test against any jurisdiction or right of adjudication in congress upon the petitions of the Vandalia or Indiana companies, or on any other matter or thing subversive of the internal policy, civil government, or sovereignty of this or any other of the United American States, or unwarranted by the articles of confederation." Congress, on mature consideration, declined the discussion of the remonstrance. To counterbalance the sturdy resistance of Virginia, the legislature of New York took the field. They founded claims to western territory on the discoveries and the capitulation of the Dutch, on the grant from Charles II. to the duke of York, and on the acquisition of the rights of the Five Nations and their tributaries as the native proprietors. Desirous to accelerate the federal alliance, on the nineteenth of April 1780 they authorized congress to restrict their boundaries on the west. This is the first important act of the states in surrendering public lands to the federal union. At the opening of the year 1780 congress found itself helpless, and threw everything upon the states. In truth, it could do nothing else. On the ninth of February it fixed the number of men necessary for the service of the year at over thirty-five thousand two hundred and eleven, and required the states to furnish by drafts or otherwise, before the first day of the coming April, the respective deficiencies in their quotas, which were prescribed with exactness. To subsist the troops, congress called on the several states to furnish their respective quotas of supplies for the ensuing season, thus shoving off from itself all care for recruiting the army and all responsibility for its support. To gain money, it directed the states to bring into the continental treasury, by taxes or otherwise, one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars every month to the month of April 1781, inclusive, in hard money or with forty dollars in the old bills for one dollar of the tax. The bills that should be thus brought in were to be destroyed; and, for every forty dollars actually cancelled, two dollars were permitted of a new issue, bearing five per cent interest, receivable by the continental treasury as specie, and redeemable in specie by the several states on or before the last day of December 1786. As fast as the new bills should be signed and emitted, the states respectively on whose funds they were to be issued were to receive three fifths of them; the remaining two fifths were to be subject to the order of the United States, and to be duly credited to the several states. All laws on legal tender were to be adapted to the new system. The elaborate plan was generally well received, though by a mere vote it sponged out thirtynine fortieths of the former currency. As the bills were to be issued in the names of the several states, the plan could not go into effect till each one of them should give authority for the use of its name. Meantime, the demands on the confederacy were in part answered by warrants on the several states, and to discharge these warrants the states used the taxes collected for the continental treasury. Pennsylvania was the first state that had the opportunity to accept the measure, and it adjourned without acting upon it. The legislature of Virginia rejected it by an overwhelming majority, and at last, after great persuasion, accepted it by a majority of but two. The old currency soon ceased to circulate; the new emission wanted credit from the beginning. A cry arose, especially in the army, for an efficient government. "While the powers of congress," wrote Greene, “are so incompetent, our affairs will grow worse and worse until ruin overtakes us." In the army, which had been unpaid for five months, every department was without money and without the shadow of credit. To relieve this gloomy state of things, congress, on the tenth of April 1780, promised to make good to the officers and line the depreciation in their pay; but the promise was little worth. For a long time the troops received. only from one half to one eighth of a ration of meat, and were several days without a single pound of it. Washington appealed to Reed, the president of the rich state of Pennsylvania, which, except for a few months in 1777 and 1778, had been untouched by the war; but it was in vain. "The great man," wrote Greene secretly to the president of Pennsylvania, "is confounded at his situation, but appears to be reserved and silent. Should there be a want of provisions, we cannot hold together many days in the present temper of the army." On the twenty-fifth of May two regiments of Connecticut, worn out by want of clothes and food and pay, paraded under arms, VOL. V.-30 declaring their resolution to return home, or to obtain subsistence for themselves; and they were brought back to their duty only by being reminded that they were defenders of the rights of mankind, and, as a grave writer who was then with the army relates, by the "influence of the commander-in-chief, whom they almost adored." The enemy appeared against them in the midst of these trials; and they rallied as one man and kept him at bay. "Certain I am," wrote Washington, in May, to his friend Joseph Jones of King George, a delegate in congress from Virginia, "unless congress are vested by the several states with powers competent to the great purposes of war, or assume them as matter of right, and they and the states respectively act with more energy than they have hitherto done, our cause is lost. By ill-timing in the adoption of measures, by delays in the execution of them, or by unwarrantable jealousies, we incur enormous expenses and derive no benefit from them. One state will comply with a requisition of congress; another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up-hill. While the present want of system prevails we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage. "This, my dear sir, is plain language to a member of congress, but is the result of long thinking, close application, and strict observation. I see one head gradually changing into thirteen. I see one army branching into thirteen, which, instead of looking up to congress as the supreme controlling power of the United States, are considering themselves as dependent on their respective states. In a word, I see the powers of congress declining too fast for the consideration and respect which are due to them as the great representative body of America, and I am fearful of the consequences." "Congress," answered his correspondent, "have scarcely a power left but such as concerns foreign transactions; for, as to the army, they are at present little more than the medium through which its wants are conveyed to the states. This body never had, or at least in few instances ever exercised, powers adequate to the purposes of war; and, indeed, such as they possessed have been frittered away to the states, and it will be found very difficult to recover them. Resolutions are now before us, by one of which the states are desired to give express powers for the common defence. Others go to the assumption of them immediately. The first will sleep with the states; the others will die where they are, so cautious are some of offending the states." When it became certain that troops from France were on their way to assist the country, congress made not even a semblance of direct action, and could only entreat the states to correspond severally with its committee at head-quarters, so that it might explicitly know how far they could be relied on to furnish the men and money and provisions that had been called for. The legislature of Pennsylvania, before its adjournment, vested large discretionary powers in president Reed; but these he declined to use. In June steps were taken at Philadelphia for founding a bank with leave to issue notes. The subscribers proposed, but only on adequate security, to make purchases in advance for the suffering soldiers. Congress accepted the proffer of aid, and further resolved to intrust to the company as much of its paper money as could be spared from other services. Thus began the deposit of funds of the United States in a bank. The women of Philadelphia, rallying round the amiable Esther Reed, wife of the president of Pennsylvania, brought together large donations of clothing, and invited the ladies of other states to adopt a like plan. They thus assisted to keep alive the spirit of patriotism in the army, but their gifts could not meet its ever-recurring wants. When congress drew supplies in kind directly from each state for its own troops, quotas were sometimes apportioned by the states to their towns, and in towns to individuals. Men of small means in a New England village would club together to buy an ox of a weight equal to their collective quotas, and herds of cattle so gathered were driven to the camp. All this marked an active spirit of patriotism reaching to the humblest and remotest, but it showed the want of organized power. Toward the end of June Greene wrote: "I have for a long time seen the necessity of some new plan of civil constitution; unless there is some control over the states by the congress, we shall soon be like a broken band." Even with his energy there could be no efficient administration in the quartermaster's department, though it had been placed on a centralized system under his immediate authority, with powers almost independent of congress, and with exorbitant emoluments for himself, his assistants, and subordinates. The system itself in the hands of a bad man would have opened the way to endless abuses; and congress wisely restored its own controlling civil supervision. Dismissing a useless supernumerary, it determined to have but one head of the quartermaster's department at the seat of congress, and one at the camp; and, in paying the officers of the staff, it returned to salaries instead of commissions. The unanimous judgment of the country from that day to this has approved the reform. Greene resigned with petulant abruptness. His successor in the quartermaster's department was Timothy Pickering, who excelled him as a man of business; was content with moderate pay; and was singularly frugal and exact; so that the service suffered nothing by the change. The tendency to leave all power in the hands of the separate states was a natural consequence of their historic development, and was confirmed by pressing necessity. "A single assembly," so John Adams long continued to reason, "is every way adequate to the management of all the federal concerns of the people of America; because congress is not a legislative, nor a representative, but a diplomatic assembly." Congress having requested the eight states north of Maryland to convene at New Haven, in January 1778, all but Delaware appeared; but they strove in vain to regulate prices. The convention of the eastern states, which at the instance of Massachusetts assembled in 1779 at Hartford, is memorable for having advised a convention of all the states at Philadel phia. In consequence, early in 1780, delegates from every state north of Virginia, except New York, met in that city, but accomplished nothing. By the meeting of the eastern states in August 1780, at Boston, the first step was taken toward the formation of a federal constitution. After adopting a series of measures best suited to the campaign, they resolved |