and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same.

"Though your commissioners could not with propriety address these observations and sentiments to any but the states they have the honour to represent, they have nevertheless concluded, from motives of respect, to transmit copies of this report to the United States in congress assembled, and to the executives of the other States."

The terms of this address were cautiously selected, so as to be in strict accordance with the thirteenth article of the confederation, while the latitude with which the object of the proposed convention is expressed, indicates Hamilton's determined purpose to establish a well-organized National Government.

CHAPTER XLIII.

IT has been seen that the conferring on congress the power of levying a national impost, was the great dividing question on which the two parties that existed in America were arrayed. By the friends of a general and enlarged policy, or, as they were then styled, of "continental politics," this measure was regarded as one involving the fate of the country, for without such a power it was obvious that the confederation, feeble and inadequate as it had proved, could not be longer preserved. Its opponents were those who had coalesced, either from disappointment in not having acquired an influence in the general councils, from a desire to retain powers in the states that might be wielded for the gratification of their ambition, from an undefined or pretended apprehension of the dangers to their liberties which might result from so large a confidence as the control of the national funds, and in certain states from a calculation of the partial benefits to be derived from peculiar circumstances of more extensive territory, favourable position, and natural advantages. These lent themselves to the most absurd suspicions, deprecated any advance towards this great object as an approach to a gulf in which every vestige of liberty would be merged, and appealing to each narrow passion, the offspring of inconsiderateness, ignorance, or pride, gratified their vanity, and increased their influence, by being esteemed the zealous watchmen of liberty, and especial guardians of state rights. This party was the proper growth of the articles of confederation.

It had acquired a complete ascendency throughout the country, thus affording another proof that false principles, while they hasten decay in the system into which they enter, give a noxious vitality to the parasitic plants which flourish in the progress of its corruption.

That ascendency was inconsistent with the preservation of the Union; nor should we know from its effects at this time that the Union existed, but that the pageantry of a congress was still kept up. The members chosen to meet in November, seventeen hundred and eighty-five, did not assemble until February, seventeen hundred and eighty-six. Their first deliberations related to the finances. The report of a committee showed that the requisitions for the four preceding years a little exceeded seven millions of dollars; that the total receipts were rather more than onethird of this sum, of which less than one-tenth had been collected within the last fourteen months; that the means for discharging the interest on the foreign debt would have been inadequate, but for the unappropriated residue of the Dutch loan; that further loans could not be obtained; that the emission of bills of credit was hopeless; that the only remaining resource was the public lands-but public securities being receivable for them, they could only aid in reducing the public debt; and that, after the maturest consideration, they were unable to devise any other than the revenue system of seventeen hundred and eighty-three. It then proceeded to state, that seven states had complied with it in part; that Pennsylvania and Delaware had only granted it provisionally, and that Rhode Island, New-York. Maryland, and Georgia, had not decided in favour of any part of a system "so long since and so repeatedly presented for their adoption." It closed with the following impressive appeal:-"The committee observe with great concern that the security of the navigation and commerce of the citizens of these states from the Barbary powers; the pro

tection of the frontier inhabitants from the savages; the immediate establishment of military magazines in different parts of the union, rendered indispensable by the principles of public safety; the maintenance of the federal government at home, and the support of the public servants abroad;-each and all depend upon the contributions of the states under the annual requisitions of congress. The moneys essentially necessary for these important objects will so far exceed the sums formerly collected from the states by taxes, that no hope can be indulged of being able from that source to make any remittances for the discharge of foreign engagements.

"Thus circumstanced, after the most solemn deliberation, and under the fullest conviction that the public embarrassments are such as above represented, and that they are daily increasing, the committee are of opinion that it has become the duty of congress to declare most explicitly that the crisis has arrived when the people of these United States, by whose will and for whose benefit the federal government was instituted, must decide whether they will support their rank as a nation by maintaining the public faith at home and abroad, or whether, for want of timely exertion in establishing a general revenue, and thereby giving strength to the confederacy, they will hazard, not only the existence of the union, but of those great and invaluable privileges for which they have so arduously and so honourably contended."

This strong language was followed by resolutions, in which, to efface the erroneous impressions produced by Jefferson's scheme of counterbalancing deficiencies, and "in order that congress may remain wholly acquitted from every imputation of a want of attention to the interests and welfare of those whom they represent," they declareFirst, that the requisitions of seventeen hundred and eighty-four and eighty-five, cannot be considered as the

establishment of a system of general revenue in opposition to that recommended in seventeen hundred and eightythree; second, they recommend to the delinquent states an accession to that system in all its parts; and last, proclaim, that whilst congress are denied the means of satisfying those engagements which they have constitutionally entered into for the common benefit of the union, they hold it their duty to warn their constituents that the most fatal evils will inevitably flow from a breach of public faith pledged by solemn contract, and a violation of those principles of justice which are the only solid basis of the honour and prosperity of nations."*

Although Pennsylvania and Delaware had not complied strictly with the system of seventeen hundred and eightythree, it became apparent that the non-concurrence of New-York was the only serious obstacle to its establishment. Under these circumstances, the public attention in that state was wholly devoted to this subject.

A strong memorial to the legislature from the pen of Hamilton was widely circulated. It stated, "that the community had seen with peculiar regret the delay which had hitherto attended the adoption of the revenue system; that the anxiety which they had all along felt from motives of a more general nature, is at the present juncture increased by this particular consideration, that the state of New-York now stands almost alone, in a non-compliance with a measure in which the sentiments and wishes of the union at large appear to unite, and by a further delay may render itself responsible for consequences too serious not to affect every considerate man; that all the considerations important to a state, all the motives of public honour, faith, reputation, interest, and safety, conspire to urge a compli

* R. King was chairman of this committee, and it is to be presumed was the author of this important document.