it could gratefully vote a monument to General Washington to be erected
at the seat of government, but could not secure enough money to erect
it.

The National Government under the Articles of Confederation could
destroy the commerce of an enemy, but could not retaliate upon the
products of an unfriendly rival in time of peace. It could regulate
the alloy and value of coins, but could not keep a State from issuing
waggon-loads of paper money, destined to depreciate and to disturb its
own finances. It could make laws within certain limits but could not
enforce the least of its decrees. It pledged its faith to discharge
all debts contracted by the Continental Congress, but it could not
collect a sixpence with which to do it. The States entering the
agreement promised to refrain from inter-alliances and foreign treaties,
from making war except against Indians or pirates, and from keeping
standing armies or vessels of war; yet if a State broke one of these
stipulations, no provision was made for punishing it. Although any
State could levy impost duties on goods coming into it from another
State the same as from a foreign country, thereby engendering endless
dispute, the Central Government had no court or other means of settling
such contentions or of getting redress for individuals.

With such false conceptions of the relations between individualism and
unionism, with a national frame foredoomed to failure, with the
distracting situations of the war still upon them, the people of the
United States attempted in 1783 to take that stand among the nations
which they declared God had given them. At once they came into contact
with the habits and precedents of old and well-established governments.
Diplomacy is not a game for amateurs. Fortunately a decade was to
elapse before a European crisis would call attention to the new-comer