from others; each consulting its local interests and
prejudices, instead of the interests and obligations of the whole. In
like manner treaty stipulations, which bound the good faith of the
whole, were slighted, if not violated by individual States, apparently
unconscious that they must each share in the discredit thus brought
upon the national name.

In letters to his correspondents Washington writes: "The confederation
appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance,
and Congress a nugatory body; their ordinances being little attended
to.... The wheels of government are clogged, and our brightest
prospects, and that high expectation which was entertained of us by
the wondering world, are turned into astonishment; and from the high
ground on which we stood, we are descending into the vale of confusion
and darkness." ... "I have ever been a friend to adequate powers in
Congress, without which it is evident to me we never shall establish a
national character, or be considered as on a respectable footing by
the powers of Europe. We are either a united people under one head and
for federal purposes, or we are thirteen independent sovereignties,
eternally counteracting each other." ... "We have probably had too
good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation.
Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into
execution measures the best calculated for their own good, without the
intervention of coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist long as
a nation, without lodging, somewhere, a power which will pervade the
whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State
governments extends over the several States.... We are apt to run from
one extreme to another. I am told that even respectable characters
speak of a monarchial form of government without horror. From thinking
proceeds speaking, thence acting is often but a single step. But how
irrevocable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to verify
their predictions! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to
find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems,
founded on the basis of equal liberty, are merely ideal and
fallacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to
avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend."

His anxiety on the subject was quickened by accounts of discontents
and commotions in the Eastern States produced by the pressure o