The Fathers of the Constitution: A Chronicle of the Establishment of the Union

t, there was nothing in the Revolution that transformed the ess

tively small and the area of country affected for any length of time was comparatively slight, it is safe to say that in general the mass of the people remained about the same after the war as before. The professional man was found in his same

cit trade with the enemy had sprung up, so that even during the war shippers were able to dispose of their commodities at good prices. The Americans are commonly said to have been an agricultural people, but it would be more correct to say that the great majority of the people were dependent upon extractive industries, which would include lumbering, fishing, and even the fur trade, as well as the o

former colonial stage of industrial dependence, which was aggravated rather than alleviated by the separation from Great Britain. During the colonial period, Americans had carried on a large amount of this external trade by means of their own vessels. The British Navigation Acts required the transportation of goods in British vessels, manned by crews of British sailors, and specified certain commodities which could be shipped to Great Britain only. They also required t

as an important feature of their programme. In other directions they were not so successful. The British still believed in their colonial system and applied its principles without regard to the interests of the United States. Such American products as they wanted they allowed to be carried to British markets, but in British vessels. Certain commodities, the production of which they wished to encourage within their own dominions, they added to the prohibited list. Americans cried out indignantly that thi

left still in force the high import duties and prohibitions that marked the European tariffs of the time, as well as many features of the old colonial system. They were designed to legalize commerce rather than to encourage it." 1 Still, for a year or more after the war the demand for American products was great enough to satisfy almost everybody. But in 1784 France and

edia of American Gove

d the commerce not as profitable as they had expected, as certainly was the case with France; whether "American merchants and sea captains found themselves under disadvantages due to the absence of treaty protection which they had enjoyed as English subjects"; 2 or whether it was the necessity of

American Diplo

. A striking illustration of this is to be found in the development of trade with the Far East. Captain Cook's voyage around the world (1768-1771), an account of which was first published in London in 1773, attracted a great deal of attention in America; an edition of the New Voyage was issued in New York in 1774. No sooner was the Revolution over tha

re was a short period of prosperity, owing to an unusual demand for American products; this was followed by a longer

building of roads and the cutting of canals were agitated until turnpike and canal companies became a favorite form of investment; and in a few years the interstate land trade had grown to considerable importance. But in the meantime, water transportation was the main reliance, and with the end of the war the coastwise trade had been promptly resumed. For a time it prospered; but the States, affected by the general economic conditions and by jealousy, tried to interfere with and divert the trade of others to their own advantage. This w

ederal Convention,

s in 1788 and 1784, all the better because of the supply of gold and silver which had been sent into the country by England and France to maintain their armies and fleets and which had remained in the United States. But this influx of imported g

some German coins.... The value of the gold pieces expressed in dollars was pretty much the same the country over. But the dollar and the silver pieces regarded as fractions of a dollar had no less than five different values." 1 The importation of foreign goods was fast draining the hard money out of the c

e People of the United St

mitations of prices of gold and silver be taken off," although the States for some time longer continued to endeavor to regulate prices by legislation. 1 The fluctuating value of the currency increased the opportunities for speculation which war conditions

merican Revolution, New

om Brissot de Warville may be taken as an example, a

s: in the dress of the women you will see the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair; equipages are rare, but they are elegant; the men have more simplicity in their dress; they disdain gewgaws, but they take their revenge in the luxury of the table; luxury forms already a class o

kerman, America and h

pressed by this same extravagance, and his testimony may well be used to streng

habits and manners of our inhabitants, that it almost appeared as if we had suddenly become a different nation. The staid and sober habits of our ancestors, with their plain home-manufactured clothing, were suddenly laid aside, and European goods of fine quality adopted in their stead. Fine ruffles, powdered heads, silks and scarlets, decorated the men; while the most costly silks, satins, chintzes, calicoes, muslins, etc., etc., de

tory of the Valley of Vi

could meet the emergency and recover from the hard times was fairly evident-first to economize, and then to find new outlets for their industrial energies. But the process of adjustment was slow and painful. There