when she is protesting her inability to comply with the continental requisitions. Congress cannot abandon the plan as long as there is a spark of hope. Nay, other plans on a like principle must be added. Justice, gratitude, our reputation abroad and our tranquillity at home, require provision for a debt of not less than fifty millions of dollars; and this provision will not be adequately met by separate acts of the states. If there are not revenue laws which operate at the same time through all the states, and are exempt from the control of each, mutual jealousies will assuredly defraud both our foreign and domestic creditors of their just claims.” *

Madison, on the twenty-eighth, presented a milder form of the resolution for a general revenue. Arthur Lee lost no time in confronting his colleague: "The states will never consent to a uniform tax, because it will be unequal; is repugnant to the articles of confederation; and, by placing the purse in the same hands with the sword, subverts the fundamental principles of liberty." Wilson explained: The articles of confederation have expressly provided for amendments; there is more of a centrifugal than centripetal force in the states; the funding of a common debt would invigorate the union. Ellsworth despaired of a continental revenue; condemned periodical requisitions from congress as inadequate; and inclined to the trial of permanent state funds. In reply, Hamilton showed that state funds would meet with even greater obstacles than a general revenue; but he lost the sympathy of the house by adding that the influence of federal collectors would assist in giving energy to the federal government. Rutledge thought that the prejudices of the people were opposed to a general tax, and seemed disinclined to it himself. Williamson was of opinion that continental funds, though desirable, were unattainable.

"The idea," said Madison, "of erecting our national independence on the ruins of public faith and national honor must be horrid to every mind which retains either honesty or pride. Is a continental revenue indispensably necessary for doing complete justice to the public creditors? This is the question.

* Madison to Randolph, 22 January 1783, in Gilpin, 111. The date is erroneously given as of 1782.

"A punctual compliance by thirteen independent governments with periodical demands of money from congress can never be reckoned upon with certainty. The articles of confederation authorize congress to borrow money. To borrow money, permanent and certain provision is necessary; and, as this cannot be made in any other way, a general revenue is within the spirit of the confederation. Congress are already invested by the states with constitutional authority over the purse as well as the sword. A general revenue would only give this authority a more certain and equal efficacy.

"The necessity and reasonableness of a general revenue have been gaining ground among the states. I am aware that one exception ought to be made. The state of Virginia, as appears by an act yesterday laid before congress, has withdrawn its assent once given to the scheme. This circumstance cannot but embarrass a representative of that state advocating it; one, too, whose principles are extremely unfavorable to a disregard of the sense of constituents. But, though the delegates who compose congress more immediately represent and are amenable to the states from which they come, yet they owe a fidelity to the collective interests of the whole. The part I take is the more fully justified to my own mind by my thorough persuasion that, with the same knowledge of public affairs which my station commands, the legislature of Virginia would not have repealed the law in favor of the impost, and would even now rescind the repeal."

On the following day the proposition of Wilson and Madi son, with slight amendments, passed the committee of the whole without opposition. On the twelfth of February it was adopted in congress by seven states in the affirmative, and without the negative of any state.

For methods of revenue, the choice of Madison was an impost, a poll-tax which should rate blacks somewhat lower than whites, and a moderate land-tax. To these Wilson wished to add a duty on salt and an excise on wine, imported spirits, and coffee. Hamilton, who held the attempt at a land-tax to be futile and impossible, suggested a house- and window-tax. Wolcott of Connecticut thought requisitions should be in proportion to the population of each state; but

VOL. VI.-5

was willing to include in the enumeration those only of the blacks who were within sixteen and sixty years of age.*

Just at this time Pelatiah Webster, a graduate of Yale college, in a dissertation published at Philadelphia, † proposed for the legislature of the United States a congress of two houses which should have ample authority for making laws "of general necessity and utility," and enforcing them as well on individuals as on states. He further suggested not only heads of executive departments, but judges of law and chancery. The tract was reprinted in Hartford, and called forth a reply.

Plans of closer union offered only a remote solution of the difficulties under which the confederation was sinking. How the united demand of all public creditors could wrest immediately from congress and the states the grant of a general revenue and power for its collection employed the thoughts of Robert Morris and his friends. On Christmas eve 1781, Gouverneur Morris, the assistant financier, had written to Greene: "I have no expectation that the government will acquire force; and no hope that our union can subsist, except in the form of an absolute monarchy, and this does not seem to consist with the taste and temper of the people." To Jay, in January 1783, he wrote: "The army have swords in their hands. Good will arise from the situation to which we are hastening; much of convulsion will probably ensue, yet it must terminate in giving to government that power without which government is but a name."

Hamilton held it as certain that the army had secretly determined not to lay down their arms until due provision and a satisfactory prospect should be afforded on the subject of their pay; that the commander-in-chief was already become extremely unpopular among all ranks from his known dislike to every unlawful proceeding; but, as from his virtue, his patriotism, and firmness, he would sooner suffer himself to be cut in pieces than yield to disloyal plans, Hamilton wished him

Gilpin, 300, 304-306, 331; Elliot, 38-40, 48.

A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the thirteen United States of North America, written 16 February 1783. In Pelatiah Webster's Political Essays, 228. Sparks's G. Morris, i., 240, 249.

to be the "conductor of the army in their plans for redress," to the exclusion of a leader like Horatio Gates.*

With these convictions and with exceeding caution, he, on the seventh of February, addressed himself directly to Washington in a letter, of which Brooks, on his return to the camp, was the bearer. "We," so he wrote of congress, "are a body not governed by reason or foresight, but by circumstances. It appears to be a prevailing opinion in the army that, if they once lay down their arms, they part with the means of obtaining justice. Their claims, urged with moderation but with firmness, may operate on those weak minds which are influenced by their apprehensions more than by their judgments, so as to produce a concurrence in the measures which the exigencies of affairs demand. To restore public credit is the object of all men of sense; in this the influence of the army, properly directed, may co-operate." And he invited Washington to make use of General Knox, † to whom Gouverneur Morris wrote on the same day and by the same channel.

To ensure the concerted action of the southern army, Gouverneur Morris wrote privately to Greene: "The main army will not easily forego their expectations. Their murmurs, though not loud, are deep. If the army, in common with all other public creditors, insist on the grant of general, permanent funds for liquidating all the public debts, there can be little doubt that such revenues will be obtained, and will afford to every order of public creditors a solid security. With the due exception of miracles, there is no probability that the states will ever make such grants unless the army be united and determined in the pursuit of it, and unless they be firmly supported by and as firmly support the other creditors. That this may happen must be the entire wish of every intelligently just man and of every real friend to our glorious revolution."

The letter of Gouverneur Morris to Knox, which was in reality a communication through Knox to Washington, cannot be found. It evidently expressed the opinion that the army might be made to co-operate in bringing about a closer union.

+ Hamilton to Washington, 7 February 1783. Hamilton, i., 327.

G. Morris to Greene, 15 February 1783. Sparks's G. Morris, i., 250.

of the states and a stronger government. The answer of Knox expresses the advice of Washington: "The army are good patriots, and would forward everything that would tend to produce union and a permanent general constitution; but they are yet to be taught how their influence is to effect this matter. A hoop to the barrel' is their favorite toast. America will have fought and bled to little purpose if the powers of government shall be insufficient to preserve the peace, and this must be the case without general funds. As the present constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so-that is, to have a convention of the states to form a better constitution? This appears to us, who have a superficial view only, to be the most efficacious remedy.” *

On the thirteenth of February the speech of the king of Great Britain, at the opening of parliament in December, was received. His announcement of provisional articles of peace with the United States produced great joy; yet that joy was clouded by apprehensions from the impossibility of meeting the just claims of the army.

Congress was brought no nearer to decisive action. Hamilton proposed that the doors of congress should be thrown wide open whenever the finances were under discussion, though the proposal, had it been accepted, would have filled the galleries with holders of certificates of the public debt. †

On the other side, John Rutledge again and again moved that the proceeds of the impost should be appropriated exclusively to the army, but was supported only by his own state. Ruffled by his indifference to the civil creditors, Wilson had one day answered with warmth: "Pennsylvania will take her own measures without regard to those of congress, and she ought to do so. She is willing to sink or swim according to the common fate; but she will not suffer herself, with a millstone of six millions of the continental debt, to go to the bottom alone."

The weakness of the friends of a general revenue appeared from their consenting to leave to the several states the ap* Knox to G. Morris, 21 February 1783, in Sparks's G. Morris, i., 256. Gilpin, 836, 341; Elliot, 50, 52.