risk the hard-earned remainder due him for four, five, perhaps six years upon the same basis of security as the general mass of other public creditors."* Morris told a committee of Congress that it was impossible to grant Washington's request—that three months' pay amounted to more than all of the receipts from all of the states since 1781. He said that nothing could be done except to give notes to the soldiers, in the hope that a revenue would be collected which would make the notes good. The army was finally paid for three months with notes worth from eight to ten per cent of their nominal value. In the language of Washington, the soldiers went home "without a settlement of their accounts and without a farthing in their pockets. "† Congress finally agreed upon the details of a revenue measure. The states were asked to grant to Congress the power to levy certain specific duties The revenue 1783. upon certain enumerated articles for the use measure of of the United States, and a duty of five per cent ad valorem upon all other goods. In addition, the states were asked to establish for a term limited to twenty-five years "substantial and effectual revenues," to the amount of a million and a half of dollars, to be appropriated, like the preceding, to the payment of the debts incurred in carrying on the war. This, with the million of dollars which was hoped for from the duties, would enable Congress to pay the interest on its debt * Bancroft, I., 102. † Washington to Congress, June 24, 1783. Sparks, VIII., 456. which amounted to about two and a half million dollars. Congress expected that the sales of public lands would enable them gradually to pay the principal. Sent to the states. This measure was sent to the states in the spring of 1783, accompanied by every document which seemed calculated to influence the legislatures of the states.* * One of these was an eloquent and earnest appeal to the states, written by Madison, setting forth the claims upon our gratitude of those to whom we owed money, to say nothing of honesty; another was a reply, written by Alexander Hamilton, to the excuses-they were called argumentsby which Rhode Island had sought to justify herself for refusing to consent to the revenue scheme proposed in 1781; another was the address which Washington read to his officers at Newburgh. No stone was left unturned by the committee to whom the matter was entrustedMadison and Hamilton were two of its membersto induce the legislatures of the states to consent to the measure, since the very existence of the government seemed to depend on its fate. By February, 1786, seven states had consented to the impost part of the scheme unconditionally; two to that part of the scheme on condition that all of the other states accept the entire system; two had consented to the scheme in all of Responses of the states, its parts, while four had not consented to any part of it. *Journals of Congress, IV., 194–215. The situation was absolutely desperate. In the preceding fourteen months an average of less than four hundred thousand dollars a year had been Congress makes paid in by the states-when the interest on another appeal the foreign debt alone amounted to more to the states. than half a million. Congress appointed a committee to make one more appeal to the states. The committee declared in the most solemn manner that a further reliance upon requisitions would not only be dishonorable to the understanding-it would be dangerous to the welfare and peace of the union. It was utterly impossible to maintain the faith of the government by temporary requisitions on the states, and absolutely essential for all of the states to accede to the revenue system of April, 1783. This urgent appeal induced all of the states except New York to grant the impost asked for by Congress. That state obstinately refused, or rather refusal. qualified her consent with conditions which New York's were equivalent to a refusal.* The refusal of New York decided the fate of the Confederacy. It left to Congress no resource for paying its debts and providing for its current expenses except requisitions which had become a mere jest and by-word. A government which has no power to raise *New York provided that the impost should be paid in paper money to officers appointed by the state and amenable to it. "Requisitions are actually little better than a jest or byword. If you tell the legislatures they have violated the treaty of peace and invaded the prerogatives of the Confederacy, they will laugh in your face.”—Marshall's Life of Washington, II., 108. money has no motive for keeping up the farce of pretending to be a government. The time was evidently near at hand when the Confederation would fall to pieces through sheer lack of power to hold the parts together, or when a real government would take the place of the monstrosity which the Articles of Confederation had undertaken to create. Which of these alternatives would have been realized if a sense of justice, if considerations of common honesty, if the obligations of good faith, had been the only motives for the creation of a government is hardly open to doubt. But these motives, fortunately, were reinforced by others which made a stronger appeal to a large number of men. By a succession of very vivid and impressive object lessons, the men of the time were compelled to realize the necessity of creating a government with power to regulate commerce and to enforce the obligations of contract. Without the influence of these motives, it seems tolerably safe to say that the government under which we live would have no place among the institutions of the world. CHAPTER III. THE NEED OF POWER TO REGULATE COMMERCE. THE HE need of power to regulate commerce had attracted some attention before the close of the Revolution ary War. On June 25, 1778, New Jersey, Memorial of merce. through her delegates, presented a memo- relation to com rial to Congress in which she declared that the sole and exclusive right to regulate commerce should be vested in that body.* The memorial was not favorably received. On February 3, 1781-the very day that Congress asked the states for power to lay a duty of five per cent on imports-Witherspoon of New Jersey and Burke of North Carolina brought the same matter to the attention of Congress, but without any better success.† The passing of the motion to ask the states for power to levy duties, and the rejection of the motion to ask for power to regulate commerce, illustrate the state of public opinion on the two subjects. Until the independence of the United States was acknowledged, the inability of Congress to regulate commerce was not, indeed, a matter of much practical importance. But when this country was admitted to a place among the nations of the world, the necessity of power Elliott's Debates, I., 87. † Ibid., 92, 93. |
