Washington to bring it to a close, against all obstacles and all defects of the civil power. When the war was at length ended, and the duty of paying the debts thus incurred to the meritorious and generous foreign creditor, and the more than meritorious and generous domestic creditor, pressed upon the conscience of the country, we have seen that there was no power in the Union to command the means of paying even the interest on its obligations. We have seen that the treaty of peace could not be executed; that the Confederation could do nothing to secure the republican governments of the States; that the commerce of the country could not be protected against the policy of foreign governments, constantly watching for advantages which the clashing interests of the different States at all times held out to them; and that, with the rule which required the assent of nine States to every important measure, it was possible for the Congress to refuse or neglect to do what it was of the last importance to the people of the United States they should do. Finally, we have seen that what now kept the existing Union from dissolution, as it had been one immediate inducement to its formation, was the cession of the vast Northwestern territory to the United States; and that over this territory new States were forming, to take their places in the band of American republics, while the Confederation possessed no sufficient power to legislate for their condition, or to secure their progress toward the great ends of civil liberty and prosperity. A retrospection, therefore, of the previous history of the Confederacy, while it reveals to us the public appreciation of the national wants and the national failures, displays the general purposes contemplated by the States when they undertook effectually to provide for the exigencies of the Union." But what the nature of the proposed changes was to be, and in what mode they were to be reached, was, as we have seen, left undetermined by the constituent States when they assembled the Convention; and we are now, therefore, brought to the third preliminary fact, necessary to be regarded in our future inquiries, namely, the condition of the actual powers of that assembly. The Confederation has already been described as a league, or federal alliance between independent and sovereign States, for certain purposes of mutual aid. So far as it could properly be called a government, it was a government for the States in their corporate capacities, with no power to reach individuals; so that, if its requirements were disregarded, compulsion could only be directed-if against anybody against the delinquent member of the association, the State itself. At the time when the Convention was assembled, the general purpose entertained throughout the Union appears to have been, by a revision and amendment of the Articles of Confederation, to give to the Congress power over certain subjects, of which that instrument did not admit of its taking cognizance, and to add such provisions as would render its power efficient. But it was not at all understood by the country at large, that, while the nominal powers of the Confederation might be increased at the pleasure of the States, those powers could not be made effectual without a change in the principle of the government. Hence, the idea of abolishing the Confederation, and of erecting in its place a government of a totally different character, was not entertained by the States, or, if entertained at all, was not expressed in the public acts of the States by which the Convention was called. This idea, however, was perhaps not necessarily excluded" by the terms employed by the States in the instruction of their delegates; and we may therefore expect to find the members of that assembly, in construing or defining the powers conferred upon it, taking a broader or narrower view of those powers, according to the character of their own minds, the nature of their previous public experience, and the real or supposed interests of their particular States. Many of the persons who had been clothed with this somewhat vague and indeterminate authority to "revise" the existing federal system, and to agree upon and propose such amendments and further provisions as might effectually provide for the "exigencies of the Union," were statesmen who had passed the active period of their previous lives in vain endeavors to secure efficient action for the pow ers possessed by the Congress, both under the revolutionary government and under the Confederation. They were selected by their States on account of this very experience, and in order that their counsels might be made available to the country. They saw that the mere grant of further powers, or the mere consent that the Congress should have jurisdiction over certain new subjects, would be of no avail while the government continued to rest upon the vicious principle of a naked federal league, leaving the question constantly to recur, whether the compact was not virtually dissolved by the refusal of individual States to discharge their federal obligations. These persons, consequently, came to the Convention feeling strongly the necessity for a radical change in the principles and structure of the national Union; but feeling also great embarrassment as to the mode in which that change was to be effected. On the other hand, there were other members of the Convention who came with a disposition to adhere to the more literal meaning of their instructions, and who did not concur in the alleged necessity for a radical change of the principle of the government. Fearing that the power and consequence of their own States would be diminished by the introduction of numbers as a basis of representation, they adhered to the system of representation by States, and insisted that nothing was needed to cure the evils that pressed upon the country, but to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Congress under that system. They were naturally, therefore, the first 1 See the preamble to the act of Virginia, ante, Vol. I. p. 367, note. to suggest and the last to surrender the objection, that the Convention had received no authority, either from the States or from the Congress, to do anything more than revise the Articles of Confederation, and recommend such further powers as might be engrafted upon the present system of the Union. That the construction of their powers by the latter class of the members of the Convention comported with the mere terms of the acts of the States, and with the general expectation, I have more than once intimated; but we shall see, as the experiment of framing the new system proceeded, that the views of the other class were equally correct; that the addition of further powers to the existing system of the Union would have left it as weak and inefficient as it had been before; and that what were universally regarded as the "exigencies of the Union" which was but another name for the wants of the States could only be provided for by the creation of a different basis for the government. - Another fact which we are to remember is the presence, in five of the States represented in the Convention, of large numbers of a distinct race, held in the condition of slaves. Whatever mode of constituting a national system might be adopted, if it was to be a representative government, the existence of these persons must be recognized and provided for in some way. Whatever ratio of representation might be established, - whether the States were to be represented according to the numbers of their |