History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States Volume I Part 15

At the same time, some of the State governments, during the period of which we are treating, were singularly exposed to the dangers of anarchy. None of them had any standing forces of any consequence, three years after the peace, and the New England States had no military forces whatever but their militia. No State could call upon its neighbors for aid in quelling an insurrection, for their militia would not have obeyed the summons, if it had been issued; and no State could call upon the federal government, in such an emergency, with any certainty of success in the application.[255]

In such a state of things, the year 1786 witnessed an insurrection in Ma.s.sachusetts of a very dangerous character, which, from the fortunate circ.u.mstance that her counsels were then guided by a man of singular energy and firmness of character, she was just able to subdue. The remote causes of this insurrection lie too far from the path of our main subject to be more than summarily stated.

At the close of the Revolutionary war, the State of Ma.s.sachusetts was oppressed with an enormous debt. At the breaking out of that war, the debt of the Colony was less than one hundred thousand pounds. The private debt of the State, in the year 1786, was one million three hundred thousand pounds, besides two hundred and fifty thousand pounds due to the officers and soldiers of the State line of the Revolutionary army. The State's proportion of the federal debt was not less than one million and a half of pounds.[256] According to the customary mode of taxation, one third of the whole debt was to be paid by the ratable polls, which scarcely exceeded ninety thousand.[257] The Revolution had made the people of Ma.s.sachusetts familiar with the great general doctrines of liberty and human rights; but it had given them little insight into the principles of revenue and finance, and little acquaintance with the rules of public economy. No sufficient means, therefore, to relieve the people from direct taxation, by encouraging a revival of trade and at the same time drawing from it a revenue, were devised by the legislature. The exports of the State, moreover, had suffered a fearful diminution. The fisheries, which had been a fruitful source of prosperity to the colony, had been nearly destroyed by the war, and the markets of the West Indies and of Europe were now closed to the products of this lucrative industry, by which wealth had formerly been drawn from the wastes of the ocean. The State had scarcely any other commodity to exchange for the precious metals in foreign commerce.

Its agriculture yielded only a scanty support to its population, if it yielded so much; its manufactures were in a languis.h.i.+ng condition; and its carrying trade had been driven from the seas during the war, and was afterwards annihilated by the oppressive policy of England, which succeeded the Peace. The people were every year growing poorer than they had been the year before, and taxes, onerous taxes, beyond their resources and always odious, were pressing upon them with a constantly increasing acc.u.mulation, from which the political state of the country seemed to promise no relief.[258]

But the demand of the tax-gatherer was not the sole burden which individuals had to encounter. Private debts had acc.u.mulated during the war, in almost as large a ratio as the public obligations. The collection of such debts had been generally suspended, while the struggle for political freedom was going on; but that struggle being over, creditors necessarily became active, and were often obliged to be severe. Suits were multiplied in the courts of law beyond all former precedent, and the first effect of this sudden influx of litigation was to bring popular odium upon the whole machinery of justice. In a state of society approaching so nearly to a democracy, the cla.s.s of debtors, if numerous, must be politically formidable. They had begun to be so before the close of the war. Their clamors and the supposed necessity of the case led the legislature, in 1782, to a violation of principle, in a law known as the Tender Act, by which executions for debt might be satisfied by certain articles of property, to be taken at an apprais.e.m.e.nt. This law was limited in its operation to one year; but in the course of that year it taught the debtors their strength, and gave the first signal for an attack upon property. A levelling, licentious spirit, a restless desire for change, and a disposition to throw down the barriers of private rights, at length broke forth in conventions, which first voted themselves to be the people, and then declared their proceedings to be const.i.tutional. At these a.s.semblies, the doctrine was publicly broached, that property ought to be common, because all had aided in saving it from confiscation by the power of England. Taxes were voted to be unnecessary burdens, the courts of justice to be intolerable grievances, and the legal profession a nuisance. A revision of the const.i.tution was demanded, in order to abolish the Senate, reform the representation in the House, and make all the civil officers of the government eligible by the people.

A pa.s.sive declaration of their grievances did not, however, content the disaffected citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts. They proceeded to enforce their demands. The courts of justice were the nearest objects for attack, as well as the most immediately connected with the chief objects of their complaints. Armed mobs surrounded the court-houses in several counties, and sometimes effectually obstructed the sessions of the courts. These acts were repeated, until, in the autumn of 1786, the insurrection broke out in a formidable manner in the western part of the State. The insurgents actually embodied, and in arms against the government, in the month of December, in the counties of Worcester and Hamps.h.i.+re, numbered about fifteen hundred men, and were headed by one Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the continental army.[259]

The executive chair of the State was at that time filled by James Bowdoin; a statesman, firm, prudent, of high principle, and devoted to the cause of const.i.tutional order. In the first stages of the disaffection, he had been thwarted by a House of Representatives, in which the majority were strongly inclined to sympathize with the general spirit of the insurgents; but the Senate had supported him. Afterwards, when the movement grew more dangerous, the legislature became more reconciled to the use of vigorous means to vindicate the authority of the government, and a short time before it actually took the form of an armed and organized rebellion against the Commonwealth, they had encouraged the Governor to use the powers vested in him by the const.i.tution to enforce obedience to the laws. The Executive promptly met the emergency. A body of militia was marched against the insurgents, and by the middle of February they were dispersed or captured, with but little loss of life.

The actual resources of the State, however, to meet an emergency of this kind, were feeble and few. A voluntary loan, from a few public-spirited individuals, supplied the necessary funds, of which the treasury of the State was wholly dest.i.tute.[260] At one time, so general was the prevalence of discontent, even among the militia on whom the government were obliged to rely, that men were known openly to change sides in the field, when the first bodies of troops were called out.[261] Had the government of the State been in the hands of a person less firm and less careless of popularity than Bowdoin, it would have been given up to anarchy and civil confusion. The political situation of the country did not seem to admit of an application to Congress for direct a.s.sistance, and there is no reason to suppose that such an application would have been effectively answered, if it had been made.[262]

When the news of the disturbances in Ma.s.sachusetts, in the autumn of 1786, was received in Congress, it happened that intelligence from the Western country indicated a hostile disposition on the part of several Indian tribes against the frontier settlements. A resolve was unanimously adopted, directing one thousand three hundred and forty additional troops to be raised, for the term of three years, for the protection and support of the States bordering on the Western territory and the settlements on and near the Mississippi, and to secure and facilitate the surveying and selling of the public lands.[263] From the fact that the whole of these troops were ordered to be raised by the four New England States, and one half of them by the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, and from other circ.u.mstances, it is quite apparent that the object a.s.signed was an ostensible one, and that Congress intended by this resolve to strengthen the government of that State and to overawe the insurgents.[264] But this motive could not be publicly announced.

The enlistment went on very slowly, however, until February, when a motion was made by Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina to stop it altogether, upon the ground that the insurrection in Ma.s.sachusetts, the real, though not the ostensible, object of the resolve, had been crushed. Mr. King of Ma.s.sachusetts earnestly entreated that the federal enlistments might be permitted to go on, otherwise the greatest alarm would be felt by the government of the State and its friends, and the insurrection might be rekindled. Mr. Madison advised that the proposal to rescind the order for the enlistments should be suspended, to await the course of events in Ma.s.sachusetts. At the same time, he admitted that it would be difficult to reconcile an interference of Congress in the internal controversies of a State with the tenor of the Articles of Confederation.[265] The whole subject was postponed, and the direct question of the power of Congress was not acted upon. In the Convention which framed the Const.i.tution, it was very early declared, that the Confederation had neither const.i.tutional power, nor means, to interfere in case of a rebellion in any State.[266]

This generation can scarcely depict to itself the alarm which these disturbances spread through the country, and the extreme peril to which the whole fabric of society in New England was exposed. The numbers of the disaffected in Ma.s.sachusetts amounted to one fifth of the inhabitants in several of the populous counties. Their doctrines and purposes were embraced by many young, active, and desperate men in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hamps.h.i.+re, and the whole of this faction in the four States was capable of furnis.h.i.+ng a body of twelve or fifteen thousand men, bent on annihilating property, and cancelling all debts, public and private.[267]

But this great peril was not without beneficial consequences. It displayed, at a critical moment, when a project of amending the Federal Const.i.tution for other purposes was encountering much opposition, a more dangerous deficiency than any to which the public mind had hitherto been turned. While thoughtful and considerate men were speculating upon the causes of diminished prosperity and the general feebleness of the system of government, a gulf suddenly yawned beneath their feet, threatening ruin to the whole social fabric. It was but a short time before, that the people of this country had shed their blood to obtain const.i.tutions of their own choice and making. Now, they seemed as ready to overturn them as they had once been to extort from tyranny the power of creating and erecting them in its place. It was manifest, that to achieve the independence of a country is but half of the great undertaking of liberty;--that, after freedom, there must come security, order, the wise disposal of power, and great inst.i.tutions on which society may repose in safety. It was clear, that the Federal Union alone could certainly uphold the liberty which it had gained for the people of the States, and that, to enable it to do so, it must become a government.[268]

From his retreat at Mount Vernon, Was.h.i.+ngton observed the progress of these disorders with intense anxiety. To him, they carried the strongest evidence of a want of energy in the system of the Federal Union. They did more than all things else to convince him that "a liberal and energetic const.i.tution, well checked and well watched to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence to which we had the fairest prospect of attaining."[269] He was kept accurately informed of the state of things in New England, and the probability that he would be obliged to come forward, and take an active part in the support of order against civil discord, was directly intimated to him.[270] He had foreseen the possibility of this; but the successful issue of the struggle relieved him from the contemplation of this painful task, and left to him only the duty of giving the whole weight of his influence and presence in the Convention, which was to a.s.semble in the following May, for the revision of the Federal Const.i.tution.

FOOTNOTES:

[254] Gibbon, with that graceful satire which knew how to hit two objects with the same stroke of his pen, describes hereditary monarchy as "an expedient which deprives the mult.i.tude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal, power of giving themselves a master." The historian of the Decline and Fall began to publish his great work, just as the American Revolution burst upon the world. Since that sentence was penned, the experiment of a system, by which the mult.i.tude give to themselves a master, in the const.i.tutional organs of their own will, has had a fair trial. We may not say that its trial is past, or that the system is established beyond the possibility of further dangers. But we may with a just pride point to its escape, in the days of its first establishment and greatest danger, and to the securities which the Const.i.tution of the United States now affords, against similar perils, when they threaten the const.i.tutions of the States.

[255] A power to interfere in the internal concerns of a State would only have been exercised by a broad construction of the third of the Articles of Confederation, which was in these words: "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friends.h.i.+p with each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding themselves to a.s.sist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever." When this is compared with the clear and explicit provision in the Const.i.tution, by which it is declared that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government," there can be no wonder that a doubt was felt in the Congress of 1786-87 as to their powers upon this subject. It is true that the Ma.s.sachusetts delegation, when they laid before Congress the measures which had been taken by the State government to suppress the insurrection, expressed the confidence of the legislature that the firmest support and most effectual aid would have been afforded by the United States, had it been necessary, and a.s.serted that such support and aid were expressly and solemnly stipulated by the Articles of Confederation. (Journals, XII. 20. March 9, 1787.) But this was clearly not the case; and it was not generally supposed in Congress that the power existed by implication. All that was done by Congress towards raising troops, at the time of the insurrection, was done for the _ostensible_ purpose of protecting the frontiers against an Indian invasion, as we shall see hereafter.

[256] Minot's History of the Insurrection, p. 6.

[257] Ibid.

[258] See the next chapter for some particulars respecting the trade of Ma.s.sachusetts.

[259] Minot's History of the Insurrection, p. 82 et seq.

[260] Governor Bowdoin's Speech to the Legislature, February 3, 1787.

[261] Minot.

[262] In the spring of 1786, the State had asked the loan from Congress of sixty pieces of field artillery. The application was refused, by the negative vote of six States out of eight, one being divided, and the delegation from Ma.s.sachusetts alone supporting it. Journals, XI. 65-67.

April 19, 1786.

[263] Journals, XI. 258. October 30, 1786.

[264] It was well understood, for instance, in the legislature of Virginia, that this was the real purpose; for Mr. Madison says that this consideration inspired the ardor with which they voted, towards their quota of the funds called for to defray the expenses of this levy, a tax on tobacco, which would scarcely have been granted for any other purpose, as its operation was very unequal. Elliot's Debates, V. 95.

February 19, 1787.

[265] Ibid.

[266] Ibid. 127.

[267] This was the estimate of their numbers formed by General Knox, on careful inquiry, and by him given to General Was.h.i.+ngton. See a letter from General Was.h.i.+ngton to Mr. Madison. Works, IX. 207.

[268] Was.h.i.+ngton, writing to Henry Lee in Congress, October 31, 1786, says: "You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Ma.s.sachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. _Influence_ is not _government_. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once." Works, IX. 204.

[269] Ibid. 208.

[270] Ibid. 221.

CHAPTER IV.

ORIGIN AND NECESSITY OF THE POWER TO REGULATE COMMERCE.

Among all the causes which led to the establishment of the Const.i.tution of the United States, there is none more important, and none that is less appreciated at the present day, than the inability of the Confederation to manage the foreign commerce of the country. We have seen that, when the Articles of Confederation were proposed for adoption by the States, the State of New Jersey remonstrated against the absence of all provision for placing the foreign trade of the States under the regulation of the federal government. But this remonstrance was without effect, and the instrument went into operation in 1781, with no other restriction upon the powers of the States to regulate trade according to their pleasure, than a prohibition against levying imposts or duties which would interfere with the treaties then proposed. While the war continued, the subject was of comparatively little importance. But the return of peace found this country capable of becoming a great commercial, as well as agricultural nation; and it could not be overlooked, that its government possessed very inadequate means for establis.h.i.+ng such relations with foreign powers as would best develop its resources and conduce to its internal harmony and prosperity. How early this great interest had attracted the attention of those who were most capable of enlarged and statesmanlike views of the actual nature of the Union and the wants of the States, there are perhaps as yet before the world no sufficient means of determining. We know, however, that, before the peace, Hamilton saw clearly that it was essential for the United States to be vested with a general superintendence of trade, both for purposes of revenue and regulation; that he foresaw the encouragement of our own products and manufactures, by means of general prohibitions of particular articles and a judicious arrangement of duties, and that this could only be effected by a central authority; and that the due observance of any commercial treaty which the United States might make with a foreign power could not be expected, if the different States retained the regulation of their own trade, and thus held the practical construction of treaties in their own hands.[271]

But it does not appear that, among the other princ.i.p.al statesmen of the Revolution, these ideas had made much progress, until the entire incapacity of the Confederation to negotiate advantageous commercial treaties, for want of adequate power to enforce them, had displayed the actual weakness of its position, and the oppressive measures of other countries had taught them that there was but one remedy for such evils.

Then, indeed, they saw that the United States could have a standing as a commercial power among the other powers of the world, only when their representatives could be received and dealt with as the representatives of one, and not of thirteen sovereignties; and that, if the measures of other countries, injurious to the trade of America, were to be counteracted at all, it must be by a power that could prohibit access to all the States alike, or grant it as to all, as circ.u.mstances might require.[272]

The actual commercial relations of the United States with other countries, when the peace took place, were confined to treaties of amity and commerce with France, Sweden, and the Netherlands; the two latter transcending, in some degree, the powers of the Confederation. In 1776, the Revolutionary Congress had adopted a plan of treaties to be proposed to France and Spain, which contemplated that the subjects of each country should pay no duties in the other except such as were paid by natives, and should have the same rights and privileges as natives in respect to navigation and commerce.[273] When a treaty of amity and commerce came to be concluded with France, in 1778, the footing on which the subjects of the two countries were placed, in the dominions of each other, was that of the most favored nations, instead of that of natives.[274] The Articles of Confederation, proposed in 1777, and finally ratified in March, 1781, reserved to the States the right of levying duties and imposts, excepting only such as would interfere with any treaties that might be made "pursuant to the treaties proposed to France and Spain." The United States could therefore const.i.tutionally complete these two treaties, and such as were dependent upon them, but no others which should have the effect of restraining the legislatures of the States from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or merchandise, or laying whatever duties or imposts they thought proper.[275]

In 1782, negotiations were entered into for a similar treaty with the States General of the Netherlands. When the instructions to Mr. Adams to negotiate this treaty were under consideration in Congress, it was recollected that the French treaty contained a stipulation, the effect of which would enable the heirs of the subjects of either party, dying in the territories of the other, to inherit real property, without obtaining letters of naturalization.[276] The doubt suggested itself,--as it well might,--whether such an indefinite license to aliens to possess real property within the United States, was not an encroachment upon the rights of the States. It seems to have been expected, when the French treaty was entered into, that the States would acquiesce in this provision, on account of the peculiar relations of this country to France, and because of the saving clause in the Articles of Confederation in favor of the treaties to be made with that power and with Spain.[277] But such a stipulation as this was clearly not within the meaning of that clause; and it was received with great repugnance by many of the States.[278] In the treaty with the Netherlands, it was proposed to insert a similar provision; but it was found to be extremely improbable that the States would comply with a similar engagement with another power. The language was therefore varied, so as to give the privilege of inheritance only as to the "effects" of persons dying in the country;--an expression which would probably exclude real property, but which might possibly be construed to include it.[279]

With regard to duties and imposts, the Dutch treaty contained the same stipulation as the French, putting the subjects of either power on the footing of the most favored nations, and thereby holding out to the subjects of the United Provinces the promise of an equality, under the laws of the United States, with the subjects of France.[280] The same stipulation was inserted in a treaty subsequently made at Paris with the King of Sweden.[281]

If these stipulations were supposed or intended to be binding upon the States, so as to restrain them from adopting, within their respective jurisdictions, any other rule than that fixed by the French treaty, for the subjects of the United Provinces and the King of Sweden, it is quite clear that the Articles of Confederation gave no authority to Congress to make them. They could have no effect, therefore, in producing a uniformity of regulation throughout the United States, with regard to the trade with Sweden and the Netherlands.

The relations of the United States with Great Britain were, however, far more important, than their relations with Sweden or Holland. When the war was drawing to a close, and the provisional articles of peace had been agreed upon, a measure was in preparation in England, under the auspices of Mr. Pitt, designed as a temporary arrangement of commercial intercourse between Great Britain and the United States, and which would have enabled the government of this country to have formed a treaty so advantageous, that the States would doubtless have conformed their legislation to its provisions. That great statesman perceived, that it was extremely desirable to establish the intercourse of the two countries on the most enlarged principles of reciprocal benefit, and his purpose was, by a provisional arrangement, to evince the disposition of England to be on terms of amity with the United States, preparatory to the negotiation of a treaty.[282] But the administration, in which he was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, went out of office immediately after he had proposed this measure, and their successors, following a totally different line of policy, procured an act of Parliament authorizing the King in Council to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain and her dependencies.[283]

Mr. Pitt's bill was designed to admit the vessels and subjects of the United States into all the ports of Great Britain, in the same manner as the subjects and vessels of other independent sovereign states, and to admit merchandise and goods, the growth, produce, or manufacture of this country, under the same duties and charges as if they were the property of British subjects, imported in British vessels. It also proposed to establish an entirely free trade between the United States and the British islands, colonies, and plantations in America. The new administration, on the contrary, believing that this would encourage the American marine, to the ruin of that of Great Britain, and would deprive the latter of a monopoly in the consumption of her colonies, and in their carrying trade, resolved to reverse this entire policy. In this course, they were encouraged by the views which they took of the internal situation of this country, and which were, to a great extent, justified by the fact. They believed that we could not act, as a nation, upon questions of commerce; that the climates, the staples, and the manners of the States were different, and their interests therefore opposite; and that no combination was likely to take place, from which England would have reason to fear retaliation. They supposed, that, inasmuch as the Confederation had no power to make any but general treaties, and as the States had reserved to themselves nearly every power concerning the regulation of trade, no treaty could be made that would be binding upon all the States; and that, if treaties should become necessary, they must be made with the States respectively. But they denied that treaties were necessary, and maintained that it would be unwise to enter at present into any arrangements by which they might not wish afterwards to be bound. They determined, therefore, to deal with this country as a collection of rival States, with each of which they could make their own terms, after the pressure of their policy, and the impossibility of escaping from its effects, had begun to be felt.

They accordingly began, by excluding from the British West Indies, under Orders in Council, the whole American marine, and by prohibiting fish, and many important articles of our produce, from being carried there, even in British vessels.[284]

At the termination of the war, the foreign commerce of the United States was capable of great expansion.

It consisted of three important branches,--the trade of the Eastern, that of the Middle, and that of the Southern States; each of which required at once the means of reaching foreign markets. The rice and indigo of the South might be carried to Europe. The Middle States might export to Europe tobacco, tar, wheat, and flour; and to the West Indies, pork, beef, bread, flour, lumber, tar, and iron. The Eastern States might supply the markets of Europe with spars, s.h.i.+p-timber, staves, boards, fish, and oil, and those of the West Indies with lumber, pork, beef, live cattle, horses, cider, and fish. The whole of these great interests of course received a sudden and almost fatal blow from the English Orders in Council, and no means whatever existed of countervailing their effects, but such as each State could provide for its own people, by its own legislation.

Congress, however, awoke to the perception of an efficient and appropriate remedy, of a temporary character, and prepared to apply it, through an amendment of their powers. For the purpose of meeting the policy of Great Britain with similar restrictions on her commerce, they recommended to the States to vest in Congress, for the term of fifteen years, authority to prohibit the vessels of any power, not having treaties of commerce with the United States, from importing or exporting any commodities into or from any of the States, and also with the power of prohibiting, for a like term, the subjects of any foreign country, unless authorized by treaty, from importing into the United States any merchandise not the produce or manufacture of such country.[285] There was already before the States, as we have seen, in the revenue system of 1783, a proposal to them to vest in Congress power to levy certain duties on foreign commodities, for the same period; and if these two grants of power had been made, and made promptly, by the States, Congress would have possessed, for a time, an effectual control over commerce, and the practical means of forming suitable commercial treaties.

But the proposal of the 30th of April, 1784, met with a tardy and reluctant attention among the States. Only one of them had acted upon it, as late as the following February, when the delegates for Maryland laid before Congress an act of that State upon the subject.[286] New Hamps.h.i.+re was the next State to comply, in the succeeding June.[287] In the mean time, however, Congress prepared to prosecute negotiations in Europe, trusting to the chances of an enlargement of their powers, in pursuance of their recommendation. Accordingly, they proceeded, in the spring of 1784, to appoint a commission to negotiate commercial treaties, and settled the principles on which such treaties were to be formed. The leading principle then determined on was, that each party to the treaty should have a right to carry their own produce, manufactures, and merchandise in their own bottoms to the ports of the other, and to take thence the produce, manufactures, and merchandise of the other, paying, in both cases, such duties only as were paid by the most favored nation. The resolves appointing the commission also contained a very explicit direction, that "the United States, in all such treaties, and in every case arising under them, should be considered as one nation, upon the principles of the Federal Const.i.tution."[288] Yet the Federal Const.i.tution did not, at that very moment, make the United States one nation for this purpose. Its principles gave to Congress no authority which could prevent the States from prohibiting any exportations or importations whatever, as to their respective territories; and the validity of these treaties, thus proposed to be negotiated with fifteen European powers, depended altogether upon the precarious a.s.sent of the thirteen States to the alterations in the principles of the Federal Const.i.tution which Congress had proposed.

That a.s.sent was not likely to be given, so as to become effectual for the purposes for which it had been asked. The action of the States was found, in the spring of 1786, to present a ma.s.s of incongruities, which rendered the whole scheme of thus increasing the federal powers almost hopeless. Four of the States had pa.s.sed laws, conforming substantially to the recommendations of Congress, but restraining their operation until the other States should have complied.[289] Three of the States had pa.s.sed the requisite acts, and had fixed different periods at which they were to take effect.[290] One State had granted full powers to regulate its trade, by restrictions or duties, for fifteen years, with a proviso that the law should be suspended until all the other States had done the same.[291] Another State had granted power, for twenty-five years, to regulate trade between the respective States, and to prohibit or regulate the importation only of foreign goods in foreign vessels, but restricting the operation of the act until the other States had pa.s.sed similar laws.[292] Still another State had granted powers like the last, but without limitation of time, and with the proviso that, when all the other States had made the same grants, it should become an Article of the Confederation.[293] The three remaining States had pa.s.sed no act upon the subject.[294] Upon these conflicting and irreconcilable provisions, Congress could take no other action, than to call the attention of the States again to the original proposal, and request them to revise their laws.[295]

While this discordant legislation was manifesting at home the entire impracticability of amending the Federal Const.i.tution by means of the separate action of the State legislatures, the commissioners abroad were engaged in efforts, nearly as fruitless, to negotiate the treaties which they had been instructed to make. The commission was opened at Paris on the 13th of August, 1784, and its objects announced to the different governments. France was not disposed to change the existing relations.