Franklin, appearing in the midst of these disorders from his nine
years' residence in France, felt the necessity of counteracting the
despairing feeling among the friends of America in Europe and of
checking the rejoicing among her enemies. He, therefore, filled his
letters with descriptions of American prosperity, crops, prices, and
happiness. "In short," he wrote, "all among us may be happy, who have
happy dispositions, such being necessary to happiness even in Paradise."
At the same time, acting in his new station as president of the State
of Pennsylvania, he was endeavouring to arrest "a number of disorderly
people" who had collected near the line separating Pennsylvania and
New York. "They are impatient of regular government," he wrote in
seeking the co-operation of the governor of New York, "and seize upon
and presume to dispose of lands contrary to and in defiance of the
laws. Their number is recruited daily by vagabonds from all quarters."
The disorder arose from the long-standing controversy between
Pennsylvania and Connecticut over possession of the Wyoming valley--a
dispute which the Federal Government had been unable to settle.

The general public had long since lost respect for the National
Government and its Congress. Even Washington referred to it as the
half-starved, limping Government, that appears always moving upon
crutches and tottering at every step. The chief difficulty was not to
ascertain the remedies needed, but how to apply them. As early as 1780,
Hamilton had thought Congress had the right to reassume the powers of
sovereignty it had appropriated with the silent consent of the States
during the pressing times of the war; or, if the application must be
external, that the people might meet in a convention of delegates
empowered and instructed to conclude a new and effective federation.
Few were ready to go as far as the impetuous Hamilton in thus virtually
overthrowing the "Articles of perpetual union" which were legally