Transcriber’s Note
The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvioustypographical errors have been corrected.
THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
1783–1789
BY
JOHN FISKE
"I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war."
Jay to Washington, June 27, 1786.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1888,
By JOHN FISKE.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.
To
MY DEAR CLASSMATES,
FRANCIS LEE HIGGINSON
AND
CHARLES CABOT JACKSON,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
PREFACE.
This book contains the substance of the course of lectures given in theOld South Meeting-House in Boston in December, 1884, at the WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis in May, 1885, and in the theatre of theUniversity Club in New York in March, 1886. In its present shape it mayserve as a sketch of the political history of the United States from theend of the Revolutionary War to the adoption of the FederalConstitution. It makes no pretensions to completeness, either as asummary of the events of that period or as a discussion of the politicalquestions involved in them. I have aimed especially at grouping facts insuch a way as to bring out and emphasize their causal sequence, and itis accordingly hoped that the book may prove useful to the student ofAmerican history.
My title was suggested by the fact of Thomas Paine's stopping thepublication of the "Crisis," on hearing the news of the treaty of 1783,with the remark, "The times that tried men's souls are over." Commentingupon this, on page 55 of the present work, I observed that so far fromthe crisis being over in 1783, the next five years were to be the mostcritical time of all. I had not then seen Mr. Trescot's "DiplomaticHistory of the Administrations of Washington and Adams," on page 9 ofwhich he uses almost the same words: "It must not be supposed that thetreaty of peace secured the national life. Indeed, it would be morecorrect to say that the most critical period of the country's historyembraced the time between 1783 and the adoption of the Constitution in1788."
That period was preëminently the turning-point in the development ofpolitical society in the western hemisphere. Though small in their meredimensions, the events here summarized were in a remarkable degreegerminal events, fraught with more tremendous alternatives of futurewelfare or misery for mankind than it is easy for the imagination tograsp. As we now stand upon the threshold of that mighty future, in thelight of which all events of the past are clearly destined to seemdwindled in dimensions and significant only in the ratio of theirpotency as causes; as we discern how large a part of that future must bethe outcome of the creative work, for good or ill, of men of English