The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order
sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The
Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared
from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the
only examples which remain with any detail and precision in
history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had
ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so
many particulars between this country and those where a courier
may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single
day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in
Congress at the formation of it that it could not be durable.
Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but
in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences--
universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of
navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures,
universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt
of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with
foreign nations, and at length in discontents, animosities,
combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening
some great national calamity.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28