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their allegiance to the English king without breaking their attachment to the English constitution. The traditional ideas still controlled political thought, but their expression in the government of the union was hindered by obstacles which long seemed insurmountable.

CHAPTER III

THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION

THE ideas of government held by the American Whigs could find no satisfaction in the Confederation. That was merely an agency of state coöperation for the management of common interests. was not thought of as a regular government. The Articles of Confederation committed to Congress the control of the national budget, the regulation of the army and navy, the appointment of public officers, and in fine the entire management of public affairs. The concentration of authority was as great as in English parliamentary government in our own times, and was altogether incompatible with the ideas of those times, but public opinion was calmly indifferent. In 1781, Jefferson wrote, "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced. among several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."1 He was thinking, however, of the changes in the Virginia constitution by which the selection of 1 Notes on Virginia, Chap. XIII.

the governor and other officers formerly appointed by the crown had been taken over by the legislature. The case of the Confederation was far more obnoxious to the principle he states, but it does not occur to him. In 1787, John Adams wrote, "If there is one certain truth to be collected from the history of all ages, it is this: that the people's rights and liberties, and the democratic mixture in a constitution, can never be preserved without a strong executive, or, in other words without separating the executive power from the legislature." This passage occurs in his "Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," written in reply to a criticism by Turgot on American institutions. The great French publicist objected to them on the ground that they did not collect all the authority of government in one centre to represent the will of the nation.1 It did

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1 Writing to Dr. Richard Price of London, March 22, 1778, Turgot said: "I see in the greatest number (of the American state constitutions) an unreasonable imitation of the usages of England. Instead of bringing all the authorities into one, that of the nation, they have established different bodies, - a House of Representatives, a council, a governor, - because England has a House of Commons, lords, and a king. They undertake to balance these different authorities, as if the same equilibrium of powers which has been thought necessary to balance the enormous preponderance of royalty could be of any use in republics, formed upon the equality of all citizens; and as if every article which constitutes different bodies was not a source of divisions. By striving to escape imaginary dangers, they had created real ones." The criticism of the sagacious French statesman has not lost its point.

not occur to Adams to refute the objection by citing the Articles of Confederation, but he ransacked history from civilization's dawn unto his own times to justify the course of the American states in adopting governments of distributed powers. In his voluminous work the sole reference he makes to the body whose ambassador he then was, is this: "Congress is not a legislative assembly, nor a representative assembly, but only a diplomatic assembly." He would not commit the absurdity of classing a revolutionary junto among regularly constituted governments.

People cared nothing about the principles on which the government of the Confederation was based, because they cared nothing for that government. The Congress of the Confederation, although it remained in existence fourteen years, never took root in the affection or respect of the people. Its sittings were private, and its proceedings made no appeal to public opinion. It remained in existence by sufferance only. The states flouted its authority whenever they felt disposed to do so. None of its plans to reform the government came to anything. The constitution was the result of an outside movement which Congress obeyed, but did not direct. The

1 Adams' Works, Vol. IV., p. 379. In the constitutional convention, Edmund Randolph spoke of Congress in the same way. He said, "Elected by the legislatures who retain even a power of recall, they are a mere diplomatic body, with no will of their own."

period of the Confederation was one in which the functions of general government were in abeyance. Crown jurisdiction had been thrown off, but no succession to it had been provided. The Confederation was a makeshift, "neither fit for war or peace," as Hamilton remarked.

During the war, incapacity of government and defects of administration were remedied to a saving extent by French subsidies of money and troops, but now the stripling nation was left to its own resources. Although its success and prospects had excited some popular enthusiasm in Europe, rulers regarded it as a troublesome parvenu. It hardly retained the good will of its former ally, France. "We have never pretended," wrote the Cabinet of Versailles to its representative in America, "to make of America an useful ally; we have had no other object than to deprive Great Britain of that vast continent. Therefore we can regard with indifference both the movements which agitate certain provinces and the fermentation which prevails in Congress." 1

It was easy to take advantage of a nation so weak and incapable. England would not allow American goods to enter her ports unless they came on English ships. New England, the worldwide enterprise of whose seamen furnished Edmund Burke with an eloquent passage of his great speech

1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, Vol. II., pp. 415, 424,

438,

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