then, by "the great and radical vice," is, that a league was a form of government inadequate to the changed conditions of the new states. He enumerates its defects as follows: 1. The total want of a sanction, i. e. penalty, to its laws; whereby it resulted, that the United States had no power to exact obedience or punish disobedience to their resolutions, either by pecuniary mulcts, by a suspension or divestiture of privileges, or by any other constitutional means. There was no express delegation of authority to them to use force against delinquent members. 2. 2. The want of a mutual guaranty of the state governments; without which they were bereft of assistance in repelling domestic dangers. 3. The principle of regulating the contributions of the states to the common treasury and to the army by quotas; whereby glaring inequality and extreme oppression ensued, the system of quotas and requisitions, whether applied to men or money, being a system of imbecility and of inequality and injustice. 4. The want of a power to regulate commerce; which operated as a bar to the formation of beneficial treaties with foreign powers, and gave occasions of dissatisfaction between the states. The interfering regulations of some of the states; which caused umbrage and complaint to others. 6. The right of casting the vote of a delegation regardless of its numerical proportion to the others; whereby every idea of proportion, and every rule of fair representation, was condemned; contradiction given to the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail, and opportunity afforded to foreign corruption as well 1 The Federalist, XXI, XXII.

5.

LACK OF POWERS.

103

as to domestic faction. 7. The want of a judiciary power; to avoid the confusion which unavoidably results from the contradictory decisions of a number of independent judicatories, and this is the more necessary where the frame of government is so compounded, that the laws of the whole are in danger of being contravened by the laws of the parts. 8. The organization of Congress in a single assembly; being itself inadequate for the exercise of those powers which are necessary to be deposited in the union. 9. That the Articles of Confederation never had a ratification by the people, but had rested on no better foundation than the consent of the legislatures. Owing its ratification to the law of a state, it had been contended that the same authority might repeal the law by which it had been ratified. However gross a heresy it may be to maintain, that a party to a compact has a right to revoke that compact, the doctrine itself has had respectable advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature, proved the necessity of laying the foundations of our national government deeper than in the mere sanction of delegated authority.1

1 See also Madison's specification of “the vices of the Political system of the United States," still further enlarged upon and in greater detail than Hamilton's enumeration. Works, vol. i, p. 320: and see Edmund Randolph's exposition of the weakness and lack of powers of the Confederation, in convention. Elliot's Deb. i.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSTITUTION.

The Constitution a necessity It guarantees the integrity of the state governments Its inherent conservatism - In it the sentiment of union has become a dominating political force - The Constitution terminates the Revolution and hands down its gains - Federation and popular representation - Apportionment of taxation and representation; a compromise between the North and the South - The guaranty of a republican form of government.

THE coercive pressure which had bound the new states together, ceased with the cessation of hostilities, and the general distress and confusion which ensued, compelled them to betake themselves to the repulsive task of creating a power strong enough to enforce respect without and to maintain order within. In the absence of apposite examples 1 nothing could be predicted of such a power. They approached this task, then, with fear and trembling, and if there was one sentiment common to them all, it was, that their ancient independence of each other should not be compromised by undue contributions of rights and franchises or by undue contributions of men and material.2 One thing, however, stared them in the face; the necessity of cre

1 See review of historical illustrations: The Federalist, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX.

2" Why should we do more in proportion than those who are embarked with us in the same political voyage? Why should we consent to bear more than our proper share of the common burthen?" The Federalist, XV.

DEMAND FOR COMMON SOVEREIGNTY. 105

ating a substitute for the late imperial government, for, under the Articles of Confederation, they had no common head, no common army, no common judiciary, and, at last, no common credit.1 Were it merely to evoke and maintain internal order, the work could be performed by supplying the now known defects of the Articles, but it was clear, that a union of thirteen states required something more than provisions for domestic tranquillity. Such a combination could not exist without taking upon itself the character of a national power, for it was a mere question of time when the federation would be regarded by the world as one of the great powers. Already its advent had involved treaties of alliance and of commerce, and it was impossible to ignore the fact, that the act of independence, by inducing recognition of the combined powers of the colonies, had thrown upon it also the responsibilities inhering in any member of the family of nations. But, to maintain such a character, required the exercise of sovereignty, and it was necessary, therefore, to invest the new government with sovereign powers.2 How uncongenial the creation of

...

1 "We may indeed, with propriety, be said to have reached almost the last stage of national humiliation. . . . We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor government. . . . We seem to have abandoned its cause [that of public credit] as desperate and irretrievable. . . . That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending [private credit], is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from a scarcity of money." The Federalist, XV (Hamilton), which see for description of the country's condition in 1787.

2 "The ground-work being laid, the great objects which presented themselves were: 1. To unite a proper energy in the Executive, and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government. 2. To draw a line of demarcation which would give to the General Government every power requi

a new power was to men fresh from the subversion of the old, and how repugnant the substitution of the unknown and untried for the known and tried, must be left to the imagination. We have seen, that, when the first congresses came together, there was nothing in the credentials of the delegates or in their action, that betrayed a suggestion even of the colonies creating a new and strange government. Later on, when, in the rapid course of events, independence assumed portentous form, and actually declared itself, there is still nothing to indicate that the formation of a great power had entered the minds of the colonists. It is safe to say, that, when the colonies resorted to arms, no colony regarded the combination with its fellows as committing it in any sense to further conjunction after the troubles were over; redress of grievances was the only object sought. The combination, forced upon the new states by outside pressure, was of the barest prudential nature, and was merely a war measure. As the need of concert of action became more and more apparent, it dawned upon the public mind, that, should the independence lately declared ever be established, some sort of combination might site for general purposes and leave to the states every power which might be most beneficially administered by them. 3. To provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union. 4. To adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States. . . . The due partition of power between the General and local Governments, was perhaps, of all the most nice and difficult. A few contended for an entire abolition of the States; some for indefinite power of Legislation in the Congress, with a negative on the laws of the States; some for such a power without a negative; some, for a limited power of legislation, with such a negative; the majority, finally, for a limited power, without the negative. The question with regard to the negative, underwent repeated discussions, and was finally rejected by a bare majority." Madison to Jefferson, Oct. 24, 1787.