Dawn in the Fields: When Every American Was a Farmer

The Lawyer with Hay on His Hands

On a summer morning in 1760s Massachusetts, John Adams rose at sunrise and walked not to his law office but to his barn. There, the future second president of the United States spent the early hours pitching hay—backbreaking work that left his hands blistered and his clothes drenched with sweat. Only after completing this essential farm labor did Adams retire to his study to wrestle with an entirely different kind of challenge: translating passages from Justinian's Code, the 6th-century Roman legal compilation that formed the foundation of Western jurisprudence.

Adams recorded this seemingly incongruous combination in his diary with no sense of contradiction: "Rose at sunrise, unpitched a load of hay and translated two more passages from Justinian's Code." For Adams and his contemporaries, there was nothing unusual about a Harvard-educated lawyer spending his mornings doing manual farm labor before turning to intellectual pursuits. This was simply what it meant to be an American in the colonial and early republic periods.

The Universal Creed

The happy fact that the early American home and farm were one represented far more than a casual observation about colonial life—it embodied the pioneer's creed and a basic American belief that persisted until only a century ago. Today, this fundamental unity of dwelling and cultivation has all but vanished, severed by industrialization, urbanization, and the specialization of labor that characterizes modern society. Yet understanding this lost world where every American was simultaneously farmer and something else illuminates crucial aspects of early American identity, values, and social organization.

Thomas Jefferson, that most eloquent spokesman for agrarian virtue, captured this belief in language that resonated throughout the early republic: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." Jefferson wasn't merely praising farmers; he was articulating a theological and philosophical conviction that agricultural labor conferred moral superiority and civic virtue essential for republican self-governance.

Jefferson expanded on this theme in his Notes on the State of Virginia, arguing that "the farmer is the most noble and independent man in society." This wasn't romantic nostalgia for rural life but rather a carefully reasoned political philosophy. Farmers, Jefferson believed, possessed economic independence that freed them from the corrupting influences of wage dependency, urban vice, and commercial manipulation. Owning productive land gave men both material security and psychological autonomy—qualities Jefferson considered essential for responsible citizenship in a democratic republic.

The Farmer-Everything: A Society of Agricultural Generalists

Whether you were a banker or shoemaker in colonial times, you were always simultaneously a farmer. This dual identity wasn't optional or recreational but rather fundamental to survival and respectability. The village blacksmith maintained fields that fed his family between shoeing horses and forging tools. The country lawyer like John Adams grew hay and grains that sustained his household while he argued cases and wrote legal briefs. The merchant kept orchards and livestock that provided insurance against the uncertainties of commerce.

Whether your home was large or small, it was also a homestead—a complete economic unit integrating residence, agriculture, and often craft production. The distinction we now make between "home" as dwelling place and "farm" as agricultural enterprise simply didn't exist. Your house was your farm, your farm was your house, and together they constituted your stake in society, your contribution to community welfare, and your claim to citizenship.

This agricultural universality extended far beyond common farmers to encompass the highest ranks of society. Even princes and politicians and poets of the eighteenth century were ardent agriculturists or posed as farmers and rural philosophers. British nobility maintained country estates where they experimented with crop rotations and livestock breeding. French philosophes retreated to rural properties where they could play at being peasants while contemplating natural virtue. American founders from Washington to Jefferson to Adams combined political leadership with serious agricultural practice and innovation.

Not having a rural background and farming philosophy in those times was perhaps as bad as not being a church member—both absences marked one as outside the cultural mainstream, suspect in one's values and potentially unreliable in one's character. To lack connection to the soil was to lack grounding in reality, to be unmoored from the sources of genuine wealth and virtue that made civilized society possible.

Barns as Status Symbols: The Architecture of Agricultural Competition

To a great extent, the size and condition of your land and barns influenced your standing in the community. A well-maintained farm with substantial outbuildings announced prosperity, industry, and good management—qualities that translated directly into social standing and community influence. A neglected farmstead with ramshackle structures suggested improvidence, laziness, or bad luck—conditions that undermined one's reputation and credibility.

This connection between agricultural infrastructure and social status resulted in barns being built much bigger than functional necessity strictly required, particularly among the Dutch and Germans who were the least conservative architecturally and most competitive in spirit. These immigrant groups brought from Europe both sophisticated barn-building traditions and a cultural imperative to demonstrate success through impressive agricultural architecture.

Some of the Dutch and German barns constructed in Pennsylvania, New York, and other Middle Atlantic regions were bigger than the great barns of ancient Europe—a fact which gave their owners great pleasure as New World farmers. These massive structures, some extending more than 100 feet in length with soaring rooflines that could accommodate vast hay mows, represented more than practical storage facilities. They embodied the promise of American abundance, the reward for hard work in a land of opportunity, and tangible proof that the New World could exceed Old World achievements.

The Pennsylvania German bank barn, with its distinctive cantilevered forebay and stone lower level built into a hillside, became an iconic form that combined European building traditions with American innovations. These barns allowed for ground-level entry on the upper floor for wagons loaded with hay, while livestock occupied the protected lower level accessible from the downhill side—an ingenious design that maximized efficiency while creating structures of genuine architectural dignity.

Dutch barns in the Hudson River Valley featured massive timber frames constructed without metal fasteners, using instead complex joinery that demonstrated both the builder's skill and the owner's wealth. The characteristic flared eaves and distinctive roof profiles of these barns announced their owners' ethnic identity and cultural pride while also providing practical protection for agricultural operations.

Mount Vernon: The Gentleman Farmer as National Icon

We think of George Washington as being a "gentleman farmer," a term which now describes a wealthy hobbyist who maintains agricultural properties for pleasure rather than profit. Yet this modern understanding completely misses the historical reality of Washington's relationship to agriculture and what "gentleman farmer" actually meant in the 18th century.

Mount Vernon followed the tradition of substantial homes of that time in being first and foremost a working agricultural enterprise. Washington wasn't playing at farming but rather managing one of Virginia's most sophisticated and innovative agricultural operations. The general possessed the exact knowledge of farming that every American enjoyed as part of his daily life, but he applied this knowledge at a scale and with a systematic approach that distinguished him even among serious agriculturists.

Washington's farming operations extended across thousands of acres divided into five separate farms, each with its own overseer, work force, crop rotations, and specialized functions. He maintained detailed records of planting dates, weather conditions, crop yields, and experimental results that reveal him as a scientific farmer constantly seeking improvements in productivity and sustainability.

Far from being a casual hobby, Washington's agricultural work consumed enormous amounts of his time and energy. He rose early to tour his fields on horseback, inspecting crops, directing workers, and making countless decisions about when to plant, what varieties to grow, how to rotate crops to preserve soil fertility, and how to market surplus production. His correspondence is filled with detailed discussions of agricultural techniques, requests for seeds and implements from England, and exchanges with other farmers about the relative merits of different farming methods.

Washington experimented extensively with crop diversification, moving away from tobacco—the traditional Virginia staple that rapidly depleted soil fertility—toward wheat and other grains that could be rotated with legumes and other soil-building crops. He pioneered the use of improved plows, threshing machines, and other agricultural implements that increased productivity while reducing labor requirements. His sixteen-sided treading barn, where horses walked in a circle on an upper floor to thresh grain that fell through gaps to the floor below, represented innovative thinking about how to mechanize agricultural processing.

Jefferson at Monticello: Philosophy Made Practical

If Washington exemplified systematic agricultural management, Thomas Jefferson embodied agriculture as philosophical and scientific pursuit. At Monticello, Jefferson's mountaintop plantation in Virginia, farming merged seamlessly with experimentation, innovation, and intellectual inquiry in ways that perfectly expressed Jefferson's conviction that agriculture represented humanity's noblest occupation.

Jefferson rose each morning and, after dealing with correspondence and reading, would ride out to inspect his farms and direct agricultural operations. He maintained meticulous garden books recording planting dates, varieties tested, and results observed—documentation that reveals his approach to farming as systematic experimentation aimed at identifying crops and methods best suited to Virginia's climate and soils.

His innovations extended beyond crop selection to include mechanical improvements that demonstrated the same inventive spirit that produced his polygraph copying machine and swivel chair. Jefferson designed an improved moldboard plow that won recognition from European agricultural societies for its mathematical precision and practical effectiveness. The moldboard—the curved surface that turns the soil as the plow cuts through earth—had traditionally been shaped by eye and experience. Jefferson applied geometric principles to create a moldboard whose surface was mathematically calculated to move soil with minimum resistance, reducing the draft animals' labor while creating more thorough soil inversion.

Jefferson also experimented extensively with crop rotations designed to maintain soil fertility without the long fallow periods that traditional farming required. He tested various sequences of wheat, corn, legumes, and pasture crops to identify combinations that would sustain productivity while rebuilding the soil organic matter and nutrients that repeated cropping depleted. These experiments reflected both his reading of European agricultural treatises and his willingness to adapt foreign ideas to American conditions.

The Theological Dimension: Chosen People of the Soil

Jefferson's conviction that farmers were "the chosen people of God" represented more than rhetorical flourish—it embodied a genuine theological and philosophical position about the relationship between agricultural labor and moral character. This belief had deep roots in classical philosophy, particularly in the Roman agricultural writers like Cato and Varro whom Jefferson read in the original Latin, but it also resonated with American Protestant traditions emphasizing honest labor and suspicion of luxury.

The argument ran roughly as follows: Farming required hard physical work that built character through discipline, patience, and direct encounter with natural processes. Farmers dealt constantly with reality—weather, soil, plant growth, animal behavior—that couldn't be manipulated through rhetoric or social connections. Success in agriculture demanded industry, foresight, practical knowledge, and moral virtues like honesty and responsibility that had immediate practical consequences.

Moreover, farmers enjoyed economic independence that freed them from the corrupting dependencies inherent in wage labor, manufacturing, or commerce. A farmer with productive land could feed his family regardless of market fluctuations, political upheavals, or economic depressions. This independence translated into political independence—farmers could vote their consciences without fearing employer retaliation or economic coercion.

In contrast, Jefferson viewed urban workers, merchants, and manufacturers with suspicion as potentially corrupted by their economic dependencies and removed from the moral instruction provided by direct engagement with nature and agricultural labor. Cities bred vice, luxury, and unhealthy dependencies that undermined the civic virtue essential for republican self-governance.

The Vanishing World

This world where every American was simultaneously farmer and citizen, where barns announced social status, and where presidents pitched hay before breakfast has all but vanished from modern America. The transformation began with industrialization in the 19th century, accelerated through the 20th century as agriculture mechanized and specialized, and reached completion in recent decades as farming has become the occupation of a tiny minority rather than a universal experience.

Today, less than 2% of Americans farm for a living, and even fewer maintain the kind of integrated home-farm homesteads that characterized early American life. We have gained enormous productivity, specialization, and efficiency while losing something harder to quantify—the universal connection to soil and seasons, the practical knowledge of agriculture that once formed part of every American's basic competency, and the moral framework that valued agricultural labor as uniquely virtuous and character-building.

Whether this loss matters remains debatable. Modern Americans enjoy food abundance, variety, and safety that would have astonished Jefferson and Washington. We are freed from the physical drudgery and economic uncertainties that made farming simultaneously virtuous and exhausting. Yet something was undeniably lost when we severed the connection between home and farm, when agriculture became a specialized industry rather than a universal experience, and when Jefferson's "chosen people of God" became a romantic memory rather than a lived reality.

Understanding this vanished world where John Adams could pitch hay before translating Roman law, where massive barns announced Dutch and German pride, and where the father of American democracy designed improved plows helps us comprehend both what early America was and what modern America has become. The transformation from a nation of farmer-citizens to a nation of specialized workers represents one of the most profound changes in American life—a change that has shaped everything from our politics to our values to our relationship with the natural world that sustains us.

Citations and Sources

Jefferson's Agricultural Philosophy:

• University of Virginia Engagement. "Thomas Jefferson, Land and Liberty." https://engagement.virginia.edu/learn/2020/06/08/thomas-jefferson-land-and-liberty
• Monticello.org. "A Day in the Life of Jefferson: Attending to My Farm." https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/brief-biography-of-jefferson/a-day-in-the-life-of-jefferson/attending-to-my-farm/
• Varsity Tutors. "Jefferson the Agronomist." https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/jefferson-primer/agronomist
• Encyclopedia Virginia. "Thomas Jefferson and Agriculture." https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/thomas-jefferson-and-agriculture/

Washington's Farming:

• George Washington's Mount Vernon. "Farmer Washington." https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/farming/
• National Park Service. "George Washington the Farmer." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/george-washington-the-farmer.htm

Early American Agriculture:

• Wikipedia. "Jeffersonian Democracy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffersonian_democracy
• American Heritage. "The Founding Farmers."

Justinian's Code Reference:

• Britannica. "Code of Justinian." https://www.britannica.com/topic/Code-of-Justinian

Note: 

• The John Adams diary quote about pitching hay and translating Justinian appears in various historical accounts of Adams's daily life, reflecting the common pattern among educated early Americans of combining agricultural labor with intellectual pursuits.
• Code of Justinian -  -Part of the 6th century codification of Roman law. The Code of Justinian is one part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, the Digest and the Institutes, were created during his reign.

 

Madeira's Wine - Colonial Cheer

 Development and success (15th–18th centuries)

The roots of Madeira's wine industry date back to the Age of Exploration, when Madeira was a regular port of call for ships travelling to the East Indies. By the 16th century, records indicate that a well-established wine industry on the island supplied these ships with wine for the long voyages across the sea. The earliest examples of Madeira were unfortified and tended to spoil before reaching their destination. However, following the example of port, a small amount of distilled alcohol made from cane sugar was added to stabilize the wine by boosting the alcohol content. (The modern process of fortification using brandy did not become widespread until the 18th century.) The Dutch East India Company became a regular customer, picking up large, 423-litre (112 US gal) casks of wine known as "pipes" for their voyages to India.

The intense heat in the holds of the ships had a transforming effect on the wine, as discovered by Madeira producers when one shipment was returned to the island after a long trip. The customer was found to prefer the taste of this style of wine, and Madeira labeled as vinho da roda (wines that have made a round trip) became very popular. Madeira producers found that aging the wine on long sea voyages was very costly, so they began to develop methods on the island to produce the same aged and heated style. They began storing the wines on trestles at the winery or in special rooms known as estufas, where the heat of the island sun would age the wine.

With the increase of commercial treaties with England such as the Marriage Treaty in 1662, important English merchants settled on the island and, ultimately, controlled the increasingly important island wine trade. The English traders settled in the Funchal as of the seventeenth century, consolidating the markets from North America, the West Indies and England itself. Notable brands include Cossart and Gordon founded in 1745 and Blandy's in 1811.

The eighteenth century was the "golden age" for Madeira. The wine's popularity extended from the American colonies and Brazil in the New World to Great Britain, Russia, and Northern Africa. The American colonies, in particular, were enthusiastic customers, consuming as much as 95% of all wine produced on the island each year.

Early American history (17th–18th centuries)

Madeira was a very important wine in the history of the United States of America. No wine-quality grapes were grown among the thirteen colonies, so imports were needed, with a great focus on Madeira. One of the major events on the road to the American Revolution in which Madeira played a key role was the seizure of John Hancock's sloop Liberty by Boston customs officials on 9 May 1768. Hancock's boat was seized after he had unloaded a cargo of 25 pipes (3,150 US gallons (11,900 L)) of Madeira, and a dispute arose over import duties. The seizure of Liberty caused riots to erupt in Boston.

Madeira was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, and it was used to toast the Declaration of Independence George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams are also said to have appreciated the qualities of Madeira. The wine was mentioned in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. On one occasion, Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, of the great quantities of Madeira he consumed while a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress. A bottle of Madeira was used by visiting Captain James Sever to christen USS Constitution in 1797. Chief Justice John Marshall was also known to appreciate Madeira, as were his cohorts on the early U.S. Supreme Court. Madeira and walnuts were often served together as a last course at dinner parties in Washington in the early decades of the 1800s.

Madeira wine - Wikipedia

How to drink Madeira Wine

Firstly, Madeira wine is best chilled at different serving temperatures according to its sweetness. Drier sherry tends to be served at 12°C (53.6°F) while sweeter expressions can be slightly warmer at around 16°C (60.8°F).

Similarly, drier Madeira wine is often served as an apéritif and pairs well with seafood, soup, starters, and cheese. Richer Madeira wine is often used as a dessert wine or a digestif.

 

Washington Cheer

Rummer that was used to serve beer at Mount Vernon.

Beer was a favorite drink of George Washington, as it was for many people living in eighteenth-century America. According to visitor Joshua Brooks, both beer and porter were among the beverage choices offered during a Mount Vernon dinner in 1799. A clergyman who knew Washington during the presidency recorded that he habitually "had a silver pint cup or mug of beer, placed by his plate, which he drank while dining. “Many years later, Martha Washington's grandson noted that Washington generally "drank a home-made beverage" at dinner, which was probably a reference to beer brewed on the estate.

Washington not only drank beer himself, and had it served it to his guests, but it was also one of the items provided for voters when he was a candidate for political office. Washington's 1758 election to the House of Burgesses cost him 39 pounds, 6 shillings, a sum, which bought him "a hogshead and a barrel of punch, thirty-five gallons of wine, forty-three gallons of strong beer, cider, and dinner for his friends."3

In fact, virtually everybody, of all ages and social classes at Mount Vernon drank beer as a matter of course during this time period. George Washington noted in a letter to one of his farm managers that his white servants customarily received a bottle of beer a day, with each bottle containing one quart of liquid.

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/beer?utm_campaign=content_ency&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

The Imperfect Union: How Thirteen Jealous States Learned to Work Together

Thirteen Colonies in Search of a Nation

On November 15, 1777, as the Second Continental Congress huddled in York, Pennsylvania, having fled the British occupation of Philadelphia, they voted to approve a document that would become America's first constitution. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union represented an extraordinary gamble: Could thirteen fractious colonies, each jealously guarding their sovereignty, create a government strong enough to win a war yet weak enough to preserve their cherished independence?

The answer, as events would prove, was both yes and no. The Articles would guide America through the remainder of the Revolutionary War and the crucial early years of independence, yet their very weaknesses would ultimately necessitate their replacement. To understand this paradox, this document that was simultaneously essential and inadequate, we must first appreciate just how unprecedented and improbable the American union truly was.

A Continent of Strangers

The thirteen colonies that banded together to resist British authority in the 1770s had not been created as a unified whole but rather emerged piecemeal over a century and a half, each established "one at a time and for different reasons." Despite their common inheritance of the English language and English legal traditions, their differences would have seemed far more important than their similarities to anyone observing them in the mid-18th century.

Consider the profound contrasts: Massachusetts Bay had been founded by Puritan religious dissidents seeking to create a "city upon a hill" governed by strict Calvinist principles. Rhode Island emerged as a refuge for those expelled from Massachusetts for religious nonconformity, establishing unprecedented separation between church and state. Pennsylvania was William Penn's "holy experiment" in Quaker governance and religious toleration. Virginia and the Carolinas developed plantation economies dependent on enslaved labor and governed by wealthy planter aristocracies. New York retained elements of its Dutch commercial heritage. Georgia began as a philanthropic project for debtors and "the worthy poor."

These weren't mere cultural differences but fundamental variations in economy, social structure, religious practice, and political organization. As Thomas Pownall, who had served as governor of Massachusetts Bay colony from 1757 to 1760, observed in 1764, the colonies would always remain "disconnected and independent of each other" because of "the different manner in which they are settled, the different modes under which they live, the different forms of charters, grants, and frames of government which they possess, the various principles of repulsion, the different interest which they actuate, the religious interests by which they are actuated, the rivalry and jealousies which arise from hence, and the impracticability, if not the impossibility, of reconciling and accommodating these incompatible ideas and claims."

Until the middle of the 18th century, each colony interacted primarily one-on-one with the government in London rather than with sister colonies. They competed for royal favor, disputed boundary lines, maintained separate currencies and trade policies, and viewed each other more as rivals than as potential partners.

The First Tentative Steps Toward Unity

The first attempt at common action had been the Albany Congress of 1754, convened at the beginning of the French and Indian War. Only seven colonies participated, and while this Congress adopted Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan of Union, not a single colony ratified it. The plan's rejection demonstrated both the practical difficulties of inter-colonial cooperation and the deep-seated colonial resistance to any authority that might compromise their individual autonomy.

The opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 led to the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765, which brought together delegates representing 9 of the 13 colonies. Yet that Congress met for less than three weeks before disbanding, after which there was no common institution uniting the colonies until crisis forced them together again.

It wasn't until September and October 1774 that the First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, bringing together delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia abstained) to coordinate response to the Coercive Acts. Even then, Joseph Galloway presented a plan of union that resembled the Albany Plan, but it was narrowly rejected by delegates who feared creating institutions that might constrain their colonies' independence.

War Breeds Urgency: The Push for Confederation

The outbreak of fighting at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 transformed theoretical discussions about colonial unity into practical necessities of wartime coordination. When the Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775, it found itself gradually assuming governmental functions, raising an army, appointing commanders, conducting diplomacy, issuing currency, without any formal constitutional authority to do so.

Already in 1775, visionaries like Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane began drawing up plans for a permanent union. Thomas Paine, in his explosive January 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, offered his ideas for a permanent continental form of government that would replace British authority with American self-rule.

When Richard Henry Lee rose in Congress on June 7, 1776, to propose independence, he also proposed "that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation." Congress responded by appointing a committee of thirteen, one representative from each colony, to work on articles of confederation.

John Dickinson's Draft: The Difficult Birth of Union

John Dickinson of Pennsylvania played the major role on this committee, and the initial draft submitted to Congress on July 12, 1776, just eight days after the Declaration of Independence, was written in his own handwriting. The document consisted of twenty articles outlining a governmental structure that would balance state sovereignty with national coordination.

Yet even as the committee worked, fundamental disagreements emerged that would plague the Articles throughout their existence. Should representation in Congress be based on population or on equal votes for each state? Should contributions to the national treasury be proportional to population or to land values? Should Congress have power to regulate western territories or would that remain with individual states? The questions revealed not mere technical disputes about governmental mechanics but profound conflicts about the nature of the union being created.

The debates consumed sixteen months during which Congress had "a great many other matters to deal with", conducting a desperate war against the world's most powerful military, managing diplomacy with potential European allies, attempting to establish credit and currency, coordinating military campaigns across a thousand-mile coastline. The final version, reduced to thirteen articles from the original twenty, was finally adopted on November 15, 1777.

The Structure of Confederation: Sovereignty Jealously Guarded

The document that emerged from these lengthy deliberations reflected colonial determination to preserve maximum autonomy while creating minimum necessary coordination. Article I simply stated that "The style of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'", a name that emphasized the plural nature of the union.

Article II made explicit what would become the defining characteristic of the

Confederation: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." This was not federalism but rather a league of friendship among sovereign states that remained fundamentally independent.

Article III came closest to articulating the union's purpose: "The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."

Notably, throughout the Articles, the government being formed acted upon the states as states, not on individual citizens within those states. While Article IV implicitly recognized common national citizenship by guaranteeing that "the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states," the primary relationship remained between Congress and state governments rather than between Congress and individual Americans.

Congressional Structure: Equality Without Population

Under the Articles, each state was represented in Congress by between two and seven delegates, but regardless of delegation size, each state cast only one vote. If a single delegate was present, the state could not vote at all, ensuring that important decisions required consultation among multiple representatives.

The terms were for a year at a time, though delegates could be reappointed. However, to prevent entrenchment of a political class, no delegate could serve for more than three years out of any six-year period. Significantly, delegates were chosen by state legislatures rather than by direct popular vote, reinforcing that they represented sovereign states rather than a unified national populace.

Congress was to meet on the first Monday in November each year, and no adjournment could exceed six months, provisions designed to ensure continuous governmental presence. For important matters such as declaring war, the assent of nine states was required, creating a supermajority requirement that protected minority interests but also made decisive action difficult.

Most fatefully, any amendment to the Articles required unanimous approval from all thirteen states. This provision, intended to protect state sovereignty, would prove to be a

fatal flaw that prevented even modest reforms when the system's inadequacies became apparent.

The Western Lands Crisis: Maryland's Heroic Obstinacy

Congress sent the approved Articles to the states for ratification in November 1777, optimistically setting March 10, 1778, as the deadline for completion. Virginia became the first state to ratify on December 16, 1777, but the process immediately encountered obstacles that would delay final ratification for more than three years.

The crisis centered on the vast western territories that several "landed" states claimed by virtue of their colonial charters. Virginia's 1609 charter, interpreted broadly, could encompass not only present-day Kentucky but also most of the land north of the Ohio River extending to the Mississippi. Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia similarly claimed western territories, while New York asserted claims based on its overlordship of the Iroquois nations.

Six "landless" states, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, had no such claims and viewed with alarm the prospect of their neighbors controlling vast western empires. The landless states demanded that borders be set on the landed states and that western territories be opened to all Americans to settle under congressional jurisdiction.

By mid-1778, ten states had ratified, but three landless states, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, refused. By February 1779, New Jersey and Delaware had reluctantly assented, but Maryland continued its heroic obstinacy, insisting that western lands must be ceded to Congress before ratification.

Maryland's position rested on principled concerns about preserving political equality among states and preventing the emergence of western land monopolies. Yet the state's stance was also influenced by Maryland land speculators who had purchased claims to western territories and hoped to fare better with Congress than with Virginia in having their prewar claims recognized.

The British Threat: Foreign Diplomacy Forces Domestic Resolution

During this impasse, international events added urgency to the ratification crisis. In 1780, as British forces began conducting raids on Maryland communities in the Chesapeake Bay, the state government desperately sought French naval assistance. Anne-César de La Luzerne, the French minister to the United States, responded with a message that was simultaneously reassuring and pointed: French Admiral Destouches would provide what assistance he could, but Luzerne also "sharply pressed" Maryland to ratify the Articles, suggesting that French support might depend on American unity.

Luzerne understood what Maryland's politicians were learning through bitter experience: without a legitimate national government recognized by all states, the fledgling nation remained weak, divided, and vulnerable to foreign intervention and manipulation. Other frustrated state governments had begun passing resolutions endorsing formation of a national government without Maryland, but cooler heads like Congressman Thomas Burke of North Carolina persuaded them that unanimous approval was essential for creating a government with genuine legitimacy.

Virginia's Fateful Decision: Land for Union

To break the impasse, Congress reversed its earlier position and recommended that the landed states voluntarily relinquish generous portions of their western territories. Virginia, with the most extensive claims, held the key to unlocking the crisis.

Prompted by Thomas Jefferson, who combined visionary thinking about republican expansion with practical understanding of political necessity, Virginia made a momentous decision. On January 2, 1781, the Virginia legislature offered to cede to the Confederation all its claims to lands north of the Ohio River. Equally important were Virginia's stipulations: that speculators' private land claims be canceled and that new states be created from these territories and admitted to the Union "on terms of equality with the original thirteen."

This was a revolutionary proposal that would shape American development for generations. Rather than allowing western territories to remain as colonial dependencies or be absorbed into existing states as subordinate regions, Virginia proposed that they become new sovereign states with the same rights and status as the original thirteen. The principle of equality among states, regardless of when they joined the Union, became a defining feature of American federalism.

Virginia's action persuaded Maryland to ratify. On February 2, 1781, the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis finally voted for ratification. On March 1, 1781, Maryland's delegates signed the engrossed Articles, and Congress proclaimed the formal creation of "a perpetual union."

The Flawed Achievement: A Constitution for Wartime

The government created by the Articles of Confederation was, by general agreement, too weak for the nation's long-term needs. Congress could request funds from states but could not compel payment through taxation. It could conduct foreign policy but lacked power to enforce treaty obligations on states. It could declare war but could not draft soldiers or requisition supplies directly. The system had no independent executive branch, no national judiciary, and no mechanism for resolving disputes between states beyond voluntary arbitration.

Moreover, the requirement of unanimous consent for amendments meant that the Articles could not be reformed even when their inadequacies became glaringly obvious. Attempts to grant Congress power to levy modest import duties failed because individual states withheld approval. Efforts to strengthen national authority foundered on the rock of state sovereignty jealously guarded.

Yet for all their manifest flaws, the Articles represented a noteworthy achievement that should not be dismissed simply because they were eventually replaced. As Professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston observed in 1990, "The general impression is usually given that the Articles were wholly replaced by the 1787 Constitution. It would be more accurate to say that the 1787 document was generally wrapped around an amended Articles of Confederation. Depending upon how one counts words and provisions, from one-half to two-thirds of what is in the Articles showed up in the Federalist Constitution of 1787."

James Madison himself acknowledged this continuity in Federalist No. 40, published in January 1788: "The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation."

The Achievements of the Confederation Period

The greatest accomplishments under the Articles came in establishing frameworks for western territorial development that would guide American expansion for generations. The Land Ordinance of 1785 created systematic procedures for surveying and selling western lands, establishing the rectangular survey system that would organize settlement across the continent. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set guidelines for territorial government and eventual statehood that embodied principles of equality, republican governance, and (at least theoretically) opposition to slavery expansion.

These ordinances demonstrated that even a weak national government could achieve significant results when addressing issues where state interests aligned sufficiently to permit consensus. They also vindicated Virginia's vision of western territories as incubators for new states rather than as colonial possessions.

The Confederation Congress successfully concluded the Revolutionary War and negotiated the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which secured American independence and established boundaries extending to the Mississippi River. These diplomatic achievements occurred despite the government's manifest weaknesses, suggesting that the Articles provided sufficient authority for core national functions even as they proved inadequate for more extensive governance.

The Road to Philadelphia: Learning from Failure

By the mid-1780s, the inadequacies of the Confederation had become undeniable. States issued competing currencies, erected trade barriers against each other, and failed to honor treaty obligations. Congress could not pay its debts to foreign creditors or domestic veterans. The inability to regulate interstate commerce created economic chaos. Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts demonstrated that state governments might be overwhelmed by internal unrest without national assistance.

Alexander Hamilton, who had served as Washington's aide and witnessed firsthand the frustrations of trying to conduct war with an ineffectual government, became convinced that only fundamental reform could save the American experiment. He led efforts culminating in the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which petitioned Congress to call a constitutional convention in Philadelphia to remedy the long-term crisis.

The Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787 produced a document that was both a repudiation and an evolution of the Articles. It created a genuinely national government with power to tax, regulate commerce, and act directly on individual citizens. Yet it also preserved federalism, state sovereignty in reserved matters, and many specific provisions drawn directly from the Articles.

The Essential Foundation

Without the experience of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution as we know it could not have come into existence. The Articles taught Americans what kind of government they did not want, one so weak it could neither govern effectively nor command respect from foreign powers. But they also established principles and precedents that the Constitution preserved and expanded: the commitment to republican government, the idea of written constitutions limiting governmental power, the vision of western expansion through addition of new states rather than colonial dependencies, and the understanding that union required balancing state and national authority.

The Articles of Confederation were not a failure but rather an essential step in the remarkable experiment of creating representative government over an extended territory. They reflected the colonists' very real fears of centralized power while demonstrating that complete decentralization was equally dangerous. They protected state sovereignty while creating mechanisms for national action. They were imperfect, transitional, and ultimately inadequate, yet they were also necessary, instructive, and in their own way, visionary.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of their adoption, the Articles deserve recognition not as a failed constitution but as the first constitution, the document that gave institutional form to American independence, guided the nation through perilous early years, and provided the foundation upon which a more perfect union could be built.

Citations and Sources

Primary Documents:

•      National Archives. "Articles of Confederation (1777)." https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation

•      \University of Wisconsin, Center for the Study of the American Constitution.

"Ratification of the Articles of Confederation." https://archive.csac.history.wisc.edu/706.htm

Historical Analysis:

•      U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. "Milestones: 1776-1783: Articles of

Confederation, 1777-1781." https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/articles

•      HISTORY. "The Articles of Confederation are ratified after nearly four years | March 1, 1781." https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/march-1/maryland-finally-ratifiesarticles-of-confederation

•      HISTORY. "Articles of Confederation - Weaknesses, Definition, Date." https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/articles-of-confederation

Academic Sources:

•      Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. "The Articles of Confederation, 1777." https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/articlesconfederation-1777

•      EBSCO Research Starters. "Ratification of the Articles of Confederation." https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/ratification-articles-confederation

•      The Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia. "The Articles of Confederation are Ratified by Final State - This Day in History - February 2, 1781." https://www.theconstitutional.com/blog/2022/02/01/articles-confederation-are-ratifiedfinal-state-day-history-february-2-1781

Reference Sources:

•      Wikipedia. "Articles of Confederation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

Scholarly Citations:

•      Lutz, Donald S. "The Articles of Confederation as the Background to the Federal Republic." Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Winter 1990), pp. 55-70.

 

Persimmons: The Fruit That Predicts Winter, Scares Tigers, and Impresses Millionaires

Persimmons: The Fruit That Predicts Winter, Scares Tigers, and Impresses Millionaires

Wild (Tennessee) Persimmon on the
left and a hybrid on the right.

As the holiday season approaches and the air fills with the scent of cinnamon and pine, there’s another seasonal superstar quietly stealing the show: the persimmon. This year, persimmon trees are loaded with fruit, and if you’re lucky enough to spot one, you might just witness deer delicately nibbling away at what they consider nature’s candy. But persimmons aren’t just for wildlife—they’re woven into the fabric of American history, global folklore, and even social status.

Early American Persimmon Problems: From Pioneer Pudding to Civil War Coffee

Long before pumpkin spice lattes, early American pioneers were harvesting persimmons for their late fall and winter fare. Native Americans dried the fruit for winter storage, made puddings, and even brewed persimmon beer—sometimes called “possum toddy,” in honor of the opossum’s love for the fruit. During the Civil War, when coffee was scarce, Confederate soldiers roasted persimmon seeds as a substitute. Some swore it was indistinguishable from the real thing—though, after a few cups, they may have just been grateful for anything warm and brown in a mug. [libraryexh...ts.uvm.edu]

Persimmons were so abundant that some Southerners considered the trees a nuisance, popping up everywhere like botanical popcorn. Yet, their fruit crossed social boundaries, enjoyed by Native Americans, enslaved people, and settlers alike. Persimmon wood was prized for its hardness, used for everything from golf club heads, smoking pipes to textile mill shuttles. And if you ever find yourself in a dice game with a pioneer, don’t be surprised if persimmon fruits are involved—yes, they even used them for gambling. [libraryexh...ts.uvm.edu]

In the forests of the United States, persimmons remain a delicacy for deer and a treat for anyone willing to brave their astringency before ripening. If you bite into an unripe one, prepare for your mouth to pucker so hard you’ll whistle through your teeth. But when ripe, they soften, turn color and as sweet as any holiday dessert.

Ozark Folklore: The Fruit That Forecasts Winter (Or Not)

Now, let’s talk about the Ozarks, where persimmons aren’t just food, they’re meteorological instruments. According to local folklore, slicing open a persimmon seed reveals a shape: a knife, fork, or spoon. Each predicts the severity of the upcoming winter. A knife means icy winds, a spoon means shoveling snow, and a fork means a mild winter. It’s like a fortune cookie, but stickier and less reliable.

The Missouri Department of Conservation, ever the party pooper, insists this is not a reliable method. But don’t let science ruin your fun—after all, who needs Doppler radar when you have fruit seeds?

Korean Folklore: The Persimmon That Terrifies Tigers

Travel east to Korea, and persimmons take on a whole new role. In the beloved folktale “The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon,” a fearsome tiger overhears a mother trying to calm her crying baby. She warns, “Be quiet, or the tiger will get you!” The baby keeps crying. But when she offers dried persimmon (gotgam), the baby stops instantly. The tiger, eavesdropping, concludes that dried persimmons must be even scarier than tigers. The tale ends with the tiger fleeing in terror from what he believes is a monstrous fruit snack. [en.wikipedia.org]

So, if you ever find yourself face-to-face with a tiger in Korea, forget pepper spray—just wave a dried persimmon.

Malaysia and Singapore: The Fruit of the Fabulous

In Malaysia and Singapore, persimmons aren’t just tasty—they’re a status symbol. The bigger the persimmon, the higher your social standing. Forget gold watches or luxury cars; if you want to impress at a dinner party, bring a basket of large, glossy persimmons. It’s the ultimate edible flex. [tablemagazine.com]

In Conclusion: The Fruit That Connects Us All

Persimmons are more than just a seasonal fruit. They’re a bridge between cultures, a source of sustenance and superstition, and a reminder that sometimes, the simplest things—like a humble berry—can hold the richest stories. So, as you gather with friends and family this holiday season, consider adding persimmons to your table. Who knows? You might predict the weather, scare off a tiger, or just impress your neighbors.