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of their collective states?
Are the people of
the
United States, who so excel that of
France in liberty, doomed to hopeless inferiority in respect of administration?
For the eye of
Robert Livingston, then the most influential member from New York,
Washington traced to their source the evils under which the country was sinking, and invited their correction.
‘There can be no radical cure,’ wrote he, ‘till congress is vested by the several states with full and ample powers to enact laws for general purposes, and till the executive business is placed in the hands of able and responsible men. Requisitions then will be supported by law.’
Congress began to be of the same opinion.
On the fifth of February,
Witherspoon of
New Jersey,
seconded by
Burke of
North Carolina, proposed to vest in that body the power to regulate commerce, and to lay duties upon imported articles.
The proposition was negatived, but it was resolved to be indispensably necessary for the states to vest a power in congress to levy a duty of five per cent on importations of articles of foreign growth and manufacture.
Before that power could be so vested, the separate approval of every one of the thirteen states must be gained.
The assent of
Virginia was promptly given.
That great commonwealth, having
Jefferson for its governor, sought to promote peace and union.
To advance the former, it even instructed its delegates in congress to surrender the right of navigating the
Mississippi river below the thirty-first degree of north latitude, provided
Spain in return would guarantee the navigation of the river above that parallel.
Madison, obeying the instruction, voted for the measure
