The United States of America, part 1 (1783-1830) | Page 7

century have conspired to bring about, the Articles of Confederation presented some strange anomalies of administration. The Federal Government could declare war, but could not enlist soldiers. It could only call upon each State to furnish its proportion. If, as was likely to happen, any particular portion of the country was threatened by an enemy, Congress might call for an extra number of soldiers; but the State Legislature might judge how many could safely be spared from the service of the State. The National Government could not even appoint its own officers below the rank of colonel. It could make peace, but, in order to secure a successful end to a war, it could not collect a dollar for expense, except as each State graciously consented to pay its share. It could make a treaty with another sovereign, but could not compel its own subjects to obey the terms of the treaty. It could send an ambassador to a foreign Court, but had to turn to the States for money to pay his salary. It could regulate prizes and subdue piracies on the high seas, but had no control over goods entering its own ports. At the close of the war, it could gratefully vote a monument to General Washington to be erected at the seat of government, but could not secure enough money to erect it.
The National Government under the Articles of Confederation could destroy the commerce of an enemy, but could not retaliate upon the products of an unfriendly rival in time of peace. It could regulate the alloy and value of coins, but could not keep a State from issuing waggon-loads of paper money, destined to depreciate and to disturb its own finances. It could make laws within certain limits but could not enforce the least of its decrees. It pledged its faith to discharge all debts contracted by the Continental Congress, but it could not collect a sixpence with which to do it. The States entering the agreement promised to refrain from inter-alliances and foreign treaties, from making war except against Indians or pirates, and from keeping standing armies or vessels of war; yet if a State broke one of these stipulations, no provision was made for punishing it. Although any State could levy impost duties on goods coming into it from another State the same as from a foreign country, thereby engendering endless dispute, the Central Government had no court or other means of settling such contentions or of getting redress for individuals.
With such false conceptions of the relations between individualism and unionism, with a national frame foredoomed to failure, with the distracting situations of the war still upon them, the people of the United States attempted in 1783 to take that stand among the nations which they declared God had given them. At once they came into contact with the habits and precedents of old and well-established governments. Diplomacy is not a game for amateurs. Fortunately a decade was to elapse before a European crisis would call attention to the new-comer as a possible pawn in the game. Their first introduction in the character of solicitors for aid had not been auspicious. The process of securing this aid had gained for them a treaty with France and indirectly with Holland; but Spain, more suspicious of the new nation because of the proximity of her Floridas and Louisiana to them, still dallied with their advances. England, compelled to make a treaty to close the war, refused to do more. Sweden, Prussia, and Morocco were of insufficient maritime importance to make the treaties with them a cause for rejoicing.
Admission to full membership and to an equal share in trade did not follow necessarily from these first greetings. They could be gained only by proof of fitness and even compulsion. The applicant must make a place for himself. Sentiment plays no part in the rivalry of nations. Self-preservation is the prime law.
John Adams, conscious of his prominent part in the rebellion, militant in his ideas of republicanism, elbowed his way into the Court of St. James as the first representative of the former British possessions. He was distressed, as he wrote to Livingston, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, at being obliged to consume the labour of his fellow-citizens upon the foolish ostentation of a Court presentation. Anxious concerning the reception which he would meet from representatives of other nations, he was relieved to find that custom required them to call first upon a new-comer. "We shall now see," he wrote, "who will and who will not."
As a whole, his reception by both Court and diplomatic corps was satisfactory, especially the courtesies shown him by the King. But he was chagrined to find what a small impression the birth of his country had made on British memory and British