=The Weakness of the Articles of Confederation.=—­The government under the Articles of Confederation had neither the strength nor the resources necessary to cope with the problems of reconstruction left by the war.  The sole organ of government was a Congress composed of from two to seven members from each state chosen as the legislature might direct and paid by the state.  In determining all questions, each state had one vote—­Delaware thus enjoying the same weight as Virginia.  There was no president to enforce the laws.  Congress was given power to select a committee of thirteen—­one from each state—­to act as an executive body when it was not in session; but this device, on being tried out, proved a failure.  There was no system of national courts to which citizens and states could appeal for the protection of their rights or through which they could compel obedience to law.  The two great powers of government, military and financial, were withheld.  Congress, it is true, could authorize expenditures but had to rely upon the states for the payment of contributions to meet its bills.  It could also order the establishment of an army, but it could only request the states to supply their respective quotas of soldiers.  It could not lay taxes nor bring any pressure to bear upon a single citizen in the whole country.  It could act only through the medium of the state governments.

=Financial and Commercial Disorders.=—­In the field of public finance, the disorders were pronounced.  The huge debt incurred during the war was still outstanding.  Congress was unable to pay either the interest or the principal.  Public creditors were in despair, as the market value of their bonds sank to twenty-five or even ten cents on the dollar.  The current bills of Congress were unpaid.  As some one complained, there was not enough money in the treasury to buy pen and ink with which to record the transactions of the shadow legislature.  The currency was in utter chaos.  Millions of dollars in notes issued by Congress had become mere trash worth a cent or two on the dollar.  There was no other expression of contempt so forceful as the popular saying:  “not worth a Continental.”  To make matters worse, several of the states were pouring new streams of paper money from the press.  Almost the only good money in circulation consisted of English, French, and Spanish coins, and the public was even defrauded by them because money changers were busy clipping and filing away the metal.  Foreign commerce was unsettled.  The entire British system of trade discrimination was turned against the Americans, and Congress, having no power to regulate foreign commerce, was unable to retaliate or to negotiate treaties which it could enforce.  Domestic commerce was impeded by the jealousies of the states, which erected tariff barriers against their neighbors.  The condition of the currency made the exchange of money and goods extremely difficult, and, as if to increase the confusion, backward states enacted laws hindering the prompt collection of debts within their borders—­an evil which nothing but a national system of courts could cure.