By Robert A. Lynn

In the 1780s the Founding Fathers of the United States didn’t so much revise the old Articles of Confederation as devise an entirely new government as set forth in the Constitution. Congress received taxing and other important powers, and was expanded from a single chamber into a House of Representatives elected by the people and a Senate elected by the more conservative state legislatures. A strong executive power vested in a president was also provided, as well as a Supreme Court.

Thus was born the American system of the division of powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—acting as checks and balances one on another. In Congress the people, as manifested by the popularly elected House, were balanced against property, as expressed by the Senate. Civilian control of the military was guaranteed by making the president commander-in-chief, and the president in turn was checked by giving the House the power to determine the size of the armed forces.

The new government began life without money or an administrative system, no Navy or Marine Corps, and an army of only 672 officers and men who were responsible for peace in the Northwest Territory, an area that comprised 248,000 square miles of prairie, forests, rivers, and mountains.

Great Britain hadn’t withdrawn from her seven Northwest posts (Pointe au Fer, Oswegatchie, Oswego, and Niagara in upper New York, and Miami, Detroit, and Michilimackinac in Michigan) as she had agreed to in 1783 and also divided Canada into the provinces of Lower and Upper Canada (modern-day Quebec and Ontario) with Upper Canada’s seat of government at Fort Niagara, which was located on the American side of the border.

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