CH. IV.]
OF THE CONFEDERATION.
243
demanded redress. She refused on account of these alleged infractions to surrender up the western ports according to the stipulations of that treaty; and the whole confederacy was consequently threatened with the calamities of Indian depredations on the whole of our western borders, and was in danger of having its public peace subverted through its mere inability to enforce the treaty stipulations. The celebrated address of congress, in 1787, to the several states on this subject is replete with admirable reasoning, and contains melancholy proofs of the utter inefficiency of the confederation, and of the disregard by the states in their legislation of the provisions of that treaty.[1]
§ 263. In April, 1784, congress passed a resolution, requesting the states to vest the general government with power, for fifteen years only, to prohibit the importation and exportation of goods in the ships of nations with which we had no commercial treaties; and also to prohibit the subjects of foreign nations, unless authorizes by treaty, to import any goods into the United States, not the produce or manufacture of the dominions of their own sovereign. Although congress expressly stated, that without such a power no reciprocal advantages could be acquired, the proposition was never assented to by the states; and their own countervailing laws were either rendered nugatory by the laws of other states, or were repealed by a regard to their own inter-- ↑ Journals of congress, April 13, 1787, p. 32; Rawle on Constitution, App. 2, p. 316.—It was drawn up by Mr. Jay, then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and was unanimously adopted by congress. It however failed of its object. And the treaty of 1783, so far as it respected British debts, was never faithfully executed until after the adoption of the constitution of the United States. See Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. R. 199; Hopkins v. Bell, 3 Cranch, 454.
