The United States After the Revolutionary War

“ THE times that tried men’s souls are over,” said Thomas Paine in the last number of the Crisis, which he published after hearing that the negotiations for a treaty of peace had been concluded. The preliminary articles had been signed at Paris on the 20th of January, 1783. The news arrived in America on the 23d of March, in a letter to the president of Congress from Lafayette, who had returned to France soon after the victory at Yorktown. A few days later Sir Guy Carleton received his orders from the ministry to proclaim a cessation of hostilities by land and sea. A similar proclamation made by Congress was formally communicated to the army by Washington on the 19th of April, the eighth anniversary of the first bloodshed on Lexington green. Since Wayne had driven the British from Georgia, early in the preceding year, there had been no military operations between the regular armies. Guerrilla warfare between Whig and Tory had been kept up in parts of South Carolina and on the frontier of New York, where Thayendanegea was still alert and defiant; while beyond the mountains the tomahawk and scalping - knife had been busy, and Washington’s old friend and comrade, Colonel Crawford, had been scorched to death by the fire-brands of the red demons ; but the armies had sat still, awaiting the peace which every one felt sure must speedily come. After Cornwallis’s surrender, Washington marched his army back to the Hudson, and established his headquarters at Newburgh. Rochambeau followed somewhat later, and in September joined the Americans on the Hudson; but in December the French army marched to Boston, and there embarked for France. After the formal cessation of hostilities on the 19th of April, 1783, Washington granted furloughs to most of his soldiers; and these weather - beaten veterans trudged homeward in all directions, in little groups of four or five, depending largely for their subsistence on the hospitality of the farm-houses along the road. Arrived at home, their muskets were hung over the chimney-piece as trophies for grandchildren to be proud of, the stories of their exploits and their sufferings became household legends, and they turned the furrows and drove the cattle to pasture just as in the “old colony times.” Their furloughs were equivalent to a full discharge, for on the 3d of September the definitive treaty was signed, and the country was at peace. On the 3d of November the army was formally disbanded, and on the 25th of that month Sir Guy Carleton’s army embarked from New York. Small British garrisons still remained in the frontier posts of Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and Mackinaw, but by the terms of the treaty these were to be promptly surrendered to the United States. On the 4th of December a barge waited at the South Ferry in New York to carry General Washington across the river to Paulus Hook. He was going to Annapolis, where Congress was in session, in order to resign his command. At Fraunces’s Tavern, near the ferry, he took leave of the officers who so long had shared his labors. One after another they embraced their beloved commander, while there were few dry eyes in the company. They followed him to the ferry, and watched the departing boat with hearts too full for words, and then in solemn silence returned up the street. At Philadelphia he handed to the comptroller of the treasury a neatly written manuscript, containing an accurate statement of his expenses in the public service since the day when he took command of the army. The sums which Washington had thus spent out of his private fortune amounted to $64,315. For his personal services he declined to take any pay. At noon of the 23d, in the presence of Congress and of a throng of ladies and gentlemen at Annapolis, the great general gave up his command, and requested as an “indulgence ” to be allowed to retire into private life. General Mifflin, who during the winter of Valley Forge had conspired with Gates to undermine the confidence of the people in Washington, was now president of Congress, and it was for him to make the reply. “ You retire.” said Mifflin, “ from the theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow-citizens, but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remotest ages.” The next morning Washington hurried away to spend Christmas at his pleasant home at Mount Vernon, which, save for a few hours in the autumn of 1781, he had not set eyes on for more than eight years. His estate had suffered from his long absence, and his highest ambition was now to devote himself to its simple interests. To his friends he offered unpretentious hospitality. “ My manner of living is plain,” he said, " and I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready, and such as will be content to partake of them are always welcome. Those who expect more will be disappointed.” To Lafayette he wrote that lie was now about to solace himself with those tranquil enjoyments of which the anxious soldier and the weary statesman know but little. “ I have not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all ; and this, my dear friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently down the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers.”

In these hopes Washington was to be disappointed. " All the world is touched by his republican virtues,” wrote Luzerne to Vergennes, “ but it will be useless for him to try to hide himself and live the life of a private man : he will always be the first citizen of the United States.” It indeed required uo prophet to foretell that the American people could not long dispense with the services of this greatest of citizens. Washington had already put himself most explicitly on record as the leader of the men who were urging the people of the United States toward the formation of a more perfect union. The great lesson of the war had not been lost on him. Bitter experience of the evils attendant upon the weak government of the Continental Congress had impressed upon his mind the urgent necessity of an immediate and thorough reform. On the 8th of June, in view of the approaching disbandment of the army, he had addressed to the governors and presidents of the several States a circular letter, which he wished to have regarded as his legacy to the American people. In this letter he insisted upon four things as essential to the very existence of the United States as an independent power. First, there must be an indissoluble union of all the States under a single federal government, which must possess the power of enforcing its decrees ; for without such authority it would be a government only in name. Secondly, the debts incurred by Congress for the purpose of carrying on the war and securing independence must be paid to the uttermost farthing. Thirdly, the militia system must be organized throughout the thirteen States on uniform principles. Fourthly, the people must be willing to sacrifice, if need be, some of their local interests to the common weal; they must discard their local prejudices, and regard one another as fellow-citizens of a common country, with interests in the deepest and truest sense identical.

The unparalleled grandeur of Washington’s character, his heroic services, and his utter disinterestedness had given him such a hold upon the people as scarcely any other statesman known to history, save perhaps William the Silent, has ever possessed. The noble and sensible words of his circular letter were treasured up in the minds of all the best people in the country, and when the time for reforming the weak and disorderly government had come it was again to Washington that men looked as their leader and guide. But that time had not yet come. Only through the discipline of perplexity and tribulation could the people be brought to realize the indispensable necessity of that indissoluble union of which Washington had spoken. Thomas Paine was sadly mistaken when, in the moment of exultation over the peace, he declared that the trying time was ended. The most trying time of all was just beginning. It is not too much to say that the period of five years following the peace of 1783 was the most critical moment in all the history of the American people. The dangers from which we were saved in 1788 were even greater than the dangers from which we were saved in 1865. In the War of Secession the love of union had come to be so strong that thousands of men gave up their lives for it as cheerfully and triumphantly as the martyrs of older times, who sang their hymns of praise even while their flesh was withering in the relentless flames. In 1783 the love of union, as a sentiment for which men would fight, had scarcely come into existence among the people of these States. The souls of the men of that day had not been thrilled by the immortal eloquence of Webster, nor had they gained the historic experience which gave to Webster’s words their meaning and their charm. They had not gained control of all the fairest part of the continent, with domains stretching more than three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, and so situated in geographical configuration and commercial relations as to make the very idea of disunion absurd, save for men in whose minds fanaticism for the moment usurped the place of sound judgment. The men of 1783 dwelt in a long, straggling series of republics, fringing the Atlantic coast, bordered on the north and south and west by two European powers whose hostility they had some reason to dread. But nine years had elapsed since, in the first Continental Congress, they had begun to act consistently and independently in common, under the severe pressure of a common fear and an immediate necessity of action. Even under such circumstances the war had languished and come nigh to failure simply through the difficulty of insuring concerted action. Had there been such a government that the whole power of the thirteen States could have been swiftly and vigorously wielded as a unit, the British, fighting at such disadvantage as they did, might have been driven to their ships in less than a year. The length of the war and its worst hardships had been chiefly due to want of organization. Congress had steadily declined in power and in respectability : it was much weaker at the end of the war than at the beginning ; and there was reason to fear that as soon as the common pressure was removed the need for concerted action would quite cease to be felt, and the scarcely formed Union would break into pieces. There was the greater reason for such a fear in that, while no strong sentiment had as yet grown up in favor of union, there was an intensely powerful sentiment in favor of local self-government. This feeling was scarcely less strong as between States like Connecticut and Rhode Island, or Maryland and Virginia, than it was between Athens and Megara, Argos and Sparta, in the great days of Grecian history. A most wholesome feeling it was, and one which needed not so much to be curbed as to be guided in the right direction. It was a feeling which was shared by some of the foremost Revolutionary leaders, such as Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee. But unless the most profound and delicate statesmanship should be forthcoming, to take this sentiment under its guidance, there was much reason to fear that the release from the common adhesion to Great Britain would end in setting up thirteen little republics, ripe for endless squabbling, like the republics of ancient Greece and mediæval Italy, and ready to become the prey of England and Spain, even as Greece became the prey of Macedonia. As such a lamentable result was dreaded by Washington, so by statesmen in Europe it was generally expected, and by our enemies it was eagerly hoped for. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, was a far-sighted man in many things ; but he said, “ As to the future grandeur of America, and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical, it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by writers of romance. The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains.” Such were the views of a liberal-minded philosopher who bore us no ill-will. George III. said officially that he hoped the Americans would not suffer from the evils which in history had always followed the throwing off of monarchical government: which meant, of course, that he hoped they would suffer from such evils. He believed we should get into such a snarl that the several States, one after another, would repent and beg on their knees to be taken back into the British empire. Frederick of Prussia, though friendly to the Americans, argued that the mere extent of country from Maine to Georgia would suffice either to break up the Union, or to make a monarchy necessary. No republic, he said, had ever long existed on so great a scale. The Roman republic had been transformed into a despotism mainly by the excessive enlargement of its area. It was only little states, like Venice, Switzerland, and Holland, that could maintain a republican government. Such arguments were common enough a century ago, but they overlooked three essential differences between the Roman republic and the United States. The Roman republic in Cæsar’s time comprised peoples differing widely in blood, in speech, and in degree of civilization ; it was perpetually threatened on all its frontiers by powerful enemies ; and representative assemblies were unknown to it. The only free government of which the Roman knew anything was that of the primary assembly or town meeting. On the other hand, the people of the United States were all English in speech, and mainly English in blood. The differences in degree of civilization between such States as Massachusetts and North Carolina were considerable, but in comparison with such differences as those between Attika and Lusitania they might well be called slight. The attacks of savages on the frontier were cruel and annoying, but never since the time of King Philip had they seemed to threaten the existence of the white man. A very small military establishment was quite enough to deal with the Indians. And to crown all, the American people were thoroughly familiar with the principle of representation, having practiced it on a grand scale for five centuries in England, and for more than a century in America. The governments of the thirteen States were all similar, and the political ideas of one were perfectly intelligible to all the others. It was essentially fallacious, therefore, to liken the case of the United States to that of ancient Rome. But there was another feature of the case which was quite hidden from the men of 1783. Just before the assembling of the first Continental Congress James Watt had completed his steam-engine; in the summer of 1787, while the Federal Convention was sitting at Philadelphia, John Fitch launched his first steamboat on the Delaware River ; and Stephenson’s invention of the locomotive was to follow in less than half a century. Even with all other conditions favorable, it is doubtful if the American Union could have been preserved to the present time without the railroad. But for the military aid of railroads our government would hardly have succeeded in putting down the rebellion of the Southern States. In the debates on the Oregon Bill in the United States Senate in 1843, the idea that we could ever have an interest in so remote a country as Oregon was loudly ridiculed by some of the members. It would take ten months, said a gentleman named McDuffie, for representatives to get from that Territory to the District of Columbia and back again. Yet since the building of railroads to the Pacific coast, we can go from Boston to the capital of Oregon in much less time than it took John Hancock to make the journey from Boston to Philadelphia. Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both for political and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little Switzerland was in the Middle Ages or New England a century ago.

At the time of our Revolution the difficulties of traveling formed an important social obstacle to the union of the States. In our time the persons who pass in a single day between New York and Boston by six or seven distinct lines of railroad and steamboat are numbered by thousands. In 1783 two stage-coaches were enough for all the travelers, and nearly all the freight besides, that went between these two cities. The journey began at three o’clock in the morning. Horses were changed every twenty miles, and if the roads were in good condition some forty miles would be made by ten o’clock in the evening. In bad weather, when the passengers had to get down and lift the clumsy wheels out of deep ruts, the progress was much slower. The loss of life from accidents, in proportion to the number of travelers, was much greater than it has ever been on the railway. Broad rivers like the Connecticut and Housatonic had no bridges. To drive across them in winter, when they were solidly frozen over, was easy; and in pleasant summer weather to cross in a row-boat was not a dangerous undertaking. But squalls at some seasons and floating ice at others were things to be feared. More than one instance is recorded where boats were crushed and passengers drowned, or saved only by scrambling upon ice-floes. After a week or ten days of discomfort and danger the jolted and jaded traveler reached New York. Such was a journey in the most highly civilized part of the United States. The case was still worse in the South, and it was not so very much better in England and France. In one respect the traveler in the United States fared better than the traveler in Europe : the danger from highwaymen was but slight.

Such being the difficulty of traveling, people never made long journeys save for very important reasons. Except in the case of the soldiers, most people lived and died without ever having seen any State but their own. And as the mails were irregular and uncertain, and the rates of postage very high, people heard from one another but seldom. Commercial dealings between the different States were inconsiderable. The occupation of the people was chiefly agriculture. Cities were few and small, and each little district for the most part supported itself. Under such circumstances the different parts of the country knew very little about each other, and local prejudices were intense. It was not simply free Massachusetts and slaveholding South Carolina, or English Connecticut and Dutch New York, that misunderstood and ridiculed each the other ; but even between such neighboring States as Connecticut and Massachusetts, both of them thoroughly English and Puritan, and in all their social conditions almost exactly alike, it used often to be said that there was no love lost. These unspeakably stupid and contemptible local antipathies are inherited by civilized men from that far-off time when the clan system prevailed over the face of the earth, and the hand of every clan was raised against its neighbors. They are pale and evanescent survivals from the universal primitive warfare, and the sooner they die out from human society the better for every one. They should be stigmatized and frowned down upon every fit occasion, just as we frown upon swearing as a symbol of anger and contention. But the only thing which can finally destroy them is the widespread and unrestrained intercourse of different groups of people in peaceful, social, and commercial relations. The rapidity with which this process is now going on is the most encouraging of all the symptoms of our modern civilization. But a century ago the progress made in this direction had been relatively small, and it was a very critical moment for the American people.

That some kind of union existed between the States was doubted by no one. Ever since the assembling of the first Continental Congress in 1774 the thirteen commonwealths had acted in concert, and sometimes most generously, as when Maryland and South Carolina had joined in the Declaration of Independence without any crying grievances of their own, from a feeling that the cause of one should be the cause of all. It has sometimes been said that the Union was in its origin a league of sovereign States, each of which surrendered a specific portion of its sovereignty to the federal government for the sake of the common welfare. Grave political arguments have been based upon this alleged fact, but such an account of the matter is not historically true. There never was a time when Massachusetts or Virginia was an absolutely sovereign State like Holland or France. Sovereign over their own internal affairs they are to-day as they were at the time of the Revolution, but there was never a time when they presented themselves before other nations as sovereign, or were recognized as such. Under the government of England before the Revolution the thirteen commonwealths were independent of one another, and were held together, juxtaposed rather than united, only through their allegiance to the British crown. Had that allegiance been maintained there is no telling how long they might have gone on thus disunited ; and this, it seems, should be one of our chief reasons for rejoicing that the political connection with England was dissolved when it was. A permanent redress of grievances, and even virtual independence such as Canada now enjoys, we might perhaps have gained had we listened to Lord North’s proposals after the surrender of Burgoyne; but the formation of the Federal Union would certainly have been long postponed, and when we realize the grandeur of the work which we are now doing in the world through the simple fact of such a union, we cannot fail to see that such an issue would have been extremely unfortunate. However this may be, it is clear that until the connection with England was severed the thirteen commonwealths were not united, nor were they sovereign. It is also clear that in the very act of severing their connection with England these commonwealths entered into some sort of union which was incompatible with their absolute sovereignty taken severally. It was not the people of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and so on through the list, that declared their independence of Great Britain, but it was the representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, and speaking as a single body in the name of the whole. Three weeks before this declaration was adopted Congress appointed a committee to draw up the “ articles of confederation and perpetual union,”by which the sovereignty of the several States was expressly limited and curtailed in many important particulars. This committee had finished its work by the 12th of July, but the articles were not adopted by Congress until the autumn of 1777, and they were not finally put into operation until the spring of 1781. During this inchoate period of union the action of the United States was that of a confederation in which some portion of the several sovereignties was understood to be surrendered to the whole. It was the business of the articles to define the precise nature and extent of this surrendered sovereignty which no State by itself ever exercised. In the mean time this sovereignty, undefined in nature and extent, was exercised, as well as circumstances permitted, by the Continental Congress. A most remarkable body was this Continental Congress. For the vicissitudes through which it passed, there is perhaps no other revolutionary body, save the Long Parliament, which can be compared with it. For its origin we must look back to the committees of correspondence devised by Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel Adams, and Dabney Carr. First assembled in 1774 to meet an emergency which was generally believed to be only temporary, it continued to sit for nearly seven years before its powers were ever clearly defined ; and during those seven years it exercised some of the highest functions of sovereignty which are possible to any governing body. It declared the independence of the United States; it contracted an offensive and defensive alliance with France; it raised and organized a Continental army; it borrowed large sums of money, aud pledged what the lenders understood to be the national credit for their repayment; it issued an inconvertible paper currency, granted letters of marque, and built a navy. All this it did in the exercise of what in later times would have been called “ implied war powers,” and its authority rested upon the general acquiescence in the purposes for which it acted and in the measures which it adopted. Under such circumstances, as we have seen, its functions were very inefficiently performed. But the articles of confederation, which in 1781 defined its powers, served at the same time to limit them; so that for the remaining eight years of its existence the Continental Congress grew weaker and weaker, until it was swept away to make room for a more efficient government.

John Dickinson is supposed to have been the principal author of the articles of confederation ; but as the work of the committee was done in secret and has never been reported, the point cannot be determined. In November, 1777, Congress sent the articles to the several state legislatures, with a circular letter recommending them as containing the only plan of union at all likely to be adopted. In the course of the next fifteen months the articles were ratified by all the States except Maryland, which refused to sign until the States laying claim to the northeastern lands, and especially Virginia, should surrender their claims to the confederation. We shall by and by see, when we come to explain this point in detail, that from this action of Maryland there flowed beneficent consequences that were little dreamed of. It was first in the great chain of events which led directly to the formation of the Federal Union. Having carried her point, Maryland ratified the articles on the first day of March, 1781; and thus in the last and most brilliant period of the war, while Greene was leading Cornwallis on his fatal chase across North Carolina, the confederation proposed at the time of the Declaration of Independence was finally consummated.

According to the language of the articles, the States entered into a firm league of friendship with each other ; and in order to secure and perpetuate such friendship, the freemen of each State were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of freemen in all the other States. Mutual extradition of criminals was established, and in each State full faith and credit was to be given to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of every other State. This universal intercitizenship was what gave reality to the nascent and feeble Union. In all the common business relations of life, the man of New Hampshire could deal with the man of Georgia on an equal footing before the law. But this was almost the only effectively cohesive provision in the whole instrument. Throughout the remainder of the articles its language was largely devoted to reconciling the theory that the States were severally sovereign with the visible fact that they were already merged to some extent in a larger political body. The sovereignty of this larger body was vested in the Congress of delegates appiointed yearly by the States. No State was to be represented by less than two or more than seven members ; no one could be a delegate for more than three years out of every six ; and no delegate could hold any salaried office under the United States. As in colonial times the States had, to preserve their self-government, insisted upon paying their governors and judges, instead of allowing them to be paid out of the royal treasury, so now the delegates in Congress were paid by their own States. In determining questions in Congress, each State had one vote, without regard to population ; but a bare majority was not enough to carry any important measure. Not only for such extraordinary matters as wars and treaties, but even for the regular and ordinary business of raising money to carry on the government, not a single step could be taken without the consent of at least nine of the thirteen States; and this provision well-nigh sufficed of itself to block the wheels of federal legislation. The Congress assembled each year on the first Monday of November, and could not adjourn for a longer period than six months. During its recess the continuity of government was preserved by an executive committee, consisting of one delegate from each State, and known as the “ committee of the States.” Saving such matters of warfare or treaty as the public interest might require to be kept secret, all the proceedings of Congress were entered in a journal, to be published monthly ; and the yeas and nays must be entered should any delegate request it. The executive departments of war, finance, and so forth were entrusted at first to committees, until experience soon showed the necessity of single heads. There was a president of Congress. who, as representing the dignity of the United States, was, in a certain sense, the foremost person in the country, but he had no more power than any other delegate. Of the fourteen presidents between 1774 and 1789, perhaps only Randolph, Hancock, and Laurens are popularly remembered in that capacity ; Jay, St. Clair, Mifflin, and Lee are remembered for other things ; Hanson, Griffin, and Boudinot are scarcely remembered at all, save by the student of American history.

Between the Congress thus constituted and the several state governments the attributes of sovereignty were shared in such a way as to produce a minimum of result with a maximum of effort. The States were prohibited from keeping up any naval or military force, except militia, or from entering into any treaty or alliance, either with a foreign power or between themselves, without the consent of Congress. No State could engage in war except by way of defense against a sudden Indian attack. Congress had the sole right of determining on peace and war, of sending and receiving ambassadors, of making treaties, of adjudicating all disputes between the States, of managing Indian affairs, and of regulating the value of coin and fixing the standard of weights and measures. Congress took control of the postoffice on condition that no more revenue should be raised from postage than should suffice to discharge the expenses of the service. Congress controlled the army, but was provided with no means of raising soldiers save through requisitions upon the States, and it could only appoint officers above the rank of colonel : the organization of regiments was left entirely in the hands of the States. The traditional and wholesome dread of a standing army was great, but there was no such deep-seated jealousy of a navy, and Congress was accordingly allowed not only to appoint all naval officers, but also to establish courts of admiralty.

Several essential attributes of sovereignty were thus withheld from the States ; and by assuming all debts contracted by Congress prior to the adoption of the articles, and solemnly pledging the public faith for their payment, it was implicitly declared that the sovereignty here accorded to Congress was substantially the same as that which it had asserted and exercised ever since the severing of the connection with England. The articles simply defined the relations of the States to the Confederation as they had already shaped themselves. Indeed, the articles, though not finally ratified till 1781, had been known to Congress and to the people ever since 1776 as their expected Constitution, and political action had been shaped in general accordance with the theory on which they had been drawn up. They show that political action was at no time based on the view of the States as absolutely sovereign, but they also show that the share of sovereignty accorded to Congress was very inadequate even to the purposes of an effective confederation. The position in which they left Congress was hardly more than that of the deliberative head of a league. For the most fundamental of all the attributes of sovereignty — the power of taxation — was not given to Congress. It could neither raise taxes through an excise nor through custom-house duties ; it could only make requisitions upon the thirteen members of the confederacy in proportion to the assessed value of their real estate, and it was not provided with any means of enforcing these requisitions. On this point the articles contained nothing beyond the vague promise of the States to obey. The power of levying taxes was thus retained entirely by the States. They not only imposed direct taxes, as they do to-day, but they laid duties on exports and imports, each according to its own narrow view of its local interests. The only restriction upon this was that such state-imposed duties must not interfere with the stipulations of any foreign treaties such as Congress might make in pursuance of treaties already proposed to the courts of France and Spain. Besides all this, the States shared with Congress the powers of coining money, of emitting bills of credit, and of making their promissory notes a legal tender for debts.

Such was the Constitution under which the United States had begun to drift toward anarchy even before the close of the Revolutionary War, but which could only be amended by the unanimous consent of all the thirteen States. The historian cannot but regard this difficulty of amendment as a fortunate circumstance ; for in the troubles which presently arose it led the distressed people to seek some other method of relief, and thus prepared the way for the Convention of 1787, which destroyed the whole vicious scheme, and gave us a form of government under which we have nearly rounded a century unparalleled for peace and prosperity. Besides this extreme difficulty of amendment, the fatal defects of the Confederation were three in number. The first defect was the two-thirds vote necessary for any important legislation in Congress; under this rule any five of the States — as, for example, the four southernmost States with Maryland, or the four New England States with New Jersey — could defeat the most sorely needed measures. The second defect was the impossibility of presenting a united front to foreign countries in respect to commerce. The third and greatest defect was the lack of any means, on the part of Congress, of enforcing obedience. Not only was there no federal executive or judiciary worthy of the name, but the central government operated only upon States, and not upon individuals. Congress could call for troops and for money in strict conformity with the articles; but should any State prove delinquent in furnishing its quota, there were no constitutional means of compelling it to obey the call. This defect was seen and deplored at the outset by such men as Washington and Madison, but the only remedy which at first occurred to them was one more likely to kill than to cure. Only six weeks after the ratification of the articles, Madison proposed an amendment “ to give to the United States full authority to employ their force, as well by sea as by land, to compel any delinquent State to fulfill its federal engagements.” Washington approved of this measure, hoping, as he said, that " a knowledge that this power was lodged in Congress might be the means to prevent its ever being exercised, and the more readily induce obedience. Indeed,” added Washington, “ if Congress were unquestionably possessed of the power, nothing should induce the display of it but obstinate disobedience and the urgency of the general welfare.” Madison argued that in the very nature of the Confederation such a right of coercion was necessarily implied, though not expressed, in the articles, and much might have been said in behalf of this opinion. The Confederation explicitly declared itself to be perpetual, yet how could it perpetuate itself for a dozen years without the right to coerce its refractory members ? Practically, however, the remedy was one which could never have been applied without breaking the Confederation into fragments. To use the army or navy in coercing a State meant nothing less than civil war. The local yeomanry would have turned out against the Continental army with as high a spirit as that with which they swarmed about the British enemy at Lexington or King’s Mountain. A government which could not collect the taxes for its yearly budget without firing upon citizens or blockading two or three harbors would have been the absurdest political anomaly imaginable. No such idea could have entered the mind of a statesman save from the hope that if one State should prove refractory, all the others would immediately frown upon it and uphold Congress in overawing it. In such case the knowledge that Congress had the power would doubtless have been enough to make its exercise unnecessary. But in fact this hope was disappointed, for the delinquency of each State simply set an example of disobedience for all the others to follow ; and the amendment, had it been carried, would merely have armed Congress with a threat which everybody would have laughed at. So manifestly hopeless was the case to Pelatiah Webster that as early as May, 1781, he published an able pamphlet, urging the necessity for a federal convention for overhauling the whole scheme of government from beginning to end.

The military weakness due to this imperfect governmental organization may be illustrated by comparing the number of regular troops which Congress was able to keep in the field during the Revolutionary War with the number maintained by the United States government during the War of Secession. A rough estimate, obtained from averages, will suffice to show the broad contrast. In 1863, the middle year of the War of Secession, the total population of the loyal States was about 23,491,600, of whom about one fifth, or 4,698,320, were adult males of military age. Supposing one adult male out of every five to have been under arms at one time, the number would have been 939,664.

Now the total number of troops enlisted in the Northern army during the four years of the war, reduced to a uniform standard, was 2,320,272, or an average of 580,068 under arms in any single year. In point of fact, this average was reached before the middle of the war, and the numbers went on increasing, until at the end there were more than a million men under arms, —at least one out of every five adult males in the Northern States. On the other hand, in 1779, the middle year of the Revolutionary War, the white population of the United States was about 2,175,000, of whom 435,000 were adult males of military age. Supposing one out of every five of these to have been under arms at once, the number would have been 87,000. Now in the spring of 1777, when the Continental Congress was at the highest point of authority which it ever reached, when France was willing to lend it money freely, when its paper currency was not yet discredited and it could make liberal offers of bounties, a demand was made upon the States for 80,000 men, or nearly one fifth of the adult male population, to serve for three years or during the war. Only 34,820 were obtained. The total number of men in the field in that most critical year, including the swarms of militia who came to the rescue at Ridgefield and Bennington and Oriskany, and the Pennsylvania militia who turned out while their State was invaded, was 68,720. In 1781, when the credit of Congress was greatly impaired, although military activity again rose to a maximum and it was necessary for the people to strain every nerve, the total number of men in the field, militia and all, was only 29,340, of whom only 13,292 were Continentals; and it was left for the genius of Washington and Greene, working with desperate energy and most pitiful resources, to save the country. A more impressive contrast to the readiness with which the demands of the government were met in the War of Secession can hardly be imagined. Had the country put forth its strength in 1781 as it did in 1864, an army of 90,000 men might have overwhelmed Clinton at the North and Cornwallis at the South, without asking any favors of the French fleet. Had it put forth its full strength in 1777, four years of active warfare might have been spared. Mr. Lecky explains this difference by his favorite hypothesis that the American Revolution was the work of a few ultra-radical leaders, with whom the people were not generally in sympathy; and he thinks we could not expect to see great heroism or self-sacrifice manifested by a people who went to war over what he calls a “ money dispute.” But there is no reason for supposing that the loyalists represented the general sentiment of the country in the Revolutionary War any more than the peace party represented the general sentiment of the Northern States in the War of Secession. There is no reason for supposing that the people were less at heart in 1781 in fighting for the priceless treasure of selfgovernment than they were in 1864 when they fought for the maintenance of the pacific principles underlying our Federal Union. The differences in the organization of the government, and in its power of operating directly upon the people, are quite enough to explain the difference between the languid conduct of the earlier war and the energetic conduct of the later.

John Fiske.