great diversities of opinion,' and it seemed, after several days, that the convention must, of necessity, dissolve without accomplishing any thing. Some proposed a final adjournment. At this momentous crisis, Dr. Franklin arose, and said to the President, "How has it happened, sir, that while groping so long in the dark, divided in our opinions, and now ready to separate without accomplishing the great objects of our meeting, that we have hitherto not once thought. of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and graciously answered." He closed by saying, "The longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of the truth that God governs in the affairs of men," and then moved that "henceforth, prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business." The resolution was not adopted. On a memorandum of it, Franklin wrote, "The Convention, except three or four members, thought prayers unnecessary."

After long and animated debates, the Convention referred all propositions, reports, etc., which had been agreed to from time to time, to a Committee of Detail, consisting of Rutledge, Randolph, Gorham, Ellsworth,' and Wilson. The Convention then adjourned, and ten days afterward [August 6, 1787] it met, and that committee reported a rough sketch of the Constitution, as it now stands. Now, again, long and sometimes angry debates were had. Amendments were made, and all were referred to a committee for final revision. That committee submitted the following resolution on the 12th of September, which was adopted:

1 Edmund Randolph submitted a plan on the 29th of May, in a series of Resolutions, which was known as the "Virginia Plan." It proposed to form a general government, composed of a legislature, and an executive and judiciary department; a revenue, and an army and navy, independent of the control of the several States; to have power to conduct war, establish peace, and make treaties; to have the exclusive privilege of coining money, and the general supervision of all national transactions. Upon general principles, this plan was highly approved; but in that Convention there were many ardent and pure patriots, who looked upon the preservation of the State sovereignties as essential, and regarded this proposition as an infringement upon State Rights. Mr. Paterson also submitted a plan for amending the Articles of Confederation. It proposed to enlarge the powers of Congress, but left its resources and supplies to be found through the medium of the State governments. This was one of the most serious defects of the old League-a dependence of the general government upon the State governments for its vitality. Other propositions were submitted from time to time, and the most intense solicitude was felt by every member. Subjects of the most vital interest were ably discussed, from day to day; but none created more earnest debate than a proposition for the general government to assume the debts of the States contracted in providing means for carrying on the war. The debts of the several States were unequal. Those of Massachusetts and South Carolina amounted to more than ten millions and a half of dollars, while the debts of all the other States did not extend, in the aggregate, to fifteen millions. This assumption was finally made, to the amount of twenty-one millions five hundred thousand dollars. See page 370.

Oliver Ellsworth was one of the soundest men in the Convention. and was ever one of the most beloved of the New England patriots. He was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in April, 1745. He was educated at Yale College, and at Princeton, and at the age of twenty-five, he commenced the practice of law at Hartford. He was an eloquent speaker, and became very eminent in his profession. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1777, and in 1784 he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut. He was the first United States senator from Connecticut, under the new Constitution, and in 1796 he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States. He was an embassador to the French court from 1799 to 1801. He died in November, 1807. at

the age of sixty-two years. See next page.

"Resolved unanimously, That the said report, with the resolutions and letters accompanying the same, be transmitted to the several Legislatures, in order to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each State by the people thereof, in conformity to the resolves of the Convention, made and provided, in that case."

The new Constitution, when submitted to the people,' found many and able opposers. State supremacy, sectional interests, radical democracy, all had numerous friends, and these formed the phalanx of opposition. All the persuasive eloquence of its advocates, with pen and speech, was needed to convince the people of its superiority to the Articles of Confederation, and the necessity for its ratification. Among its ablest supporters was Alexander Hamilton, whose

2

1 The Convention agreed to the revised Constitution on the 15th of September, and on the 17th it was signed by the representatives of all the States then present, except Randolph, Gerry, and Mason. The Constitution was submitted to Congress on the 28th, and that body sent copies of it to all the State Legislatures. State Conventions were then called to consider it; and more than a year elapsed before the requisite number of States had ratified it. These performed that act in the following order: Delaware, Dec. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, Dec. 12, 1787; New Jersey, Dec. 18, 1787; Georgia, Jan. 2, 1788; Connecticut, Jan. 9, 1788; Massachusetts, Feb. 6, 1788; Maryland, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; New York, July 26, 1788; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1788; Rhode Island, May 29, 1790.

2 Alexander Hamilton was born on the Island of Nevis, British West Indies, in January, 1757. He was of Scotch and French parentage. He became a clerk to a New York merchant at St. Croix, and he was finally brought to New York to be educated. He was at King's (now Columbia) College, and was distinguished as a good speaker and writer, while yet a mere lad. When the Rev. olution broke out, he espoused the Republican cause, entered the army, became Washington's favor ite aid and secretary, and was an efficient officer until its close. He made the law his profession, and, as an able financier, he was made the first Secretary of the Treasury, under the new Constitu

pen

and sword had been identified with the career of Washington during almost the whole War for Independence. He gave to its advocacy the whole weight of his character and power of his genius; and, aided by Jay and Madison, he scattered broadcast among the people, those able papers called The Federalist. These, like Paine's Crisis, stirred the masses; and soon eleven States, in Con

vention assembled, gave the National Constitution their support, and ratified it. Congress then fixed the time for choosing electors for President and VicePresident,' and provided for the organization of the new government. On Wednesday, the 4th day of March, 1789, the old Continental Congress' expired, and the NATIONAL CONSTITUTION became the organic law of the Republic. This was the crowning act of the War for Independence, and then the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA commenced their glorious career as a powerful empire among the nations of the earth.

tion. He was shot in a duel, by Aaron Burr, in July, 1804, at the early age of forty-seven years. His widow, daughter of General Schuyler, died in November, 1854, in the ninety-seventh year of her age.

These are men elected by the people in the various States, to meet and choose a President and Vice-President of the United States. Their number is equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the several States are entitled. So the people do not vote directly for the Chief Magistrate. Formerly, the man who received the highest number of votes was declared to be President, and he who received the next highest number was proclaimed Vice-President. Now these are voted for as distinct candidates for separate offices. See Article II. of the National Constitution, Supplement. The first electors were chosen on the first Wednesday in February, 1789. The inauguration of the first President did not take place [page 366] until the 30th of April following Page 226.

2

For details of the history, biography, scenery, relics, and traditions of the War for Independ ence, see Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution.

Congress was in session at New York while the Convention at Philadelphia was busy in preparing the National Constitution. During that time it disposed of the subject of organizing a Territorial Government for the vast region northward of the Ohio River, within the domain of the United States.' On the 11th of July, 1787, a committee of Congress reported "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-west of the Ohio."

This

report embodied a bill, whose provisions in regard to personal liberty and distribution of property, were very important. It contained a special proviso that the estates of all persons dying intestate, in the territory, should be equally divided among all the children, or next of kin in equal degree, thus striking down the unjust law of primogeniture, and asserting a more republican principle. The bill, also, provided and declared, that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This ordinance was adopted on the 13th, after adding a clause relative to the reclamation of fugitives from labor, similar to that incorporated in the National Constitution a few weeks later.2

This ordinance, together with the fact that Indian titles to seventeen millions of acres of land in that region, had been lately extinguished by treaty

1 Page 390.

with several of the dusky tribes,' caused a sudden and great influx of immigrants into the country along the northern banks of the Ohio. Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargent, and other New Englanders, organized the "Ohio Company," and entered into a contract for the sale of a tract of five millions of acres, extending along the Ohio from the Muskingum to the Scioto." A similar contract was entered into with John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, for the sale of two millions of acres, between the Great and Little Miamis. These were the first steps taken toward the settlement of the vast North-west Territory, which embraced the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It was estimated that, during the year following the organization of that Territory [1788], full twenty thousand men, women, and children had passed down the Ohio River, to become settlers upon its banks. Since, then, how wonderful has been the progress of settlement beyond the Alleghanies! How wide and deep has been the ever-flowing tide of emigration thither! The original THIRTEEN STATES have now [1867] expanded into THIRTY-EIGHT, and vast territories, destined to become numerous other States, are rapidly filling with people."

'The Six Nations [page 25], the Wyandots [page 23], the Delawares [page 20], and the Shawnees [page 19].

Rufus Putnam, who had been an active officer during the War for Independence, was one of the most efficient of the Ohio settlers. He was born in Worcester county, Massachusetts, in 1738. He entered the provincial army in 1757, and continued in service during the remainder of the French and Indian War. He entered the army of the Revolution in 1775, and at near the close of the war, he was promoted to brigadier-general. He went to the Ohio country, with abcut forty settlers, in 1788. They pitched their tents at the mouth of the Muskingum River, formed a settlement, and called it Marietta. Suspicious of the Indians, they built a stockade, and called it Campus Martius. In 1780, President Washington commissioned General Putnam Supreme Judge of the Northwest Territory; and in 1792, he was appointed a brigadier, under Wayne. He was appointed surveyor-general of the United States in 1796; helped to frame the Constitution of Ohio in 1802; and He is then retired to private life. He died at Marietta in 1824. at the age of eighty-six years. called the FATHER OF OHIO. The following table gives the names, in alphabetical order, of the States that compose the Republic, at this time [1867], with the area of each in square miles, and its population in 1860:

POPULATION.

791,395 1.182.012

28.841 6.857 826,073

STATES.

AREA.

Mississippi..

47.156

Missouri..

65,350

879,994

81,539

9250

Delaware

2,120

112,216

New Jersey.

140,424

New York.

Georgia...

58,000

992.622

Illinois

39.964

2,839,502

674.699

Pennsylvania...

107.206

Rhode Island..

Kentucky

87.680

Louisiana..

45,600

1,109.801

315,098

Massachusetts

7.800

38.352

1,596,318

23.000

Wisconsin

Total..

2,066.363

81,218,778

There are also eight organized Territories in which population is rapidly increasing. These are Arizona, Dakotah, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington. The aggregate area of these Territories is 935,650 square miles; and the aggregate population, in 1860, was 211,113; making the grand total of the area of the Republic 3,002,013, and of population, 31,429,891. The population at this time [June, 1867] is probably about 40,000,000.