THE CONFEDERATION (1781-1788)
48. REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHIES.--Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, VI.
745, VII. 199-236, 527-543, VIII. 491;, notes to Curtis, Bancroft,
McMaster, and Pitkin; W. F. Foster, _References to the Constitution_,
12-14; J. J. Lalor, _Cyclopedia_, I. 577; Channing and Hart, _Guide_, §§
142, 149-153.
HISTORICAL MAPS.--Nos. 1, 3, this volume ( _Epoch Maps_, Nos. 6, 7);
Labberton, _Atlas_, lxvi.; Rhode, _Atlas_, No. xxviii.; Johnston, _History
of the United States for Schools_, 133; Gordon _American Revolution_, I.
frontispiece; B. A. Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, I. 188, 201 (reprinted from
MacCoun's _Historical Geography_), also I. frontispiece, and II. 393;
Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, VII. 140; school
histories of Channing, Johnston, Scudder Thomas.
GENERAL ACCOUNTS.--Joseph Story, _Commentaries_, §§ 218-271; R. Hildreth,
_United States_, III, 374-481; T. Pitkin, II. 9-36, 154-218; H. Von Hoist,
_United States_, I. 1-46; Geo. Tucker, _United States_, I. 291-347; Justin
Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, VII. ch. iii.; J. T. Morse,
_Franklin_, 216-420; Abiel Holmes, _Annals of America_, II. 353-371; J.
Schouler, _United States_, I. 1-30; Bryant and Gay, _Popular History_, IV.
79-99; F. A. Walker _Making of a Nation_, ch. 1; Edward Channing, _United
States 1761-1865_. ch. iv.
SPECIAL HISTORIES.--G. T. Curtis _Constitutional History_, chs. v.-xiv.
(_History of the Constitution_ I. 214-347); George Bancroft, _United
States_ (last revision), VI. 5-194, _History of the Constitution_, I. 1-
266; John Fiske, _Critical Period_, 1-186; J. B. McMaster, _United
States_, I. 103-416; J. F. Jameson _Essays on the Constitution_; T.
Pitkin, _United States_, I. 283-422, II. 223; William B. Weeden, _New
England_, II. chs. xxii., xxiii.; W. G. Sumner, _Financier and Finances_,
II. chs. xvi.-xxvii.; B. A. Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, chs. ix.-xvi.; H.
B. Adams, _Maryland's Influence_; W. Hill, _First Stages of the Tariff
Policy_; S. Sato, _Public Land Question_; Theodore Roosevelt. _Winning of
the West_, III.
CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS.--_Journals of Congress_; _Secret Journals_;
Madison's notes in H. D. Gilpin, _Papers of James Madison_, and in
_Elliot's Debates_, V.; letters of Washington, Madison, John Jay,
Hamilton, and Franklin, in their works; Thomas Paine, _Public Good_; Noah
Webster, _Sketches of American Policy_; Pelatiah Webster, _Dissertation on
the Political Union_; Brissot de Warville's _Examen Critique_ [1784], and
_Nouveau Voyage_ [1788], (also in translation); Thomas Jefferson, _Notes
on Virginia_.--Reprints in _American History told by Contemporaries_,
II., _American History Leaflets_, Nos. 20, 22, 28.
49. THE UNITED STATES IN 1781.
[Sidenote: Army.]
[Sidenote: Territory.]
The task thrown upon Congress in 1781 would have tried the strongest
government in existence. An army of more than ten thousand men was under
arms, and must be kept up until peace was formally declared, and then must
be paid off. The territorial claims of the States and of the Union were
still in confusion. Virginia roused the suspicion of the small States by
making the promised cession in terms which Congress could not accept, and
the other States had made no motion towards yielding their claims.
Relations with the Indians were still confused. Superintendents of Indian
affairs had been appointed, and in 1778 a treaty was negotiated with the
Creeks; but the States, particularly Pennsylvania and Georgia, continued
to make their own arrangements with Indian tribes.
[Sidenote: Finances.]
[Sidenote: Commerce.]
[Sidenote: General weakness.]
The finances of the country seemed to have reached their lowest ebb. An
attempt was made to float a new issue of continental money at one dollar
for forty of the old bills The new obligations speedily sank to the level
of the old, and the country was practically bankrupt. The aid of the
French was all that kept the government afloat (§ 43). The return of peace
was expected to restore American commerce to its old prosperity; but
having gone to war principally because colonial commerce with other
countries was restricted, the Americans found themselves deprived of their
old freedom of trade with England. They were subject to discriminating
duties in English ports, and were excluded from the direct trade with the
English West Indies, which had been the chief resource the colonial ship-
owners. The State governments were in debt, embarrassed, and beset with
the social difficulties which come in the train of war. The disbanded
troops were not accustomed to regular employment or to a quiet life; taxes
were heavy and odious; the far Western settlements clamored to be set free
from the States to which they belonged. Above all, the national government
was weak, inefficient, and little respected by the army or the people at
large.
60. FORM OF THE GOVERNMENT (1781-1788.)
[Sidenote: Congress.]
The first and fundamental defect of the government was in the organization
of Congress. The Continental Congress had been a head without a body;
under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was a body without a head. A
single assembly continued to be the source of all national legislative,
executive, and judicial power (§ 37). As though to prevent the country
from getting the benefit of experience, no man could remain a member of
Congress for more than three years in succession. The delegates of each
State continued to cast jointly one vote; if only one member were present,
the vote of a State was not counted; if but two were present, they might
produce a tie. On important questions the approval of nine States was
necessary, and often less than that number had voting representatives on
the floor. Amendment was impossible, except by consent of all the State
legislatures. Although Congress had to deal with difficult questions of
peace, its principal power was that of carrying on war. Congress might
make treaties, but it could pass no act in defence of American commerce.
[Sidenote: Executive departments.]
A great effort was made to improve the executive system. By resolutions
passed early in 1781, secretaries were appointed for the three departments
of Foreign Affairs, War, and Finance; the board system, championed by
Samuel Adams and others, was to be abandoned. The importance of the War
Department diminished after 1782. "The Secretary of the United States for
the Department of Foreign Affairs" was quartered in two little rooms, and
furnished with two clerks. The post was filled first by Robert R.
Livingston, and from 1784 by John Jay. The office of Superintendent of
Finance was bestowed upon Robert Morris of Pennsylvania.
[Sidenote: Courts.]
The Articles of Confederation provided for a special tribunal to settle
territorial disputes between the States. The system was invoked in 1782,
and a verdict was rendered in favor of Pennsylvania and against
Connecticut in their rival claims to the Wyoming region. A second set of
federal courts was constituted by designating certain State courts to try
piracies and felonies committed on the high seas. A third and the only
important federal tribunal was the Court of Appeals in prize cases, which
began to sit in January, 1780, and before which were sued sixty-five
cases. All the courts, like all the executive departments, were created
by Congress, alterable by Congress, and subject to the control of
Congress. In 1784 the Court of Appeals was allowed to lapse, by the
refusal of Congress to pay the salaries of the judges.
51. DISBANDMENT OF THE ARMY (1783.)
To follow the history of the Confederation from year to year would be
unprofitable. It was a confused period, with no recognized national
leaders, no parties, no great crises. We shall therefore take up one after
another the important questions which arose, and follow each to the end of
the Confederation.
[Sidenote: Half-pay question.]
[Sidenote: Protests.]
The first duty of Congress after peace was declared was to cut off the
military expenditures (§ 42). The food, clothing, and pay of the army
amounted to about $400,000 a month. Provision had been made for bounty
lands for the soldiers; the officers expected some more definite reward.
On April 26, 1778, Congress, by a majority of one State, had voted half
pay for life to the officers, as an essential measure for keeping the army
together. In the four years following, five different votes had been
passed, each annulling the previous one. Another proposition, in November,
1782, was to remit the whole matter to the States. On March 10, 1783,
appeared the so-called "Newburgh addresses,"--an anonymous plea to the
army, urging the officers not to separate until Congress had done justice
in this respect. A crisis was threatened. Washington himself attended the
meeting of the officers, and counselled moderation. He used his utmost
influence with Congress, and on the 22d of March secured a vote of full
pay for five years. As the treasury was empty, the only payment to the
officers was in certificates of indebtedness, upon which interest
accumulated during the next seven years. Massachusetts protested,
declaring the grant to be "more than an adequate reward for their
services, and inconsistent with that equality which ought to subsist among
citizens of free and republican states." In June, 1783, three hundred
mutineers surrounded the place of meeting of Congress, and demanded a
settlement of their back pay; and the executive council of Pennsylvania
declined to interfere. The result was that Congress changed its place of
meeting, and ever after retained a lively resentment against the city of
Philadelphia.
52. TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT WITH THE STATES (1781-1802).
[Sidenote: The Western claims.]
[Sidenote: Northwest cessions.]
Although Congress had no power, under the Articles of Confederation, to
regulate territory, it earnestly urged the States to cede their claims.
The Ohio River divided the Western country into two regions, each having a
separate territorial history. The northern part was claimed by Virginia,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, on the ground that their old charters,
extending to the Pacific, were revived (§ 45). The United States, as
representing the landless States, claimed the whole region as territory
won by the common effort and sacrifice of the Revolutionary War. On March
1, 1784, Virginia ceded all her claims north of the Ohio River, except a
reservation for bounty lands. Massachusetts followed in 1785; the
commonwealth had large tracts of unoccupied land in Maine and in New York.
Connecticut had no such resources, and in 1786 ceded only the western part
of her claim, retaining till 1800, as a "Western Reserve," a strip,
extending along Lake Erie, one hundred and twenty miles west from
Pennsylvania.
[Sidenote: Territorial organization.]
The claims to the region north of the Ohio having thus been extinguished,
the government began to make plans for the administration of its domain.
On Oct. 10, 1780, the Continental Congress had promised that the lands
ceded by the States should be "disposed of for the common benefit of the
United States," and "be settled and formed into distinct republican States
which shall become members of the federal union." These two principles are
the foundation both of the territorial and the public land systems of the
United States.
On April 23, 1784, an ordinance reported by Jefferson was passed,
providing for representative legislatures as fast as the West grew
sufficiently populous to maintain them. It is hardly a misfortune that the
map was not encumbered with the names suggested by Jefferson for the new
States,--Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Assenisippia, Polypotamia, and
Pelisipia; but another clause was voted down which would have prohibited
slavery in the Territories after 1800.
[Sidenote: Northwest Ordinance.]
June 13, 1787, a second ordinance passed Congress, which was inferior in
importance only to the Federal Constitution. It provided minutely for a
preliminary territorial government, in which laws were to be made by
appointive judges, and for a later representative government. The
conception was that the Territories were to occupy the position formerly
claimed by the colonies; they were to be subject to no general taxation,
but placed under a governor appointed by the general government; their
laws were to be subject to his veto, and to later revision by the central
authority. A new principle was the preparation of the Territories for
statehood: the ordinance laid down a series of "Articles of Compact" to
govern them after they were admitted into the Union. Religious liberty and
personal rights were to be secured; general morality and education to be
encouraged; and finally it was provided that "there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in
the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted." The introduction of this clause is due to New England men, who
were anxious to form a colony on the Ohio, and who desired to secure the
freedom with which they were familiar. The clause had no effect upon
slaves held in the Territory at the time of the passage of the ordinance,
but it distinctly expresses the dissatisfaction of the country with the
system of human slavery. As soon as the Northwest Territory was organized,
the sale of lands began; but nothing was received in cash till long after
the Confederation had expired.
[Sidenote: Southern cessions.]
In the southern block of States the territorial settlement proceeded more
slowly, and was in every way less satisfactory. Virginia retained both
jurisdiction and land in Kentucky. North Carolina in 1790 granted the
jurisdiction in what is now Tennessee, but every acre of the land had
already been granted by the State. South Carolina had almost nothing to
cede, and yielded it in 1787. Georgia stood out on the claim to the whole
territory between her present boundary and the Mississippi, and would not
yield until 1802. Slavery was not prohibited.
53. FINANCES (1781-1788).
[Sidenote: Financial status.]
[Sidenote: Requisitions.]
The financial condition of the Confederation was throughout deplorable (§
43). The Revolution imposed upon the country a heavy debt. The accounts of
the government were so badly kept that to this day it is impossible to
state the amount; but it was probably about thirty millions, with an
annual interest charge of about two millions. The necessary expenditure
for the support of Congress, of the army on a peace-footing, and of the
executive and judicial boards and departments, called for about half a
million more. The continental currency had practically been repudiated,
and no more could be floated; Congress had no power to lay either direct
or indirect taxes; the post-office had an income of about $25,000 a year,
all of which was expended upon the service. Hence Congress fell back on
requisitions apportioned on the States: one of its principal functions was
each year to calculate the amount necessary for the public service, and to
call upon the State legislatures for their quota. The total sum required
from 1781 to 1788 was about $16,000,000. Of this there had actually been
paid during the seven years $3,500,000 in specie, and $2,500,000 in
certificates of national indebtedness. The annual cash income of the
government was therefore about half a million, which was entirely absorbed
by the necessary running expenses of the government, leaving nothing for
the payment of interest.
[Sidenote: Morris's administration.]
This condition of virtual bankruptcy might have been avoided had Robert
Morris been able to carry out the reforms which he proposed when he became
superintendent of finance in 1781. He found the financial administration
complicated and corrupt. He attempted to substitute business methods and
punctuality of payment. While the war lasted, however, the only financial
system possible was to squeeze every source of revenue, and to pay only
what could not be avoided. When peace returned, the States would provide
no better system. To keep up the credit of the government the first
necessity was the prompt payment of interest: the payment of interest
required money; money must come from taxes, and the State declined to levy
the taxes. In 1784 Morris resigned in despair, and thenceforward a
Treasury Board mismanaged the finances of the nation.
[Sidenote: Bank of North America.]
May 26, 1781, Congress had taken the important step of chartering the Bank
of North America. The United States was to furnish part of the capital,
and to make the bank its financial agent. Its notes were to be receivable
in the duties and taxes of every State in the Union. Morris asked Jay to
get specie from Spain to start the bank. "I am determined," said he, "that
the bank shall be well supported until it can support itself, and then it
will support us." Its connection with the government practically ceased
after the retirement of Morris in 1784, although it remained under a State
charter a prosperous and useful institution, and is still in existence, a
sound and healthy bank.
[Sidenote: The currency.]
Another financial measure was the attempt to correct the currency. After
the end of the war there was found in circulation an extraordinary mixture
of gold and silver coins of all nations, especially the Spanish milled
dollar, which had been accepted by the Continental Congress as the unit of
its issues. All the currency was badly counterfeited, defaced, and
clipped. In 1782 the quartermaster-general, Timothy Pickering, who was
about to pay out a part of the French subsidy in coin, wrote as follows:
"I must trouble you for the necessary apparatus for clipping. 'Tis a
shameful business and an unreasonable hardship on a public officer.... A
pair of good shears, a couple of punches, and a leaden anvil of two or
three pounds weight. Will you inquire how the goldsmiths put in their
plugs?" The Confederation, upon Jefferson's report, July 6, 1785, adopted
the dollar as its unit, and provided for a decimal ratio; but a few tons
of copper cents made up the only national currency put into circulation.
[Sidenote: Foreign loans.]
Towards the end of its existence the Confederation found itself on the
brink of a default of interest on debts due to foreign governments and
bankers. France in 1783 made a final loan of six hundred thousand francs;
and from 1783 to 1788 Dutch bankers were found who had sufficient
confidence in the government to advance it $1,600,000 on favorable terms.
With the proceeds of these loans the government was able to pay the
accumulated interest on the foreign loans, and thus to keep its credit
above water in Europe.
54. DISORDERS IN THE STATES (1781-1788).
[Sidenote: State financial legislation.]
The finances of the States were little better than those of the Union. The
States controlled all the resources of the country; they could and did
raise taxes, but they appropriated the proceeds to their own pressing
necessities; and the meagre sums paid to Congress represented a genuine
sacrifice on the part of many States, particularly Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts. Unfortunately the States exercised unlimited powers over
their own currency and commercial relations. Times were hard, debts had
accumulated, property had been destroyed by the war. State after State
passed stay laws delaying the collection of debts; or "tender laws" were
enacted, by which property at an appraised value was made a legal tender,
Cattle, merchandise, and unimproved real estate were the usual currency
thus forced upon creditors. After peace was declared, a second era of
State paper-money issues came on, and but four of the thirteen States
escaped the craze.
[Sidenote: Weakness of the States.]
[Sidenote: Proposed new states.]
[Sidenote: Insurrections.]
These remedies bore hard on the creditors in other States, created a
feeling of insecurity among business men, and gave no permanent relief.
The discontented, therefore, sought a remedy for themselves. The
Revolutionary War had left behind it an eddy of lawlessness and disregard
of human life. The support of the government was a heavy load upon the
people. The States were physically weak, and the State legislatures
habitually timid. In several States there were organized attempts to set
off outlying portions as independent governments. Vermont had set the
example by withdrawing from New York in 1777, and throughout the
Confederation remained without representation either in the New York
legislature or in Congress. In 1782 the western counties of Pennsylvania
and Virginia threatened to break off and form a new State. From 1785 to
1786 the so-called State of "Franklin," within the territory of what is
now eastern Tennessee, had a constitution and legislature and governor,
and carried on a mild border warfare with the government of North
Carolina, to which its people owed allegiance. The people of Kentucky and
of Maine held conventions looking toward separation. The year 1786 was
marked by great uneasiness in what had been supposed to be the steadiest
States in the union. In New Hampshire the opposition was directed against
the legislature; but General Sullivan, by his courage, succeeded in
quelling the threatened insurrection without bloodshed. In Massachusetts
in the fall of 1786 concerted violence prevented the courts from sitting;
and an organized force of insurgents under Captain Shays threatened to
destroy the State government. As a speaker in the Massachusetts convention
of 1788 said, "People took up arms; and then if you went to speak to them
you had the musket of death presented to your breast. They would rob you
of your property, threaten to burn your houses; obliged you to be on your
guard night and day.... How terrible, how distressing was this!... Had any
one that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should
all have flocked to it, even though it had been a monarch." The arsenal at
Springfield was attacked. The State forces were met in the open field by
armed insurgents. Had they been successful, the Union was not worth one of
its own repudiated notes. The Massachusetts authorities were barely able
to restore order, and Congress went beyond its constitutional powers in an
effort to assist.
55. SLAVERY (1777-1788).
[Sidenote: Anti-slavery spirit.]
[Sidenote: Emancipation acts.]
[Sidenote: Southern sentiment.]
One evidence that the States were still sound and healthful was the
passage of Emancipation acts. The Revolutionary principles of the rights
of man, the consent of the governed, and political equality, had been
meant for white men; but it was hard to deny their logical application to
the blacks. New anti-slavery societies were formed, particularly in
Pennsylvania; but the first community to act was Vermont. In the
Declaration of Rights prefixed to the Constitution of 1777 it was declared
that since every man is entitled to life, liberty, and happiness,
therefore "no ... person born in this country, or brought here over sea,
ought to be holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or
apprentice" after he arrives at the age of maturity. A few years later
this was supplemented by an act abolishing the institution of slavery
outright. The number of slaves in Vermont was inconsiderable, but in 1780
two States, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, took similar action, affecting
several thousand persons. The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 declared
that "all men are born free and equal." This clause was a few years later
interpreted by the courts to mean that after 1780 no person could legally
be held as a slave. In Pennsylvania in the same year a gradual
Emancipation Act was passed, under which persons then in bondage were to
serve as slaves during their lives; their children, born after 1780, were
eventually to become free; and no person was to be brought into the State
and sold as a slave. Within four years New Hampshire and Connecticut
passed similar Emancipation Acts. In Rhode Island the number of slaves,
3,500, was considerable in proportion to the population, and that State
therefore made a distinct sacrifice for its principles by its act of 1785.
Thus at the expiration of the Confederation in 1788, all the States north
of Maryland, except New York and New Jersey, had put slavery in process of
extinction; those two States followed in 1799 and 1804. Many Southern
statesmen hoped that the institution was dying out even in the South.
Jefferson in 1787 wrote: "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever." Some steps
were taken, particularly in Virginia and Kentucky, for the amelioration of
the condition of the blacks; and the slave-trade was forbidden in most of
the States of the Union during this period.
56. FOREIGN RELATIONS AND COMMERCE (1781-1788).
[Sidenote: Relations with England.]
In no respect, not even in finance, was the weakness of the Confederation
so evident as in the powerlessness of Congress to pass commercial laws,
and its consequent inability to secure commercial treaties. In 1785 John
Adams was sent as minister to Great Britain, and was received with
civility by the sovereign from whom he had done so much to tear the
brightest jewel of his crown; but when he endeavored to come to some
commercial arrangement, he could make no progress. It is easy now to see
that the best policy for Great Britain would have been in every way to
encourage American commerce; the Americans were accustomed to trade with
England; their credits and business connections were established with
English merchants; the English manufactured the goods most desired by
America. When the Whigs were driven out of power in 1783, the last
opportunity for such an agreement was lost. July 2, 1783, an Order in
Council was issued, restraining the West India trade to British ships,
British built; and on March 26, 1785, the Duke of Dorset replied to the
American commissioners who asked for a treaty: "The apparent determination
of the respective States to regulate their own separate interests renders
it absolutely necessary, towards forming a permanent system of commerce,
that my court should be informed how far the commissioners can be duly
authorized to enter into any engagement with Great Britain which it may
not be in the power of any one of the States to render totally useless and
inefficient."
[Sidenote: Loyalists.]
[Sidenote: British debts.]
[Sidenote: Posts.]
There were other reasons why the British continued to subject American
ships in English ports to discriminations and duties from which the
vessels of most other powers were exempt. The treaty of 1783 had provided
that Congress would recommend to the States just treatment of the
loyalists; the recommendation was made. Most of the States declined to
comply; men who had been eminent before the Revolution returned to find
themselves distrusted, and sometimes were mobbed; their estates, which in
most cases had been confiscated, were withheld, and they could obtain no
consideration. This was unfriendly, but not a violation of any promise.
The action of the States in placing obstacles in the way of collecting
debts due to British merchants before the Revolution was a vexatious
infraction of the treaty. Five States had passed laws for the partial or
complete confiscation of such debts, and even after the treaty
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts passed similar Acts. As an offset, the
British minister in 1786 declared that the frontier posts would not be
surrendered so long as the obstacles to the collection of British debts
were left standing.
[Sidenote: The Spanish treaty.]
The only other power with which the United States desired commercial
relations without possessing them was Spain. The Eastern States were very
anxious to obtain privileges of trade. The Spanish were willing to grant
them, but made it a condition that the Americans should not have the right
of free navigation of the lower Mississippi. Jay, acting under the
instruction of Congress, in 1786 negotiated a treaty in which he agreed to
the Spanish conditions. Instantly the West was aroused, and violent
threats were made by the people of Kentucky and the adjacent region that
if that treaty went into effect they would withdraw from the Union. "The
tendency of the States," said Madison, a few months later, "to violations
of the laws of nations and treaties ... has been manifest.... The files of
Congress contain complaints already from almost every nation with which
treaties have been formed."
57. DISINTEGRATION OF THE UNION (1786, 1787).
[Sidenote: The Confederation violated.]
[Sidenote: Danger of anarchy.]
The year 1786 marks a crisis in the development of the Union. The
inefficiency of Congress was reflected in the neglect of constitutional
duties by the States: Rhode Island recalled her delegates, and refused to
appoint new members; New Jersey felt so much injured by a New York tariff
that an act was passed taxing the lighthouse established by New York on
Sandy Hook; Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia
already had raised troops on their own account and for their own purposes,
in violation of the Articles of Confederation. Davie, of North Carolina, a
little later declared that the "encroachments of some States on the rights
of others, and of all on those of the Confederation, are incontestable
proofs of the weakness and imperfections of that system." Of the
requisition of that year for $2,000,000 in specie, only about $400,000 was
paid. Some States offered their own depreciated notes, and New Jersey
refused to make any contribution until the offensive New York Acts were
withdrawn. In May, 1786, Charles Pinckney on the floor of Congress
declared that "Congress must be invested with more powers, or the federal
government must fall."
58. REORGANIZATION ATTEMPTED (1781-1787).
[Sidenote: Five percent scheme.]
[Sidenote: Revenue scheme.]
Before the Articles of Confederation had gone into effect, Congress had
already proposed a radical amendment; and within three years it suggested
two others. The first proposition, made February 3, 1781, was that the
States allow Congress to levy an import duty of five per cent, the
proceeds to be applied "to the discharge of the principal and interest of
the debts already contracted ... on the faith of the United States for
supporting the present war." In the course of about a year twelve States
had complied with this reasonable request. Rhode Island alone stood out,
and the plan failed. Forthwith Congress presented another financial
scheme, which was called a "general revenue plan." April 12, 1783, it
asked the States to allow Congress to lay low specific import duties for
twenty-five years, to be collected by officers appointed by the States.
The States were further recommended to lay some effective taxes, the
proceeds to be set aside for government requisitions. The effect was
precisely the same as before. Twelve States agreed; but the opposition of
New York prevented the first part of the plan from being carried out. Not
a single State had condescended to pay attention to the second request.
[Sidenote: Commerce amendment.]
Apparently abandoning any hope of an adequate revenue, Congress, on April
30, 1784, proposed a third amendment, that the States should permit it to
pass commercial laws discriminating against foreign powers which refused
to make commercial treaties. This was aimed at Great Britain. Washington
urged the measure in vigorous language. "We are," said he, "either a
united people, or we are not so. If the former, let us in all matters of
national concern act as a nation which has a national character to
support." Yet he could not bring even Virginia to agree to the plan, and
it quickly failed.
[Sidenote: Schemes of revision.]
A poor constitution, which could be amended only by unanimous vote, was
likely to stifle the nation. A few feeble suggestions were heard that the
experiment of republican government be given over; others urged that the
Americans be brought within one centralized government. Alexander Hamilton
would have established a government "controlling the internal police of
the States, and having a federal judiciary." Upon the last of his three
schemes, dated 1783, is written: "Intended to be submitted to Congress,
but abandoned for want of support." Even Washington's vastly greater
influence had no effect. In a circular letter to the governors, dated
June, 1783, he says: "It is indispensable to the happiness of the
individual States that there should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to
regulate and govern the general concerns of the confederated republic."
Yet not a State would take the initiative in reforming the constitution.
From 1784 to 1786 pamphlets began to appear in which more definite
suggestions were made for a new government. Pelatiah Webster proposed a
government with enlarged powers, and a legislature of two houses. "If they
disagree," said he, "let them sit still until they recover their good
humor." The method in which the new government was to enforce its powers
was put in a quaint and incisive form. "My principle is," said Webster,
"the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Every person ... who shall disobey
the supreme authority shall be answerable to Congress." The idea that the
constitution needed radical amendment had at last found a lodgment in the
public mind.