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

kind of central clearing-house for national needs, giving to it
only the duties of declaring war and peace, managing ambassadors,
making treaties, establishing prize courts, managing the post-office,
and commanding such land and naval forces as might at any time be
necessary. Regardless of the expanding laws of growth, they thought
the central authority could be confined to these stated activities.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF A COPY OF THE ARTICLES OF
CONFEDERATION. This copy was printed in 1777, the year the
articles were proposed by the Continental Congress to the several
States to be ratified.]
Compared with the present National Government, which a different

plan and a liberal interpretation for a 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.