denied; but the advocates of the treaty, by means of a parliamentary rule, resisted the introduction of a resolution to rescind the vote of seven States.1

But while this dangerous subject was pending, the affairs of the country had taken a new turn. The Convention at Annapolis had been held, in the autumn of 1786, and the Convention called to revise the system of the federal government was to meet in May, 1787. It had become sure and plain, that a large increase of the powers of the national government was absolutely essential to the continuance of the Union and the prosperity of the States. Every day the situation of the country was becoming more and more critical. No money came into the federal treasury; no respect was paid to the federal authority; and all men saw and ad mitted that the Confederation was tottering to its fall. Some prominent persons in the Eastern States were suspected of leaning towards monarchy; others openly predicted a partition of the States into two or more confederacies; and the distrust which had been created by the project for closing the Mississippi rendered it extremely probable, that the Western country at least would be severed from the Union.

The advocates of that project recoiled, therefore, from the dangers which they had unwittingly created. They saw, that the crisis required that harmony and confidence should be studiously cherished, now that the great enterprise of remodelling the government

1 Madison. Elliot, V. 104, 105.

upon a firmer basis was to be attempted. They saw that no new powers could be obtained for the Federal Constitution, if the government then existing were to burden itself with an act so certain to be the source of dissension, and so likely to cause a dismemberment of the Confederacy, as the closing of the Mississippi. Like wise and prudent men, therefore, they availed themselves of the expected and probable formation of a new government, as a fit occasion for disposing of this question; and after an effort to quiet the apprehensions that had been aroused, the whole matter was postponed, by general consent, to await the action of the great Convention of May, 1787.1 After the Constitution had been formed and adopted, the negotiation was formally referred to the new federal government which was about to be organized, in March, 1789, with a declaration of the opinion of Congress that the free navigation of the river Mississippi was a clear and essential right of the United States, and ought to be so considered and supported.2

1 Ibid.

2 September 16, 1788. Secret Journals, IV. 449–454.

CHAPTER VI.

1783-1787.

DECAY AND FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATION. - PROGRESS OF OPINSTEPS WHICH LED TO THE CONVENTION OF 1787.-INFLUENCE AND EXERTIONS OF HAMILTON. MEETING OF THE CONVEN

ION.

TION.

THE prominent defects in the Confederation, which have been described in the previous chapters, and which were so rapidly developed after the treaty of 1783, made it manifest, that a mere league between independent States, with no power of direct legisla tion, was not a government for a country like this, in a time of peace. They showed, that this compact between the States, without any central arbiter to declare or power to enforce the duties which it involved, could not long continue. It had, indeed, answered the great purpose of forming the Union, by bringing the States into relations with each other, the continuance of which was essential to liberty; since nothing could follow the rupture of those relations but the reëstablishment of European power, or the native despotism which too often succeeds to civil commotion. By creating a corporate body of confederate States, and by enabling them to go into the

money-markets of Europe for the means of carrying on and concluding the war, the Confederation had made the idea and the necessity of a Union familiar to the popular mind. But the purposes and objects of the war were far less complex and intricate than the concerns of peace. It was comparatively easy to borrow money. It was another thing to pay it. The federal power, under the Confederation, had little else to do, before the peace, than to administer the concerns of an army in the field, and to attend to the foreign relations of the country, as yet not complicated with questions of commerce. But the vast duties, capable of being discharged by no other power, which came rapidly into existence before the creation of the machinery essential to their performance, exhibited the Confederation in an alarming attitude.

It was found to be destitute of the essence of political sovereignty, the power to compel the individual inhabitants of the country to obey its decrees. It was a system of legislation for States in their corporate and collective capacities, and not for the indi viduals of whom those States were composed. It could not levy a dollar by way of impost or assessment upon the property of a citizen. It had no means of annulling the action of a State legislature, which conflicted with the lawful and constitutional requirements of Congress. It made treaties, and was forced to stand still and see them violated by its own members, for whose benefit they had been made. It owed an enormous debt, and saw itself, year by

year, growing more and more unable to liquidate even the annually increasing interest. It stood in the relation of a protector to the principles of republican liberty on which the institutions of the States were founded, and on the first occurrence of danger, it stretched forward only a palsied arm, to which no man could look for succor. It undertook to rescue commerce from the blighting effects of foreign policy, and failed to achieve a single conspicuous and important advantage. Every day it lost something of respect abroad and of confidence at home, until all men saw, with Washington, that it had become a great shadow without the substance of a government; while few could even conjecture what was to rise up and supplant it.

Few men could -see, amidst the decay of empire and the absolute negation of all the vital and essential functions of government, what was to infuse new life into a system so nearly effete. Yet the elements of strength existed in the character of the people; in the assimilation, which might be produced, in the lapse of years, by a common language, a common origin, and a common destiny;-in the almost boundless resources of the country;—and, above all, in the principles of its ancient local institutions, that were capable, to an extent not then conceived, of expansion and application to objects of far greater magnitude than any which they had yet embraced. Through what progress of opinion the people of this country were enabled to grasp and combine these elements