addressed to the sense of justice and the feeling of gratitude were answered by discussions of the propriety, justice, and reasonableness of some of the claims, for which the States were thus called upon to: provide, as existing debts of the country, not without the hope, entertained in some quarters, of involving the whole in confusion and final rejection."

The design of the framers of the revenue system of 1783 was twofold; first, to do justice to the creditors of the country, by procuring adequate power to fund the public debts; and second, to strengthen and consolidate the national government, by means of those debts and of the various interests which would be combined in the great object of their liquidation. They foresaw, on the approach of peace, that to leave these debts to be provided for by the States individually would lead to a separation of interests fatal to the continuance of the Union; but that to make the United States responsible for the whole of them would be to create a bond of union, that would

answer to the objections of Rhode

Island.

The Address itself appealed entirely to considerations of honor, justice, and good faith. Hamilton's paper, however, showed with great perspicacity, that the proposed impost would not be unfavorable to commerce, but the contrary; that it would not diminish the profits of the merchant, being too moderate in amount to discourage the consumption of imported goods, and therefore that it would not diminish the extent of importations; 24

VOL. I.

but that, even if it had this tendency, it was a tendency in the right direction, because it would lessen the proportion of imports to exports, and incline the balance in favor of the country. But the great question of yielding the control of foreign commerce to the Union, for the sake of uniformity of regulation, was not touched in any of these papers. The time for it had not arrived.

2 See note at the end of this chapter.

be effectual and operative, after the external pressure of war, which had hitherto held the States together, should have been removed. For this purpose, they undoubtedly availed themselves of the discontents of the army, a class of the public creditors the justice of whose claims there was immediate danger in denying. There is no reason to suppose that these discontents were promoted by any one concerned in giving direction to the action of Congress. But before the crisis had been reached in the "Newburgh Addresses," it was perceived to be extremely important to prevent the army from turning away from the general government, as their debtor, to look to their respective States; and, after the imminent hazard of that moment had passed, the claims of the army were used, and used most rightfully, to impress upon the States the necessity of yielding to Congress the powers necessary to do justice.1

In the proposal of this scheme of finance, involving, as it did, a material change in the operation of the existing constitution of the country, there was great wisdom; and it was eminently fortunate that it went forth before the advent of peace, to be considered and acted upon by the States. The system of the Confederation had utterly failed to supply the means of sustaining the public credit of the Union, and the consciousness of that failure tended to produce a resolution of the Union into its component elements, the States. Men had begun to abandon the hope of

1 See note on page 194.

paying the debts of the country; or, if they were to be paid at all, they had begun to look to the States, in their individual capacities, as the ultimate debtors, to whom at least a part of the claims was to be referred. Had the country been permitted to pass from a state of war to a state of peace, without the suggestion and proposal of a definite system for funding these debts on continental securities, the Union would at once have been exhausted of all vitality. The Confederation, left to discharge the functions which belonged to it in peace, without the power of relieving the burdens which it had entailed upon the country during the war, would have been everywhere regarded as a useless machine, the purposes of which

poorly answered in the period of its greatest activity had entirely ceased to exist. Congress would have been attended by delegates from few of the States, if attended at all;1 and the rapid decay of the Union would have been marked by the feeble,

As it was, the approach of peace had reduced the attendance upon Congress below the constitutional number of States necessary to ratify the treaty, when it was received. On the 23d of December, 1783, a resolve was passed, "That letters be immediately despatched to the executives of New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia, informing them that the safety, honor, and good faith of the United States require the immediate attendance of their delegates in Congress; that there

have not been during the sitting of Congress at this place [Annapolis] / more than seven States represented, namely, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and most of those by only two delegates; and that the ratification of the definitive treaty, and several other matters, of great national concern, are now pending before Congress, which require the utmost despatch, and to which the assent of at least nine States is necessary." (Journals, IX. 12.)

spasmodic, and unsuccessful efforts of some of them to discharge so much of the general burdens as could have been assigned to them in severalty; the open repudiation of others; and the final confusion and loss of the whole mass of the debts, in universal bankruptcy, poverty, and disgrace.

But the comprehensive scheme of 1783, although never adopted, saved the imperfect Union that then existed from the destruction to which it was hastening. It saved it for a prolonged, though feeble existence, through a period of desperate exhaustion. It saved it, by ascertaining the debts of the country, fixing their national character, and proposing a national system for their discharge. It directed the attention of the States to the advantage and the necessity of giving up to the Union some part of the imposts that might be levied on foreign commodities, and thus led the way to that grand idea of uniformity of regulation, which was afterwards developed as the true interest of communities, which, from their geographical and moral relations, constitute in fact but one country.

It is not intended, however, in assigning this influence to the revenue system proposed in 1783, to suggest that it contained the germ of the present Constitution. It was an essentially different system. It proposed the enlargement of the powers of Congress, as they existed under the Confederation, only by the grant to the United States of the right to collect certain duties on foreign importations, for the limited period of twenty-five years, to be applied to the dis

charge of the debts contracted for the purposes of the war, but to be collected by officers appointed by the States, although amenable to Congress; and the levy and collection by the States of certain internal taxes, during the same limited term, for the purpose of raising certain proportionate sums, to be paid over to the United States, for the same object. So far, therefore, as this system suggested any new powers, there is a wide difference between its features and principles and those of an entire and irrevocable surrender to the Union of the whole subject of taxing and regulating foreign commerce. But the influence of this proposal upon the country, during the four years which followed, is to be measured by the evident necessities which it revealed, and by the means to which it pointed for their relief; means which, though never applied, and, if applied, would have proved inadequate, still showed, through the period of increasing weakness in the Union, the high obligations which rested upon the country, and which could be discharged only by the preservation of the Union.