with Maryland, or the four New England states with New Jersey —could defeat the most sorely needed measures. The second defect was the impossibility of presenting a united front to foreign countries in respect to commerce. The third and greatest defect was the lack of any means, on the part of Congress, of enforcing obedience. Not only was there no federal executive or judiciary worthy of the name, but the central government operated only upon states, and not upon individuals. Congress could call for troops and for money in strict conformity with the articles; but should any state prove delinquent in furnishing its quota, there were no constitutional means of compelling it to obey the call. This defect was seen and deplored at the outset by such men as Washington and Madison, but the only remedy which at first occurred to them was one more likely to kill than to cure. Only six weeks after the ratification of the articles, Madison proposed an amendment "to give to the United States full authority to employ their force, as well by sea as by land, to compel any delinquent state to fulfil its federal engagements." Washington approved of this measure, hoping, as he said, that "a knowledge that this power was lodged in Congress might be the means to prevent its ever being exercised, and the more readily induce obedience. Indeed," added Washington, "if

Congress were unquestionably possessed of the power, nothing should induce the display of it but obstinate disobedience and the urgency of the general welfare." Madison argued that in the very nature of the Confederation such a right of coercion was necessarily implied, though not expressed in the articles, and much might have been said in behalf of this opinion. The Confederation explicitly declared itself to be perpetual, yet how could it perpetuate itself for a dozen years without the right to coerce its refractory members? Practically, however, the remedy was one which could never have been applied without breaking the Confederation into fragments. To use the army or navy in coercing a state meant nothing less than civil war. The local yeomanry would have turned out against the Continental army with as high a spirit as that with which they swarmed about the British enemy at Lexington or King's Mountain. A government which could not collect the taxes for its yearly budget without firing upon citizens or blockading two or three harbours would have been the absurdest political anomaly imaginable. No such idea could have entered the mind of a statesman save from the hope that if one state should prove refractory, all the others would immediately frown upon it and uphold Congress in overawing it. In such case the knowledge that Congress had the power would doubt

less have been enough to make its exercise unnecessary. But in fact this hope was disappointed, for the delinquency of each state simply set an example of disobedience for all the others to follow; and the amendment, had it been carried, would merely have armed Congress with a threat which everybody would have laughed So manifestly hopeless was the case to Pelatiah Webster that, as early as May, 1781, he published an able pamphlet, urging the necessity for a federal convention for overhauling the whole scheme of government from beginning to end.

at.

weakness of the govern

ment

The military weakness due to this imperfect governmental organization may be illustrated Military by comparing the number of regular troops which Congress was able to keep in the field during the Revolutionary War with the number maintained by the United States government during the War of Secession. A rough estimate, obtained from averages, will suffice to show the broad contrast. In 1863, the middle year of the War of Secession, the total population of the loyal states was about 23,491,600, of whom nearly one fifth, or 4,698,320, were adult males of military age. Supposing one adult male out of every five to have been under arms at one time, the number would have been 939,664. Now the total number of troops enlisted in the northern army

during the four years of war, reduced to a uniform standard, was 2,320,272, or an average of 580,068 under arms in any single year. In point of fact, this average was reached before the middle of the war, and the numbers went on increasing, until at the end there were more than a million men under arms, at least one out of every five adult males in the northern states. On the other hand, in 1779, the middle year of the Revolutionary War, the white population of the United States was about 2,175,000, of whom 435,000 were adult males of military age. Supposing one out of every five of these to have been under arms at once, the number would have been 87,000. Now in the spring of 1777, when the Continental Congress was at the highest point of authority which it ever reached, when France was willing to lend it money freely, when its paper currency was not yet discredited and it could make liberal offers of bounties, a demand was made upon the states for 80,000 men, or nearly one fifth of the adult male population, to serve for three years or during the war. Only 34,820 were obtained. The total number of men in the field in that most critical year, including the swarms of militia who came to the rescue at Ridgefield and Bennington and Oriskany, and the Pennsylvania militia who turned out while their state. was invaded, was 68,720. In 1781, when the

credit of Congress was greatly impaired, although military activity again rose to a maximum and it was necessary for the people to strain every nerve, the total number of men in the field, militia and all, was only 29,340, of whom only 13,292 were Continentals; and it was left for the genius of Washington and Greene, working with desperate energy and most pitiful resources, to save the country. A more impressive contrast to the readiness with which the demands of the government were met in the War of Secession can hardly be imagined. Had the country put forth its strength in 1781 as it did in 1864, an army of 90,000 men might have overwhelmed Clinton at the north and Cornwallis at the south, without asking any favours of the French fleet. Had it put forth its full strength in 1777, four years of active warfare might have been spared. Mr. Lecky explains this difference by his favourite hypothesis that the American Revolution was the work of a few ultra-radical leaders, with whom the people were not generally in sympathy; and he thinks we could not expect to see great heroism or selfsacrifice manifested by a people who went to war over what he calls a money dispute." 1 But there is no reason for supposing that the loyalists represented the general sentiment of the country in the Revolutionary War any more History of England in the Eighteenth Century, iii. 447.