the several state
legislatures, many of which were yet to convene.

As it would be impracticable to maintain the value of the money about
to be emitted, should the states continue to issue bills of credit,
they were earnestly requested to suspend future emissions, and to call
the current paper out of circulation. But the time for this measure
was not yet arrived, and many of the states continued the use of the
press till late in the following year.

The establishment of the army for the ensuing campaign was fixed at
thirty-five thousand two hundred and eleven men, and the measures for
recruiting it were founded on the state system, which was become
entirely predominant.

The few intelligent statesmen who could combine practical good sense
with patriotism, perceived the dangerous inefficacy of a system which
openly abandoned the national character, and proceeded on the
principle that the American confederacy was no more than an alliance
of independent nations.

That great delays would be experienced, that the different parts of
the plan would be acted on too unequally and too uncertainly to
furnish a solid basis for military calculations, that the system would
be totally deranged in its execution, were mischiefs foreseen and
lamented by many, as resulting inevitably from a course of measures to
which the government of the Union was under the painful necessity of
submitting.

"Certain I am," said the Commander-in-chief, in a confidential letter
to a member of the national legislature, "that unless congress speaks
in a more decisive tone; unless they are vested with powers by the
several states, competent to the great purposes of the war, or assume
them as matter of right, and they and the states respectively act with
more energy than they hitherto have done, our cause is lost. We can no
longer drudge on in the old way. By ill-timing the adoption of
measures; by delays in the execution of them, or by unwarrantable
jealousies; we incur enormous expenses, and derive no benefit from
them. One state will comply with a requisition from congress; another
neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ in
the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are all
working up hill; and, while such a system as the present one, or
rather want of one, prevails, we ever shall be unable to apply our
strength or resources to any advantage.

"This, my dear sir, is plain language to a member of congress;