History of the United States Constitution. George Ticknor Curtis

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      CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      January, 1784-May, 1787.

      Duties and Necessities of Congress.—Requisitions on the States.—Revenue System of 1783.

      The period which now claims our attention is that extending from the Peace of 1783 to the calling of the Convention which framed the Constitution, in 1787. It was a period full of dangers and difficulties. The destinies of the Union seemed to be left to all the hazards arising from a defective government and the illiberal and contracted policy of its members. Patriotism was generally thought to consist in adhesion to State interests, and a reluctance to intrust power to the organs of the nation. The national obligations were therefore disregarded; treaty stipulations remained unfulfilled; the great duty of justice failed to be discharged; rebellion raised a dangerous and nearly successful front; and the commerce of the country was exposed to the injurious policy of other nations, with no means of counteracting or escaping from its effects. At length, the people of the United States began to see danger after they had felt it, and the growth of sounder views and higher principles of public conduct gave to the friends of order, public faith, and national security a controlling influence in the country, and enabled the men, who had won for it the blessings of liberty, to establish for it a durable and sufficient government.

      Four years only elapsed, between the return of peace and the downfall of a government which had been framed with the hope and promise of perpetual duration;—an interval of time no longer than that during which the people of the United States are now accustomed to witness a change of their rulers, without injury to any principle or any form of their institutions. But this brief interval was full of suffering and peril. There are scarcely any evils or dangers, of a political nature, and springing from political and social causes, to which a free people can be exposed, which the people of the United States did not experience during this period. That these evils and dangers did not precipitate the country into civil war, and that the great undertaking of forming a new and constitutional government, by delegates of the people, could be entered upon and prosecuted, with the calmness, conciliation, and concession essential to its success, is owing partly to the fact that the country had scarcely recovered from the exhausting effects of the Revolutionary struggle; but mainly to the existence of a body of statesmen, formed during that struggle, and fitted by hard experience to build up the government. But before their efforts and their influences are explained, the period which developed the necessity for their interposition must be described. He who would know what the Constitution of the United States was designed to accomplish, must understand the circumstances out of which it arose.

      On the 3d of November, 1783, a new Congress, according to annual custom, was assembled at Annapolis, and attended by only fifteen members, from seven States. Two great acts awaited the attention of this assembly;—both of an interesting and important character, both of national concern. The one was the resignation of Washington; a solemnity which appealed to every feeling of national gratitude and pride, and which would seem to have demanded whatever of pomp and dignity and power the United States could display. The other was a legislative act, which was to give peace to the country, by the ratification of the Treaty. Several weeks passed on, and yet the attendance was not much increased. Washington's resignation was received, at a public audience of seven States, represented by about twenty delegates;210 and on the same day letters were despatched to the other States, urging them, for the safety, honor, and good faith of the United States, to require the immediate attendance of their members.211 It was not, however, until the 14th of January that the Treaty could be ratified by the constitutional number of nine States; and, when this took place, there were present but three-and-twenty members.212

      It should undoubtedly be considered, that, from the nature and form of the government, the delegates in Congress had in some sense an ambassadorial character, and were assembled as the representatives of sovereign States. But with whatever dignity, real or fictitious, they may be considered as having been clothed, the government itself was one that created a constant tendency to the neglect of its functions, and therefore produced great practical evils. The Articles of Confederation provided that delegates should be annually appointed by the States, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November in every year; and although they also gave to Congress the power of adjournment for a recess, during which the government was to be devolved on a Committee of the States, they fixed no period for the termination of a session. While the war lasted, it had been both customary and necessary for the old Congress, and for its successors under the Confederation, to be perpetually in session; and this practice was continued after the peace, with very short intervals of Committees of the States, partly from habit, and partly in consequence of the reduction of the delegations to the lowest constitutional number. This rendered despatch impossible, by putting it in the power of a few members to withhold from important matters the constitutional concurrence of nine States. Without any reference to population by the Articles of Confederation, not less than two nor more than seven delegates were allowed to each State; and by casting the burden of maintaining its own delegates upon each State, they created a strong motive for preferring the smaller number, and often for not being represented at all. This motive became more active after the peace, when the immediate stimulus of hostilities was withdrawn; and it was at the same time accompanied, in most of the States, by a great jealousy of the powers of Congress, a disinclination to enlarge them, and a prevalent feeling that each State was sufficient unto itself for all the purposes of government.213 The consequence was, that the Congress of the Confederation, from the ratification of the Treaty of Peace to the adoption of the Constitution, although entitled to ninety-one members, was seldom attended by one third of that number; and the state of the representation was sometimes so low, that one eighth of the whole number present could, under the constitutional rule, negative the most important measures.214

      Such was the government which was now called to provide for the payment of at least the interest on the public debts, and to procure the means for its own support; to carry out the Treaty of Peace, and secure to the country its advantages; to complete the cessions of the Western lands, and provide for their settlement and government; to guard the commerce of the country against the hostile policy of other nations; to secure to each State the forms СКАЧАТЬ