History of the United States Constitution. George Ticknor Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ principles of a republican government; to extend and secure the relations of the country with foreign powers; and to preserve and perpetuate the Union. By tracing the history of its efforts and its failures with regard to these great objects, we may understand the principal causes which brought about the conviction on the part of the people of the United States, that another and a stronger government must take the place of the Confederation.

      It was ascertained in April, 1784, that a sum exceeding three millions of dollars would be wanted to pay the arrears of interest, and to meet the interest and current expenses of the public service for the year.215 Two sources only could be looked to for this supply. It must either be obtained by requisitions on the States, according to the old rule of the Confederation, or from the new duties and taxes proposed by the revenue system of 1783. But that proposal was still under the consideration of the State legislatures; some of them having as yet acceded to the impost only, and others having decided neither on the impost nor on the supplementary taxes. Some time must therefore elapse before the final confirmation of this system, even if its final confirmation were probable; and, after it should have been confirmed, further time would be requisite to bring it into operation. It was quite clear, therefore, that other measures must be resorted to. Requisitions presented the sole resource. But in what mode were they to be made? The preceding Congress had offered two recommendations to the States on the subject of the rule of the Confederation, which directed that the quotas of the several States should be apportioned according to the value of their lands. The Congress of 1783, in order to give this rule a fair trial, had recommended to the States to make returns of their lands, buildings, and inhabitants;216 but, apprehending that the insufficiency of the rule would immediately show itself, they had followed this recommendation with another, to change the basis of contribution from land to numbers of inhabitants.217 Both of these propositions were still under the consideration of the State legislatures, and four States only had acceded to them.218 A new requisition, therefore, if made at all, must be made under the old rule of the Confederation, and with entirely imperfect means of making it with justice and equality. It was found, however, that large arrears were still due from the States, of the old requisitions made during the war.219 A new call upon them to pay one half of these arrears, deducting therefrom the amount of their payments to the close of the year, would, if complied with, produce a sum nearly sufficient for the wants of the government. This resource was accordingly tried.220

      In the year 1785, three millions, it was ascertained, would be required for the service of the year. A renewed call was made for the remaining unpaid moiety of the old requisition of eight millions, and for the whole of the old requisition of two millions; but, considering that the public faith required Congress to continue their annual demand for money, they issued a new requisition for three millions, and adjusted it according to the best information they could obtain.221

      In the year 1786, a sum of more than three millions was wanted for the current demands on the treasury, and a new requisition was made for it, under the old rule of the Confederation.222 Two of the States, Rhode Island and New Jersey, thereupon passed acts, making their own paper currency receivable on all arrears of taxes due to the United States, and proposing to pay their quotas in such currency.223

      But the entire inadequacy of this source of supply to maintain the federal government, and to discharge the annual public engagements, had now become but too apparent. From the 1st of November, 1781, to the 1st of January, 1786, less than two and a half millions of dollars had been received from requisitions made during that period, amounting to more than ten millions.224 For the last fourteen months of that interval, the average receipts from requisitions amounted to less than four hundred thousand dollars per annum, while the interest alone due on the foreign debt was more than half a million; and, in the course of each of the nine following years, the average sum of one million, annually, would become due by instalments on the principal of that debt.225 In addition to this, the interest on the domestic debt; the security of the navigation and commerce of the country against the Barbary powers; the immediate protection of the people dwelling on the frontier from the savages; the establishment of military magazines in different parts of the Union, quite indispensable to the public safety; the maintenance of the federal government at home, and the support of the public servants abroad,—each and all depended upon the contribution of the States under the annual requisitions, and were each and all likely to be involved in a common failure and ruin.226

      There can be no doubt that the continuance of the practice of making requisitions, after the proposal of the revenue system of 1783, had some tendency to prevent the adoption of that system by the States. But there was no other alternative within the constitutional reach of Congress; and in the mean time, the revenue system, submitted as it necessarily was to the legislatures of thirteen different States, was, as far as it was assented to, embarrassed with the most discordant and irreconcilable provisions. It was ascertained in February, 1786, that seven of the States had granted the impost part of the system, in such a manner, that, if the other six States had made similar grants, the plan of the general impost might have been immediately put into operation.227 Two of the other States had also granted the impost, but had embarrassed their grants with provisos, which suspended their operation until all the other States should have passed laws in full conformity with the whole system.228 Two other States had fully acceded to the system in all its parts;229 but four others had not decided in favor of any part of it.230

      No member of the Confederacy had, at this time, suggested to Congress any reasonable objection to the principles of the system; and the contradictory provisions by which their assent to it had been clogged, present a striking proof of the inherent difficulties of obtaining any important constitutional change from the legislatures of the States. The government was founded upon a principle, by which all its powers were derived from the States in their corporate capacities; in other words, it was a government created by, and deriving its authority from, the governments of the States. They alone could change the fundamental law of its organization; and they were actuated by such motives and jealousies, as rendered a unanimous assent to any change a great improbability. Still, the Congress of 1786 hoped that, by a clear and explicit declaration of the true position of the country, the requisite compliance of the States might be obtained. They accordingly made known, in the most solemn manner, the public embarrassments, and declared that the crisis had arrived, when the people of the United States must decide whether they were to continue to 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, they would hazard the existence of the Union, and the great national privileges which they had fought to obtain.231

      Under the influence of this urgent representation, all the States, except New York, passed acts granting the impost, and vesting the power to collect it in Congress, pursuant to the recommendations of 1783, but upon the condition that it should not be in force until all the States had granted it in the same manner. The State of New York passed an act232, reserving to itself the sole power of levying and collecting the impost; making the collectors amenable to and removable by the State, and not by Congress; and making the duties receivable in specie or bills of credit, at the option of the importer. Such a departure from the plan suggested by Congress, and adopted by the other States, of course made the whole system inoperative in the other States, and there remained no possibility of procuring its adoption, but by inducing the State of New York to reconsider its determination. All hope of meeting the public engagements, and of carrying on the government, now turned upon the action of a single State.

      The principal argument made use of, by those who supported the conduct of New York, was, that Congress, being a single body, might misapply the money arising from the duties. An answer to this pretence, from the pen of Hamilton, declared that the interests and liberties of the people were not less safe in the hands of those whom they had delegated to represent them for one year in Congress, than they were in the hands of those whom they had delegated to represent them for one or four years in the legislature of the State; that all government implies trust, and that every government must be trusted so far as it is necessary to enable it to attain the ends for which it is instituted, without which insult and oppression from abroad, and confusion and convulsion at home, must ensue233. The real motive, however, with those СКАЧАТЬ