PREFATORY NOTE With 1784 the Continental Congress entered upon a new phase of its existence. The pressure of war definitely removed and the ratification of peace accomplished, the fundamental weakness of the Confederation became more apparent daily. Representation in Congress, never very regular, became a difficulty, increasingly prominent, which forced Congress, in June of this year, to take refuge in the expedient of a Committee of the States (consisting of one delegate from each), clothed with limited powers but functioning as a legislative substitute. The other delegates returned to the States to arouse a more lively interest in the central governing body without which, it was plain, the national organization would disintegrate and the union, which had been enforced by military necessity, collapse for want of civil political cohesion. Settlement of the Army's accounts, with their vexed problems of half-pay and commutation, together with the joint responsibility of the States and Congress in the matter, brought the powers of Congress into question and bid fair to open up disagreements which would lead into governmental quagmires of serious possibilities. The cessions of western lands and a government for the new territory to be organized from them became matters of importance, but they were not carried far toward solution during 1784. Obtaining possession of the frontier posts from the British and the measures for garrisoning them by United States troops created the problem of a standing army, and Indian affairs became inextricably entangled with the military aspect of this problem. 98814°-28 Finance, payment of the public debt, and efforts toward economies, through reducing the expense of the civil list, took their places among the vexatious but important difficulties, while foreign commerce and the navigation of the Mississippi River obtruded themselves as diplomatic questions of undoubted longevity and awkward character. Progress was made with the domestic problems of the New Hampshire grants, Connecticut's claim to Pennsylvania lands, and the Massachusetts-New York boundary, but the matter of permanently locating the seat of the National Government was brought no nearer a definite conclusion. As the weakness of the Congress became more and more manifest, that body developed an increasing sensitiveness as to its dignity and importance which, at times, appears almost peevish. The creation of the Committee of the States, though necessary, was a frank recognition of impotence. It marked the beginning of the end, and when Congress reassembled in November it was plain that it had lost ground as a legislative power which it could never hope to recover. The copy for the year 1784 was prepared and sent to the printer by the late Gaillard Hunt, then chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, but unforseen exigencies respecting the printing fund compelled postponement of publication from year to year until now. As prepared, the copy has been slightly amended and a few footnotes added; it has been seen through the press, proof-read, indexed, and the Bibliographic Notes compiled by J. C. FITZPATRICK Acting Chief, Manuscript Division HERBERT PUTNAM |