o take retaliatory steps, while the separate States could not
or would not act sufficiently in harmony to do so. If one imposed
customs duties, another would open wide its ports, filling the markets
of the first with British goods by overland trade, so that the customs
law of the first availed nothing. If Pennsylvania and New York laid
tariffs on foreign commodities, New Jersey and Connecticut people, in
buying imported articles from Philadelphia or New York, were paying
taxes to those greater States. North Carolina was in the same manner a
forced tributary to South Carolina and Virginia, as were portions of
Connecticut and Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

[Illustration: Coin.]
Dollar of 1794.
The First United States Coin.
"Liberty" "1794" "United States of America"

We also needed a complete system of courts, departments for foreign and
Indian affairs, and an efficient executive. The single vote for each
State was unfair, allowing one-third of the people to defeat the will of
the rest. The article requiring the consent of nine States made it
almost impossible to get important measures through Congress. Delegates
should not have been paid by their respective States. In consequence of
this provision, coupled with other things, Congress decreased in numbers
and importance. In November, 1783, less than twenty delegates were
present, representing but seven States, and Congress had to appeal to
the recreant States to send back their representatives before the treaty
of peace could be ratified.

[1787]

But the one grand defect of the Confederation, underlying all others,
was lack of power. The Government was an engine without steam. The
States, just escaped from the tyranny of a king, would brook no new
authority strong enough to endanger their liberties. The result was a
thin ghost of a government set in charge over a lot of lusty
flesh-and-blood States.

The Confederation, however, did one piece of solid work worthy of
everlasting praise. The Northwest Territory, embracing what is now Ohio,
Indiana. Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had been ceded to the Union
by the States which originally claimed it. July 13, 1787, Congress
adopted for the government of the territory the famous Ordinance of
1787. It provided for a governor, council, and judges, to be appointed
by Congress, and a house of representatives elected by the people. Its
shining excellence was a series of compacts between the States and the
territo