t make commercial
treaties. No one of these succeeded, although the first plan failed of
unanimous acceptance by one State only. The legislatures recognized
the need, but dreaded to give any outside power whatever authority
within their respective boundaries. While those who advocated these
amendments kept reiterating the positive necessity for some means to
avert national disgrace and bankruptcy, their opponents, reverting to
the language of 1775, declared it incompatible with "liberty" that any
authority other than the State's should be exercised in a State's
territory. By 1787, it was clear that any hope of specific amendments
was vain. Unanimity from {136} thirteen legislatures was not to be
looked for.

On the other hand, where the States chose to act they produced
important results. The cessions of western lands, which had been
exacted by Maryland as her price for ratifying the Articles, were
carried out by New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia until
the title to all territory west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio
was with the Confederation. Then, although nothing in the Articles
authorized such action, Congress, in 1787, adopted an Ordinance
establishing a plan for settling the new lands. After a period of
provincial government, substantially identical with that of the
colonies, the region was to be divided into States and admitted into
the union, under the terms of an annexed "compact" which prohibited
slavery and guaranteed civil rights. But where the States did not
co-operate, confusion reigned. Legislatures imposed such tariffs as
they saw fit, which led to actual inter-State commercial
discriminations between New York and its neighbours. Connecticut and
Pennsylvania wrangled over land claims. The inhabitants of the
territory west of New Hampshire set up a State government under the
name of Vermont, and successfully maintained themselves against the
State of New York, {137} which had a legal title to the soil, while the
frontier settlers in North Carolina were prevented only by inferior
numbers from carrying through a similar secession.

Finally, in the years 1785-7, the number of those who found the
unrestrained self-government of the separate States another name for
anarchy was enormously increased by a sudden craze for paper money,
"tender" laws, and "stay" laws which swept the country. The poorer
classes, especially the farmers, denounced the courts as agents of the
rich,