Philadelphia, the capital, in 1777, and Washington, though he had made his army capable of taking the offensive, spent a terrible winter at Valley Forge, Pa. In the summer, however, of 1778 the end began. There were no more important events at the north, except unsuccessful attempts to recover Newport, R. I., Wayne's capture of Stony Point and Arnold's treason at West Point, for Washington at Morristown, N. J., watched New York and protected Philadelphia. In the winter of 1778-9 Clark of Kentucky, under the authority of Virginia, won the west for the United States. The English, hopeless of success in the north and east, transferred the war to the south, mistakenly imagining that the slaves would rise against their masters. In 1778 they captured Savannah and Georgia, in 1780 Charleston and South Carolina. But Greene, the only great American general developed by the war, except Washington, saved the south (1781), though never winning a battle, and he was ably seconded by Morgan, Marion and Sumter. The English held only Charleston, New York City and Savannah, and the country at large had long been at peace. In June of 1781 Cornwallis chose Yorktown, Va., as a permanent post on Chesapeake Bay. But Washington, watching Clinton at New York, had been reinforced by 6,000 French troops. A French fleet was to enter the Chesapeake. Washington deceived Clinton into thinking that he was to attack New York City. Clinton weakened Cornwallis by withdrawing part of his troops. Washington moved down the Hudson, kept Clinton in ignorance to the last moment, suddenly swung aside through New Jersey and Philadelphia, and hurried the allied armies down Chesapeake Bay. The French fleet had early in September driven off the British fleet supporting Cornwallis. The American and French armies invested his position in front, the French fleet his rear. Besieged and starved, the English fleet unable to reach him, he surrendered on Oct. 19, 1781. “My God!” cried Lord North, when the news reached him, throwing up his hands; “it is all over.” It was. The moral effect of the capture of Cornwallis practically ended the fighting. On Nov. 30, 1782, Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, and on Sept. 3, 1783, peace was definitively concluded. (See Adams, John; Adams, Sam; André; Arnold, Benedict; Bunker Hill; Burgoyne, John; Cincinnati, Soc. of; Clark, Geo. R.; Cornwallis; Dane, Nathan; Daughters of the Revolution; Declaration of Independence; Franklin, Ben.; Greene, Nat.; Hamilton, A.; Jefferson, Thos.; Lee, R. H.; Morris, Rob.; Otis, James; Paine, Thos.; Parliament; Saratoga; Trenton; Valley Forge; Washington, Geo.; and Yorktown.)
The United States, which had first called itself by that name in the Declaration of Independence, began with a territory bounded on the north nearly as now, on the west by the Mississippi to the latitude of Florida and on the south by (then Spanish) Florida. But the country, though a union, was a confederated union, not a federal union. For in 1775-6 the colonies, as soon as imminent danger disappeared, deprived Congress of so much power that they endangered the nation's life. The new legislatures took the power of naming and recalling the delegates to Congress; the thought of nationality grew dim; and the colonies asserted that they were sovereign states. In 1777 articles (q. v.) of confederation were adopted which made the new nation merely “a firm league of friendship” between sovereign states. Congress at best hardly had more than advisory power. The states were to be sovereign in everything. The result was inefficiency in the management of public affairs. So in 1787, “we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union” held a constitutional convention which met at Philadelphia. This was the ablest body that had assembled since 1775, and Washington presided. It formed the present constitution (which has already been described), nine states adopted it by June of 1788, and the new government began. This is the federal union, in which the people are the sovereign. New York was made the capital, Washington elected president unanimously and John Adams made vice-president (1789).
In 1787, too, the continental Congress had passed an ordinance, the famous Ordinance (q. v.) of 1787, in regard to the new lands of the United States between the states and the Mississippi, the states having ceded their lands there to the United States. These lands played no small part in bringing about the federal union, and the ordinance proved of immense importance to the future of the United States and to its politics.
It is difficult to realize how poor and weak our country was. It owed $42,000,000, but numbered only 3,929,214 people. It was an almost exclusively agricultural country. Communication was slow and painful. Distances were immense when there were neither railroads nor steamships, and this increased the labor of administering such a country under a single government. The states were jealous of one another and of the Union. The people themselves had changed since 1775, and not for the better. The things that saved the nation were the picked men that led it and created a strong government; the keen and intelligent interest of its citizens in politics; and the outlet to the new domain in the west. The states yielded their claims here to the Union, free
