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 upon a firmer basis was to be attempted. They saw that no new powers could be obtained for the federal system, 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 Convention of May, 1787.' 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.'

CHAPTER XV.

1783-1787.

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

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 legislation, 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 re-establishment 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 individuals 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, amid 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 into a new system, which could satisfy their wants, we must now inquire.

In this inquiry the student of political history should never fail to observe that the great difficulty of the case, which made it so complex and embarrassing, arose from the separate, sovereign,

and independent existence of the states. The formation of new constitutions, in countries not thus divided, involves only the adaptation of new institutions and forms to the genius, the laws, and the habits of the people. The monarchy of France has, in our day, been first remodelled, and afterwards swept from the face of Europe, to be followed by a republican constitution, which has in its turn been crushed and superseded, and again an empire has been succeeded by a republic. But France is a country that has long been subjected to as complete and powerful a system of centralization as has existed anywhere since the most energetic period of the Roman empire; and whether its institutions of government have or have not needed to be changed, as they have been from time to time, those changes have been made in a country in which an entire political unity has greatly facilitated the operation.

In the United States, on the contrary, a federal government was to be created; and it was to be created for thirteen distinct communities—a government that should not destroy the political sovereignties of the states, and should yet introduce a new sovereignty, formed by means of powers whose surrender by the states, instead of weakening their present strength, would rather develop and increase it. This peculiar difficulty may be constantly traced, amid all the embarrassments of the period in which the fundamental idea of the Constitution was at length evolved.

The progress of opinion and feeling in this country, on the subject of its government, from the peace of 1783 to the year 1787, may properly be introduced by a brief statement of the political tendencies of two principal classes of men. All contemporary evidence assures us that this was a period of great pecuniary distress, arising from the depreciation of the vast quantities of paper money issued by the federal and state governments; from rash speculations; from the uncertain and fluctuating condition of trade; and from the great amount of foreign goods forced into the country as soon as its ports were opened. Naturally, in such a state of things, the debtors were disposed to lean in favor of those systems of government and legislation which would tend to relieve or postpone the payment of their debts; and as such relief could come only from their state governments, they were naturally the friends of state rights and state authority, and were consequently not friendly to any enlargement of the powers of

the federal Constitution. The same causes which led individuals to look to legislation for irregular relief from the burden of their private contracts, led them also to regard public obligations with similar impatience. Opposed to this numerous class of persons were all those who felt the high necessity of preserving inviolate every public and private obligation; who saw that the separate power of the states could not accomplish what was absolutely necessary to sustain both public and private credit; and they were as naturally disposed to look to the resources of the Union for these benefits as the other class were to look in an opposite direction. These tendencies produced, in nearly every state, a struggle, not as between two organized parties, but one that was all along a contest for supremacy between opposite opinions, in which it was at one time doubtful to which side the scale would turn.'

"The war, as you have very justly observed," Washington wrote to James Warren of Massachusetts, in October, 1785, "has terminated most advantageously for America, and a fair field is presented to our view; but I confess to you, my dear sir, that I do not think we possess wisdom or justice enough to cultivate it properly. Illiberality, jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public counsels for the good government of the Union. In a word, the Confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance, and Congress a nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended to. To me it is a solecism in politics; indeed, it is one of the most extraordinary things in nature, that we should confederate as a nation and yet be afraid to give the rulers of that nation (who are the creatures of our own making, appointed for a limited and short duration, and who are amenable for every action and may be recalled at any moment, and are subject to all the evils which they may be instrumental in producing) sufficient powers to order and direct the affairs of the same. By such policy as this the wheels of government are clogged, and our brightest prospects, and that high expectation which was entertained of us by the wondering world, are turned into astonishment; and, from the high ground on which we stood, we are descending into the vale of confusion and darkness.

"That we have it in our power to become one of the most respectable nations upon earth, admits, in my humble opinion, of no doubt, if we would but pursue a wise, just, and liberal policy towards one another, and keep good faith with the rest of the world. That our resources are ample and increasing, none can deny; but while they are grudgingly applied, or not applied at all, we give a vital stab to public faith, and shall sink, in the eyes of Europe, into contempt.

"It has long been a speculative question among philosophers and wise men, whether foreign commerce is of real advantage to any country; that is, whether the luxury, effeminacy, and corruptions which are introduced along with it are counterbalanced by the convenience and wealth which it brings. But the decis