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authority, the Continental Congress, then actually engaged in civil war,
created an army, and, through its committees, entered into negotiations
with foreign nations. To support the former, it issued paper money, with
the disastrous result that could be readily anticipated. While it had a
presiding officer, it had no executive, and the new nation, which was
hardly conscious of its own birth, had no judiciary.

Had this _de facto_ government assumed the plenary powers which
provisional governments must, under similar circumstances, necessarily
assume, it would have been better for the cause of the colonists. For
want of an efficient central government, the civil administration of the
infant nation was marked by a weakness and incapacity that defeated
Washington's plans and nearly broke his spirit. Washington's little army
was the victim of the gross incapacity of an impotent government. The
soldiers came and went, not as the general commanded, but as the various
colonies permitted. The tragedy of Valley Forge, when the little army
nearly starved to death, and literally the soldiers could be tracked
over the snows by their bleeding, unshod feet, was not due to lack of
clothing and provisions, but to the gross incapacity of a headless
government that if it had had the wisdom to act lacked the authority.
The situation was one of chaos. The colonies recruited their own
contingents, paid such taxes as they pleased, which grew increasingly
less, and the Congress had no coercive power to enforce its policies,
either with reference to internal or external affairs. This situation
was so clearly recognized that immediately after the Declaration of
Independence on July 4, 1776, the draft of a constitution was proposed
to give the central government more effective power; but, although the
necessity was manifest and most urgent, the so-called Articles of
Confederation, which were then drafted in 1776, were never finally
adopted by the requisite number of States until March, 1781, when the
war was nearly over. As the result proved, they marked only a very small
advance over the existing _de facto_ government, for the constituent
States were still too jealous of each other and too hostile to the
creation of a central government to form a truly effective government.
The founders of the Republic could only learn from their errors, but it
is their great merit that they had the ability to profit in the stern
school of experience, of whic