incorporate the Presbyterian church in the city. A petition for bishops was formally despatched across the water by the Episcopal clergy of New York and New Jersey.

The Whig politicians, as before, smelt Tory politics in the scheme; the Presbyterian ministers detected a still more sulphurous odor in it, and one of the latter in New Jersey so far forgot himself as to call the Episcopal Church "that rag of the whore of Babylon." William Livingston entered the lists against the English prelate, and received therefor a formal vote of thanks from the Connecticut consociation of churches, by the hand of its secretary, his own friend, Rev. Noah Welles. One of the wits of the De Lancey party parodied this classical tribute in verses which ended thus:

"March on, brave Will, and rear our Babel

On language so unanswerable,

Give Church and State a hearty thump,

And knock down truth with falsehoods plump;
So flat shall fall their churches' fair stones,
Felled by another Praise God Barebones.
Signed with consent of all the tribe

By Noah Welles, our fasting scribe."

The Livingston effort to cement their broken wings with antiEpiscopal glue was a failure. In January, 1769, Governor Moore dissolved the Assembly for its contumacy in refusing supplies for the soldiery, and in disobeying the royal prohibition against political correspondence, especially with Massachusetts. Both Whigs and Tories strained every nerve to win the ensuing elections. The De Lanceys were clever enough, on the one hand, to intensify the opposition between the Sons of Liberty and those rich lawyers, the Livingstons, and on the other hand, to excite the merchant class against the Whig alliance with the mob. The Livingstons appealed for the verdict of popular approval. The character of their hopes in New York City was naïvely revealed in Peter R. Livingston's letter to Philip Schuyler: "There is a great deal in good management of the votes. Our people are in high spirits, and if there is not fair play shown, there will be bloodshed, as we have by far the best part of the Bruisers on our side, who are determined to use force, if they (the DeLanceys) use any foul play."

The good man's confidence in the Bruisers was misplaced. The majority of the Sons of Liberty repudiated the Whig nabobs altogether. The Tory-Episcopalian-merchant-De Lancey combi

nation received two-thirds of all the votes in New York City. Barely half a dozen Whig members found a place in the new Assembly. Among them, the only prominent figures were those of Philip Schuyler, from the extreme North, and of George Clinton, from the extreme West. From that time until the outbreak of the war, the balance of voters in Southern New York inclined strongly to the aristocratic side, and ultra-loyalty was a fashionable sentiment. The moderate Whigs of birth and breeding had before been sent to the rear of the popular army. Now they retired from it altogether, and the Sons of Liberty confiscated their effects. Of the famous triumvirate, Scott cast in his lot with Lamb and Sears. Smith and Livingston, like their comrades, the Jays, the Morrises, the Franklins, Randolphs, and Rutledges, stood apart, silently and unhappily watching the course of events, until the outbreak of hostilities forced them to choose between loyalty and rebellion. William Livingston, disheartened by the violence and open disloyalty of the Sons of Liberty, moved in 1772 to New Jersey and disappeared from New York politics. The events of 1774 threw him, like most of the moderate Whigs, into a renewed association with the Sons of Liberty, and as governor and statesman, William Livingston was the foremost man in New Jersey from 1776 until his death in 1790.

Unable to

William Smith moved in an opposite direction. abandon his allegiance to England, he was hated as an apostate by the Sons of Liberty, became a Tory refugee, and died Chief Justice of Canada. Until rebellion blurred all prospects of peace, it was Smith's hope that the agitation would result in a continental colonial parliament, subject to the English Crown, but competent to decide all domestic affairs. This was also the expectation of Benjamin Franklin and of William Livingston. The moderate sentiment of both parties would have acclaimed such a solution of the difficulty. Only the tactless persistence of an English ministry and monarch could have alienated such. allegiance as these gentry owned to the mother country. A little more friendly diplomacy in the treatment of these colonies, and English sovereignty might have rested on a foundation that not all the radical malcontents from Boston to Savannah would have been able to shake.

CHARLES H. LEVERMORE.

WESTERN STATE-MAKING IN THE REVOLU

TIONARY ERA

II

ALTHOUGH in western Pennsylvania the agitation subsided for a time, in the West Virginia region the ferment went on. Το understand the situation it is necessary to recall the proceedings in Congress. On November 3, 1781, a committee recommended the acceptance of New York's cession, covering a considerable portion. of Virginia's claim; and also recommended that Congress should refuse to give to Virginia the guaranty of her remaining territory, which she had demanded as the price of ceding her lands beyond the Ohio. It further recommended, that when Congress should come into possession of the tract, the claim of the Indiana company be confirmed, and the Vandalia proprietors reimbursed in lands for their actual expenditures; but it denied the latter grant as a whole, as incompatible with the interests, government, and policy of the United States. The report was a distinct blow to Virginia, and it marks the highwater point of efforts at Congressional control of regions like West Virginia just west of the Alleghanies. Through the reasoning of the report ran the theory that the crown lands, that is, all the lands beyond these mountains, had passed by devolution to the whole United States. In accepting New York's cession, Congress clothed herself with the additional title of that State. The report was not acted on until later, but the rumor of it (sometimes exaggerated into the statement that Congress had definitely taken the crown lands) spread through the West, and increased the projects for states and the appeals to Congress. In the summer of 1782 heated debates occurred in Congress over its power respecting the organization of the trans-Alleghany lands. Some argued for the right of Congress to take possession of this country, and to take the petitioning Western settlers by the hand, and admit them as new states. It was intimated that Virginia contemplated the formation of the Western country into distinct subordinate governments, and the sending out of lieutenant-governors to rule them a repetition of the colonial policy of Great Britain, and likely to bring about another revolution. Virginia

was threatened by one speaker with forcible division into two or more distinct and independent states. In the fall of 1782 Congress accepted New York's cession, and there matters rested until the next autumn.2

With so critical a situation in Congress, it is not surprising that Virginia settlers beyond the mountains began to sell their lands for low prices, and to take up new claims, expecting to be supported by Congress. Within a few days after they gave the news of this movement, the same newspapers printed a petition 3 to the Virginia Assembly, asking for a new state beyond the mountains. The settlers pointed with pride to their loyalty to the revolutionary cause even while they were suffering hardships in their internal government; and they declared at some length their respect for the federal government. Said the memorialists: "We are, indeed, erected into separate States upon the declaration of our independency: but the very existence of those states separately considered, was necessarily depending upon the success of our federal Union." "Every wise man looks through the Constitution of his own State to that of the confederation, as he walks through the particular apartments of his own house to view the situation of the whole building." An increase of states in the federal Union would, in their opinion, conduce to the strength and dignity of that Union; for, said these frontier members of the Old Dominion, "it is as possible that one state should aim at undue influence over others as that an individual should aspire after the aggrandizement of himself," and this danger an increase of states would lessen. Replying to objections drawn from their social conditions, they say: "Some of our fellow-citizens may think we are not yet able to conduct our affairs and consult our interests; but if our society is rude, much wisdom is not necessary to supply our wants, and a fool can sometimes put on his clothes better

1 Thomson Papers, N. Y. Hist. Colls., 1878, pp. 145-150.

2 Madison's Observations relating to the Influence of Vermont and the Territorial Claims on the Politics of Congress, May 1, 1782 (Gilpin, I. 122), gives a good idea of the situation from a Virginia point of view, and shows the part played by the land companies and by the revolutionary State of Vermont, where the similar problem of recognizing a state, formed within the limits of other states and against their will, was involved. The Philadelphia Independent Gazette, of July 13 and 20, has two numbers of a series entitled: “A Philosophical Discussion on the Rights of Vermont, Kentucky, etc., to aspire to their Separate Stations of Independency among Sovereign States on Revolutionary Principles, by a Revolutionist." These numbers (all I have access to) were chiefly vituperative, and the underlying thought is expressed in the title. The Vermont example was made use of in connection with Western projects. Ramsey, Tennessee, 312.

3 Draper Colls., Newspaper Extracts III., Maryland Journal, December 9 and December 20, 1783.

than a wise man can do it for him. We are not against hearing council; but we attend more to our feelings than to the argumentation of others." They add that the whole authority of the state rests ultimately upon the opinions and judgments of men who are generally as void of experience as themselves. Nor in their opinion is there occasion to fear the results of a separation of the two parts of the state of Virginia: "Our nearest seaports will be among you, your readiest resources for effectual succour in case of any invasion will be to us: the fruits of our industry and temperance will be enjoyed by you, and the simplicity of our manners will furnish you with profitable lessons. In recompense for these services you will furnish our rustic inhabitants with examples of civility and politeness and supply us with conveniences which are without the reach of our labour." They ask therefore that Virginia should cede all the territory west of the Alleghany Mountains and allow the settlers to form a new government under the auspices of the American Congress. Early the next year Jefferson 1 wrote to Madison that it was for the interest of Virginia to cede the Kentucky region immediately, because the people beyond the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanawha would "separate themselves and be joined by all our settlements beyond the Alleghany, if they are the first movers; whereas if we draw the line, those at Kentucky having their end will not interest themselves for the people of Indiana, Greenbrier, etc., who will, of course, be left to our management, and I can with certainty almost say that congress would approve of the meridian of the mouth of the Kanhaway, consider it as the ultimate point to be desired from Virginia. Should we not be the first movers, and the Indianians and Kentuckyians take themselves off and claim to the Alleghany, I am afraid Congress would secretly wish them well." By the Indianians, of course Jefferson means the inhabitants of the region. of the old Indiana company, and it seems likely that the petition just considered came from these settlers. The reasons which Jefferson gives for retaining to the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanawha included the following: These lands (before long to be thickly settled) would form a barrier for Virginia; and the hundred and eighty miles of barren, mountainous lands beyond would make a fine separation between her and the next state. The lead mines were there; and the improvement of the river would afford "the shortest water communication by 500 miles of any which can ever be got between the western waters and Atlantic, and of course promises us almost a monopoly of the 1 Jefferson, Writings, III. 401.