Congress. Even Jefferson, alarmed by the growth of the executive
authority before 1800, never suggested a return to the method whereby
the whole administration was at the mercy of a quorum of Congress. The
Confederate States in 1861, exasperated into secession by the abuse
of the central power, retained the tripartite form in the Government
which they planned. Posterity learns by reading the lessons of history.

In the light of a later survey, one may discover many additional defects
in the ill-devised Articles of Confederation. Madison once summed up
their vices in the failure of the States to comply with the
constitutional requirements, in State encroachments of Federal
authority, in State violations of national law and treaties, in States
trespassing on the rights of each other, in want of concerted action,
in a lack of national guarantee against internal violence, in a want
of coercive power in the National Government and the omission of the
ratification of the Articles by the people. To these he added the
multiplicity, the mutability, and the injustice of many of the State
laws. Jefferson, separated by his residence at the court of France
from actual contact with the worst days of the Confederation, thought
the remaining States had a right to coerce a recalcitrant member "by
a naval force, as being easy, less dangerous to liberty, and less
likely to produce bloodshed." Yet a suggestion in 1781 for an amendment,
giving power to Congress to employ force in compelling States to obey
the Articles, met with no favour.

Monroe thought that the Articles were practicable and, with a few
alterations, the best plan that could be devised. Hamilton, on the
contrary, regarded them as hopeless. Even before they were adopted,
he predicted a speedy failure. They were "neither fit for war nor
peace," he declared. "They show chiefly a want of power in Congress."