rs only, and the collectors were to be appointed by the
several states, each for its own ports. Then for the current expenses of
the government, supplementary funds were needed; and these were to be
assessed upon the several states, each of which might raise its quota as
it saw fit. Such was the original plan; but it soon turned out that the
only available source of revenue was the national domain, which had thus
been nothing less than the principal thread which had held the Union
together. As for the impost, it had never been possible to get a
sufficient number of states to agree upon it, and of the quotas for
current expenses, as we have seen, very little had found its way to the
federal treasury. Under these difficulties, it had been proposed that an
amendment to the articles of confederation should endow Congress with
the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors; and
by the summer of 1786, after endless wrangling, twelve states had
consented to the amendment. But, in order that an amendment should be
adopted, unanimous consent was necessary. The one delinquent state,
which thus blocked the wheels of the confederacy, was New York. She had
her little system of duties all nicely arranged for what seemed to be
her own interests, and she would not surrender this system to Congress.
Upon the neighbouring states her tariff system bore hard, and especially
upon New Jersey. In 1786 this little state flatly refused to pay her
quota until New York should stop discriminating against her trade.
Nothing which occurred in that troubled year caused more alarm than
this, for it could not be denied that such a declaration seemed little
less than an act of secession on the part of New Jersey. The arguments
of a congressional committee at last prevailed upon the state to rescind
her declaration. At the same time there came the final struggle in New
York over the impost amendment, against which Governor Clinton had
firmly set his face. There was a fierce fight, in which Hamilton's most
strenuous efforts succeeded in carrying the amendment in part, but not
until it had been clogged with a condition that made it useless.
Congress, it was declared, might have the revenue, but New York must
appoint the collectors; she was not going to have federal officials
rummaging about her docks. The legislature well knew that to grant the
amendment in such wise was not to grant it at all, but simply to reopen
the whole question. Such