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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing) 172 172 Browse Search
Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register 34 34 Browse Search
Benjamin Cutter, William R. Cutter, History of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts, ormerly the second precinct in Cambridge, or District of Menotomy, afterward the town of West Cambridge. 1635-1879 with a genealogical register of the inhabitants of the precinct. 34 34 Browse Search
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government 26 26 Browse Search
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1. (ed. Frank Moore) 19 19 Browse Search
Knight's Mechanical Encyclopedia (ed. Knight) 18 18 Browse Search
Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume I. 18 18 Browse Search
Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1 16 16 Browse Search
Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1 15 15 Browse Search
Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 1, Colonial and Revolutionary Literature: Early National Literature: Part I (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.) 13 13 Browse Search
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Browsing named entities in Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. You can also browse the collection for 1787 AD or search for 1787 AD in all documents.

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Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 1: (search)
possessions northwest of the Ohio, from which the great states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota, have since been formed. In 1787—before the adoption of the federal Constitution—the celebrated ordinance for the government of this Northwestern Territory was adopted by the Congress, with the fu The proceedings constitute a significant and instructive episode in the political history of the country. The allusion which has been made to the Ordinance of 1787 renders it proper to notice, very briefly, the argument put forward during the discussion of the Missouri question, and often repeated since, that the ordinance afPapers, Vol. II, Foreign relations, p. 507. For all the reasons thus stated, it seems to me conclusive that the action of the Congress of the Confederation in 1787 could not constitute a precedent to justify the action of the Congress of the United States in 1820, and that the prohibitory clause of the Missouri Compromise wa
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 5: (search)
of the fact so firmly established in the Constitution, that sovereignty resided alone in the states, and that Congress had only delegated powers. It has been sometimes contended that because the Congress of the Confederation, by the Ordinance of 1787, prohibited involuntary servitude in all the Northwestern Territory, the framers of the Constitution must have recognized such power to exist in the Congress of the United States. Hence the deduction that the prohibitory clause of what is known as the Missouri Compromise was justified by the precedent of the Ordinance of 1787. To make the action of the Congress of the Confederation a precedent for the Congress of the United States is to overlook the great distinction between the two. The Congress of the Confederation represented the states in their sovereignty; as such representatives, it had legislative, executive, and, in some degree, judicial power confided to it. Virtually, it was an assemblage of the states. In certain cases a
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 1: (search)
ssociation of states, at first as embraced in the Articles of Confederation, and afterward as revised, amended, enlarged, and embodied in the instrument framed in 1787, and subsequently adopted by the various states. The manner in which this revision was effected was as follows. Acting on the suggestion of the Annapolis Convention, the Congress, on the 21st of the ensuing February (1787), adopted the following resolution: Resolved, That, in the opinion of Congress, it is expedient that, on the second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express poted, we may derive certain conclusions, so obvious that they need only to be stated: 1. In the first place, it is clear that the delegates to the convention of 1787 represented, not the people of the United States in mass, as has been most absurdly contended by some political writers, but the people of the several states, as s
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 2: (search)
e entirely satisfactory. It is not necessary, and would be beyond the scope of this work, to undertake to give a history of the proceedings of the convention of 1787. That may be obtained from other sources. All that is requisite for the present purpose is to notice a few particulars of special significance or relevancy to t by the votes of one people, or one community, in which a majority of the votes cast determined the result. We have seen that the delegates to the convention of 1787 were chosen by the several states, as states— it is hardly necessary to add that they voted in the convention, as in the federal Congress, by states—each state casched the following words: Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the twelfth. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 3: (search)
ended system of union, or confederation (the terms are employed indiscriminately and interchangeably by the statesmen of that period), devised by the convention of 1787, and embodied, as we have seen, in the Constitution which they framed and have set forth, was now to be considered and acted on by the people of the several statestitution proposed and agreed upon by the deputies of the United States at a General Convention held at the city of Philadelphia on the 17th day of September, A. D. 1787, have approved of, assented to, and ratified and confirmed, and by these presents do, in virtue of the powers and authority to us given for that purpose, for and i to, ratify, and confirm the same, and every part thereof. Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the members present, this 18th day of December, A. D. 1787. Georgia next, and also unanimously, on January 2, 1788, declared, through the delegates of the State of Georgia, in convention met, pursuant to the provisions
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 4: (search)
ngland other associations Independence of communities traced from Germany to great Britain, and from great Britain to America Everett's provincial people origin and continuance of the title United States no such political community as the people of the United States. The historical retrospect of the last three chapters and the extracts from the records of a generation now departed have been presented as necessary to a right understanding of the nature and principles of the compact of 1787, on which depended the questions at issue in the secession of 1861 and the contest that ensued between the states. We have seen that the united colonies, when they declared their independence, formed a league or alliance with one another as United States. This title antedated the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. It was assumed immediately after the Declaration of Independence, and was continued under the Articles of Confederation, the first of which declared that the style of t
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 5: (search)
the people of such states as should agree to unite on the terms proposed. The imposing fabric of political delusion, which has been erected on the basis of this simple transaction, disappears before the light of historical record. Could the authors of the Constitution have foreseen the perversion to be made of their obvious meaning, it might have been prevented by an easy periphrasis—such as, We, the people of the States hereby united, or something to the same effect. The word people in 1787, as in 1880, was, as it is, a collective noun, employed indiscriminately, either as a unit in such expressions as this people, a free people, etc., or in a distributive sense, as applied to the citizens or inhabitants of one state or country or a number of states or countries. When the convention of the colony of Virginia, in 1774, instructed their delegates to the Congress that was to meet in Philadelphia, to obtain a redress of those grievances, without which the people of America can neit
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 6: (search)
etition. I remember, says Mr. Webster, to have heard Chief-Justice Marshall ask counsel, who was insisting upon the authority of an act of legislation, if he thought an act of legislation could create or destroy a fact, or change the truth of history? Would it alter the fact, said he, if a Legislature should solemnly enact that Mr. Hume never wrote the History of England? A Legislature may alter the law, continues Mr. Webster, but no power can reverse a fact. Hence, if the Convention of 1787 had expressly declared that the Constitution was [to be] ordained by the people of the United States in the aggregate, or by the people of America as one nation, this would not have destroyed the fact that it was ratified by each State for itself, and that each State was bound only by its own voluntary act. (Bledsoe.) But the convention, as we have seen, said no such thing. No such community as the people of the United States in the aggregate is known to it, or ever acted on it. It was o
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 7: (search)
he late war gave it an interest which it had never commanded before, have collected such an array of evidence in this behalf that it is necessary only to cite a few examples. The following language of Gerry of Massachusetts in the convention of 1787, has already been referred to: If nine out of thirteen States can dissolve the compact, six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the new one hereafter. Gouverneur Morris, one of the most pronounced advocates of a strong central governmen, and once the term secession. He asks what the opponents of the Constitution in Virginia would do, if nine other States should accede to the Constitution. Luther Martin of Maryland informs us that, in a committee of the general convention of 1787, protesting against the proposed violation of the principles of the perpetual union already formed under the Articles of Confederation, he made use of such language as this: Will you tell us we ought to trust you because you now enter into a s
Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Chapter 10: (search)
Chapter 10: A recapitulation remarkable propositions of Gouverneur Morris in the convention of 1787, and their fate further testimony Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Marshall, etc. later theories Webster: his views at various periods speech at Capon Springs State rights not a sectional theory. Looking back for a moment at the ground over which we have gone, I think it may be fairly asserted that the following propositions have been clearly and fully established: 1. Thatmunity as the people of the United States in one mass. Perhaps this expression needs some little qualification, for there is rarely a fallacy, however stupendous, that is wholly original. A careful examination of the records of the convention of 1787 exhibits one or perhaps two instances of such a suggestion—both by the same person—and the result in each case is strikingly significant. The original proposition made concerning the office of President of the United States contemplated his ele
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