BOOK II.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THE ADOPTION OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, IN 1781, TO THE PEACE OF 1783.

CHAPTER I.

1781-1783.

REQUISITIONS. CLAIMS OF THE ARMY. -NEWBURGH ADDRESSES. PEACE PROCLAIMED. -THE ARMY DISBANDED.

THE interval of time which extends from the adoption of the Articles of Confederation to the initiatory steps for the formation of the Constitution, must, for our purpose, be divided into two periods; that which preceded and that which followed the peace of 1783; in both of which the defects of the Confederation were rapidly developed, and in both of which efforts were made to supply those defects, by an enlargement of the powers of Congress. Our attention, however, will be confined, in the present Book, to the first of these periods.

Congress assembled, under the Confederation, on the 2d of March, 1781, and the Treaty of Peace, which put an end to the war and admitted the independence of the United States, was definitively signed on the 3d of September, 1783, and was ratified and proclaimed by Congress on the 14th of January, 1784.

Notwithstanding the solemn engagements into which the States had entered with each other, under

the Articles of Confederation, the prospect of bringing the war to a close, through a compliance with those obligations, was exceedingly faint, at the commencement of the campaign of 1782. The United States had made a treaty of alliance with the king of France, in 1778;1 and in pursuance of that treaty, six thousand French troops arrived at Newport in July, 1780, and in the spring of 1781 joined the American army near New York. The presence in the country of a foreign force, sent hither by the ancient rival of England, to assist the people of the United States in their contest for independence, encouraged an undue reliance upon external aid. Many of the States became culpably remiss in complying with the requisitions of Congress; and, although they had so recently authorized Congress to make requisitions, both for men and money, and had provided the form in which they were to be made, the adoption of the Articles of Confederation had very little tendency to render the States prompt to discharge the obligations which they imposed. In October and November, 1781, Congress called upon the States to raise their several quotas of eight millions of dollars, for the use of the United States, and recommended to them to lay taxes for raising these quotas separate from those laid for their own particular use, and to pass acts directing the collectors of the taxes, intended for the use of the United States, to pay the same directly into the treasury of the

1 The treaty was concluded at Paris, February 6, 1778, and was

ratified by Congress on the 5th of May. Journals, IV. 256, 257.

Union.1 In December of the same year, Congress also called upon the States, with great urgency, to their quotas of troops for the next cam

complete paign.2

The aid of Washington was invoked, to influence the action of the States upon these requisitions. On the 22d of January, 1782, he addressed a circular letter to the governors of the States, to be laid before their respective legislatures, on the subject of finance; reminding them how the whole army had been thrown into a ferment twelve months before, for the want of pay and a regular supply of clothing and provisions; warning them that the recent successes in Virginia, by the capture of Lord Cornwallis's army, might have a fatal tendency to cool the ardor of the country in the prosecution of the war; assuring them that a vigorous prosecution of that war could alone secure the independence of the United States; and urging them to adopt such measures as would insure the prompt payment of the sums which Congress had called for. A few days afterwards, he addressed a similar letter to the States, on the subject of completing their quotas of troops, in which he told them that the continuance or termination of the war now rested on their vigor and decision; and that, even if the enemy were, in consequence of their late reverses, disposed to treat, nothing but a decidedly superior force could enable us boldly to claim our

1 Resolves of October 30 and November 2, 1781. Journals, VII. 167, 169.

2 Resolves of December 10, 1781. Journals, VII, 190. 3 Writings, VIII. 226.