Although France had been a close ally of America during the war, many American leaders were still wary of French influence on America and the dangers of a monarchical government’s influence on the new republic.  The Cincinnati were accused of being a tool of that influence.

Burke, whose pamphlet had been the first very public criticism, continued to rail against the Cincinnati.  He argued that the attempt to establish itself as a fraternal and charitable organization was simply a front.  Its secret hidden purpose was the establishment of a noble order that would rule over America.  As a hereditary peerage, it would slowly and secretly destroy the democratic reforms of the revolution and establish a class of nobles who would become quite separate from the commoners who made up the bulk of the population.

The Confederation Congress, which contained members opposed to the society, as well as society members, refused to recognize the Society in any way.  In a 1785 land ordinance for making land available in the Ohio territory, an initial draft prohibited bearers of hereditary titles from residing in Ohio.  The prohibition was dropped before the final version passed, but it did show that even Congress had grave concerns about a potential threat 

The controversy remained strong enough in 1787 that when it came time to hold the second triennial meeting in Philadelphia, Washington sent his regrets.  Always trying to avoid controversy or insulting either side, Washington used vague excuses of his health and personal finances for not attending.  He remained an officer in the state society and as titular president of the general meeting, but at the same time seemed to want to distance his association with it.

As consideration of government reforms came out, particularly consideration of a new Constitution in 1787, many critics accused the Society of the Cincinnati of being a conspiratorial force that planned to use such reforms to take over the new country.  It was only after the actual establishment of the new Constitution, that many of the fears of the Cincinnati creating a new aristocracy in America finally began to fade.  

Next week, we take a look at the state of slavery in America at the end of the war.

- - -

Next Episode 333 Slavery and Revolution  (Available November 3, 2024)

Previous Episode 331 Washington Goes Home

 Contact me via email at mtroy.history@gmail.com

 Follow the podcast on Twitter @AmRevPodcast

 Join the Facebook group, American Revolution Podcast 

 Join American Revolution Podcast on Quora 
 
Discuss the AmRev Podcast on Reddit

American Revolution Podcast Merch!

T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, pillows, totes, notebooks, wall art, and more.  Get your favorite American Revolution logo today.  Help support this podcast.  http://tee.pub/lic/AmRevPodcast


American Revolution Podcast is distributed 100% free of charge. If you can chip in to help defray my costs, I'd appreciate whatever you can give.  Make a one time donation through my PayPal account. You may also donate via Venmo (@Michael-Troy-20) or Zelle (send to mtroy1@yahoo.com)


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You can support the American Revolution Podcast as a Patreon subscriber.  This is an option making monthly pledges.  Patreon support will give you access to Podcast extras and help make the podcast a sustainable project.

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Further Reading

Websites

Society of the Cincinnati: https://www.societyofthecincinnati.org

Society of the Cincinnati: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/society-of-the-cincinnati

George Washington and the Society of the Cincinnati: https://washingtonpapers.org/resources/articles/george-washington-and-the-society-of-the-cincinnati

Considerations on the Society or Order of the Cincinnati (1783), by Aedanus Burke: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=main;view=text;idno=N14115.0001.001

Benjamin Franklin and the Society of Cincinnati https://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/benjamin-franklin-and-the-society-of-the-cincinnati

Once in Every Three Years: The Triennial Meetings of the Society of the Cincinnati https://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/once-in-every-three-years-the-triennial-meetings-of-the-society-of-the-cincinnati

“From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 8 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0204

“To George Washington from Thomas Jefferson, 16 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0215

“I. Observations on the Institution of the Society, c.4 May 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0236-0002

“Appendix V: To the State Societies of the Cincinnati, 15 May,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0236-0008

“II. Winthrop Sargent’s Journal, 4–18 May,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0236-0003

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

[Archive.org has been offline due to hacking problems, therefore, I've been unable to find new resources there for this episode].

The Institution and Proceedings of the Society of the Cincinnati, Boston: Thomas B. Wait and Co. 1812 (Google Books). 

Fostern, Francis Apthorp The Institution of the Society of the Cincinnati, Boston: Caustic-Flaflin Co. 1923. 

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Hünemörder, Markus The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America, Berghahn Books, 2006.

Moore, Alexander The Fabric of Liberty: The Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina, Home House Press, 2012.

Myers, Minor Liberty without Anarchy: a History of the Society of the Cincinnati, Univ. of Vriginia Press, 1983. 

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.