Convinced, at length, that no temporary expedi ents would meet the wants of the country, and that a radical reform of its constitution could alone preserve the Union from dissolution, Hamilton surveyed the Confederation in all its parts, and determined to lay before the country its deep defects, with a view to the establishment of a government with proper departments and adequate powers. In this examination, he applied to the Confederation the approved maxims of free government, which had been made famil

be willing to take arms before they should be provoked by some actual outrage; that it would hazard the authority of government to make the attempt; and that it would be necessary to let the soldiers come into the city, if the officers who had gone out to meet them could not stop them. The next day the soldiers arrived in the city, led by their sergeants, and professing to have no other object than to obtain a settlement of accounts, which they supposed they had a better chance for at Philadelphia than at Lancaster. On the 21st, they were drawn up in the street before the State-House, where Congress were assembled. The Executive Council of the State, sitting under the same roof, was called on for the proper interposition. The President of the State (Dickinson) came in and explained the difficulty of bringing out the militia of the place for the suppression of the mutiny. He thought that, without some outrages on persons or property, the militia

could not be relied on. General St. Clair, then in Philadelphia, was sent for, and desired to use his interposition, in order to prevail on the troops to return to the barracks. But his report gave no encouragement. In this posture of things, it was proposed by Mr. Izard that Congress should adjourn. Colonel Hamilton proposed that General St. Clair, in concert with the Executive Council of the State, should take order for terminating the mutiny. Mr. Reed moved that the General should endeavor to withdraw the mutineers, by assuring them of the disposition of Congress to do them justice. Nothing, however, was done. The soldiers remained in their position, occasionally uttering offensive words and pointing their muskets at the windows of the hall of Congress. At the usual hour of adjournment the members went out, without obstruction; and the soldiers retired to their barracks. In the evening Congress reassembled, and appoint

iar in the formation of the State constitutions, and which point to the distinct separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The Confederation vested all these powers in a single body, and thus violated the principles on which the government of nearly every State in the Union was founded. It had no federal judicature, to take cognizance of matters of general concern, and especially of those in which foreign nations and their subjects were concerned; and thus national treaties, the national faith, and the public tranquillity were exposed to the conflict of local regulations against the powers vested in the Union. It gave to Congress the power of ascertaining and appropriating the sums necessary for the public expenses, but withheld all control over either the imposition or collection of the taxes by which they were to be raised, and thus made the inclinations, not the abilities, of the respective States, the criterion of their contributions to the common expenses of the Union. It authorized Congress to borrow money, or emit bills, on the credit of the United States, without the power of providing funds to secure the repayment of the money, or the redemption of the bills emitted.

ed a committee to confer anew with the executive of the State. This conference produced nothing but a repetition of the doubts concerning the disposition of the militia to act, unless some actual outrage were offered to persons or property, the insult to Congress not being deemed a sufficient provocation. On the

24th, the efforts of the State authority being despaired of, Congress were summoned by the President to meet at Trenton." (E)liot's Debates, I. 92-94.) The mutiny was afterwards suppressed by marching troops into Pennsylvania under Major-General Howe. (Journals, VIII. 281.)

It made no proper or competent provision for interior or exterior defence; for interior defence, because it allowed the individual States to appoint all regimental officers of the land forces, and to raise the men in their own way, while at the same time an ambiguity rendered it uncertain whether the defence of the country in time of peace was not left to the particular States, both by sea and land; - for exterior defence, because it authorized Congress to build and equip a navy, without providing any compulsory means of manning it.

It failed to vest in the United States a general superintendence of trade, equally necessary both with a view to revenue and regulation.

It required the assent of nine States in Congress to matters of principal importance, and of seven to all others except adjournments from day to day, and thus subjected the sense of a majority of the people of the United States to that of a minority, by putting it in the power of a small combination to defeat the most necessary measures.

Finally, it vested in the federal government the sole direction of the interests of the United States in their intercourse with foreign nations, without empowering it to pass all general laws in aid and support of the laws of nations; thus exposing the faith, reputation, and peace of the country to the irregular action of the particular States.1

Having thus fully analyzed for himself the nature

1 Life of Hamilton, II. 230–237.

of the existing constitution, Hamilton proposed to himself the undertaking of inducing Congress freely and frankly to inform the country of its imperfections, which made it impossible to conduct the public affairs with honor to themselves and advantage to the Union; and to recommend to the several States to appoint a convention, with full powers to revise the Confederation, and to adopt and pro pose such alterations as might appear to be neces sary, which should be finally approved or rejected by the States.1

But he was surrounded by men, who were not equal to the great enterprise of guiding and enlightening public sentiment. He was in advance of the time, and far in advance of the men of the time. He experienced the fate of all statesmen, in the like position, whose ideas have had to wait the slow development of events, to bring them to the popular comprehension and assent. He saw that his plans could not be adopted; and he passed out of Congress to the pursuits of private life, recording upon them his conviction, that their public proposal would have failed for want of support.2

There was in fact a manifest indisposition in Congress to propose any considerable change in the principle of the government. Hence, nothing but the revenue system, with a change in the rule by which a partition of the common burdens was to be made, was publicly proposed. Although this system was a

1 Life of Hamilton, II. 230-237.

2 Ibid

great improvement upon that of the Confederation, it related simply to revenue, in regard to which it proposed a reform, not of the principle of the government, but of the mode of operation of the old system; for it embraced only a specific pledge by the States of certain duties for a limited term, and not a grant of the unlimited power of levying duties at pleasure. There was confessedly a departure from the strict maxims of national credit, by not making the revenue coextensive with its object, and by not placing its collection in every respect under the authority charged with the management and payment of the debt which it was designed to meet.1

These relaxations were a sacrifice to the jealousies of the States; and they show that the time had not come for a change from a mere federative union to a constitutional government, founded on the popular will, and therefore acting by an energy and volition of its own.

The temper of the time was wholly unfavorable to such a change. The early enthusiasm with which the nation had rushed into the conflict with Eng land, guided by a common impulse and animated by a national spirit, had given place to calculations of local interest and advantage; and the principle of the Confederation was tenaciously adhered to, while the events which accompanied and followed the peace were rapidly displaying its radical incapacity. The

1 See the Address to the States, accompanying the proposed revenue system, April 26, 1733, from

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the pen of Mr. Madison. Journals, VIII. 194-201.