which the greater part was a wilderness, associated with no recollections. The confederacy was formed under the influence of political ideas which had been developed by a contest of centuries for individual and local liberties against an irresponsible central authority. Now that power had passed to the people, new institutions were required strong enough to protect the union, yet without impairing the liberties of the state or the individual. But America, misled by what belonged to the past, took for her organizing force the principle of resistance to power, which in all the thirteen colonies had been hardened into stubbornness by resistance to oppression.

During the sixteen months that followed the introduction of the plan for confederation prepared by Dickinson, the spirit of separation, fostered by uncontrolled indulgence, and by opposing interests and institutions, visibly increased in congress; and every change in his draft, which of itself proposed only a league of states, diminished the energetic authority which is the first guarantee of liberty.

The United States of America included within their jurisdiction all the territory that had belonged to the old thirteen colonies; and, if Canada would so choose, they were ready to annex Canada.

In the republics of Greece, citizenship had in theory been confined to a body of kindred families, which formed an hereditary caste, a multitudinous aristocracy. Such a system could have no permanent vitality; and the Greek republics, as the Italian republics in after-ages, died out for want of citizens. America adopted the principle of the all-embracing unity of society. As the American territory was that of the old thirteen colonies, so the free people residing upon it formed the free people of the United States. Subject and citizen were correlative terms; subjects of the monarchy became citizens of the republic. He that had owed primary allegiance to the king of England now owed primary allegiance to united America; yet, as the republic was the sudden birth of a revolution, the moderation of congress did not name it treason for the former subjects of the king to adhere to his government; only it was held that whoever chose to remain on the soil, by residence accepted protection and owed allegiance. This is the reason

why, for twelve years, free inhabitants and citizens were in American state papers convertible terms, sometimes used one for the other, and sometimes, for the sake of perspicuity, redundantly joined together.

The king of England claimed as his subjects all persons born within his dominions: in like manner, every one who first saw the light on the American soil was a natural-born American citizen; but the power of naturalization, which, under the king, each colony had claimed to regulate by its own laws, remained under the confederacy with the separate states.

The king had extended protection to every one of his lieges in every one of the thirteen colonies; now that congress was the successor of the king in America, the right to equal protection was continued to every free inhabitant in whatever state he might sojourn or dwell.

It had been held under the monarchy that each American colony was as independent of England as the electorate of Hanover; in the confederacy of "the United States of America," each state was to remain an independent sovereign, and the union was to be no more than an alliance. This theory decided the manner in which congress should vote. Pennsylvania and Virginia asked that, while each state might have at least one delegate, the rule should be one for every fifty thousand inhabitants; but the amendment was rejected by nine states against two, Delaware being absent and North Carolina divided. Virginia would have allowed to each state one member of congress for every thirty thousand of its inhabitants, and in this she was supported by John Adams; but his colleagues cast the vote of Massachusetts against it, and Virginia was left alone, North Carolina as before being equally divided. Virginia, again supported by John Adams, desired that the representation for each state should be in proportion to its contribution to the public treasury; but this was opposed by every other state, including North Carolina and Massachusetts. At last, with only one state divided and no negative voice but that of Virginia, an equal vote in congress was acknowledged to belong to each sovereign state. The number of delegates to give that vote might be not less than two nor more than seven for each state. The remedy for this inequality en

hanced the evil and foreboded anarchy; while each state had one vote, "great and very interesting questions" could be carried only by the concurrence of nine states. If the advice of Samuel Adams had been listened to, the vote of nine states would not have prevailed, unless they represented a majority of the people of all the states. For the transaction of less important business, an affirmative vote of seven states was required. In other words, in the one case the assent of two thirds of all the states, in the other of a majority of them all, was needed, the absence of any state having the force of a negative vote.

The king's right to levy taxes in the colonies by parliament or by his prerogative had been denied, and no more than a power to make requisitions had been conceded: in like manner it was assumed as a fundamental article that the United States in congress assembled shall never impose or levy any tax or duties, but only make requisitions for money on the several states; and this restriction, such was the force of usage, was accepted without remark. No one explained the distinction between a superior power wielded by an hereditary king in another hemisphere and a superior power which should be the chosen expression of the will and reason of the nation. The country had broken with the past in declaring independence; it went back into bondage to the past in forming its first constitution. The king might establish a general post-office, it had been held, for public convenience, not for a purpose of revenue: in like manner congress might authorize rates of postage to defray the expense of transporting the mails. The colonies under the king had severally levied import and export duties; the same power was reserved to each separate state, to be limited only by the proposed treaties with France and Spain.

The new republic was left without any independent revenue, and the charges of the government, its issues of paper money, its loans, were to be ultimately defrayed through requisitions for the quotas assessed upon the separate states. The difference between the North and the South growing out of the institution of slavery decided the rule for the distribution of these quotas. By the draft of Dickinson, taxation was

to be in proportion to the census of population, in which slaves were to be enumerated. On the thirteenth of October 1777, it was moved that the sum to be paid by each state into the treasury should be ascertained by the value of all property within each state. This was promptly negatived, and was followed by a motion having for its object to exempt slaves from taxation altogether. On the following day eleven states were present. The four of New England voted in the negative; Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas in the affirmative. Robert Morris of Pennsylvania against Roberdeau, and Duer of New York against Duane, voted with the South, and so the votes of their states were divided and lost. The decision rested on New Jersey, and she gave it for the complete exemption from taxation of all property in slaves. This is the first important division between slaveholding states and the states where slavery was of little account. The rule for apportioning the revenue, as finally adopted, was the respective value of land granted or surveyed, and the buildings and improvements thereon, without regard to personal property or numbers. This rendered the confederacy nugatory; for congress had not power to make the valuation.

In like manner the rules for navigation were to be established exclusively by each separate state, and the confederation did not take to itself power to countervail the restrictions of foreign governments, or to form agreements of reciprocity, or even to establish uniformity. These arrangements suited the opinions of the time; the legislature of New Jersey, vexed by the control of New York over the waters of New York bay, alone proposed as an amendment a grant of greater power over foreign commerce. Moreover, each state decided for itself what imports it would permit and what it would prohibit. As a consequence, the confederate congress was left without power to sanction or to stop the slave-trade.

The king had possessed all land not alienated by royal grants. On the declaration of independence, the royal quitrents ceased to be paid; and each state assumed the ownership of the royal domain within its limits. The validity of the act of parliament which transferred the region north-west of the Ohio to the province of Quebec was denied by all; but

the states which by their charters extended indefinitely west, or west and north-west, refused to accept the United States as the umpire to settle their boundaries, except with regard to each other.

Jealousy of a standing army and the superiority of the civil over the military power were among the dearest traditions of English liberty. It was borne in mind that victorious. legions revolutionized Rome; that Charles I. sought to overturn the institutions of England by an army; that by an army Charles II. was brought back without conditions; that by a standing army, which Americans themselves were to have been taxed to maintain, it had been proposed to abridge American liberties. In congress this distrust of military power existed all the more for the confidence and undivided affection which the people bore to the American commander-in-chief, and has for its excuse that human nature was hardly supposed able to furnish an example of a military liberator of his country, desirous after finishing his work to go into private life. We have seen how earnestly Washington endeavored to establish an army of the United States. His plan, which, at the time it was proposed, congress did not venture to reject, was now deliberately demolished. To prevent a homogeneous organization, it not only left to each of them the exclusive power over its militia, but the exclusive appointment of the regimental officers in its quota of land forces for the general service.

As in England, so in America, this jealousy did not extend to maritime affairs; the separate states had no share in the appointment of officers in the navy.

As the king in England, so the United States determined on peace and war, sent ambassadors to foreign powers, and entered into treaties and alliances; but, beside their general want of executive power, the grant to make treaties of commerce was limited by the power reserved to the states over imports and exports, over shipping and revenue.

The right of coining money, the right of keeping up shipsof-war, land forces, forts, and garrisons, were shared by congress with the respective states. No state, Massachusetts not more than South Carolina, would subordinate its law of treason to the will of congress. The formation of a class of national