State of the Union - February 2, 2005 -- Groundhog Day - A Stan Klos
Commentary
A
Groundhog’s State of the Union
The U.S. Constitution of 1787 permits the President
“from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of
the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge
necessary and expedient.”
The current Presidential assessment of the “State of
Union,” with U.S.
military and economic resources vastly stretched, surely will suggest bold
legislative measures that will challenge even the most seasoned Congressional
Delegations. Why then would President George W. Bush choose February 2nd,
Groundhog Day, to deliver such a pivotal address?
Perhaps President Bush knows that Punxsutawney Phil’s first trek to Gobbler's
Knob on February 2nd, 1887 shadows a more significant date in U. S.
History, February 2nd, 1787. On this fateful Friday, 218 years ago,
another President was elected and presided over the most important legislative
session in American History despite only serving a 9 month term in office. His
election on February 2nd marked the beginning of the old Presidency’s
end and the dawn of a new constitution that has governed the United States of
America into the 21st Century. To understand the significance of
this date and bask in its luminosity, we must revisit one of the darkest years
in U. S. history.
In
1786, ten years after the Declaration of Independence, five years after victory
in Yorktown and two years after the Peace Treaty ratification with Great
Britain, the United States government was about to collapse upon its
disintegrating Confederation Foundation. Deficiency in the funding of the
federal government due to the Revolutionary War debt and a poorly written
constitution had plagued the United States Confederation Government to virtual
extinction. The unsettled economic conditions were manifested in the people's
distrust of socially prominent politicians. The confederation laws passed by the
"Carriage Class" were perceived as being grossly unfair to farmers and
working people throughout a nation. Hundreds of letters and petitions poured
into New York complaining about excessive taxes on property, polling taxes that
prevented less fortunate citizens from voting, unjust rulings by the common plea
courts, the soaring costs of lawsuits, and the lack of a stable currency all
landing on then President Nathaniel Gorham’s desk. The first constitution that
formed the United States in Congress Assembled, a Federal Government consisting
of only a single branch, was called the Articles of Confederation. The first
constitution’s “Perpetual Union” was, for all intents and purposes, a
dismal failure by its 5th birthday.
The
State governments were also insolvent constantly wrangling over border disputes
as public land sales posed the only reasonable opportunity to raise capital in
the debt ridden economy. As coincidence would have it, nowhere was this anger
more conspicuous than in President Gorham's home state of Massachusetts. To
comprehend the seriousness of post Revolutionary War U. S. finances, one only
has to examine the public debt of Massachusetts in 1786.
In
1775 the Massachusetts Colonial debt amounted to approximately 100,000 pounds
for 240,000 people who rebelled over British tax schemes levied to pay off the
French and Indian war obligations. By 1786, only 11 years later, the people of
“No Taxation Without Representation's” private debt amounted to over 1.3
million pounds plus 250,000 pounds due to the officers and soldiers of the
Massachusetts State militia. Additionally the citizens’ proportion of the
federal debt was estimated in 1786 to be at 1.5 million pounds. The
Massachusetts population, meanwhile, had only increased to 270,000 people.
Consequently the debt per citizen had ballooned from .42 pounds in 1775 to 11.30
pounds in 1786, a 270% increase! The American Dollar Currency wasn’t worth a
Continental let alone a shilling. The time was ripe, especially with John
Hancock failing to take office as the 8th Confederation U.S.
President in 1786, for a national uprising.
Rebellion wasn’t anything new to the Confederation which actually assembled in
New York because it was forced to flee Philadelphia in 1783 after its own
military held the government hostage in Independence Hall. On this fateful June
day, U.S. President Elias Boudinot and the Pennsylvania Supreme Council jointly
called out the Pennsylvania Militia to free Congress from mutineers but only a
lone General heeded their summons. It was Arthur St. Clair, in Philadelphia
conducting other business, who confronted the military insurgents and reported
their demands to be paid, fed and clothed to Congress. The General recommended a
no negotiation policy. Congress agreed and they along with President Boudinot
were eventually permitted to leave Independence Hall amidst a military line of
threatening and jeering soldiers. The Confederation Government then fled to
Princeton, New Jersey. Never again would the United States in Congress Assembled
return to Philadelphia.
Now
three years later, a more serious mutiny gripped the nation. Massachusetts was
clenched in a rebellion so monumental that the United States in Congress
Assembled was forced to table talks on revising the ailing Articles of
Confederation. On October 21st, 1786 the federal government finally
passed a resolution to militarily crush the rebellion but the appropriation was
skillfully mislabeled as "Indian defense." The legislative strategy was
to mask the seriousness of situation in hopes of playing down the severity of
Shays’ Rebellion.
Despite the October resolutions, the 6th United States in Congress
Assembled was unable to raise the money for the troops to protect the citizens
of Massachusetts. This, many members believed, was a good omen as the major
part of the debate centered around fielding a formidable Army that could not be
paid after they ended the rebellion. The Congress also faltered on enacting
legislation to call for a Philadelphia Convention to revise the Articles of
Confederation as recommended by the Delegates from Annapolis Summit.
In
November, the 7th United States in Congress Assembled was unable to
act on the National State of Emergency failing to achieve a quorum. President
Gorham’s term expired on November 13th. A United States in Congress
Assembled quorum was also not convened in December ending 1786 with the
Confederation administration financially insolvent, the leading revolutionary
state of Massachusetts in rebellion and no duly elected President to direct the
affairs of its unicameral federal government.
The
Confederation Government, even with the advent of a New Year, failed to achieve
a quorum all throughout January. Finally in February, one hundred years to the
day before the first Groundhog Celebration, the United States Confederation
Congress reconvened. The Delegates promptly turned to the duty of selecting a
President of the United States in Congress Assembled amidst an unprecedented
peacetime financial, military and constitutional crisis. On February 2nd,
1787 the Delegates elected George Washington’s friend and fellow Revolutionary
War General, Arthur St. Clair, the 9th President of United States in
Congress Assembled.
The
first item President St. Clair brought before the collapsing congress was the
September 1786 recommendations of the Annapolis Proceedings of Commissioners to
“Remedy Defects of the Federal Government:”
" … use their endeavors to procure the concurrence of the other States, in
the appointment of Commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday
in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to
devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the
constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union;
and to report such an Act for that purpose to the United States in Congress
assembled, as when agreed to, by them, and afterwards confirmed by the
Legislatures of every State, will effectually provide for the same…"
President St. Clair and Congress quickly enacted the proposed legislation to
convene a Convention that would be chaired by George Washington and produce the
U.S. Constitution of 1787. This Constitution would go on to establish the
current U.S. Presidency and the yearly precedent of a State of the Union Address
that has echoed in the halls of Congress for 215 years.
While
the 1787 Constitutional Convention was in session President St. Clair and his
Congress decided to dust off Thomas Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance that was the
blueprint legislation for U.S. national expansion into the West. This ordinance
had failed enactment for nearly three years. The lack of a body of laws to
govern the vast territory north and west of the Ohio River ceded to the United
States in the Treaty of Paris stifled westward expansion and the ability of the
Confederation Government to sell federal lands to settlers and retire the
Revolutionary War debt. It was a combination of the dire need for federal money
and President St. Clair's leadership that the Confederation Congress, on July
13, 1787, passed one of the most far reaching acts in American history, the
Northwest Ordinance.
The
world was now put on notice that the land north and west of the Ohio River and
east of the Mississippi would be settled and utilized for the creation of "…
not less than three nor more than five territories." Additionally, this plan
for governing the Northwest Territory included freedom of religion, right to
trial by jury, the banishment of slavery, and public education as asserted
rights granted to the people in the new territory. This ordinance was and still
remains one of the most important laws ever enacted by the government of the
United States.
The Northwest Ordinance
was herald by Daniel Webster many years later,
"We
are accustomed to praise lawgivers of antiquity ... but I doubt whether one
single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced the effects of more
distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787."
The
current U.S. Constitution, without the amendments, arrived in New York on
September 20th, 1787. Its destiny was subject to the debate and vote
of the United States in Congress Assembled, the very body the new constitution
sought to disassemble. The great deliberation that ensued is forever lost due
to the veil of secrecy that surrounded the Confederation Congress in those
formative years. We do know however that Washington’s trusted friend, Arthur St.
Clair, presided over the debate. In less then eight days Congress passed the
legislation to send the Constitution to each state for ratification. The United
States in Congress Assembled after eight days of deliberation chose not to
change even one word of the text.
The Journals of the United
States in Congress Assembled reported on September 28, 1787:
Congress having received the report of the Convention lately assembled in Philadelphia Resolved Unanimously that the said Report with the
resolutions and letter accompanying the same be transmitted to the several
legislatures in Order to be submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in
each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention
made and provided in that case.
Unlike
the Articles of Confederation this constitution required the assent of only 2/3rd’s
of the States to ratify a new form of federal government.
February 2nd, 1787 resulted in the election of a President who, in
less than one year, presided over the United States Confederation Government
that passed the Northwest Ordinance and enacted legislation convening the
Constitutional Convention, accepting their recommendations and transmitting the
most important body of laws in U.S. History for ratification.
Paradoxically, 100 years later, Western Pennsylvanians would not adopt this date
as one of respect for the achievements of this Keystone
Presidency. Instead in 1887 they would march a groundhog up a hill, spin
a tale of shadow and lore only to obliterate the Presidential legacy of their
most important Western Pennsylvania citizen, Arthur St. Clair. A twist of fate
that could only happen, with no malice, in America.
Perhaps President Bush knows February 2nd is not a day of just
Groundhogs and shadows. Perhaps President Bush knows February 2nd
1787 was the day our nation turned to Arthur St. Clair and elected him President
of the United States to save the crumbling confederation. Perhaps President
Bush wisely seeks, by the selection of this day, an 18th Century rhetorical frame
that will cause scholarly reflection.
If
not, perhaps the media outlets will seize upon the significance of this date and
eloquently report this 218 year story to their audience. After all, it took the
United States of America thirteen years to establish a constitution capable of
governing its people. This story, if properly told and circulated, might just
provide the People of the United States with the wisdom and a renewed patience
to support Iraq and Afghanistan’s painstaking struggle for freedom.
In
either case, February 2nd, 2005 was a superb Presidential choice to
address “We the People” and report on the State of the “Perpetual
Union” of the United States. If you agree please pass this essay on
to others.
I
remain your most obedient and humble servant,
Stanley L. Klos
