Chapter V.

Washington Doubts the Solidity of the Confederation -Correspondence with John Jay on the Subject— Plan of a Convention of all the States to Revise the Federal System-Washington Heads the Virginia Delegation Insurrection in Massachusetts - The Convention- A Federal Constitution Organized— Ratified.

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ROM his quiet retreat at Mount Vernon, Washington, though ostensibly withdrawn from public affairs, was watch

ing with intense solicitude the working together of the several parts in the great political confederacy; anxious to know whether the thirteen distinct States, under the present organization, could form a sufficiently efficient general government. He was daily becoming more and more doubtful of the solidity of the fabric he had assisted to raise. The form of confederation which had bound the States together and met the public exigencies during.

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the Revolution, when there was a pressure of external danger, was daily proving more and more incompetent to the purposes of a national government. Congress had devised a system of credit to provide for the national expenditure and the extinction of the national debts, which amounted to something more than forty millions of dollars. The system experienced neglect from some States and opposition from others; each consulting its local interests and prejudices, instead of the interests and obligations of the whole. In like manner treaty stipulations, which bound the good faith of the whole, were slighted, if not violated by individual States, apparently unconscious that they must each share in the discredit thus brought upon the national name.

In a letter to James Warren, who had formerly been president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Washington writes: "The confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance, and Congress a nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended to. To me it is a solecism in politics; indeed it is one of the most extra ordinary things in nature, that we should confederate as a nation, and yet be afraid to give the rulers of that nation (who are creatures of our own making, appointed for a limited and

short duration, and who are amenable for every action, and may be recalled at any moment, and are subject to all the evils which they may be instrumental in producing) sufficient powers to order and direct the affairs of the same. By such policy as this the wheels of government are clogged, and our brightest prospects, and that high expectation which was entertained of us by the wondering world, are turned into astonishment; and from the high ground on which we stood, we are descending into the vale of confusion and darkness."*

Not long previous to the writing of this letter, Washington had been visited at Mount Vernon by commissioners, who had been appointed by the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland to form a compact relative to the navigation of the rivers Potomac and Pocomoke, and of part of the Chesapeake Bay, and who had met at Alexandria for the purpose. During their visit at Mount Vernon, the policy of maintaining a naval force on the Chesapeake, and of establishing a tariff of duties on imports to which the laws of both States should conform, was discussed, and it was agreed that the commissioners should propose to the governments of their respective States the appointment of other commissioners, with powers to * Sparks, ix., 139.

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make conjoint arrangements for the above purposes; to which the assent of Congress was to be solicited.

The idea of conjoint arrangements between States, thus suggested in the quiet councils of Mount Vernon, was a step in the right direction, and will be found to lead to important results.

From a letter, written two or three months subsequently, we gather some of the ideas on national policy which were occupying Washington's mind. "I have ever been a friend to adequate powers in Congress, without which it is evident to me, we never shall establish a national character, or be considered as on a respectable footing by the powers of Europe.We are either a united people under one head and for federal purposes, or we are thirteen independent sovereignties, eternally counteracting each other.-If the former, whatever such a majority of the States as the constitution points out, conceives to be for the benefit of the whole, should in my humble opinion, be submitted to by the minority.—I can foresee no evil greater than disunion; than those unreasonable jealousies (I say unreasonable because I would have a proper jealousy always awake, and the United States on the watch to prevent individual States from infracting the

constitution with impunity) which are continually poisoning our minds and filling them with imaginary evils for the prevention of real ones."'*

An earnest correspondence took place some months subsequently between Washington and the illustrious patriot, John Jay, at that time Secretary of Foreign Affairs, wherein the signs of the times were feelingly discussed.

Our affairs," writes Jay, seem to lead to some crisis, something that I cannot foresee or conjecture. I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war. Then we had a fixed object, and though the means and time of obtaining it were problematical, yet I did firmly believe that we should ultimately succeed, because I did firmly believe that justice was with us. The case is now altered. We are going and doing wrong, and therefore I look forward to evils and calamities, but without being able to guess at the instrument, nature, or measure of them. What I most fear is, that the better kind of people, by which I mean the people who are orderly and industrious, who are content with their situations, and not uneasy in their circumstances, will be led by the insecurity of property, the loss of public faith and rectitude, to consider * See Letter to James McHenry. Sparks, ix., 121.