ntly arose it
led the distressed people to seek some other method of relief, and thus
prepared the way for the Convention of 1787, which destroyed the whole
vicious scheme, and gave us a form of government under which we have
just completed a century unparalleled for peace and prosperity. Besides
this extreme difficulty of amendment, the fatal defects of the
Confederation were three in number. The first defect was the two thirds
vote necessary for any important legislation in Congress; under this
rule any five of the states--as, for example, the four southernmost
states with Maryland, or the four New England states with New
Jersey--could defeat the most sorely needed measures. The second defect
was the impossibility of presenting a united front to foreign countries
in respect to commerce. The third and greatest defect was the lack of
any means, on the part of Congress, of enforcing obedience. Not only was
there no federal executive or judiciary worthy of the name, but the
central government operated only upon states, and not upon individuals.
Congress could call for troops and for money in strict conformity with
the articles; but should any state prove delinquent in furnishing its
quota, there were no constitutional means of compelling it to obey the
call. This defect was seen and deplored at the outset by such men as
Washington and Madison, but the only remedy which at first occurred to
them was one more likely to kill than to cure. Only six weeks after the
ratification of the articles, Madison proposed an amendment "to give to
the United States full authority to employ their force, as well by sea
as by land, to compel any delinquent state to fulfil its federal
engagements." Washington approved of this measure, hoping, as he said,
that "a knowledge that this power was lodged in Congress might be the
means to prevent its ever being exercised, and the more readily induce
obedience. Indeed," added Washington, "if Congress were unquestionably
possessed of the power, nothing should induce the display of it but
obstinate disobedience and the urgency of the general welfare." Madison
argued that in the very nature of the Confederation such a right of
coercion was necessarily implied, though not expressed in the articles,
and much might have been said in behalf of this opinion. The
Confederation explicitly declared itself to be perpetual, yet how could
it perpetuate itself for a dozen years without the right to coerce its
refrac