"There have been serious thoughts in the minds of members of congress," wrote Grayson to Madison, "to recommend to the states the meeting of a general convention to consider of an alteration of the confederation, and there is a motion to that effect under consideration. I have not made up my mind whether it is not 'better to bear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of.' I am, however, in no doubt about the weakness of the federal government. If it remains much longer in its present state of imbecility, we shall be one of the most contemptible nations on the face of the earth." * The subject lingered in congress till the third of May. Then South Carolina for a third time raised her voice, and Charles Pinckney moved that a grand committee be appointed on the affairs of the nation. "It is necessary," he said, "to inform the states of our condition. Congress must be invested with greater powers, or the federal government must fall. It is, therefore, necessary for congress either to appoint a convention for that purpose, or by requisition to call on the states for such powers as are necessary to enable it to administer the federal government." Among some of the defects in the confederation which he enumerated were, the want of powers for regulating commerce, for raising troops, and for executing those powers that were given. Monroe replied: "Congress has full power to raise troops, and has a right to compel compliance with every requisition which does not go beyond the powers with which it is invested by the confederation. All the states but New York have invested congress with commercial powers, and New York is at this time framing an act on the subject. I, therefore, see no occasion for a convention." The discussion was continued at great length, and the matter referred to a committee of the whole.† But the discussion brought congress no nearer to the recommendation of a general convention; its self-love refused to surrender any of its functions, least of all on the ground of its own incapacity to discharge them. Should congress then of itself lay a revision of the articles of confederation before the states for their acceptance? Here * Grayson to Madison, 22 March 1786. + Thomas Rodney's Journal. 1 Grayson, surveying his colleagues with a discerning eye, at once convinced himself that congress could never agree on amendments, even among themselves. For himself, he held it essential that the general government should have power to regulate commerce; to prohibit the states from issuing paper money; to prohibit the slave-trade; to fix the site of the government in the centre of the union, that is to say, near Georgetown; and to change the method of voting by states to a vote according to population. Of effecting these reforms he had no hope. He was sure if the question of commerce should be settled, Massachusetts would be satisfied and refuse to go further. "Pinckney, the champion of powers over commerce," he said, "will be astounded when he meets with a proposition to prevent the states from importing any more of the seed of Cain.” New York and Pennsylvania would feel themselves aggrieved if, by a national compact, the sessions of congress should always be held in the centre of the empire. Neither Maryland, nor Rhode Island, nor New Jersey, would like to surrender its equal vote for one proportioned to its real importance in the Union. Grayson, therefore, did not "think it would be for the advantage of the union that the convention at Annapolis should produce anything decisive," since it was restricted in its scope to commerce, and the question which he proposed to Madison was: "The state of Virginia having gone thus far, had she not better go further and propose to the other states to augment the powers of the delegates so as to comprehend all the grievances of the union?"† But Pinckney of South Carolina was not daunted. Failing to secure the vote of congress for a general convention, he next obtained the appointment of a grand committee "to report such amendments to the confederation as it may be necessary to recommend to the several states for the purpose of obtaining from them such powers as will render the federal government adequate to the ends for which it was instituted." Congress, in a committee of the whole, devoted seven days of July and six of August to the solution of the great question, and before the end of August the report, which was made by a sub-committee consisting of Pinckney, Dane, and Johnson, *Grayson to Madison, 28 May 1786. + Ibid. and accepted by a grand committee, received its final amended. form.* To the original thirteen articles of confederation seven new ones were added. The United States were to regulate foreign and domestic trade and collect duties on imports, but without violating the constitutions of the states. The revenue collected was to be paid to the state in which it should accrue. Congress, on making requisitions on the states, was to fix "the proper periods when the states shall pass legislative acts giving full and complete effect to the same." In case of neglect, the state was to be charged at the rate of ten per cent per annum on its quota in money, and twelve per cent on the ascertained average expenses on its quota of land forces. If a state should, for ten months, neglect to pass laws in compliance with the requisition, and if a majority of the states should have passed such laws, then, but not till then, the revenue required by congress was to be apportioned on towns or counties and collected by the collectors of the last state tax. Should they refuse to act, congress might appoint others with similar rights and powers, and with full power and authority to enforce the collections. Should a state, or citizens without the disapproval of the state, offer opposition, the conduct of the state was to be considered "as an open violation of the federal compact." Interest was to be allowed on advances by states and charged on arrears. A new system of revenue could be established by eleven states out of the thirteen; and so in proportion as the number of states might increase. The United States were to have the sole and exclusive power to define and punish treason against them, misprision of treason, piracy or felonies on the high seas, and to institute, by appointments from the different parts of the union, a federal court of seven judges, of whom four would constitute a quorum, to hear appeals from the state courts on matters con * From reports of the committee. These amended resolutions may well be taken as representing the intentions of Charles Pinckney at that time. A copy of them, very greatly abridged, is preserved in the French archives. cerning treaties with foreign powers, or the law of nations, or commerce, or the federal revenues, or important questions wherein the United States should be a party. To enforce the attendance of members of congress, a state might punish its faulty delegate by a disqualification to hold office under the United States or any state. These resolutions, though most earnestly discussed in congress, were left to repose among its countless reports. They did not offer one effective remedy for existing evils; they never could win a majority in congress; no one fancied that they could obtain the unanimous assent of the states; and, could they have gained it, the articles of confederation would have remained as feeble as before. Still less was it possible for congress to raise an annual revenue. The country was in arrears for the interest on its funded debt, and in the last two years had received not more than half a million dollars in specie from all the states-a sum not sufficient for the annual ordinary charges of the federal government. Pennsylvania had complied with the late requisitions almost with exactitude; Maryland and Virginia had furnished liberal supplies; New York exerted herself, and successfully, by the aid of her custom-house; but Massachusetts and all the other New England states were in arrears, and the three southernmost states had paid little money since the conclusion of the late war. Congress confessed that it could not raise a revenue unless measures were adopted for funding the foreign and domestic debts, and they went back to the system framed by Madison in April 1783; but the success of that measure depended on a unanimous grant of new power to the general government. All the states except New York had assented to the principle of deriving a federal revenue from imports, though the assenting acts of a majority of them still required modifications. Congress saw fit to assume that nothing remained but to obtain the consent of that one state. In March a meeting of inhabitants of the city of New York unanimously petitioned the legislature to consent to the system which alone could give energy to the union or prosperity to commerce. On the other hand, it was contended that the confederation and the constitution of each state are the foundations which neither congress nor the legislatures of the states can alter, and on which it is the duty of both to build; that the surrender to congress of an independent authority to levy duties would be the surrender of an authority that inheres necessarily in the respective legislatures of each state; that deviation from the fundamental principles of the American constitutions would be ruinous, first, to the liberty of the states, and then to their existence; that congress, already holding in one hand the sword, would hold in the other the purse, and concentrate in itself the sovereignty of the thirteen states; that it is the division of the great republic into different republics of a middling size and confederated laws which save it from despotism.* The legislature of New York conformed to these opinions, and, while on the fourth of May it imposed the duty of five per cent, it reserved to itself the revenue with the sole right of its collection. Nor was it long before Pennsylvania, which held a large part of the public debt, suspended its adhesion to the revenue plan of congress unless it should include supplementary funds. In August, King and Monroe were dispatched by congress to confer with its legislature. It is on record that the speech of King was adapted to insure applause even from an Attic audience; † but the subject was referred to the next assembly. Congress joined battle more earnestly with New York. They recommended the executive to convene its legislature immediately for the purpose of granting the impost. The governor made reply: "I have not power to convene the legislature except on extraordinary occasions, and, as the present business has repeatedly been laid before them, and has so recently received their determination, it cannot come within that description." Congress repeated its demand, and it only served to call from Clinton a firm renewal of his refusal. The strife had degenerated into an altercation which only established before the country that congress, though it would not call a convention and could not of itself frame fit amendments to the confederation, had not power to raise an annual * Report of the Austrian agent, Bertholff, 1 April 1786. MS. VOL. VI.-13 |