It is often assumed that knowing history is "knowing the facts." But historical understanding is more accurately depicted as a series of inquiries and hypotheses about the past. Asking questions and looking for answers are essential components of the historian's craft. What follows are a number of questions to help you reflect on the crisis at Fort Sumter. Although the information in this program never changes, you may find that as you ask new questions or reconsider old ones, your ideas about what happened change and broaden. Pursuing the program's bibliographic references will also enlarge your understanding of this event.
1. According to some accounts of the Sumter crisis, President Lincoln should bear the major responsibility for the outbreak of war because his actions were needlessly provocative. Although the Confederacy might have fired the first shot, the real aggressor is not necessarily the person who first resorts to violence. To what extent do you agree with this assessment of Lincoln's policy?
2. Would you have recommended that Lincoln adopt a more conciliatory course towards the seceding states, and, specifically, what would you have advised him to do?
3. If Lincoln had adopted a more conciliatory course, do you think the outcome would have been any different? Would it have averted war? For example, if Lincoln had abandoned Sumter, what do you think would have happened?
4. Would you have supported Secretary of State Seward's advice to let Sumter go but make a symbolic stand at Pickens? What were the benefits and liabilities of Seward's idea?
5. Do you think that Lincoln was actually too moderate and conciliatory, and that he misjudged the Confederacy's resolve and intent? If you were an adviser, would you have recommended that the President adopt a firmer and more forceful stand on Fort Sumter and other federal possessions at the very outset of his administration?
6. If Fort Sumter had little military value to either side, did Jefferson Davis and his cabinet miscalculate the best interests of the Confederacy by firing on Sumter before the relief expedition arrived? Was this simply an act of "rash emotionalism," as some have contended? Would it have mattered if the fort remained in Union hands for the time being?
7. Suppose Lincoln recognized the likelihood of conflict when he ordered the relief mission to sail. Does this decision make him more, less, or equally responsible than Davis for the war that followed?
8. What was Lincoln's justification for risking conflict when he sent the Sumter expedition? Are some things worth the risk of war? If so, do you think holding Fort Sumter should be considered one of them?
9. To what degree do you think Lincoln's decision to send the relief expedition was dictated by a sense that there was simply no better alternative, and that the "best" decision was actually only the "least bad" alternative?
10. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln offered his own observations about the outbreak of war. "Four years ago," he recalled, "all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it . . . Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
Do you think that Lincoln was accurately describing the positions of both the Union and the Confederacy? Does his statement imply a fatalistic recognition that war was inevitable?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Fox Expedition's Feasibility
Since relief, in the form of provisioning and, perhaps, reinforcement was essential to hold Sumter, it is necessary to consider the feasibility of Fox's plan. Would Fox have been able to transport provisions or troops to the fort, either without provoking conflict or in the face of resistance? And if the plan could work, was the loss of the Powhatan, which was attached in stead to the Pickens expedition, a fatal blow to its chances?
Fox himself thought his plan was "perfectly practicable," and that the Confederacy, realizing its feasibility, attacked Sumter before it could be strengthened. "I believe every officer of the army or navy present were entirely satisfied of the feasibility of . . . my plans," he declared afterwards. "In fact, their [Confederate] fire was precipitated because they . . . were assured by their best naval authority that it was perfectly practicable." Had all gone according to plan, "a reenforcement would have been easy," Fox reported after the battle of Sumter.
Fox blamed the expedition's failure on Secretary of State Seward. He claimed that Seward's "treachery" deprived him of the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, making the transfer of supplies and troops impossible. "Had the Powhatan arrived on the 12th," Fox wrote, "we should have had the men and provisions into Fort Sumter, as I had everything ready, boats, muffled oars, small packages of provisions, in fact everything but the 300 sailors promised to me by the [Navy] dept."
But others disagreed with Fox. Both Major Anderson and Secretary of the Navy Welles believed that Confederate forces were numerous and forewarned, making reprovisioning and reinforcement impossible. Anderson argued that the plan "could not have been successfully executed on account of the many guns which could have been brought to bear by the batteries, while Welles agreed that the effort "probably would not have succeeded" because the rebels were prepared and warned of the intended expedition.
Lincoln thought the Sumter expedition sufficiently practicable to send forward, but as he acknowledged to Fox afterwards, the "plan was not, in fact, brought to a test." In accounting for the mission's failure, Lincoln pointed to bad weather, the non-appearance of the tugboats, and his own responsibility for unintentionally depriving Fox of the Powhatan.
Bibliography: Fox, Confidential Correspondence, 1: 43-44; ORN, pp. 244-45.
Fox himself thought his plan was "perfectly practicable," and that the Confederacy, realizing its feasibility, attacked Sumter before it could be strengthened. "I believe every officer of the army or navy present were entirely satisfied of the feasibility of . . . my plans," he declared afterwards. "In fact, their [Confederate] fire was precipitated because they . . . were assured by their best naval authority that it was perfectly practicable." Had all gone according to plan, "a reenforcement would have been easy," Fox reported after the battle of Sumter.
Fox blamed the expedition's failure on Secretary of State Seward. He claimed that Seward's "treachery" deprived him of the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, making the transfer of supplies and troops impossible. "Had the Powhatan arrived on the 12th," Fox wrote, "we should have had the men and provisions into Fort Sumter, as I had everything ready, boats, muffled oars, small packages of provisions, in fact everything but the 300 sailors promised to me by the [Navy] dept."
But others disagreed with Fox. Both Major Anderson and Secretary of the Navy Welles believed that Confederate forces were numerous and forewarned, making reprovisioning and reinforcement impossible. Anderson argued that the plan "could not have been successfully executed on account of the many guns which could have been brought to bear by the batteries, while Welles agreed that the effort "probably would not have succeeded" because the rebels were prepared and warned of the intended expedition.
Lincoln thought the Sumter expedition sufficiently practicable to send forward, but as he acknowledged to Fox afterwards, the "plan was not, in fact, brought to a test." In accounting for the mission's failure, Lincoln pointed to bad weather, the non-appearance of the tugboats, and his own responsibility for unintentionally depriving Fox of the Powhatan.
Bibliography: Fox, Confidential Correspondence, 1: 43-44; ORN, pp. 244-45.
Lincoln the Realist
Some of those who have examined the secession crisis present Lincoln as neither a war hawk nor a failed peacemaker. Kenneth M. Stampp and Richard N. Current disagree with those who allege Lincoln's responsibility for provoking the Civil War. Indeed, they argue, one could readily reverse the charge and allege that the Confederacy was motivated to provoke the war. For Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government, Sumter provided an opportunity to unify the Confederacy, uphold southern honor and prestige, and drag the upper South out of the Union, despite Lincoln's best efforts to avoid conflict! It was Davis, after all, who ordered the attack on Sumter before the arrival of the expedition.
At the same time, these historians do not think Lincoln was unequivocally committed to a peaceable resolution of the crisis and the voluntary reconstruction of the Union. If the President truly sought the most peaceable course possible, he would have let Sumter go and taken his symbolic stand for federal authority at Fort Pickens. Since Sumter had no military value, Lincoln could have justified his withdrawal on the grounds of military necessity, blaming the previous Buchanan administration for handing him the fort in an indefensible condition. Even in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln could have announced his purpose without also stating that he would attempt to reinforce the fort if the provisioning were resisted. Such a course would have appeared less threatening to sensitive southern leaders.
Lincoln, then, neither deliberately provoked war nor followed the most peaceable course imaginable. Instead, he was a realist who acknowledged the possibility that his policy risked conflict. According to Stampp, Lincoln developed a "strategy of defense," by which he would hold federal property by means that would be considered defensive, not coercive. Thus, despite his cabinet's almost unanimous approval initially to withdraw from Sumter, Lincoln continued to search for ways to relieve it. He himself formulated the idea of sending in provisions unless resistance occurred, and of providing advance notice to the South Carolina government. The South, then, would have to bear the onus of firing the first shot, and firing it against an unarmed ship bringing food to hungry troops.
To be sure, Lincoln hesitated for a time before making his final decision to dispatch the Sumter expedition. But this cautiousness was not dictated by the tempting prospect of focusing attention on Fort Pickens and abandoning Sumter. Instead, it was due to the greater military and political dangers inherent in the situation in Charleston Harbor. He could not simply ignore advice from military experts that a relief mission was impossible, and he had to find a way of sending it without appearing to be the aggressor. His determination to go forward with the Sumter operation was made independently of the situation at Pickens. He made his decision prior to learning that Pickens had not been reinforced, though that news likely confirmed his judgment to proceed.
To Stampp and Current, the outbreak of fighting did not represent a failure of Lincoln's policy; he had always recognized the risk of conflict. Indeed, his policy would have succeeded regardless of what happened at Sumter. If the South permitted the fleet to resupply the fort, the prestige and legitimacy of the Confederacy would have suffered a severe blow. If, as happened, the South resisted, Lincoln would find a more united North and a sympathetic European community standing against the South's aggressive attack. As his private secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, later expressed it, when Lincoln issued the decisive order for the Sumter ships to sail, "he was master of the situation."
Although they dispute key aspects of Potter's argument, Stampp and Current agree with him that in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln was not choosing war over peace. While he realized the probability that the expedition would be attacked, it was at least possible that the South would acquiesce. Moreover, alternatives, such as abandoning Sumter, also entailed risks. Withdrawal could bestow legitimacy on the Confederacy and hasten a new crisis over another issue. It could also encourage the upper South to secede, persuade European governments to offer recognition, or merely postpone the inevitable conflict. Finally, if the expedition eventuated in battle, as was likely, Lincoln did not necessarily anticipate a protracted and bloody war. He may well have expected a brief contest which would lead to the quick restoration of the Union. In accepting the risk of conflict, Lincoln was not envisioning the Civil War that actually came to pass.
Commentary
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 188-94; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 177-85; Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 284-86; Stampp, "Comment" on Potter's "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," Knoles, ed., Crisis, pp. 107-13; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 3: 442, 4: 62.
At the same time, these historians do not think Lincoln was unequivocally committed to a peaceable resolution of the crisis and the voluntary reconstruction of the Union. If the President truly sought the most peaceable course possible, he would have let Sumter go and taken his symbolic stand for federal authority at Fort Pickens. Since Sumter had no military value, Lincoln could have justified his withdrawal on the grounds of military necessity, blaming the previous Buchanan administration for handing him the fort in an indefensible condition. Even in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln could have announced his purpose without also stating that he would attempt to reinforce the fort if the provisioning were resisted. Such a course would have appeared less threatening to sensitive southern leaders.
Lincoln, then, neither deliberately provoked war nor followed the most peaceable course imaginable. Instead, he was a realist who acknowledged the possibility that his policy risked conflict. According to Stampp, Lincoln developed a "strategy of defense," by which he would hold federal property by means that would be considered defensive, not coercive. Thus, despite his cabinet's almost unanimous approval initially to withdraw from Sumter, Lincoln continued to search for ways to relieve it. He himself formulated the idea of sending in provisions unless resistance occurred, and of providing advance notice to the South Carolina government. The South, then, would have to bear the onus of firing the first shot, and firing it against an unarmed ship bringing food to hungry troops.
To be sure, Lincoln hesitated for a time before making his final decision to dispatch the Sumter expedition. But this cautiousness was not dictated by the tempting prospect of focusing attention on Fort Pickens and abandoning Sumter. Instead, it was due to the greater military and political dangers inherent in the situation in Charleston Harbor. He could not simply ignore advice from military experts that a relief mission was impossible, and he had to find a way of sending it without appearing to be the aggressor. His determination to go forward with the Sumter operation was made independently of the situation at Pickens. He made his decision prior to learning that Pickens had not been reinforced, though that news likely confirmed his judgment to proceed.
To Stampp and Current, the outbreak of fighting did not represent a failure of Lincoln's policy; he had always recognized the risk of conflict. Indeed, his policy would have succeeded regardless of what happened at Sumter. If the South permitted the fleet to resupply the fort, the prestige and legitimacy of the Confederacy would have suffered a severe blow. If, as happened, the South resisted, Lincoln would find a more united North and a sympathetic European community standing against the South's aggressive attack. As his private secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, later expressed it, when Lincoln issued the decisive order for the Sumter ships to sail, "he was master of the situation."
Although they dispute key aspects of Potter's argument, Stampp and Current agree with him that in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln was not choosing war over peace. While he realized the probability that the expedition would be attacked, it was at least possible that the South would acquiesce. Moreover, alternatives, such as abandoning Sumter, also entailed risks. Withdrawal could bestow legitimacy on the Confederacy and hasten a new crisis over another issue. It could also encourage the upper South to secede, persuade European governments to offer recognition, or merely postpone the inevitable conflict. Finally, if the expedition eventuated in battle, as was likely, Lincoln did not necessarily anticipate a protracted and bloody war. He may well have expected a brief contest which would lead to the quick restoration of the Union. In accepting the risk of conflict, Lincoln was not envisioning the Civil War that actually came to pass.
Commentary
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 188-94; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 177-85; Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 284-86; Stampp, "Comment" on Potter's "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," Knoles, ed., Crisis, pp. 107-13; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 3: 442, 4: 62.
Lincoln Provoked the War
Southern leaders of the Civil War period placed the blame for the outbreak of fighting squarely on Lincoln. They accused the President of acting aggressively towards the South and of deliberately provoking war in order to overthrow the Confederacy. For its part, the Confederacy sought a peaceable accommodation of its legitimate claims to independence, and resorted to measures of self-defence only when threatened by Lincoln's coercive policy. Thus, Confederate vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, claimed that the war was "inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln." Stephens readily acknowledged that General Beauregard's troops fired the "first gun." But, he argued, the larger truth is that "in personal or national conflicts, it is not he who strikes the first blow, or fires the first gun that inaugurates or begins the conflict." Rather, the true aggressor is "the first who renders force necessary."
Stephens identified the beginning of the war as Lincoln's order sending a "hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron'," to reinforce Fort Sumter. "The war was then and there inaugurated and begun by the authorities at Washington. General Beauregard did not open fire upon Fort Sumter until this fleet was, to his knowledge, very near the harbor of Charleston, and until he had inquired of Major Anderson . . . whether he would engage to take no part in the expected blow, then coming down upon him from the approaching fleet . . . When Major Anderson . . .would make no such promise, it became necessary for General Beauregard to strike the first blow, as he did; otherwise the forces under his command might have been exposed to two fires at the same time-- one in front, and the other in the rear." The use of force by the Confederacy , therefore, was in "self-defence," rendered necessary by the actions of the other side.
Jefferson Davis, who, like Stephens, wrote his account after the Civil War, took a similar position. Fort Sumter was rightfully South Carolina's property after secession, and the Confederate government had shown great "forbearance" in trying to reach an equitable settlement with the federal government. But the Lincoln administration destroyed these efforts by sending "a hostile fleet" to Sumter. "The attempt to represent us as the aggressors," Davis argued, "is as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun."
From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable. It meant the continued presence of a hostile threat to Charleston. Further, although the ostensible purpose of the expedition was to resupply, not reinforce the fort, the Confederacy had no guarantee that Lincoln would abide by his word. And even if he restricted his actions to resupply in this case, what was to prevent him from attempting to reinforce the fort in the future? Thus, the attack on Sumter was a measure of "defense." To have acquiesced in the fort's relief, even at the risk of firing the first shot, "would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired."
In the twentieth century, this critical view of Lincoln's actions gained a wide audience through the writings of Charles W. Ramsdell and others. According to Ramsdell, the situation at Sumter presented Lincoln with a series of dilemmas. If he took action to maintain the fort, he would lose the border South and a large segment of northern opinion which wanted to conciliate the South. If he abandoned the fort, he jeopardized the Union by legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln also hazarded losing the support of a substantial portion of his own Republican Party, and risked appearing a weak and ineffective leader.
Lincoln could escape these predicaments, however, if he could induce southerners to attack Sumter, "to assume the aggressive and thus put themselves in the wrong in the eyes of the North and of the world." By sending a relief expedition, ostensibly to provide bread to a hungry garrison, Lincoln turned the tables on the Confederates, forcing them to choose whether to permit the fort to be strengthened, or to act as the aggressor. By this "astute strategy," Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot.
Bibliography: Stephens, Constitutional View, 2: 35-41; Davis, Rise and Fall, 1: 289-95; Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter,"pp. 259-88.
Stephens identified the beginning of the war as Lincoln's order sending a "hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron'," to reinforce Fort Sumter. "The war was then and there inaugurated and begun by the authorities at Washington. General Beauregard did not open fire upon Fort Sumter until this fleet was, to his knowledge, very near the harbor of Charleston, and until he had inquired of Major Anderson . . . whether he would engage to take no part in the expected blow, then coming down upon him from the approaching fleet . . . When Major Anderson . . .would make no such promise, it became necessary for General Beauregard to strike the first blow, as he did; otherwise the forces under his command might have been exposed to two fires at the same time-- one in front, and the other in the rear." The use of force by the Confederacy , therefore, was in "self-defence," rendered necessary by the actions of the other side.
Jefferson Davis, who, like Stephens, wrote his account after the Civil War, took a similar position. Fort Sumter was rightfully South Carolina's property after secession, and the Confederate government had shown great "forbearance" in trying to reach an equitable settlement with the federal government. But the Lincoln administration destroyed these efforts by sending "a hostile fleet" to Sumter. "The attempt to represent us as the aggressors," Davis argued, "is as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun."
From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable. It meant the continued presence of a hostile threat to Charleston. Further, although the ostensible purpose of the expedition was to resupply, not reinforce the fort, the Confederacy had no guarantee that Lincoln would abide by his word. And even if he restricted his actions to resupply in this case, what was to prevent him from attempting to reinforce the fort in the future? Thus, the attack on Sumter was a measure of "defense." To have acquiesced in the fort's relief, even at the risk of firing the first shot, "would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired."
In the twentieth century, this critical view of Lincoln's actions gained a wide audience through the writings of Charles W. Ramsdell and others. According to Ramsdell, the situation at Sumter presented Lincoln with a series of dilemmas. If he took action to maintain the fort, he would lose the border South and a large segment of northern opinion which wanted to conciliate the South. If he abandoned the fort, he jeopardized the Union by legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln also hazarded losing the support of a substantial portion of his own Republican Party, and risked appearing a weak and ineffective leader.
Lincoln could escape these predicaments, however, if he could induce southerners to attack Sumter, "to assume the aggressive and thus put themselves in the wrong in the eyes of the North and of the world." By sending a relief expedition, ostensibly to provide bread to a hungry garrison, Lincoln turned the tables on the Confederates, forcing them to choose whether to permit the fort to be strengthened, or to act as the aggressor. By this "astute strategy," Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot.
Bibliography: Stephens, Constitutional View, 2: 35-41; Davis, Rise and Fall, 1: 289-95; Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter,"pp. 259-88.
Lincoln, the Man of Peace
Lincoln, the Man of Peace
Almost all historians reject the claim that Lincoln deliberately provoked the Civil War. They consider the idea unsubstantiated by evidence, inconsistent with Lincoln's character, and unwarranted by the context of events. David M. Potter, for example, contends that Lincoln sincerely pursued a policy that would avert war. Placing great-- too great-- faith in the existence of unionist sentiment in the South, Lincoln did all he could to avoid a confrontation that would und ermine unionist chances of regaining power. He modified his Inaugural Address to eliminate the threat of repossessing federal property, and seriously contemplated abandoning Sumter if military considerations made such an action necessary. Although he would not sacrifice the essential principle of Union, on every occasion, Lincoln adopted the least provocative course available.
In the end, Lincoln reluctantly sent the Sumter expedition only after learning that the reinforcement of Fort Pickens had not taken place. Since Pickens could not provide a symbol of the Union's permanency, the abandonment of Sumter was now unacceptable. Even in these circumstances, Lincoln took the most peaceable course possible. He adopted a plan to resupply rather than reinforce the fort, and informed South Carolina officials of his intention. Althou gh fighting broke out as a result of his decision, Lincoln did not deliberately choose war. Instead, he opted for a course whose consequences were unknown, and which offered at least a possibility of avoiding war.
From Potter's perspective, the bombardment of Sumter represented a failure of Lincoln's policy to avert war. War was an unintended consequence of a policy that failed because of Confederate actions and Lincoln's miscalculation of the strength and determination of the secessionist cause. The Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall, has articulated the significant distinction between intentions and unintended consequences. "To say that Lincoln meant that the first shot would be fired by the other side if a first shot was fired, is not to say that he maneuvered to have the shot fired. The distinction is fundamental," Randall observes.
Bibliography: Potter, Lincoln and His Party, xxxi-xxxiii, 336-75; Potter, "Why the Republicans R
Almost all historians reject the claim that Lincoln deliberately provoked the Civil War. They consider the idea unsubstantiated by evidence, inconsistent with Lincoln's character, and unwarranted by the context of events. David M. Potter, for example, contends that Lincoln sincerely pursued a policy that would avert war. Placing great-- too great-- faith in the existence of unionist sentiment in the South, Lincoln did all he could to avoid a confrontation that would und ermine unionist chances of regaining power. He modified his Inaugural Address to eliminate the threat of repossessing federal property, and seriously contemplated abandoning Sumter if military considerations made such an action necessary. Although he would not sacrifice the essential principle of Union, on every occasion, Lincoln adopted the least provocative course available.
In the end, Lincoln reluctantly sent the Sumter expedition only after learning that the reinforcement of Fort Pickens had not taken place. Since Pickens could not provide a symbol of the Union's permanency, the abandonment of Sumter was now unacceptable. Even in these circumstances, Lincoln took the most peaceable course possible. He adopted a plan to resupply rather than reinforce the fort, and informed South Carolina officials of his intention. Althou gh fighting broke out as a result of his decision, Lincoln did not deliberately choose war. Instead, he opted for a course whose consequences were unknown, and which offered at least a possibility of avoiding war.
From Potter's perspective, the bombardment of Sumter represented a failure of Lincoln's policy to avert war. War was an unintended consequence of a policy that failed because of Confederate actions and Lincoln's miscalculation of the strength and determination of the secessionist cause. The Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall, has articulated the significant distinction between intentions and unintended consequences. "To say that Lincoln meant that the first shot would be fired by the other side if a first shot was fired, is not to say that he maneuvered to have the shot fired. The distinction is fundamental," Randall observes.
Bibliography: Potter, Lincoln and His Party, xxxi-xxxiii, 336-75; Potter, "Why the Republicans R
Reflections
Reflections
As the reality of civil war quickly took hold in the days following April 12, the dramatic saga of Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter faded into the background. Montgomery Blair remarked that "events of such magnitude" rapidly crowded on the country and President Lincoln, that "Sumter and Anderson are not thought of for the moment."
Fort Sumter, of course, was not forgotten, and the story of the fort and its small garrison holds a prominent place in American history. Sumter's fame has little to do with its military aspects. In strictly military terms, the battle between Union and Confederate forces at Fort Sumter scarcely merits attention. After a relatively brief bombardment, the small Union garrison surrendered a position of questionable military value to either side. Not a single human life was lost during the fighting, as compared to the massive, momentous, and bloody engagements at Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, or at Cold Harbor during the Wilderness Campaign where in a brief period of no more than half an hour, Union forces suffered some 7,000 casualties.
It is Sumter's association with the Civil War, one of the great shaping events of the American experience, which gives it a symbolic dimension far outweighing its military significance. The attack on Sumter was the first notable clash of arms between the newly formed Confederacy and the Union. The battle marked a transition from the period of precarious peace that accompanied the initial secession of seven deep South states from the Union to the four protracted years of bloodshed and devastation of the Civil War.
Like the Civil War itself, however, Sumter remains the subject of considerable controversy. Contemporary recollections, popular investigations, and historical analyses, have offered different assessments of a variety of issues connected with the outbreak of fighting. The most intense debate has focused on Lincoln, some of whose critics at the time, as well as later, held him responsible for the war and contended that he deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter. In their view, Lincoln deliberately and disingenuously fixed the onus for starting the war on the Confederacy. To be sure, scholars have also investigated the Confederate government, and some hold it accountable for the fighting. But it is Lincoln's decisions and motives that have been most closely scrutinized.
Lincoln was not the first, or last, President to be accused of acting deceitfully and provocatively in order to advance broader military or political objectives. In an earlier period, President James K. Polk was charged by opponents, including Lincoln himself, with initiating the Mexican War by sending American troops into disputed territory. In more recent American history, some critics assailed Franklin D. Roosevelt for maneuvering the United States into World War II, and Lyndon B. Johnson was alleged to have used an ambiguous incident in the Tonkin Gulf to widen the Viet Nam War.
The controversy over who was responsible for the "first shot" of the Civil War raises substantial moral and political issues. Americans have long and proudly considered themselves a peaceable people, who repel aggression but do not initiate war. Fortunate circumstances, including isolation from Europe and the presence of few and weak neighbors, partly explain the existence of the idea of America as a peaceful oasis in a contentious world. But the sources of this claim run deeper. The insightful nineteenth-century French visitor to the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville, remarked that democratic nations "quench the military spirit." According to Tocqueville, the manners and customs of democracies, combined with their wide diffusion of wealth and property, mitigate against war and warlike passions.
Whatever the validity of Tocqueville's observation, Americans have generally taken it to heart. They have affirmed that the United States should avoid international conflict and only intervene in response to outside aggression-- after the enemy has fire d the first shot. In a society devoted to democracy and prosperity, war is an aberration. When compelled to fight, however, Americans claim the high moral ground of defending freedom against aggressors. The possibility that either the Lincoln or Davis administrations initiated war, therefore, challenges long-established and strongly held cultural assumptions.
The issue of responsibility also involves broader questions of both policy and decision making. What exactly were the policies of the Lincoln and Davis administrations in dealing with the Sumter crisis? What were the decisions they made, and what assumptions underlay their decisions? Did either government, for example, want or expect war? What did each side expect would happen when it implemented its policy? Did their decisions have unintended consequences? Were their policies consistent over time, or did policies change as conditions altered? Issues of policy and decision making, therefore, call not only for an investigation of actions taken, but also of the motives and intentions behind those actions.
This section contains a survey of some of the key controversies surrounding Fort Sumter. Two topics, often overlooked by historians today but of great moment during the Sumter crisis, concern the Fox expedition and the condition of Fort Sumter itself. Could Fox's plan have worked? If so, if it had been possible to relieve Sumter, would the fort have been able to withstand the Confederate assault and remain in Union hands?
These two questions suggest a much broader issue about the Fort Sumter episode. Assuming there were reasonable grounds to send the relief expedition, what were Lincoln's expectations when he dispatched it? In answering this question, commentators have offered very different assessments of Lincoln's motives and actions. He has been variously portrayed as a man who provoked war, as a man of peace, and as a political realist. Depending on how Lincoln is viewed, the events at Sumter take on very different meanings.
To explore the issues concerning the Fox expedition and Fort Sumter, and to understand the various ways in which Lincoln's motives and actions during the Sumter crisis have been portrayed, click on the appropriate topic. The information presented illuminates the different perspectives with which Americans have viewed their Civil War. The section ends with a series of questions raised by this program.
* Fox Expedition's Feasibility
* Fort Sumter Defense
* Lincoln Provoked The War
* Lincoln, Man of Peace
* Lincoln The Realist
* Questions for Consideration
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 7-12, 182-208; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 163-88; McWhiney, "Confederacy's First Shot," pp. 5-6; Robertson, American Myth, American Reality, pp. 324-31; Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Bender, p. 54
As the reality of civil war quickly took hold in the days following April 12, the dramatic saga of Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter faded into the background. Montgomery Blair remarked that "events of such magnitude" rapidly crowded on the country and President Lincoln, that "Sumter and Anderson are not thought of for the moment."
Fort Sumter, of course, was not forgotten, and the story of the fort and its small garrison holds a prominent place in American history. Sumter's fame has little to do with its military aspects. In strictly military terms, the battle between Union and Confederate forces at Fort Sumter scarcely merits attention. After a relatively brief bombardment, the small Union garrison surrendered a position of questionable military value to either side. Not a single human life was lost during the fighting, as compared to the massive, momentous, and bloody engagements at Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, or at Cold Harbor during the Wilderness Campaign where in a brief period of no more than half an hour, Union forces suffered some 7,000 casualties.
It is Sumter's association with the Civil War, one of the great shaping events of the American experience, which gives it a symbolic dimension far outweighing its military significance. The attack on Sumter was the first notable clash of arms between the newly formed Confederacy and the Union. The battle marked a transition from the period of precarious peace that accompanied the initial secession of seven deep South states from the Union to the four protracted years of bloodshed and devastation of the Civil War.
Like the Civil War itself, however, Sumter remains the subject of considerable controversy. Contemporary recollections, popular investigations, and historical analyses, have offered different assessments of a variety of issues connected with the outbreak of fighting. The most intense debate has focused on Lincoln, some of whose critics at the time, as well as later, held him responsible for the war and contended that he deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter. In their view, Lincoln deliberately and disingenuously fixed the onus for starting the war on the Confederacy. To be sure, scholars have also investigated the Confederate government, and some hold it accountable for the fighting. But it is Lincoln's decisions and motives that have been most closely scrutinized.
Lincoln was not the first, or last, President to be accused of acting deceitfully and provocatively in order to advance broader military or political objectives. In an earlier period, President James K. Polk was charged by opponents, including Lincoln himself, with initiating the Mexican War by sending American troops into disputed territory. In more recent American history, some critics assailed Franklin D. Roosevelt for maneuvering the United States into World War II, and Lyndon B. Johnson was alleged to have used an ambiguous incident in the Tonkin Gulf to widen the Viet Nam War.
The controversy over who was responsible for the "first shot" of the Civil War raises substantial moral and political issues. Americans have long and proudly considered themselves a peaceable people, who repel aggression but do not initiate war. Fortunate circumstances, including isolation from Europe and the presence of few and weak neighbors, partly explain the existence of the idea of America as a peaceful oasis in a contentious world. But the sources of this claim run deeper. The insightful nineteenth-century French visitor to the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville, remarked that democratic nations "quench the military spirit." According to Tocqueville, the manners and customs of democracies, combined with their wide diffusion of wealth and property, mitigate against war and warlike passions.
Whatever the validity of Tocqueville's observation, Americans have generally taken it to heart. They have affirmed that the United States should avoid international conflict and only intervene in response to outside aggression-- after the enemy has fire d the first shot. In a society devoted to democracy and prosperity, war is an aberration. When compelled to fight, however, Americans claim the high moral ground of defending freedom against aggressors. The possibility that either the Lincoln or Davis administrations initiated war, therefore, challenges long-established and strongly held cultural assumptions.
The issue of responsibility also involves broader questions of both policy and decision making. What exactly were the policies of the Lincoln and Davis administrations in dealing with the Sumter crisis? What were the decisions they made, and what assumptions underlay their decisions? Did either government, for example, want or expect war? What did each side expect would happen when it implemented its policy? Did their decisions have unintended consequences? Were their policies consistent over time, or did policies change as conditions altered? Issues of policy and decision making, therefore, call not only for an investigation of actions taken, but also of the motives and intentions behind those actions.
This section contains a survey of some of the key controversies surrounding Fort Sumter. Two topics, often overlooked by historians today but of great moment during the Sumter crisis, concern the Fox expedition and the condition of Fort Sumter itself. Could Fox's plan have worked? If so, if it had been possible to relieve Sumter, would the fort have been able to withstand the Confederate assault and remain in Union hands?
These two questions suggest a much broader issue about the Fort Sumter episode. Assuming there were reasonable grounds to send the relief expedition, what were Lincoln's expectations when he dispatched it? In answering this question, commentators have offered very different assessments of Lincoln's motives and actions. He has been variously portrayed as a man who provoked war, as a man of peace, and as a political realist. Depending on how Lincoln is viewed, the events at Sumter take on very different meanings.
To explore the issues concerning the Fox expedition and Fort Sumter, and to understand the various ways in which Lincoln's motives and actions during the Sumter crisis have been portrayed, click on the appropriate topic. The information presented illuminates the different perspectives with which Americans have viewed their Civil War. The section ends with a series of questions raised by this program.
* Fox Expedition's Feasibility
* Fort Sumter Defense
* Lincoln Provoked The War
* Lincoln, Man of Peace
* Lincoln The Realist
* Questions for Consideration
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 7-12, 182-208; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 163-88; McWhiney, "Confederacy's First Shot," pp. 5-6; Robertson, American Myth, American Reality, pp. 324-31; Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Bender, p. 54
Aftermath
April 13, 1861 - April 14, 1865
Ironically, the situations at both Forts Pickens and Sumter were resolved even before the arrival of the relief expeditions. On the evening of April 12, 1861, following Lieutenant Worden's arrival in Pensacola, United States troops were landed at Pickens. The fort was secured, thereby offsetting the loss of the other naval fortifications at Pensacola Harbor. Fort Pickens and the surrounding island remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. While public attention focused on the shelling of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of Civil War, Meigs's relief expedition became a footnote in history, a relatively obscure "second" reinforcement of Pickens.
Meanwhile, Fox's expedition to Sumter arrived too late to provision or reinforce Anderson and his garrison. Fox's plan was never tested, partly because of the Confederacy's decision to attack Sumter before his expedition arrived, and partly because the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, sailed to Fort Pickens instead of Sumter.
In one sense, all of the decision making and planning behind the two expeditions was pointless. But such a view unduly minimizes the significance of Lincoln's actions. The Pickens mission decisively secured the fort from hostile forces, assuring a more effective implementation of the Union's blockade of southern ports. Furthermore, Lincoln's decision to send these expeditions influenced Jefferson Davis to initiate the attack on Sumter. While the irony of the Sumter and Pickens expeditions should be fully appreciated, their featured role in the coming of the Civil War still merits recognition.
Ironically, the situations at both Forts Pickens and Sumter were resolved even before the arrival of the relief expeditions. On the evening of April 12, 1861, following Lieutenant Worden's arrival in Pensacola, United States troops were landed at Pickens. The fort was secured, thereby offsetting the loss of the other naval fortifications at Pensacola Harbor. Fort Pickens and the surrounding island remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. While public attention focused on the shelling of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of Civil War, Meigs's relief expedition became a footnote in history, a relatively obscure "second" reinforcement of Pickens.
Meanwhile, Fox's expedition to Sumter arrived too late to provision or reinforce Anderson and his garrison. Fox's plan was never tested, partly because of the Confederacy's decision to attack Sumter before his expedition arrived, and partly because the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, sailed to Fort Pickens instead of Sumter.
In one sense, all of the decision making and planning behind the two expeditions was pointless. But such a view unduly minimizes the significance of Lincoln's actions. The Pickens mission decisively secured the fort from hostile forces, assuring a more effective implementation of the Union's blockade of southern ports. Furthermore, Lincoln's decision to send these expeditions influenced Jefferson Davis to initiate the attack on Sumter. While the irony of the Sumter and Pickens expeditions should be fully appreciated, their featured role in the coming of the Civil War still merits recognition.
And The War Came
April 7 - 12, 1861
Lincoln had made his decision to relieve Forts Sumter and Pickens. The messengers to Charleston and Pensacola had been dispatched. Two expeditions, one headed to Sumter, the other directed to Pickens, were in the process of embarking. Now there would be days of waiting until the fate of these efforts was known. Throughout the Union, there was a general anticipation that the long period of standoff between Washington and Montgomery was about to end.
Lincoln had set his plan in motion, but its outcome was no longer subject to his control. Already, and still unknown to him, the flagship of the Sumter fleet, the Powhatan, was headed for the wrong fort, Pickens. Furthermore, nature was proving uncooperative. A storm struck the Atlantic just as the Sumter expedition left port, blowing gale winds, rain, and high seas. The ships had to make their way through this "unpropitious" weather to reach Charleston. Most significantly, the action of Confederate officials would also determine the consequences of Lincoln's decision.
Lincoln had made his decision to relieve Forts Sumter and Pickens. The messengers to Charleston and Pensacola had been dispatched. Two expeditions, one headed to Sumter, the other directed to Pickens, were in the process of embarking. Now there would be days of waiting until the fate of these efforts was known. Throughout the Union, there was a general anticipation that the long period of standoff between Washington and Montgomery was about to end.
Lincoln had set his plan in motion, but its outcome was no longer subject to his control. Already, and still unknown to him, the flagship of the Sumter fleet, the Powhatan, was headed for the wrong fort, Pickens. Furthermore, nature was proving uncooperative. A storm struck the Atlantic just as the Sumter expedition left port, blowing gale winds, rain, and high seas. The ships had to make their way through this "unpropitious" weather to reach Charleston. Most significantly, the action of Confederate officials would also determine the consequences of Lincoln's decision.
Final Orders
March 31 - April 6, 1861
By the end of March, Lincoln had made certain key decisions involving Forts Sumter and Pickens. He had set in motion preparations for a relief mission to Sumter, and placed Gustavus V. Fox in charge. He had also established April 6 as the approximate date for the expedition to get under way, if sent, so as to arrive in time to help Anderson's garrison.
As for Fort Pickens, which was more accessible and politically less controversial, Lincoln had ordered it to be held and reinforced at the outset of his administration. However, no word had yet reached Washington that his orders had been successfully carried out. Instead, rumors were rampant that federal troops had never landed. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Seward, Lincoln, therefore, initiated conversations with Captain Montgomery C. Meigs to consider plans for another relief expedition to Florida.
In this delicate and potentially explosive situation, Lincoln may well have wondered at times whether it would have been better had the Buchanan administration abandoned Sumter and Pickens. By retaining the forts, President Buchanan had, in effect, left him with a highly visible, emotional, symbolic point of contention with the Confederacy. But the problem was now his, and with it, the responsibility of decision making. As the month of March came to a close, Lincoln stood poised to make a final decision concerning Sumter and Pickens.
By the end of March, Lincoln had made certain key decisions involving Forts Sumter and Pickens. He had set in motion preparations for a relief mission to Sumter, and placed Gustavus V. Fox in charge. He had also established April 6 as the approximate date for the expedition to get under way, if sent, so as to arrive in time to help Anderson's garrison.
As for Fort Pickens, which was more accessible and politically less controversial, Lincoln had ordered it to be held and reinforced at the outset of his administration. However, no word had yet reached Washington that his orders had been successfully carried out. Instead, rumors were rampant that federal troops had never landed. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Seward, Lincoln, therefore, initiated conversations with Captain Montgomery C. Meigs to consider plans for another relief expedition to Florida.
In this delicate and potentially explosive situation, Lincoln may well have wondered at times whether it would have been better had the Buchanan administration abandoned Sumter and Pickens. By retaining the forts, President Buchanan had, in effect, left him with a highly visible, emotional, symbolic point of contention with the Confederacy. But the problem was now his, and with it, the responsibility of decision making. As the month of March came to a close, Lincoln stood poised to make a final decision concerning Sumter and Pickens.
March 19-29, 1861
Ever since Lincoln learned on March 5 that Anderson's troops at Sumter had supplies that would last no longer than mid-April, time became an increasingly weighty consideration for the President. It would take time to organize and dispatch a relief expedition, whether small-scale or massive. It would take time to reach Sumter from northern ports. Meanwhile, Confederate forces at both Sumter and Pickens were strengthening their batteries and tightening the noose around these Union positions. Every day made reinforcement more difficult, particularly at Sumter; every day made life at these posts more stressful; every day increased the possibility of a Confederate attack. And every day, too, brought demands from segments of his own Republican Party and northern public opinion for some action that would show the kind of energy and commitment to the Union that the previous Buchanan administration had lacked.
Despite pressure to act quickly, Lincoln took advantage of the time that remained to him. During the ten days following the submission of his cabinet's written opinions, Lincoln gathered information and explored ways of holding the Union's forts. By March 29, he was ready to decide on a course of action.
Despite pressure to act quickly, Lincoln took advantage of the time that remained to him. During the ten days following the submission of his cabinet's written opinions, Lincoln gathered information and explored ways of holding the Union's forts. By March 29, he was ready to decide on a course of action.
March 5-18, 1861
Lincoln's Inaugural Address formulated a general statement of policy concerning federal forts and possessions. At the time he composed and delivered it, he understood that no immediate crisis existed at the forts still in the government's hands. He assumed that both Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter were secure and adequately supplied for the foreseeable future. Although the situation at the forts was uneasy, especially at Sumter, which was located in the charged atmosphere of Charleston, there was no immediate need to disturb the status quo. Time was available to try peaceable remedies and, perhaps, smooth the way for reconciliation.
However, Lincoln's assumptions received a jolt at the very outset of his presidency, when he learned that Sumter's troops could not hold out for any substantial period of time without assistance. Lincoln would now have to decide what to do in these new circumstances.
However, Lincoln's assumptions received a jolt at the very outset of his presidency, when he learned that Sumter's troops could not hold out for any substantial period of time without assistance. Lincoln would now have to decide what to do in these new circumstances.
Lincoln's Inaugural Address
Monday March 4, 1861
With the failure of compromise, attention focused increasingly on the question of secession itself and the related issue of federal property. As southern states took over federal forts one by one, those few that remained in Union hands came to symbolize the conflict over the legitimacy of secession.
Especially important were both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, which the Confederate government was demanding and where federal troops were now surrounded by hostile Confederate forces. Did states have a constitutional right to peaceably secede from the Union and reclaim (with compensation to the federal government) federal property within their borders, as the seceding states claimed?
If states had no such right, what were the best means of asserting the permanency of the Union and the legitimate claims of federal government over the states? Now that the long waiting period was over, Lincoln would have an opportunity in his inaugural message on March 4, 1861 to address the questions of secession and federal property. What would he say?
Problem 2
With the failure of compromise, attention focused increasingly on the question of secession itself and the related issue of federal property. As southern states took over federal forts one by one, those few that remained in Union hands came to symbolize the conflict over the legitimacy of secession.
Especially important were both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, which the Confederate government was demanding and where federal troops were now surrounded by hostile Confederate forces. Did states have a constitutional right to peaceably secede from the Union and reclaim (with compensation to the federal government) federal property within their borders, as the seceding states claimed?
If states had no such right, what were the best means of asserting the permanency of the Union and the legitimate claims of federal government over the states? Now that the long waiting period was over, Lincoln would have an opportunity in his inaugural message on March 4, 1861 to address the questions of secession and federal property. What would he say?
Problem 2
December 3, 1860 - March 3, 1864
Shortly after Lincoln's election, Congress assembled, and the following three months leading up to Lincoln's inauguration were marked by events of profound significance for the country. Seven states left the Union, formed a new government, and took over federal property; eight slaveholding states precariously walked a tightrope between Union and secession; the Buchanan administration, after conceding the loss of most federal posts, held firm at Forts Pickens and Sumter; and moderates formulated compromise proposals to resolve the crisis and provide a means for the peaceable reconstruction of the country.
Officially, Lincoln had no more authority in this situation than any other American. Due to a constitutional requirement, he would not take office until March 4, 1861. In the meantime, power remained in the hands of a lame-duck President and Congress . Yet unofficially, Lincoln possessed considerable influence, and what he decided to do about the various compromise proposals during this period would be as fateful as any decision he made after he became President.
In making up his mind, Lincoln had to consider, among other things, his own principles and ideals, the demands of his party and constituents, the situation in the upper South, the strength of the secessionist movement in the deep South, and the likely consequences of any decision on the future course of events.
Officially, Lincoln had no more authority in this situation than any other American. Due to a constitutional requirement, he would not take office until March 4, 1861. In the meantime, power remained in the hands of a lame-duck President and Congress . Yet unofficially, Lincoln possessed considerable influence, and what he decided to do about the various compromise proposals during this period would be as fateful as any decision he made after he became President.
In making up his mind, Lincoln had to consider, among other things, his own principles and ideals, the demands of his party and constituents, the situation in the upper South, the strength of the secessionist movement in the deep South, and the likely consequences of any decision on the future course of events.
Private sector seeks solutions to global economic recession
Private sector seeks solutions to global economic recession
Tuesday, 17th February, 2009
By Sylvia Juuko
WITH only 10 months to go before all goods trade freely within the East African Community (EAC), the private sector is still grappling with lack of capacity to trade within the region.
This comes against a backdrop of the looming impact of the global economic crisis that will impact negatively on the private sector.
While goods have been enjoying a tariff-free regime within the EAC since 2005, Kenyan goods pay a diminishing interim duty for five years to take care of concerns that Kenya was more developed. However, this period expires in 2010.
There was consensus at a chief executives’ consultative forum on improving Uganda’s competitiveness that the private sector needs to become more pro-active by advising the Government and supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“While its trade capacity diminishes, most of the SMEs suffer internal constraints like inefficiency in production, non-existent books of accounts and limited management skills,” noted Lamin Manjang, the managing director of Standard Chartered Bank.
“Internal limitations reduce competitiveness of SMEs, which in turn reduces that of large enterprises and eventually Uganda’s trade capacity within the region,” he noted during the forum organised by the Private Sector Foundation.
The private sector is grappling with infrastructure challenges, which have pushed up costs of doing business. The cost of finance and ease of doing business are other challenges.
Leading industrialist, James Mulwana agreed, noting that that unless the private sector improves its trade capacity, the country was at risk of becoming a supermarket
“Donors and the Government have given us support. It is up to us to utilise that and become a player and not a supermarket for other countries in the region.”
With a raging global economic crisis that is affecting Uganda’s trade partners, leveraging on its competitive advantage to supply the region has become more urgent for Uganda’s private sector.
“The private sector has been relaxed about the global crisis but it’s with us now. If we organised forums just to talk, that was last year, it can’t work this year. We have to be pro-active, otherwise we won’t to find opportunities because we haven’t yet built capacity to confront this crisis.”
Mulwana suggested a reduction of Value Added Tax for companies setting up shop in rural areas to add value to agro-produce for export to the region.
Patrick Bitature, the chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority, said: “We should see how to help farmers build storage capacity like silos, improve production and marketing so that their business is sustainable and not vulnerable to price shocks. This will help them plan beyond a season.”
Tuesday, 17th February, 2009
By Sylvia Juuko
WITH only 10 months to go before all goods trade freely within the East African Community (EAC), the private sector is still grappling with lack of capacity to trade within the region.
This comes against a backdrop of the looming impact of the global economic crisis that will impact negatively on the private sector.
While goods have been enjoying a tariff-free regime within the EAC since 2005, Kenyan goods pay a diminishing interim duty for five years to take care of concerns that Kenya was more developed. However, this period expires in 2010.
There was consensus at a chief executives’ consultative forum on improving Uganda’s competitiveness that the private sector needs to become more pro-active by advising the Government and supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“While its trade capacity diminishes, most of the SMEs suffer internal constraints like inefficiency in production, non-existent books of accounts and limited management skills,” noted Lamin Manjang, the managing director of Standard Chartered Bank.
“Internal limitations reduce competitiveness of SMEs, which in turn reduces that of large enterprises and eventually Uganda’s trade capacity within the region,” he noted during the forum organised by the Private Sector Foundation.
The private sector is grappling with infrastructure challenges, which have pushed up costs of doing business. The cost of finance and ease of doing business are other challenges.
Leading industrialist, James Mulwana agreed, noting that that unless the private sector improves its trade capacity, the country was at risk of becoming a supermarket
“Donors and the Government have given us support. It is up to us to utilise that and become a player and not a supermarket for other countries in the region.”
With a raging global economic crisis that is affecting Uganda’s trade partners, leveraging on its competitive advantage to supply the region has become more urgent for Uganda’s private sector.
“The private sector has been relaxed about the global crisis but it’s with us now. If we organised forums just to talk, that was last year, it can’t work this year. We have to be pro-active, otherwise we won’t to find opportunities because we haven’t yet built capacity to confront this crisis.”
Mulwana suggested a reduction of Value Added Tax for companies setting up shop in rural areas to add value to agro-produce for export to the region.
Patrick Bitature, the chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority, said: “We should see how to help farmers build storage capacity like silos, improve production and marketing so that their business is sustainable and not vulnerable to price shocks. This will help them plan beyond a season.”
Financial Sector Wages
There is a lot of irritation currently about salaries and bonuses in the financial sector, especially in light of recent bail-outs. Critics of the exuberance in the financial sector should not worry. According to a new working paper by Thomas Philippon and Ariell Reshef, we can expect a sharp decrease in financial sector salaries in the coming years. This prediction is based on an analysis of the wage and skill development in the U.S. financial sector from 1909 to 2006. Until 1933, the financial sector was a high-skill, high wage industry. After the Great Depression, the financial sector not only lost its high human capital, but also the wage premium compared to the rest of the private sector. It was not until the 1980s that the financial sector became yet again a high-skill and high-wage industry, driven by financial liberalization and innovation.
Salaries
Both in the period from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s and from the mid-1990s onwards, salaries in the financial sector were not consistent with education levels and employment risk, suggesting short-term rents for financial sector employees and an unsustainable labor market equilibrium. So, expect financial sector salaries to drop, although not immediately as the experience from the Great Depression shows, where it took several years for relative financial sector wages to drop. But given excess wages of 40%, expect big drops! These high excess wages might also explain regulatory failures in the run-up to the crisis; regulators could simply not attract sufficient talent given the high excess compensation in the private sector. So, the next question will be: what about the impact on MBA and Finance programs.
Posted by Thorsten Beck on January 28, 2009 in Lessons from the past | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Aid to the Suffering World
William Easterly, of The White Man's Burden fame, has just started a blog on the market for development aid. His first entry discusses president Zoellick's recent proposal to have a small percentage of stimulus packages in the West be dedicated to aid for developing countries. Easterly argues that besides being unrealistic, this proposal does not offer any increased responsibility for how the money would be used. Read on.
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Posted by Simeon Djankov on January 29, 2009 in Aid in the crisis | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Simeon Djankov on January 29, 2009 in Aid in the crisis | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Living in a Madoff World
Editor's Note: Arshad Sayed is World Bank Country Manager in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Madoff made off with billions, Nassim Taleb kept sighting unseen Black Swans, and the global economy has been in a tailspin. Meanwhile, I have been ensconced on the Mongolian Steppe. It's so far from it all that the approaching recession looked impenetrable – until now.
The prices for Mongolia’s major export, copper, and the herder’s main sources of livelihood, cashmere and meat, are in free fall. Why?
What unleashed this financial maelstrom that threatens to besiege my neighbor’s lives seemingly so disconnected from those at the center of it on Wall Street? As I look for answers there is no shortage of raison d’êtres.
Continue reading "Living in a Madoff World" »
Posted by Arshad Sayed on January 29, 2009 in East Asia and Pacific | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Madoff made off with billions, Nassim Taleb kept sighting unseen Black Swans, and the global economy has been in a tailspin. Meanwhile, I have been ensconced on the Mongolian Steppe. It's so far from it all that the approaching recession looked impenetrable – until now.
The prices for Mongolia’s major export, copper, and the herder’s main sources of livelihood, cashmere and meat, are in free fall. Why?
What unleashed this financial maelstrom that threatens to besiege my neighbor’s lives seemingly so disconnected from those at the center of it on Wall Street? As I look for answers there is no shortage of raison d’êtres.
Continue reading "Living in a Madoff World" »
Posted by Arshad Sayed on January 29, 2009 in East Asia and Pacific | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis
It is widely known in Ukraine that the performance of the State Tax Administration (STA) is assessed by the volume of collected tax revenues, which is tracked on a monthly and annual basis. It is these figures that matter, and not the level of taxpayer service or public opinion. A new year has just started and the STA is already asking the Government to reduce the targets on tax revenues for 2009, which are the same as last year for company profit tax and slightly higher for VAT.
The STA argues that the targets are unrealistic considering the general decline in production and trade, the reduction of exports, etc. The signal is clear – we should prepare for hard times and the STA doesn’t want to be a poor performer, with a culture that demands the set targets should be exceeded, a heritage coming from the Soviet past.
This last decade tax revenues have been growing from year to year, based on a natural tendency of inflation and GDP growth.
Continue reading "The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis" »
Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on January 29, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The STA argues that the targets are unrealistic considering the general decline in production and trade, the reduction of exports, etc. The signal is clear – we should prepare for hard times and the STA doesn’t want to be a poor performer, with a culture that demands the set targets should be exceeded, a heritage coming from the Soviet past.
This last decade tax revenues have been growing from year to year, based on a natural tendency of inflation and GDP growth.
Continue reading "The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis" »
Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on January 29, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Disclosure by Politicians
After three years in the making, we have just completed a large research project on the disclosure of conflicts of interest and business dealings by politicians in 175 countries. The resulting paper, Disclosure by Politicians, a joint effort with Rafael La Porta (Dartmouth), Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes (EDHEC Business School) and Andrei Shleifer (Harvard), is the first to look at what disclosures are required by law, which of these are made public, in which countries someone actually checks whether the disclosures are made or not, and what penalties exist in the event of faulty or incomplete disclosures.
The topic will undoubtedly raise heat in countries that don't do well. More relevant for the current crisis, however, one can imagine a call for similar types of disclosures by CEOs of publicly-traded companies and perhaps even privately-held financial companies. The scandals starting to emerge from the crisis - take Madoff and Satyam - suggest there is considerable sleaze in the private sector too.
The good news is that the methodology now exists and can be adapted to the captains of industry.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The topic will undoubtedly raise heat in countries that don't do well. More relevant for the current crisis, however, one can imagine a call for similar types of disclosures by CEOs of publicly-traded companies and perhaps even privately-held financial companies. The scandals starting to emerge from the crisis - take Madoff and Satyam - suggest there is considerable sleaze in the private sector too.
The good news is that the methodology now exists and can be adapted to the captains of industry.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption
Dani Kaufmann, one of the pioneers of the governance agenda at the World Bank, discusses the role that corruption played in the financial crisis:
There are multiple causes of the financial crisis. But we can not ignore the element of "capture" in the systemic failures of oversight, regulation and disclosure in the financial sector. Concrete examples abound.
First, the way Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent millions of dollars lobbying some influential members of Congress in exchange for, among other things, lax capital reserve requirements for these mortgage giants.
Second, how AIG's "small" derivatives unit located in London managed to obscure its accounts, be governed by lax regulatory oversight, and take inordinate risks that effectively brought down AIG's empire of 100,000 employees in 130 countries, accelerating the global financial crisis...
Third, how giant mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial switched regulators so to fall under the lax oversight of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which was funded by fees paid by the regulated banks (and which also supervised AIG's derivative unit).
Fourth, how in April 2004, during a 55-minute-long meeting at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest investment banks persuaded the SEC to relax its regulatory stance and allow them to take on much larger amounts of debt.
Finally, Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme, some of which appears to be plain fraud, though system-wide irregularities also point to subtler forms of corruption and capture. Years ago the SEC knew that Madoff, who had served on the commission's own advisory committee, had multiple violations and was misleading it in how he managed the funds of his customers. Yet the SEC failed in unmasking the Ponzi scheme.
Worse yet, more governance challenges are yet to come, as fiscal stimulus packages present all kinds of opportunities for the ethically challenged. Kaufmann recommends far-reaching measures to improve transparency as an antidote. I agree with that but doubt that's enough.
Continue reading "Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption" »
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard, Prudential regulation, Stimulus policies | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
There are multiple causes of the financial crisis. But we can not ignore the element of "capture" in the systemic failures of oversight, regulation and disclosure in the financial sector. Concrete examples abound.
First, the way Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent millions of dollars lobbying some influential members of Congress in exchange for, among other things, lax capital reserve requirements for these mortgage giants.
Second, how AIG's "small" derivatives unit located in London managed to obscure its accounts, be governed by lax regulatory oversight, and take inordinate risks that effectively brought down AIG's empire of 100,000 employees in 130 countries, accelerating the global financial crisis...
Third, how giant mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial switched regulators so to fall under the lax oversight of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which was funded by fees paid by the regulated banks (and which also supervised AIG's derivative unit).
Fourth, how in April 2004, during a 55-minute-long meeting at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest investment banks persuaded the SEC to relax its regulatory stance and allow them to take on much larger amounts of debt.
Finally, Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme, some of which appears to be plain fraud, though system-wide irregularities also point to subtler forms of corruption and capture. Years ago the SEC knew that Madoff, who had served on the commission's own advisory committee, had multiple violations and was misleading it in how he managed the funds of his customers. Yet the SEC failed in unmasking the Ponzi scheme.
Worse yet, more governance challenges are yet to come, as fiscal stimulus packages present all kinds of opportunities for the ethically challenged. Kaufmann recommends far-reaching measures to improve transparency as an antidote. I agree with that but doubt that's enough.
Continue reading "Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption" »
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard, Prudential regulation, Stimulus policies | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Share Prices and Accounting Reclassifications
Editor's Note: The following post is a joint contribution by Costas Stephanou and Haocong Ren.
As some may recall, Deutsche Bank (DB) took advantage of the change in IFRS rules (under pressure from the EU Commission) and reclassified almost Euro 25 bn. of hard-to-value (toxic?) securities from its available-for-sale portfolio to the held-to-maturity portfolio in October 2008. This allowed it to improve its reported net income for 2008Q3 by more than Euro 500 million and to report a quarterly profit, as opposed to the loss that analysts were expecting. Its stock price shot up 15% on the day of the announcement (October 30, 2008) vs. 1.2% for the relevant benchmark index (S&P 500 financials), and similar behavior could be observed for its 5-year CDS spread vis-a-vis the relevant benchmark (iTraxx Europe senior financials).
This jump in the share price washes away (based on a preliminary statistical analysis - see the attached Excel file) when looking at the evolution over a longer time period vis-a-vis the benchmark. It may also be due to a perceived market relief that DB's reported tier one capital adequacy ratio (partly as a result of the accounting changes) exceeded 10% and therefore DB had no apparent need for more capital raising that would lead to shareholder dilution. However, it is instructive to see how - at least anecdotally - accounting rules have real effects on share prices since DB's accounting reclassifications represented the main reason why analyst expectations were exceeded, as was pointed out explicitly in the financial press. (See here, here, here, here, and here.)
Posted by Costas Stephanou on February 3, 2009 in Accounting and auditing | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
As some may recall, Deutsche Bank (DB) took advantage of the change in IFRS rules (under pressure from the EU Commission) and reclassified almost Euro 25 bn. of hard-to-value (toxic?) securities from its available-for-sale portfolio to the held-to-maturity portfolio in October 2008. This allowed it to improve its reported net income for 2008Q3 by more than Euro 500 million and to report a quarterly profit, as opposed to the loss that analysts were expecting. Its stock price shot up 15% on the day of the announcement (October 30, 2008) vs. 1.2% for the relevant benchmark index (S&P 500 financials), and similar behavior could be observed for its 5-year CDS spread vis-a-vis the relevant benchmark (iTraxx Europe senior financials).
This jump in the share price washes away (based on a preliminary statistical analysis - see the attached Excel file) when looking at the evolution over a longer time period vis-a-vis the benchmark. It may also be due to a perceived market relief that DB's reported tier one capital adequacy ratio (partly as a result of the accounting changes) exceeded 10% and therefore DB had no apparent need for more capital raising that would lead to shareholder dilution. However, it is instructive to see how - at least anecdotally - accounting rules have real effects on share prices since DB's accounting reclassifications represented the main reason why analyst expectations were exceeded, as was pointed out explicitly in the financial press. (See here, here, here, here, and here.)
Posted by Costas Stephanou on February 3, 2009 in Accounting and auditing | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Guerilla Trade Tactics
In 1930, the Smoot Hawley tariff was implemented in the United States, raising tariffs on nearly 900 goods. The Europeans retaliated with similar tariff hikes. World trade fell by two-thirds from 1929 to 1934 largely as a result of declining demand during the world depression, but also because of the increased tariffs. Such conventional trade warfare finally came to an end with the advent of the GATT in 1947.
Thanks to the rules provided in the WTO, the successor to the GATT, a conventional trade war is now unthinkable. But as demand is plummeting, countries are seeking ways to shift it to domestic goods. This is where guerilla trade tactics come in. The WTO Secretariat reported that in the first half of 2008 (the most recent data available) there was a 39 per cent increase in antidumping investigations among members as compared with the same period in 2007. Subsidies around the world are being directed at specific domestic industries. Now, the U.S. stimulus package appears likely to include a “buy American” clause.
Such guerilla trade tactics may be just as dangerous as a conventional trade war. A key issue is the non-transparency of these antidumping duties, countervailing duties, and targeted domestic subsidies. If these modes of discrimination explode it will take a long time to disentangle them and reopen the trade system. Not to mention the resources wasted and uncertainty they generate for importers (for example, in the United States, it takes the ITC and ITA between 235 to 390 days to reach a final conclusion in an antidumping investigation!).
The WTO has been among the most successful of the international institutions. The ongoing Doha Round—with all its promises—may be able to claim victory after all if it can simply prevent protectionism from surging during the global recession.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 4, 2009 in International organizations, Lessons from the past, Trade and trade finance | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Thanks to the rules provided in the WTO, the successor to the GATT, a conventional trade war is now unthinkable. But as demand is plummeting, countries are seeking ways to shift it to domestic goods. This is where guerilla trade tactics come in. The WTO Secretariat reported that in the first half of 2008 (the most recent data available) there was a 39 per cent increase in antidumping investigations among members as compared with the same period in 2007. Subsidies around the world are being directed at specific domestic industries. Now, the U.S. stimulus package appears likely to include a “buy American” clause.
Such guerilla trade tactics may be just as dangerous as a conventional trade war. A key issue is the non-transparency of these antidumping duties, countervailing duties, and targeted domestic subsidies. If these modes of discrimination explode it will take a long time to disentangle them and reopen the trade system. Not to mention the resources wasted and uncertainty they generate for importers (for example, in the United States, it takes the ITC and ITA between 235 to 390 days to reach a final conclusion in an antidumping investigation!).
The WTO has been among the most successful of the international institutions. The ongoing Doha Round—with all its promises—may be able to claim victory after all if it can simply prevent protectionism from surging during the global recession.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 4, 2009 in International organizations, Lessons from the past, Trade and trade finance | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Competitive Devaluations?
Competitive Devaluations?
Kazakhstan’s central bank devalued the tenge by 18 percent yesterday. The central bank is letting the tenge weaken for the first time since it started managing the currency in 2007. Kazakshstan joins Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in abandoning attempts to prop up exchange rates as currency reserves dwindle and economies stagger. A number of other resource-rich countries have also seen their currencies fall substantially against the dollar over the last few months, including Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.
Maintaining a currency’s value under pressure is costly. Kazakhstan spent $3.5 billion, or 16 percent, of its foreign-exchange reserves supporting the tenge. Russia spent between $7 and $8 billion in one day last month defending the already weakened ruble. And the longer the process lasts, the more money that goes down the drain. Argentina’s net reserves fell by $20 billion in 2001 before the currency board eventually collapsed the following year.
Some countries attempt to maintain currencies because of a history of inflation. Sudden and large depreciations can be destabilizing, leading to inflation and higher interest rates. Depreciations also increase the cost of foreign currency debt. But depreciation is not necessarily bad for growth. Depreciation mimics an export subsidy and import tax, boosting exports and consumption of domestic goods. This can help countries to grow when domestic demand is weak or declining.
But what happens if many currencies collapse simultaneously? This puts downward pressure on import prices, fueling deflation in foreign markets. Kindleberger has argued that such competitive devaluations are part of what led to the Great Depression.
Volatile currency movements are already aggravating uncertainties in global financial markets. But at least so far, most of the these currency declines are understandable. Sharp declines in commodity prices have worsenened the terms of trade of the resource exporters at the same time as western capital has dried up. If depreciations spread to the large manufacturing countries then there could be real trouble.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 6, 2009 in Currency markets, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Kazakhstan’s central bank devalued the tenge by 18 percent yesterday. The central bank is letting the tenge weaken for the first time since it started managing the currency in 2007. Kazakshstan joins Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in abandoning attempts to prop up exchange rates as currency reserves dwindle and economies stagger. A number of other resource-rich countries have also seen their currencies fall substantially against the dollar over the last few months, including Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.
Maintaining a currency’s value under pressure is costly. Kazakhstan spent $3.5 billion, or 16 percent, of its foreign-exchange reserves supporting the tenge. Russia spent between $7 and $8 billion in one day last month defending the already weakened ruble. And the longer the process lasts, the more money that goes down the drain. Argentina’s net reserves fell by $20 billion in 2001 before the currency board eventually collapsed the following year.
Some countries attempt to maintain currencies because of a history of inflation. Sudden and large depreciations can be destabilizing, leading to inflation and higher interest rates. Depreciations also increase the cost of foreign currency debt. But depreciation is not necessarily bad for growth. Depreciation mimics an export subsidy and import tax, boosting exports and consumption of domestic goods. This can help countries to grow when domestic demand is weak or declining.
But what happens if many currencies collapse simultaneously? This puts downward pressure on import prices, fueling deflation in foreign markets. Kindleberger has argued that such competitive devaluations are part of what led to the Great Depression.
Volatile currency movements are already aggravating uncertainties in global financial markets. But at least so far, most of the these currency declines are understandable. Sharp declines in commodity prices have worsenened the terms of trade of the resource exporters at the same time as western capital has dried up. If depreciations spread to the large manufacturing countries then there could be real trouble.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 6, 2009 in Currency markets, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Russia: Corruption Prevention during the Financial Crisis
Russia: Corruption Prevention during the Financial Crisis
Editor's Note: Larisa Smirnova is a consultant at the World Bank and is currently working with the Transparency indicator team. She previously worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Russia and Japan.
Experts at Troika Dialogue Group, a Russian investment company, estimate that the financial crisis may naturally decrease corruption in the country due to… lower oil prices! As the Russian economy is largely dependent on oil exports, lower oil prices means less money and therefore… less bribes?
Among fears that government anti-crisis money may become another easy prey for corruption, Russia adopted a new anti-corruption law in December 2008. After heated debates, financial disclosure requirements were extended to family members of government officials. However, the content of the declarations is confirmed to be not just publicly unavailable but constituting a "state secret".
The conclusions of a recent paper, Disclosure by Politicians, which compared financial disclosure procedures in 175 countries, suggest that Russia’s corruption prevention measures might not be the most effective ones. Analysis showed that family members’ disclosure does not correlate with lower perceived corruption. Publicity of disclosure, on the contrary, appears to be the crucial imperative for political accountability.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 9, 2009 in Corruption, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Editor's Note: Larisa Smirnova is a consultant at the World Bank and is currently working with the Transparency indicator team. She previously worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Russia and Japan.
Experts at Troika Dialogue Group, a Russian investment company, estimate that the financial crisis may naturally decrease corruption in the country due to… lower oil prices! As the Russian economy is largely dependent on oil exports, lower oil prices means less money and therefore… less bribes?
Among fears that government anti-crisis money may become another easy prey for corruption, Russia adopted a new anti-corruption law in December 2008. After heated debates, financial disclosure requirements were extended to family members of government officials. However, the content of the declarations is confirmed to be not just publicly unavailable but constituting a "state secret".
The conclusions of a recent paper, Disclosure by Politicians, which compared financial disclosure procedures in 175 countries, suggest that Russia’s corruption prevention measures might not be the most effective ones. Analysis showed that family members’ disclosure does not correlate with lower perceived corruption. Publicity of disclosure, on the contrary, appears to be the crucial imperative for political accountability.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 9, 2009 in Corruption, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Remittances: Not as Bad as Predicted
Remittances: Not as Bad as Predicted
Writing on the World Bank People Move blog, Dilip Ratha points out that not all the dire predictions about the crisis have come to pass. At least in the cases for which we have data, remittances have proven resilient. Mexico - one of the most important recipients of remittances and a country for which there is good data - is a case in point:
Remittance flows to Mexico dropped 10 percent year-on-year in December 2008, bringing the 2008 12-month total to $25 billion, a 3.6 percent decline compared to $26 billion registered in 2007. This decline is much smaller than the 8 percent decline projected by Mexico in August 2008.
As long as this is not a blip on the screen, remittances should help cushion the blow of the retreat of other forms of private capital flows. The Institute for International Finance warned late last month that "the outlook for private capital flows to emerging economies has deteriorated significantly in recent months." The fate of stimulus packages in rich countries consequently becomes all that more important for the rest of the world, as migrants will have a hard time keeping or finding jobs in the face of rising unemployment rates.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean, Stimulus policies | Permalink
Writing on the World Bank People Move blog, Dilip Ratha points out that not all the dire predictions about the crisis have come to pass. At least in the cases for which we have data, remittances have proven resilient. Mexico - one of the most important recipients of remittances and a country for which there is good data - is a case in point:
Remittance flows to Mexico dropped 10 percent year-on-year in December 2008, bringing the 2008 12-month total to $25 billion, a 3.6 percent decline compared to $26 billion registered in 2007. This decline is much smaller than the 8 percent decline projected by Mexico in August 2008.
As long as this is not a blip on the screen, remittances should help cushion the blow of the retreat of other forms of private capital flows. The Institute for International Finance warned late last month that "the outlook for private capital flows to emerging economies has deteriorated significantly in recent months." The fate of stimulus packages in rich countries consequently becomes all that more important for the rest of the world, as migrants will have a hard time keeping or finding jobs in the face of rising unemployment rates.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean, Stimulus policies | Permalink
Trained to Be Dull
Trained to Be Dull
Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller The Black Swan, doesn't have a very high opinion of bankers:
...think of a bank chairman whose institution makes steady profits over a long time, only to lose everything in a single reversal of fortune. Traditionally, bankers of the lending variety have been pear-shaped, clean-shaven, and dress in possibly the most comforting and boring manner, in dark suits, white shirts, and red ties. Indeed, for their lending business, banks hire dull people and train them to be even more dull. But this is for show. If they look conservative, it is because their loans only go bust on rare, very rare, occasions. There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of their lending activity by observing it over a day, a week, a month, or...even a century!
Taleb will be speaking at the opening session of the upcoming Financial and Private Sector Development Forum at the World Bank, along with Tim Harford, a columnist at the Financial Times, and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. I expect the discussion will be lively.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 | Permalink
Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller The Black Swan, doesn't have a very high opinion of bankers:
...think of a bank chairman whose institution makes steady profits over a long time, only to lose everything in a single reversal of fortune. Traditionally, bankers of the lending variety have been pear-shaped, clean-shaven, and dress in possibly the most comforting and boring manner, in dark suits, white shirts, and red ties. Indeed, for their lending business, banks hire dull people and train them to be even more dull. But this is for show. If they look conservative, it is because their loans only go bust on rare, very rare, occasions. There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of their lending activity by observing it over a day, a week, a month, or...even a century!
Taleb will be speaking at the opening session of the upcoming Financial and Private Sector Development Forum at the World Bank, along with Tim Harford, a columnist at the Financial Times, and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. I expect the discussion will be lively.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 | Permalink
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
February 11, 2009
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
More than 60 countries have now reported trade data for November and they are uniformly weak, with imports on average down 14 percent and exports down 17 percent, as compared with the same month last year. In addition, 22 countries have now reported December data. While trade continues to be weak, there is little change since November, and nearly half of the countries show some improvement. So, while conditions did not improve in December they did not worsen significantly either.
Another indicator that the trade situation did not deteriorate further in December comes from the Baltic Dry Index. (The BDI is issued daily by the Baltic Exchange, which canvasses brokers around the world about the cost of shipping cargo of raw materials on various routes.) After a 93 percent drop since the early summer, November is the month when the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) appears to have bottomed out, suggesting that demand for shipping was at a low in that month.
While this is not exactly positive news, it could have been a lot worse.
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Posted by Caroline Freund on February 11, 2009 in Trade and trade finance | Permalink
The Man with the Two Trillion Dollar Plan
On Monday, World Bank Chief Economist Justin Lin proposed the establishment of a $2 trillion Global Recovery Plan. A new Marshall Plan, of sorts. You can listen to his presentation and read about it here.
The issue is that the United States of today is in a different position than the United States after the Second World War. It is hard to imagine Congress giving much money for causes abroad when the domestic economy is hurting. The same applies to the other rich economies. If anything, one may expect some lean years in development aid.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 11, 2009 in Aid in the crisis, International organizations | Permalink
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
More than 60 countries have now reported trade data for November and they are uniformly weak, with imports on average down 14 percent and exports down 17 percent, as compared with the same month last year. In addition, 22 countries have now reported December data. While trade continues to be weak, there is little change since November, and nearly half of the countries show some improvement. So, while conditions did not improve in December they did not worsen significantly either.
Another indicator that the trade situation did not deteriorate further in December comes from the Baltic Dry Index. (The BDI is issued daily by the Baltic Exchange, which canvasses brokers around the world about the cost of shipping cargo of raw materials on various routes.) After a 93 percent drop since the early summer, November is the month when the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) appears to have bottomed out, suggesting that demand for shipping was at a low in that month.
While this is not exactly positive news, it could have been a lot worse.
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Posted by Caroline Freund on February 11, 2009 in Trade and trade finance | Permalink
The Man with the Two Trillion Dollar Plan
On Monday, World Bank Chief Economist Justin Lin proposed the establishment of a $2 trillion Global Recovery Plan. A new Marshall Plan, of sorts. You can listen to his presentation and read about it here.
The issue is that the United States of today is in a different position than the United States after the Second World War. It is hard to imagine Congress giving much money for causes abroad when the domestic economy is hurting. The same applies to the other rich economies. If anything, one may expect some lean years in development aid.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 11, 2009 in Aid in the crisis, International organizations | Permalink
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
A Return of the Investment Banks?
February 12, 2009
A Return of the Investment Banks?
Not likely, or at least not very desirable, according to a new working paper from Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Harry Huizinga. In Bank Activity and Funding Strategies, the authors look at an international sample of 1,334 banks to get a handle on the risk-return tradeoff of various activity and funding strategies. Their findings suggest that the failure of investment banks in the U.S. was not really a statistical outlier or a once-in-a-century event:
The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence on what bank income and funding strategies perform well in terms of producing profitable and stable banks. In particular, we examine how a bank’s income and funding mixes affect the rate of return on its assets and Z-score or distance to default. Our basic regressions suggest that at low levels of non-interest income and non-deposit funding, there may be some risk diversification benefits of increasing these shares, although at higher levels of non-interest income and non-deposit funding shares, further increases result in higher bank risk...
...The evidence presented in paper suggests that traditional banks – with a heavy reliance on interest-income generating and deposit funding – are safer than banks that go very far in the direction of non-interest income generation and funding through the wholesale capital market. Our results provide a strong indication that banking strategies that rely preponderantly on non-interest income or non-deposit funding are indeed very risky.
Figure 2: Trend of the fee income shareFee income
(The fee income share is the share of non-interest income in total operating income. This figure displays the trend of the fee income share from 1999 to 2007. The fee income share data are yearly averages. The data are from Bankscope.)
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Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 12, 2009 | Permalink
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
A Second Chance for Abandoned Construction in Ukraine
February 17, 2009
A Second Chance for Abandoned Construction in Ukraine
Kyiv has a long history of abandoned construction, with some objects dating back as far as the beginning of 20th century. However, most of it has accumulated in the city (and throughout the country) within the two last decades. We can find at least several groups here:
1. Unfinished construction from perestroika times – mostly huge administrative buildings that were started in the eighties and abandoned just before or soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when public spending on construction was cut off;
2. Buildings that were started after 1995, with the rise of private building companies – mostly apartment blocks – and dropped at different stages of construction for several reasons. The builder may have gone bankrupt or due to frauds with funds collected from individual investors;
3. Construction frozen as a consequence of the current financial crisis and lack of liquidity. This last group includes both residential and commercial real estate.
Fortunately, the Ukrainian language has a word for this phenomenon: dovgobud. Some of these are lucky and eventually get finished; others are forgotten, and in some very rare cases ruined. Dovgobudy in the third category, however, may be getting a second chance. Overall, as for apartment blocks, around 75-80 percent of objects have been put on hold, and as for commercial real estate – it’s close to 30-40 percent. Just before the end of 2008 the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a special law aimed at mitigating the influence of the financial crisis on building construction. The Government will now allocate UAH 3 billion (roughly USD 375 million) to help finish the objects built by at least 70 percent in 2009. Those built by 50-70 percent will be covered by the program in 2010.
Continue reading "A Second Chance for Abandoned Construction in Ukraine" »
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Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on February 17, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
February 13, 2009
World Crisis Index
Intrade, one of the most popular prediction markets out there, has put together a world crisis index that aggregates markets that indicate the probability of recessions, unemployment, falls in the stock market, and the like. The index opened at 50.0 on January 27. Unfortunately, Intrade hasn't published a graph to track the index over time, but as of 2pm GMT today, the index had creeped up to 51.0, meaning that propsects for 2009 have gotten just a little bit worse over the last two weeks.
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Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 13, 2009 in Recession | Permalink
Enforcing Transparency
The financial crisis gave new impetus to demands for more transparency and more accountability. “The global financial crisis [is caused] in part by greed and corruption,” was the announcement last December by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. How to enforce transparency?
There might be a few good ideas to learn from the American experience of setting up a transparency watchdog. These ideas were presented by Walter M. Shaub of the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the main speaker at a brown bag lunch at the World Bank last week.
The work of the OGE is focused on prevention. Assets and interests disclosure is the main tool to identify conflicts of interest among government officials. If a conflict of interest is apparent from the declaration, the agency works with the official on resolving such conflict before it creates prejudice. Increasingly complex conflict-of-interest legislation increases the probability of inadvertent violations. The right advice is important - independent from law enforcement bodies and tax authorities, the ethics agency is conscientious of the trust that its clients place in it.
Promoting transparency comes before fighting corruption. It is generally true that a psychological stance of promotion creates acceptance while struggle against something incites resistance. Transparency might be just like healthy food and a healthy lifestyle – it requires steady effort to build up the right habits.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 13, 2009 in Corruption, International organizations | Permalink
A Second Chance for Abandoned Construction in Ukraine
Kyiv has a long history of abandoned construction, with some objects dating back as far as the beginning of 20th century. However, most of it has accumulated in the city (and throughout the country) within the two last decades. We can find at least several groups here:
1. Unfinished construction from perestroika times – mostly huge administrative buildings that were started in the eighties and abandoned just before or soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when public spending on construction was cut off;
2. Buildings that were started after 1995, with the rise of private building companies – mostly apartment blocks – and dropped at different stages of construction for several reasons. The builder may have gone bankrupt or due to frauds with funds collected from individual investors;
3. Construction frozen as a consequence of the current financial crisis and lack of liquidity. This last group includes both residential and commercial real estate.
Fortunately, the Ukrainian language has a word for this phenomenon: dovgobud. Some of these are lucky and eventually get finished; others are forgotten, and in some very rare cases ruined. Dovgobudy in the third category, however, may be getting a second chance. Overall, as for apartment blocks, around 75-80 percent of objects have been put on hold, and as for commercial real estate – it’s close to 30-40 percent. Just before the end of 2008 the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a special law aimed at mitigating the influence of the financial crisis on building construction. The Government will now allocate UAH 3 billion (roughly USD 375 million) to help finish the objects built by at least 70 percent in 2009. Those built by 50-70 percent will be covered by the program in 2010.
Continue reading "A Second Chance for Abandoned Construction in Ukraine" »
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Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on February 17, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
February 13, 2009
World Crisis Index
Intrade, one of the most popular prediction markets out there, has put together a world crisis index that aggregates markets that indicate the probability of recessions, unemployment, falls in the stock market, and the like. The index opened at 50.0 on January 27. Unfortunately, Intrade hasn't published a graph to track the index over time, but as of 2pm GMT today, the index had creeped up to 51.0, meaning that propsects for 2009 have gotten just a little bit worse over the last two weeks.
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Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 13, 2009 in Recession | Permalink
Enforcing Transparency
The financial crisis gave new impetus to demands for more transparency and more accountability. “The global financial crisis [is caused] in part by greed and corruption,” was the announcement last December by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. How to enforce transparency?
There might be a few good ideas to learn from the American experience of setting up a transparency watchdog. These ideas were presented by Walter M. Shaub of the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE), the main speaker at a brown bag lunch at the World Bank last week.
The work of the OGE is focused on prevention. Assets and interests disclosure is the main tool to identify conflicts of interest among government officials. If a conflict of interest is apparent from the declaration, the agency works with the official on resolving such conflict before it creates prejudice. Increasingly complex conflict-of-interest legislation increases the probability of inadvertent violations. The right advice is important - independent from law enforcement bodies and tax authorities, the ethics agency is conscientious of the trust that its clients place in it.
Promoting transparency comes before fighting corruption. It is generally true that a psychological stance of promotion creates acceptance while struggle against something incites resistance. Transparency might be just like healthy food and a healthy lifestyle – it requires steady effort to build up the right habits.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 13, 2009 in Corruption, International organizations | Permalink
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A SUPERNUMERARY CRISIS
TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA.
IN "Rivington's New York Gazette," of December 6th, is a publication, under the appearance of a letter from London, dated September 30th; and is on a subject which demands the attention of the United States.
The public will remember that a treaty of commerce between the United States and England was set on foot last spring, and that until the said treaty could be completed, a bill was brought into the British Parliament by the then chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Pitt, to admit and legalize (as the case then required) the commerce of the United States into the British ports and dominions. But neither the one nor the other has been completed. The commercial treaty is either broken off, or remains as it began; and the bill in Parliament has been thrown aside. And in lieu thereof, a selfish system of English politics has started up, calculated to fetter the commerce of America, by engrossing to England the carrying trade of the American produce to the West India islands.
Among the advocates for this last measure is Lord Sheffield, a member of the British Parliament, who has published a pamphlet entitled "Observations on the Commerce of the American States." The pamphlet has two objects; the one is to allure the Americans to purchase British manufactures; and the other to spirit up the British Parliament to prohibit the citizens of the United States from trading to the West India islands.
Viewed in this light, the pamphlet, though in some parts dexterously written, is an absurdity. It offends, in the very act of endeavoring to ingratiate; and his lordship, as a politician, ought not to have suffered the two objects to have appeared together. The latter alluded to, contains extracts from the pamphlet, with high encomiums on Lord Sheffield, for laboriously endeavoring (as the letter styles it) "to show the mighty advantages of retaining the carrying trade."
Since the publication of this pamphlet in England, the commerce of the United States to the West Indies, in American vessels, has been prohibited; and all intercourse, except in British bottoms, the property of and navigated by British subjects, cut off.
That a country has a right to be as foolish as it pleases, has been proved by the practice of England for many years past: in her island situation, sequestered from the world, she forgets that her whispers are heard by other nations; and in her plans of politics and commerce she seems not to know, that other votes are necessary besides her own. America would be equally as foolish as Britain, were she to suffer so great a degradation on her flag, and such a stroke on the freedom of her commerce, to pass without a balance.
We admit the right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of another into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the contrary; but as this right belongs to one side as well as the other, there is always a way left to bring avarice and insolence to reason.
But the ground of security which Lord Sheffield has chosen to erect his policy upon, is of a nature which ought, and I think must, awaken in every American a just and strong sense of national dignity. Lord Sheffield appears to be sensible, that in advising the British nation and Parliament to engross to themselves so great a part of the carrying trade of America, he is attempting a measure which cannot succeed, if the politics of the United States be properly directed to counteract the assumption.
But, says he, in his pamphlet, "It will be a long time before the American states can be brought to act as a nation, neither are they to be feared as such by us."
What is this more or less than to tell us, that while we have no national system of commerce, the British will govern our trade by their own laws and proclamations as they please. The quotation discloses a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischievous not to be remedied.
Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery none could operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and indecent opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to the recommendations of Congress last winter, for an import duty of five per cent. It could not but explain to the British a weakness in the national power of America, and encourage them to attempt restrictions on her trade, which otherwise they would not have dared to hazard. Neither is there any state in the union, whose policy was more misdirected to its interest than the state I allude to, because her principal support is the carrying trade, which Britain, induced by the want of a well-centred power in the United States to protect and secure, is now attempting to take away. It fortunately happened (and to no state in the union more than the state in question) that the terms of peace were agreed on before the opposition appeared, otherwise, there cannot be a doubt, that if the same idea of the diminished authority of America had occurred to them at that time as has occurred to them since, but they would have made the same grasp at the fisheries, as they have done at the carrying trade.
It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so much ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive advantages to the country, should be cavilled at by those whose duty it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon it. But this, perhaps, will ever be the case, till some misfortune awakens us into reason, and the instance now before us is but a gentle beginning of what America must expect, unless she guards her union with nicer care and stricter honor. United, she is formidable, and that with the least possible charge a nation can be so; separated, she is a medley of individual nothings, subject to the sport of foreign nations.
It is very probable that the ingenuity of commerce may have found out a method to evade and supersede the intentions of the British, in interdicting the trade with the West India islands. The language of both being the same, and their customs well understood, the vessels of one country may, by deception, pass for those of another. But this would be a practice too debasing for a sovereign people to stoop to, and too profligate not to be discountenanced. An illicit trade, under any shape it can be placed, cannot be carried on without a violation of truth. America is now sovereign and independent, and ought to conduct her affairs in a regular style of character. She has the same right to say that no British vessel shall enter ports, or that no British manufactures shall be imported, but in American bottoms, the property of, and navigated by American subjects, as Britain has to say the same thing respecting the West Indies. Or she may lay a duty of ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings per ton (exclusive of other duties) on every British vessel coming from any port of the West Indies, where she is not admitted to trade, the said tonnage to continue as long on her side as the prohibition continues on the other.
But it is only by acting in union, that the usurpations of foreign nations on the freedom of trade can be counteracted, and security extended to the commerce of America. And when we view a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our interest to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other.
COMMON SENSE.
NEW YORK, December 9, 1783. Table Of Contents
IN "Rivington's New York Gazette," of December 6th, is a publication, under the appearance of a letter from London, dated September 30th; and is on a subject which demands the attention of the United States.
The public will remember that a treaty of commerce between the United States and England was set on foot last spring, and that until the said treaty could be completed, a bill was brought into the British Parliament by the then chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Pitt, to admit and legalize (as the case then required) the commerce of the United States into the British ports and dominions. But neither the one nor the other has been completed. The commercial treaty is either broken off, or remains as it began; and the bill in Parliament has been thrown aside. And in lieu thereof, a selfish system of English politics has started up, calculated to fetter the commerce of America, by engrossing to England the carrying trade of the American produce to the West India islands.
Among the advocates for this last measure is Lord Sheffield, a member of the British Parliament, who has published a pamphlet entitled "Observations on the Commerce of the American States." The pamphlet has two objects; the one is to allure the Americans to purchase British manufactures; and the other to spirit up the British Parliament to prohibit the citizens of the United States from trading to the West India islands.
Viewed in this light, the pamphlet, though in some parts dexterously written, is an absurdity. It offends, in the very act of endeavoring to ingratiate; and his lordship, as a politician, ought not to have suffered the two objects to have appeared together. The latter alluded to, contains extracts from the pamphlet, with high encomiums on Lord Sheffield, for laboriously endeavoring (as the letter styles it) "to show the mighty advantages of retaining the carrying trade."
Since the publication of this pamphlet in England, the commerce of the United States to the West Indies, in American vessels, has been prohibited; and all intercourse, except in British bottoms, the property of and navigated by British subjects, cut off.
That a country has a right to be as foolish as it pleases, has been proved by the practice of England for many years past: in her island situation, sequestered from the world, she forgets that her whispers are heard by other nations; and in her plans of politics and commerce she seems not to know, that other votes are necessary besides her own. America would be equally as foolish as Britain, were she to suffer so great a degradation on her flag, and such a stroke on the freedom of her commerce, to pass without a balance.
We admit the right of any nation to prohibit the commerce of another into its own dominions, where there are no treaties to the contrary; but as this right belongs to one side as well as the other, there is always a way left to bring avarice and insolence to reason.
But the ground of security which Lord Sheffield has chosen to erect his policy upon, is of a nature which ought, and I think must, awaken in every American a just and strong sense of national dignity. Lord Sheffield appears to be sensible, that in advising the British nation and Parliament to engross to themselves so great a part of the carrying trade of America, he is attempting a measure which cannot succeed, if the politics of the United States be properly directed to counteract the assumption.
But, says he, in his pamphlet, "It will be a long time before the American states can be brought to act as a nation, neither are they to be feared as such by us."
What is this more or less than to tell us, that while we have no national system of commerce, the British will govern our trade by their own laws and proclamations as they please. The quotation discloses a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischievous not to be remedied.
Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery none could operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and indecent opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to the recommendations of Congress last winter, for an import duty of five per cent. It could not but explain to the British a weakness in the national power of America, and encourage them to attempt restrictions on her trade, which otherwise they would not have dared to hazard. Neither is there any state in the union, whose policy was more misdirected to its interest than the state I allude to, because her principal support is the carrying trade, which Britain, induced by the want of a well-centred power in the United States to protect and secure, is now attempting to take away. It fortunately happened (and to no state in the union more than the state in question) that the terms of peace were agreed on before the opposition appeared, otherwise, there cannot be a doubt, that if the same idea of the diminished authority of America had occurred to them at that time as has occurred to them since, but they would have made the same grasp at the fisheries, as they have done at the carrying trade.
It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so much ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive advantages to the country, should be cavilled at by those whose duty it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon it. But this, perhaps, will ever be the case, till some misfortune awakens us into reason, and the instance now before us is but a gentle beginning of what America must expect, unless she guards her union with nicer care and stricter honor. United, she is formidable, and that with the least possible charge a nation can be so; separated, she is a medley of individual nothings, subject to the sport of foreign nations.
It is very probable that the ingenuity of commerce may have found out a method to evade and supersede the intentions of the British, in interdicting the trade with the West India islands. The language of both being the same, and their customs well understood, the vessels of one country may, by deception, pass for those of another. But this would be a practice too debasing for a sovereign people to stoop to, and too profligate not to be discountenanced. An illicit trade, under any shape it can be placed, cannot be carried on without a violation of truth. America is now sovereign and independent, and ought to conduct her affairs in a regular style of character. She has the same right to say that no British vessel shall enter ports, or that no British manufactures shall be imported, but in American bottoms, the property of, and navigated by American subjects, as Britain has to say the same thing respecting the West Indies. Or she may lay a duty of ten, fifteen, or twenty shillings per ton (exclusive of other duties) on every British vessel coming from any port of the West Indies, where she is not admitted to trade, the said tonnage to continue as long on her side as the prohibition continues on the other.
But it is only by acting in union, that the usurpations of foreign nations on the freedom of trade can be counteracted, and security extended to the commerce of America. And when we view a flag, which to the eye is beautiful, and to contemplate its rise and origin inspires a sensation of sublime delight, our national honor must unite with our interest to prevent injury to the one, or insult to the other.
COMMON SENSE.
NEW YORK, December 9, 1783. Table Of Contents
A Supernumerary Crisis (To The People Of America)
XIII.
THOUGHTS ON THE PEACE, AND THE PROBABLE ADVANTAGES THEREOF.
"THE times that tried men's souls,"* are over- and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
* "These are the times that try men's souls," The Crisis No. I. published December, 1776.
But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety- from the tumult of war to the tranquillity of peace, though sweet in contemplation, requires a gradual composure of the senses to receive it. Even calmness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should cease in a moment, would leave us in a state rather of wonder than enjoyment; and some moments of recollection must pass, before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of repose. There are but few instances, in which the mind is fitted for sudden transitions: it takes in its pleasures by reflection and comparison and those must have time to act, before the relish for new scenes is complete.
In the present case- the mighty magnitude of the object- the various uncertainties of fate it has undergone- the numerous and complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped- the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect before us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation.
To see it in our power to make a world happy- to teach mankind the art of being so- to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe a character hitherto unknown- and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.
In this pause then of recollection- while the storm is ceasing, and the long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back on the scenes we have passed, and learn from experience what is yet to be done.
Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement of America corresponds with the character of the revolution. Rome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire.
The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity; struggling, without a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated difficulties, bravely, nay proudly, encountering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let, then, the world see that she can bear prosperity: and that her honest virtue in time of peace, is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.
She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. Not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy in her own land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil.- In this situation, may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil. That it gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail.
It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to be forgotten, were a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffered to fall on a revolution, which to the end of time must be an honor to the age that accomplished it: and which has contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be called one) that ever preceded it.
It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it familiar. In like manner, are many of the moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity becomes an apology, where it is truly a crime. Yet let but a nation conceive rightly of its character, and it will be chastely just in protecting it. None ever began with a fairer than America and none can be under a greater obligation to preserve it.
The debt which America has contracted, compared with the cause she has gained, and the advantages to flow from it, ought scarcely to be mentioned. She has it in her choice to do, and to live as happily as she pleases. The world is in her hands. She has no foreign power to monopolize her commerce, perplex her legislation, or control her prosperity. The struggle is over, which must one day have happened, and, perhaps, never could have happened at a better time.* And instead of a domineering master, she has gained an ally whose exemplary greatness, and universal liberality, have extorted a confession even from her enemies.
* That the revolution began at the exact period of time best fitted to the purpose, is sufficiently proved by the event.- But the great hinge on which the whole machine turned, is the Union of the States: and this union was naturally produced by the inability of any one state to support itself against any foreign enemy without the assistance of the rest.
Had the states severally been less able than they were when the war began, their united strength would not have been equal to the undertaking, and they must in all human probability have failed.- And, on the other hand, had they severally been more able, they might not have seen, or, what is more, might not have felt, the necessity of uniting: and, either by attempting to stand alone or in small confederacies, would have been separately conquered.
Now, as we cannot see a time (and many years must pass away before it can arrive) when the strength of any one state, or several united, can be equal to the whole of the present United States, and as we have seen the extreme difficulty of collectively prosecuting the war to a successful issue, and preserving our national importance in the world, therefore, from the experience we have had, and the knowledge we have gained, we must, unless we make a waste of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the advantage, as well as the necessity of strengthening that happy union which had been our salvation, and without which we should have been a ruined people.
While I was writing this note, I cast my eye on the pamphlet, Common Sense, from which I shall make an extract, as it exactly applies to the case. It is as follows:
"I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who has not confessed it as his opinion that a separation between the countries would take place one time or other; and there is no instance in which we have shown less judgment, than in endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness or fitness of the continent for independence.
"As all men allow the measure, and differ only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavor, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not to go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time has found us. The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.
"It is not in numbers, but in a union, that our great strength lies. The continent is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter; and either more or less than this, might be fatal in its effects."
With the blessings of peace, independence, and an universal commerce, the states, individually and collectively, will have leisure and opportunity to regulate and establish their domestic concerns, and to put it beyond the power of calumny to throw the least reflection on their honor. Character is much easier kept than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it, contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal.
As we have established an inheritance for posterity, let that inheritance descend, with every mark of an honorable conveyance. The little it will cost, compared with the worth of the states, the greatness of the object, and the value of the national character, will be a profitable exchange.
But that which must more forcibly strike a thoughtful, penetrating mind, and which includes and renders easy all inferior concerns, is the UNION OF THE STATES. On this our great national character depends. It is this which must give us importance abroad and security at home. It is through this only that we are, or can be, nationally known in the world; it is the flag of the United States which renders our ships and commerce safe on the seas, or in a foreign port. Our Mediterranean passes must be obtained under the same style. All our treaties, whether of alliance, peace, or commerce, are formed under the sovereignty of the United States, and Europe knows us by no other name or title.
The division of the empire into states is for our own convenience, but abroad this distinction ceases. The affairs of each state are local. They can go no further than to itself. And were the whole worth of even the richest of them expended in revenue, it would not be sufficient to support sovereignty against a foreign attack. In short, we have no other national sovereignty than as United States. It would even be fatal for us if we had- too expensive to be maintained, and impossible to be supported. Individuals, or individual states, may call themselves what they please; but the world, and especially the world of enemies, is not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty must have power to protect all the parts that compose and constitute it: and as UNITED STATES we are equal to the importance of the title, but otherwise we are not. Our union, well and wisely regulated and cemented, is the cheapest way of being great- the easiest way of being powerful, and the happiest invention in government which the circumstances of America can admit of.- Because it collects from each state, that which, by being inadequate, can be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves for all.
The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects of individual sovereignty. Their disjointed condition exposes them to numerous intrigues, losses, calamities, and enemies; and the almost impossibility of bringing their measures to a decision, and that decision into execution, is to them, and would be to us, a source of endless misfortune.
It is with confederated states as with individuals in society; something must be yielded up to make the whole secure. In this view of things we gain by what we give, and draw an annual interest greater than the capital.- I ever feel myself hurt when I hear the union, that great palladium of our liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in the constitution of America, and that which every man should be most proud and tender of. Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS- our inferior one varies with the place.
So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country together; and the better to assist in this foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in the state I live in, or in the United States; kept myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when we take into view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then see, that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley, are as dishonorable to our characters, as they are injurious to our repose.
It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution.
Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success.
But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1783. Table Of Contents
A Supernumerary Crisis (To The People Of America)
THOUGHTS ON THE PEACE, AND THE PROBABLE ADVANTAGES THEREOF.
"THE times that tried men's souls,"* are over- and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.
* "These are the times that try men's souls," The Crisis No. I. published December, 1776.
But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety- from the tumult of war to the tranquillity of peace, though sweet in contemplation, requires a gradual composure of the senses to receive it. Even calmness has the power of stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us. The long and raging hurricane that should cease in a moment, would leave us in a state rather of wonder than enjoyment; and some moments of recollection must pass, before we could be capable of tasting the felicity of repose. There are but few instances, in which the mind is fitted for sudden transitions: it takes in its pleasures by reflection and comparison and those must have time to act, before the relish for new scenes is complete.
In the present case- the mighty magnitude of the object- the various uncertainties of fate it has undergone- the numerous and complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped- the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect before us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation.
To see it in our power to make a world happy- to teach mankind the art of being so- to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe a character hitherto unknown- and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.
In this pause then of recollection- while the storm is ceasing, and the long agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back on the scenes we have passed, and learn from experience what is yet to be done.
Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement of America corresponds with the character of the revolution. Rome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire.
The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity; struggling, without a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated difficulties, bravely, nay proudly, encountering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let, then, the world see that she can bear prosperity: and that her honest virtue in time of peace, is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.
She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. Not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy in her own land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil.- In this situation, may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil. That it gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail.
It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to be forgotten, were a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffered to fall on a revolution, which to the end of time must be an honor to the age that accomplished it: and which has contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be called one) that ever preceded it.
It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it familiar. In like manner, are many of the moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity becomes an apology, where it is truly a crime. Yet let but a nation conceive rightly of its character, and it will be chastely just in protecting it. None ever began with a fairer than America and none can be under a greater obligation to preserve it.
The debt which America has contracted, compared with the cause she has gained, and the advantages to flow from it, ought scarcely to be mentioned. She has it in her choice to do, and to live as happily as she pleases. The world is in her hands. She has no foreign power to monopolize her commerce, perplex her legislation, or control her prosperity. The struggle is over, which must one day have happened, and, perhaps, never could have happened at a better time.* And instead of a domineering master, she has gained an ally whose exemplary greatness, and universal liberality, have extorted a confession even from her enemies.
* That the revolution began at the exact period of time best fitted to the purpose, is sufficiently proved by the event.- But the great hinge on which the whole machine turned, is the Union of the States: and this union was naturally produced by the inability of any one state to support itself against any foreign enemy without the assistance of the rest.
Had the states severally been less able than they were when the war began, their united strength would not have been equal to the undertaking, and they must in all human probability have failed.- And, on the other hand, had they severally been more able, they might not have seen, or, what is more, might not have felt, the necessity of uniting: and, either by attempting to stand alone or in small confederacies, would have been separately conquered.
Now, as we cannot see a time (and many years must pass away before it can arrive) when the strength of any one state, or several united, can be equal to the whole of the present United States, and as we have seen the extreme difficulty of collectively prosecuting the war to a successful issue, and preserving our national importance in the world, therefore, from the experience we have had, and the knowledge we have gained, we must, unless we make a waste of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the advantage, as well as the necessity of strengthening that happy union which had been our salvation, and without which we should have been a ruined people.
While I was writing this note, I cast my eye on the pamphlet, Common Sense, from which I shall make an extract, as it exactly applies to the case. It is as follows:
"I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who has not confessed it as his opinion that a separation between the countries would take place one time or other; and there is no instance in which we have shown less judgment, than in endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness or fitness of the continent for independence.
"As all men allow the measure, and differ only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavor, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not to go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, the time has found us. The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.
"It is not in numbers, but in a union, that our great strength lies. The continent is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter; and either more or less than this, might be fatal in its effects."
With the blessings of peace, independence, and an universal commerce, the states, individually and collectively, will have leisure and opportunity to regulate and establish their domestic concerns, and to put it beyond the power of calumny to throw the least reflection on their honor. Character is much easier kept than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it, contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal.
As we have established an inheritance for posterity, let that inheritance descend, with every mark of an honorable conveyance. The little it will cost, compared with the worth of the states, the greatness of the object, and the value of the national character, will be a profitable exchange.
But that which must more forcibly strike a thoughtful, penetrating mind, and which includes and renders easy all inferior concerns, is the UNION OF THE STATES. On this our great national character depends. It is this which must give us importance abroad and security at home. It is through this only that we are, or can be, nationally known in the world; it is the flag of the United States which renders our ships and commerce safe on the seas, or in a foreign port. Our Mediterranean passes must be obtained under the same style. All our treaties, whether of alliance, peace, or commerce, are formed under the sovereignty of the United States, and Europe knows us by no other name or title.
The division of the empire into states is for our own convenience, but abroad this distinction ceases. The affairs of each state are local. They can go no further than to itself. And were the whole worth of even the richest of them expended in revenue, it would not be sufficient to support sovereignty against a foreign attack. In short, we have no other national sovereignty than as United States. It would even be fatal for us if we had- too expensive to be maintained, and impossible to be supported. Individuals, or individual states, may call themselves what they please; but the world, and especially the world of enemies, is not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty must have power to protect all the parts that compose and constitute it: and as UNITED STATES we are equal to the importance of the title, but otherwise we are not. Our union, well and wisely regulated and cemented, is the cheapest way of being great- the easiest way of being powerful, and the happiest invention in government which the circumstances of America can admit of.- Because it collects from each state, that which, by being inadequate, can be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves for all.
The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects of individual sovereignty. Their disjointed condition exposes them to numerous intrigues, losses, calamities, and enemies; and the almost impossibility of bringing their measures to a decision, and that decision into execution, is to them, and would be to us, a source of endless misfortune.
It is with confederated states as with individuals in society; something must be yielded up to make the whole secure. In this view of things we gain by what we give, and draw an annual interest greater than the capital.- I ever feel myself hurt when I hear the union, that great palladium of our liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in the constitution of America, and that which every man should be most proud and tender of. Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS- our inferior one varies with the place.
So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country together; and the better to assist in this foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in the state I live in, or in the United States; kept myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when we take into view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then see, that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley, are as dishonorable to our characters, as they are injurious to our repose.
It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution.
Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success.
But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, April 19, 1783. Table Of Contents
A Supernumerary Crisis (To The People Of America)
The Crisis No. XIII
XII.
TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE.
MY LORD,- A speech, which has been printed in several of the British and New York newspapers, as coming from your lordship, in answer to one from the Duke of Richmond, of the 10th of July last, contains expressions and opinions so new and singular, and so enveloped in mysterious reasoning, that I address this publication to you, for the purpose of giving them a free and candid examination. The speech I allude to is in these words:
"His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, that he had been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he asserted that he still held the same principles in respect to American independence which he at first imbibed. He had been, and yet was of opinion, whenever the Parliament of Great Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of England's glory is set forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on a former day, and such the sentiments he continued to hold at this hour. It was the opinion of Lord Chatham, as well as many other able statesmen. Other noble lords, however, think differently, and as the majority of the cabinet support them, he acquiesced in the measure, dissenting from the idea; and the point is settled for bringing the matter into the full discussion of Parliament, where it will be candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The independence of America would end in the ruin of England; and that a peace patched up with France, would give that proud enemy the means of yet trampling on this country. The sun of England's glory he wished not to see set forever; he looked for a spark at least to be left, which might in time light us up to a new day. But if independence was to be granted, if Parliament deemed that measure prudent, he foresaw, in his own mind, that England was undone. He wished to God that he had been deputed to Congress, that be might plead the cause of that country as well as of this, and that he might exercise whatever powers he possessed as an orator, to save both from ruin, in a conviction to Congress, that, if their independence was signed, their liberties were gone forever.
"Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable object, but it must be an honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by France, or insisted on by America. It was very true, that this kingdom was not in a flourishing state, it was impoverished by war. But if we were not rich, it was evident that France was poor. If we were straitened in our finances, the enemy were exhausted in their resources. This was a great empire; it abounded with brave men, who were able and willing to fight in a common cause; the language of humiliation should not, therefore, be the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he was not afraid nor ashamed of those expressions going to America. There were numbers, great numbers there, who were of the same way of thinking, in respect to that country being dependent on this, and who, with his lordship, perceived ruin and independence linked together."
Thus far the speech; on which I remark- That his lordship is a total stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped himself up in fond delusion, that something less than independence, may, under his administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent to Congress, to prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which is, that independence, the sublimest of all human conditions, is loss of liberty.
In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the contrary word dependence means, we have only to look back to those years of severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could obtain no other notice than the haughtiest of all insults; and when the base terms of unconditional submission were demanded, or undistinguishable destruction threatened. It is nothing to us that the ministry have been changed, for they may be changed again. The guilt of a government is the crime of a whole country; and the nation that can, though but for a moment, think and act as England has done, can never afterwards be believed or trusted. There are cases in which it is as impossible to restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a phoenix that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no resurrection. Some offences are of such a slight composition, that they reach no further than the temper, and are created or cured by a thought. But the sin of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left in our power to say we can forgive.
Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before Congress the cause of England and America, and to save, as you say, both from ruin.
That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought our destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from America; for the criminal who owes his life to the grace and mercy of the injured, is more executed by living, than he who dies.
But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no effect. Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would plead against you. We are a people who think not as you think; and what is equally true, you cannot feel as we feel. The situations of the two countries are exceedingly different. Ours has been the seat of war; yours has seen nothing of it. The most wanton destruction has been committed in our sight; the most insolent barbarity has been acted on our feelings. We can look round and see the remains of burnt and destroyed houses, once the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking monuments of British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in every part of America, and remember by whom they fell. There is scarcely a village but brings to life some melancholy thought, and reminds us of what we have suffered, and of those we have lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A thousand images arise to us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and are accompanied by as many ideas which you cannot know; and therefore your supposed system of reasoning would apply to nothing, and all your expectations die of themselves.
The question whether England shall accede to the independence of America, and which your lordship says is to undergo a parliamentary discussion, is so very simple, and composed of so few cases, that it scarcely needs a debate.
It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which has no object, and without which acknowledgment there can be no peace.
But your lordship says, the sun of Great Britain will set whenever she acknowledges the independence of America.- Whereas the metaphor would have been strictly just, to have left the sun wholly out of the figure, and have ascribed her not acknowledging it to the influence of the moon.
But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776, made use of an idea of much the same kind,- Relinquish America! says he- What is it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a dwarf.
Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? Was America, then, the giant of the empire, and England only her dwarf in waiting! Is the case so strangely altered, that those who once thought we could not live without them, are now brought to declare that they cannot exist without us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their first minister of state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her importance only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they, who long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to ours, and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so unqualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to cover their insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the world by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of conduct would be to bear it without complaint; and to show that England, without America, can preserve her independence, and a suitable rank with other European powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to weep for her now is childish.
But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms there is no hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense of an hundred million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies, must positively decide that point. Besides, the British have lost their interest in America with the disaffected. Every part of it has been tried. There is no new scene left for delusion: and the thousands who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have now to quit the settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to cultivate the deserts of Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an end to all further expectations of aid.
If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have they to console themselves with for the millions expended? Or, what encouragement is there left to continue throwing good money after bad? America can carry on the war for ten years longer, and all the charges of government included, for less than you can defray the charges of war and government for one year. And I, who know both countries, know well, that the people of America can afford to pay their share of the expense much better than the people of England can. Besides, it is their own estates and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that they are defending; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to lose all, and none would pity them. The fault would be their own, and their punishment just.
The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. They enjoy an easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly of one country and the spoils of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go home rich. But the case is very different with the laboring farmer, the working tradesman, and the necessitous poor in England, the sweat of whose brow goes day after day to feed, in prodigality and sloth, the army that is robbing both them and us. Removed from the eye of that country that supports them, and distant from the government that employs them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is none to call them to account.
But England will be ruined, says Lord Shelburne, if America is independent.
Then I say, is England already ruined, for America is already independent: and if Lord Shelburne will not allow this, he immediately denies the fact which he infers. Besides, to make England the mere creature of America, is paying too great a compliment to us, and too little to himself.
But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to say, as Lord Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war against America is ruinous, and yet to continue the prosecution of that ruinous war for the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a language which cannot be understood. Neither is it possible to see how the independence of America is to accomplish the ruin of England after the war is over, and yet not affect it before. America cannot be more independent of her, nor a greater enemy to her, hereafter than she now is; nor can England derive less advantages from her than at present: why then is ruin to follow in the best state of the case, and not in the worst? And if not in the worst, why is it to follow at all?
That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and fourteen or fifteen millions a-year less expenses than before, is a new doctrine in politics. We have heard much clamor of national savings and economy; but surely the true economy would be, to save the whole charge of a silly, foolish, and headstrong war; because, compared with this, all other retrenchments are baubles and trifles.
But is it possible that Lord Shelburne can be serious in supposing that the least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any advantage can be equal to the expense or the danger of attempting it? Will not the capture of one army after another satisfy him, must all become prisoners? Must England ever be the sport of hope, and the victim of delusion? Sometimes our currency was to fail; another time our army was to disband; then whole provinces were to revolt. Such a general said this and that; another wrote so and so; Lord Chatham was of this opinion; and lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and 20 Russian ships of the line were to come; to-morrow the empress was abused without mercy or decency. Then the Emperor of Germany was to be bribed with a million of money, and the King of Prussia was to do wonderful things. At one time it was, Lo here! and then it was, Lo there! Sometimes this power, and sometimes that power, was to engage in the war, just as if the whole world was mad and foolish like Britain. And thus, from year to year, has every straw been catched at, and every Will-with-a-wisp led them a new dance.
This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne wishes to be sent to Congress, and he thinks that something may be done.
Are not the repeated declarations of Congress, and which all America supports, that they will not even hear any proposals whatever, until the unconditional and unequivocal independence of America is recognised; are not, I say, these declarations answer enough?
But for England to receive any thing from America now, after so many insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would show such a spirit of meanness in her, that we could not but despise her for accepting it. And so far from Lord Shelburne's coming here to solicit it, it would be the greatest disgrace we could do them to offer it. England would appear a wretch indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe any thing to the bounty of America. Has not the name of Englishman blots enough upon it, without inventing more? Even Lucifer would scorn to reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep for only an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so many charms, that to be a doorkeeper in it is better than to be an English minister of state?
But what can this expected something be? Or, if obtained, what can it amount to, but new disgraces, contentions and quarrels? The people of America have for years accustomed themselves to think and speak so freely and contemptuously of English authority, and the inveteracy is so deeply rooted, that a person invested with any authority from that country, and attempting to exercise it here, would have the life of a toad under a harrow. They would look on him as an interloper, to whom their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no more than the Mungo of a farce; and if he disliked that, he must set off. It would be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, and despised by our pride, and would place England in a more contemptible situation than any she has yet been in during the war. We have too high an opinion of ourselves, even to think of yielding again the least obedience to outlandish authority; and for a thousand reasons, England would be the last country in the world to yield it to. She has been treacherous, and we know it. Her character is gone, and we have seen the funeral.
Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is wicked, and shows the last scene of the drama to be as inconsistent as the first.
As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go. Your lordship had no hand in the separation, and you will gain no honor by temporising politics. Besides, there is something so exceedingly whimsical, unsteady, and even insincere in the present conduct of England, that she exhibits herself in the most dishonorable colors. On the second of August last, General Carleton and Admiral Digby wrote to General Washington in these words:
"The resolution of the House of Commons, of the 27th of February last, has been placed in Your Excellency's hands, and intimations given at the same time that further pacific measures were likely to follow. Since which, until the present time, we have had no direct communications with England; but a mail is now arrived, which brings us very important information. We are acquainted, sir, by authority, that negotiations for a general peace have already commenced at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville is invested with full powers to treat with all the parties at war, and is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we are further, sir, made acquainted, that His Majesty, in order to remove any obstacles to this peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded his ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence of the Thirteen United Provinces, should be proposed by him in the first instance, instead of making it a condition of a general treaty."
Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing them with the declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of your king, or his ministers, or the Parliament, good for? Must we not look upon you as a confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are fraud, and their language deceit? What opinion can we possibly form of you, but that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport even with your own character, and are to be held by nothing but the bayonet or the halter?
To say, after this, that the sun of Great Britain will be set whenever she acknowledges the independence of America, when the not doing it is the unqualified lie of government, can be no other than the language of ridicule, the jargon of inconsistency. There were thousands in America who predicted the delusion, and looked upon it as a trick of treachery, to take us from our guard, and draw off our attention from the only system of finance, by which we can be called, or deserve to be called, a sovereign, independent people. The fraud, on your part, might be worth attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high.
There are others who credited the assurance, because they thought it impossible that men who had their characters to establish, would begin with a lie. The prosecution of the war by the former ministry was savage and horrid; since which it has been mean, trickish, and delusive. The one went greedily into the passion of revenge, the other into the subtleties of low contrivance; till, between the crimes of both, there is scarcely left a man in America, be he Whig or Tory, who does not despise or detest the conduct of Britain.
The management of Lord Shelburne, whatever may be his views, is a caution to us, and must be to the world, never to regard British assurances. A perfidy so notorious cannot be hid. It stands even in the public papers of New York, with the names of Carleton and Digby affixed to it. It is a proclamation that the king of England is not to be believed; that the spirit of lying is the governing principle of the ministry. It is holding up the character of the House of Commons to public infamy, and warning all men not to credit them. Such are the consequences which Lord Shelburne's management has brought upon his country.
After the authorized declarations contained in Carleton and Digby's letter, you ought, from every motive of honor, policy and prudence, to have fulfilled them, whatever might have been the event. It was the least atonement that you could possibly make to America, and the greatest kindness you could do to yourselves; for you will save millions by a general peace, and you will lose as many by continuing the war.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 29, 1782.
P. S. The manuscript copy of this letter is sent your lordship, by the way of our head-quarters, to New York, inclosing a late pamphlet of mine, addressed to the Abbe Raynal, which will serve to give your lordship some idea of the principles and sentiments of America.
C. S.
Table Of Contents
The Crisis No. XIII
TO THE EARL OF SHELBURNE.
MY LORD,- A speech, which has been printed in several of the British and New York newspapers, as coming from your lordship, in answer to one from the Duke of Richmond, of the 10th of July last, contains expressions and opinions so new and singular, and so enveloped in mysterious reasoning, that I address this publication to you, for the purpose of giving them a free and candid examination. The speech I allude to is in these words:
"His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, that he had been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he asserted that he still held the same principles in respect to American independence which he at first imbibed. He had been, and yet was of opinion, whenever the Parliament of Great Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of England's glory is set forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on a former day, and such the sentiments he continued to hold at this hour. It was the opinion of Lord Chatham, as well as many other able statesmen. Other noble lords, however, think differently, and as the majority of the cabinet support them, he acquiesced in the measure, dissenting from the idea; and the point is settled for bringing the matter into the full discussion of Parliament, where it will be candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The independence of America would end in the ruin of England; and that a peace patched up with France, would give that proud enemy the means of yet trampling on this country. The sun of England's glory he wished not to see set forever; he looked for a spark at least to be left, which might in time light us up to a new day. But if independence was to be granted, if Parliament deemed that measure prudent, he foresaw, in his own mind, that England was undone. He wished to God that he had been deputed to Congress, that be might plead the cause of that country as well as of this, and that he might exercise whatever powers he possessed as an orator, to save both from ruin, in a conviction to Congress, that, if their independence was signed, their liberties were gone forever.
"Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable object, but it must be an honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by France, or insisted on by America. It was very true, that this kingdom was not in a flourishing state, it was impoverished by war. But if we were not rich, it was evident that France was poor. If we were straitened in our finances, the enemy were exhausted in their resources. This was a great empire; it abounded with brave men, who were able and willing to fight in a common cause; the language of humiliation should not, therefore, be the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he was not afraid nor ashamed of those expressions going to America. There were numbers, great numbers there, who were of the same way of thinking, in respect to that country being dependent on this, and who, with his lordship, perceived ruin and independence linked together."
Thus far the speech; on which I remark- That his lordship is a total stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped himself up in fond delusion, that something less than independence, may, under his administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent to Congress, to prove the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which is, that independence, the sublimest of all human conditions, is loss of liberty.
In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the contrary word dependence means, we have only to look back to those years of severe humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could obtain no other notice than the haughtiest of all insults; and when the base terms of unconditional submission were demanded, or undistinguishable destruction threatened. It is nothing to us that the ministry have been changed, for they may be changed again. The guilt of a government is the crime of a whole country; and the nation that can, though but for a moment, think and act as England has done, can never afterwards be believed or trusted. There are cases in which it is as impossible to restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a phoenix that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no resurrection. Some offences are of such a slight composition, that they reach no further than the temper, and are created or cured by a thought. But the sin of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left in our power to say we can forgive.
Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before Congress the cause of England and America, and to save, as you say, both from ruin.
That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought our destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England has the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened by asking, and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from America; for the criminal who owes his life to the grace and mercy of the injured, is more executed by living, than he who dies.
But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no effect. Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would plead against you. We are a people who think not as you think; and what is equally true, you cannot feel as we feel. The situations of the two countries are exceedingly different. Ours has been the seat of war; yours has seen nothing of it. The most wanton destruction has been committed in our sight; the most insolent barbarity has been acted on our feelings. We can look round and see the remains of burnt and destroyed houses, once the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking monuments of British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in every part of America, and remember by whom they fell. There is scarcely a village but brings to life some melancholy thought, and reminds us of what we have suffered, and of those we have lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A thousand images arise to us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and are accompanied by as many ideas which you cannot know; and therefore your supposed system of reasoning would apply to nothing, and all your expectations die of themselves.
The question whether England shall accede to the independence of America, and which your lordship says is to undergo a parliamentary discussion, is so very simple, and composed of so few cases, that it scarcely needs a debate.
It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which has no object, and without which acknowledgment there can be no peace.
But your lordship says, the sun of Great Britain will set whenever she acknowledges the independence of America.- Whereas the metaphor would have been strictly just, to have left the sun wholly out of the figure, and have ascribed her not acknowledging it to the influence of the moon.
But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace that could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of sovereign independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776, made use of an idea of much the same kind,- Relinquish America! says he- What is it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a dwarf.
Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? Was America, then, the giant of the empire, and England only her dwarf in waiting! Is the case so strangely altered, that those who once thought we could not live without them, are now brought to declare that they cannot exist without us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their first minister of state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her importance only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they, who long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to ours, and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so unqualified to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of it themselves, and are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to cover their insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob over it like a child for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the world by declarations of disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of conduct would be to bear it without complaint; and to show that England, without America, can preserve her independence, and a suitable rank with other European powers. You were not contented while you had her, and to weep for her now is childish.
But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something is, or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms there is no hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense of an hundred million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies, must positively decide that point. Besides, the British have lost their interest in America with the disaffected. Every part of it has been tried. There is no new scene left for delusion: and the thousands who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have now to quit the settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like transports to cultivate the deserts of Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an end to all further expectations of aid.
If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have they to console themselves with for the millions expended? Or, what encouragement is there left to continue throwing good money after bad? America can carry on the war for ten years longer, and all the charges of government included, for less than you can defray the charges of war and government for one year. And I, who know both countries, know well, that the people of America can afford to pay their share of the expense much better than the people of England can. Besides, it is their own estates and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that they are defending; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to lose all, and none would pity them. The fault would be their own, and their punishment just.
The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. They enjoy an easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly of one country and the spoils of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go home rich. But the case is very different with the laboring farmer, the working tradesman, and the necessitous poor in England, the sweat of whose brow goes day after day to feed, in prodigality and sloth, the army that is robbing both them and us. Removed from the eye of that country that supports them, and distant from the government that employs them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is none to call them to account.
But England will be ruined, says Lord Shelburne, if America is independent.
Then I say, is England already ruined, for America is already independent: and if Lord Shelburne will not allow this, he immediately denies the fact which he infers. Besides, to make England the mere creature of America, is paying too great a compliment to us, and too little to himself.
But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to say, as Lord Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war against America is ruinous, and yet to continue the prosecution of that ruinous war for the purpose of avoiding ruin, is a language which cannot be understood. Neither is it possible to see how the independence of America is to accomplish the ruin of England after the war is over, and yet not affect it before. America cannot be more independent of her, nor a greater enemy to her, hereafter than she now is; nor can England derive less advantages from her than at present: why then is ruin to follow in the best state of the case, and not in the worst? And if not in the worst, why is it to follow at all?
That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and fourteen or fifteen millions a-year less expenses than before, is a new doctrine in politics. We have heard much clamor of national savings and economy; but surely the true economy would be, to save the whole charge of a silly, foolish, and headstrong war; because, compared with this, all other retrenchments are baubles and trifles.
But is it possible that Lord Shelburne can be serious in supposing that the least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any advantage can be equal to the expense or the danger of attempting it? Will not the capture of one army after another satisfy him, must all become prisoners? Must England ever be the sport of hope, and the victim of delusion? Sometimes our currency was to fail; another time our army was to disband; then whole provinces were to revolt. Such a general said this and that; another wrote so and so; Lord Chatham was of this opinion; and lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and 20 Russian ships of the line were to come; to-morrow the empress was abused without mercy or decency. Then the Emperor of Germany was to be bribed with a million of money, and the King of Prussia was to do wonderful things. At one time it was, Lo here! and then it was, Lo there! Sometimes this power, and sometimes that power, was to engage in the war, just as if the whole world was mad and foolish like Britain. And thus, from year to year, has every straw been catched at, and every Will-with-a-wisp led them a new dance.
This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne wishes to be sent to Congress, and he thinks that something may be done.
Are not the repeated declarations of Congress, and which all America supports, that they will not even hear any proposals whatever, until the unconditional and unequivocal independence of America is recognised; are not, I say, these declarations answer enough?
But for England to receive any thing from America now, after so many insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would show such a spirit of meanness in her, that we could not but despise her for accepting it. And so far from Lord Shelburne's coming here to solicit it, it would be the greatest disgrace we could do them to offer it. England would appear a wretch indeed, at this time of day, to ask or owe any thing to the bounty of America. Has not the name of Englishman blots enough upon it, without inventing more? Even Lucifer would scorn to reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep for only an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so many charms, that to be a doorkeeper in it is better than to be an English minister of state?
But what can this expected something be? Or, if obtained, what can it amount to, but new disgraces, contentions and quarrels? The people of America have for years accustomed themselves to think and speak so freely and contemptuously of English authority, and the inveteracy is so deeply rooted, that a person invested with any authority from that country, and attempting to exercise it here, would have the life of a toad under a harrow. They would look on him as an interloper, to whom their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no more than the Mungo of a farce; and if he disliked that, he must set off. It would be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, and despised by our pride, and would place England in a more contemptible situation than any she has yet been in during the war. We have too high an opinion of ourselves, even to think of yielding again the least obedience to outlandish authority; and for a thousand reasons, England would be the last country in the world to yield it to. She has been treacherous, and we know it. Her character is gone, and we have seen the funeral.
Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is wicked, and shows the last scene of the drama to be as inconsistent as the first.
As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go. Your lordship had no hand in the separation, and you will gain no honor by temporising politics. Besides, there is something so exceedingly whimsical, unsteady, and even insincere in the present conduct of England, that she exhibits herself in the most dishonorable colors. On the second of August last, General Carleton and Admiral Digby wrote to General Washington in these words:
"The resolution of the House of Commons, of the 27th of February last, has been placed in Your Excellency's hands, and intimations given at the same time that further pacific measures were likely to follow. Since which, until the present time, we have had no direct communications with England; but a mail is now arrived, which brings us very important information. We are acquainted, sir, by authority, that negotiations for a general peace have already commenced at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville is invested with full powers to treat with all the parties at war, and is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we are further, sir, made acquainted, that His Majesty, in order to remove any obstacles to this peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded his ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence of the Thirteen United Provinces, should be proposed by him in the first instance, instead of making it a condition of a general treaty."
Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing them with the declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of your king, or his ministers, or the Parliament, good for? Must we not look upon you as a confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are fraud, and their language deceit? What opinion can we possibly form of you, but that you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport even with your own character, and are to be held by nothing but the bayonet or the halter?
To say, after this, that the sun of Great Britain will be set whenever she acknowledges the independence of America, when the not doing it is the unqualified lie of government, can be no other than the language of ridicule, the jargon of inconsistency. There were thousands in America who predicted the delusion, and looked upon it as a trick of treachery, to take us from our guard, and draw off our attention from the only system of finance, by which we can be called, or deserve to be called, a sovereign, independent people. The fraud, on your part, might be worth attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it is too high.
There are others who credited the assurance, because they thought it impossible that men who had their characters to establish, would begin with a lie. The prosecution of the war by the former ministry was savage and horrid; since which it has been mean, trickish, and delusive. The one went greedily into the passion of revenge, the other into the subtleties of low contrivance; till, between the crimes of both, there is scarcely left a man in America, be he Whig or Tory, who does not despise or detest the conduct of Britain.
The management of Lord Shelburne, whatever may be his views, is a caution to us, and must be to the world, never to regard British assurances. A perfidy so notorious cannot be hid. It stands even in the public papers of New York, with the names of Carleton and Digby affixed to it. It is a proclamation that the king of England is not to be believed; that the spirit of lying is the governing principle of the ministry. It is holding up the character of the House of Commons to public infamy, and warning all men not to credit them. Such are the consequences which Lord Shelburne's management has brought upon his country.
After the authorized declarations contained in Carleton and Digby's letter, you ought, from every motive of honor, policy and prudence, to have fulfilled them, whatever might have been the event. It was the least atonement that you could possibly make to America, and the greatest kindness you could do to yourselves; for you will save millions by a general peace, and you will lose as many by continuing the war.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 29, 1782.
P. S. The manuscript copy of this letter is sent your lordship, by the way of our head-quarters, to New York, inclosing a late pamphlet of mine, addressed to the Abbe Raynal, which will serve to give your lordship some idea of the principles and sentiments of America.
C. S.
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The Crisis No. XIII
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