should have a fund sufficient to pay the interest of what had been borrowed and what was to be borrowed. The truth was, these people in this instance wanted to play off the army against the funding system. As to Mr. Morris, I will give your Excellency a true explanation of his conduct. He had been for some time pressing Congress to endeavor to obtain funds, and had found a great backwardness in the business. He found the taxes unproductive in the different States; he found the loans in Europe making a very slow progress; he found himself pressed on all hands for supplies; he found himself, in short, reduced to this alternative, either of making engagements which he could not fulfil, or declaring his resignation in case funds were not established by a given time. Had he followed the first course, the bubble must soon have burst; he must have sacrificed his credit and his character, and public credit, already in a ruined condition, would have lost its last support. He wisely judged it better to resign; this might increase the embarrassments of the moment, but the necessity of the case, it was to be hoped, would produce the proper measures, and he might then resume the direction of the machine with advantage and success. He also had some hope that his resignation would prove a stimulus to Congress. He was, however, ill-advised in the publication of his letters of resignation. This was an imprudent step, and has given a handle to his personal enemies, who, by playing upon the passions of others, have drawn some wellmeaning men into the cry against him. But Mr. Morris certainly deserves a great deal from his country. I believe no man in this country but himself could have kept the money machine going during the period he has been in office. From every thing that appears, his administration has been upright as well as able. The truth is, the old leaven of Deane and Lee is at this day working against Mr. Morris. He happened in that dispute to have been on the side of Deane, and certain men can never forgive him. . . . . . The matter, with respect to the army, which has occasioned most altercation in Congress, and most dissatisfaction in the army, has been the half-pay. The opinions on this head have been two: one party was for referring the several lines to their States, to make such commutation as they should think proper; the other, for making the commutation by Congress, and funding it on continental security. I was of this last opinion, and so were all those who will be represented as having made use of the army as our puppets. Our principal reasons were: First, by referring the lines to their respective States, those which were opposed to the half-pay would have taken advantage of the officers' necessities to make the commutation short of an equivalent. Secondly, the inequality which would have arisen in the different States when the officers came to compare, (as has happened in other cases,) would have been a new source of discontent. Thirdly, such a reference was a continuance of the old, wretched State system, by which the ties between Congress and the army have been nearly dissolved, by which the resources of the States have been diverted from the common treasury and wasted: a system which your Excellency has often justly reprobated. I have gone into these details to give you a just idea of the parties in Congress. I assure you, upon my honor, sir, I have given you a candid statement of facts, to the best of my judgment. The men against whom the suspicions you mention must be directed, are in general the most sensible, the most liberal, the most independent, and the most respectable characters in our body, as well as the most unequivocal friends to the army; in a word, they are the men who think continentally." (Life of Hamilton, II. 162 – 164.) CHAPTER III. 1781-1783. OPINIONS AND EFFORTS OF WASHINGTON AND OF HAMILTON. — DECLINE OF THE CONFEDERATION THE proposal of the revenue system went forth to the country, although not in immediate connection, yet nearly at the same time, with those comprehensive and weighty counsels which Washington addressed to the States, when the great object for which he had entered the service of his country had been accomplished, and he was about to return to a private station. His relations to the people of this country had been peculiar. He had been, not only the leader of their armies, but, in a great degree, their civil counsellor; for although he had rarely, if ever, gone out of the province of his command to give shape or direction to constitutional changes, yet the whole circumstances of that command had constantly placed him in contact with the governments of the States, as well as with the Congress; and he had often been obliged to interpose the influence of his own character and opinions with all of them, in order that the civil machine might not wholly cease to move. At the moment when he was about to lay aside the sword, he saw very clearly that there were certain principles of conduct which must be called into action in the States, and among the people of the States, for the preservation of the Union. He, and he alone, could address to them with effect the requisite words of admonition, and point out the course of safety and success. This great service, the last act of his revolutionary official life, was performed with all the truth and wisdom of his character, before he proceeded to resign into the hands of Congress the power which he had held so long, and which he now surrendered with a virtue, a dignity, and a sincerity, with which no such power has ever been laid down by any of the leaders of revolutions whom the world has seen. His object in this Address was not so much to urge the adoption of particular measures, as to inculcate principles which he believed to be essential to the welfare of the country. So clearly, however, did it appear to him, that the honor and independence of the country were involved in the adoption of the revenue system which Congress had recommended, that he did not refrain from urging it as the sole means by which a national bankruptcy could be averted, before any different plan could be proposed and adopted. But how far, at this time, any other or further plans, for the formation of a better constitution, had been formed, or how far any one perceived both the vicious principle of the Confederation and the means of substituting for it another and more efficient power, we can judge only by the published writings of the Revolutionary statesmen. It is quite certain that at this period Washington saw the defects of the Confederation, as he had seen them clearly, and suffered under them, from the beginning. He saw that in the powers of the States, which far exceeded those of the Continental Congress, lay the source of all the perplexities which he had experienced in the course of the war, and of almost the whole of the difficulties and distresses of the army; and that to form a new constitution, which would give consistency, stability, and dignity to the Union, was the great problem of the time. He saw, also, that the honor and true interest of this country were involved in the development of continental power; that local and State politics were destined to interfere with the establishment of any more liberal and extensive plan of government, which the circumstances of the country required, as they had perpetually weakened the bond by which the Union had thus far been held together; and that such local influences would make these States the sport of European policy. He predicted, moreover, that the country would reach, if it reached at all, some system of sufficient capabilities, only through mistakes and disasters, and through an experience purchased at the price of further difficulties and distress. Such were his general views, at the close of the war.1 But there was one man in the country who had looked more deeply still into its wants, and who 1 Letter to Hamilton, March 31, 1783. Writings, VIII. 409. Letter to Lafayette, April 5, 1783. Ibid. 411. Address to the States, |