The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-05-01

lear DecOlllC Il L TEL
and DESTROY its creators. Thus patriotisl
/ and fear, difficulties of communication b,
tween distant communities, and the intens
growth of provincial pride and interests
ed this Congress TO frame the Articles c
! Confederation, happily termed the league
friendship. The result was not govern
ment, but ghost. BY this scheme tn
American people were ignored and thu
Declaration of Independence reversed
The states, by their legislatures, electe
delegates to Congress, and the dele
gate represented the sovereignty of his CON
monwealth. All the states had an equa
voice without regard to their size or popu
lation 1t required the vote of nine state
to pass any bill, and five could block tn,
wheels of the government. Congress har
none of the powers essential to sovereignty
1t could neither levy taxes nor impos
duties nor collect excise. For the Snpper
of the army and navy, for the purposes o
war, for the preservation of its owl
functions, it could only call upon thu
states, but it possessed no power to en-
force its demands. IL had nos President o.
executive auth ority, no supreme cour
with general jurisdiction, and no nationa
power. Each of the thirteen
states had seaports and levied
discriminating duties against the others
and could also tax and thus prohibit
Interstate commerce across its territory
Had the confederation been a union instead
of a league, it could have raised anC
equipped three times the number Of men
contributed by reluctant states, and con
| quered independence without foreign asslS
| lance. This paralyzed government, with
out strength, because it could not enforce
its DEGREES; without credit, because 1t could
pledge nothing for the payment of its debts
without respect, because without inherent
authority; would, by its feeble life and
early death, have added another to the his
toric tragedies which have in many lands
marked the suppression of freedom, had il
not been saved by the intelligent, nheri-
ted and invincible understanding of liberty
! by the people, and the genius and patriot
ism of their leaders.
But, while the perils of war had given
temporary strength to the confederation,
| peace developed its fatal weakness. 1t de
rived no authority from the people, and
could not appeal to them. Anarchy threat
ened its existence at home, and contempt
met its representatives abroad. Can you
! fulfill or enforce the obligations OF the
| treaty on your part if we sign one with
you? was the sneer of the courts Of the
Old World to our ambassadors. Some
states gave a half-hearted support to its
demands: others detied them. The loss of
public credit as speedily followed by uni
YersaI bankruptcy. The widest phantas-
les assumed the force of serious measures
for the relief of the general distress. States
passed exclusive and hostile laws
against each other, and riot
and disorder threatened the dis
Indignation of society. Our stock is
stolen, our houses are plundered, our
farms are raided,' cried Il delegate in the
Massachusetts convention; 'despotism is
better than anarchy To raise SI,OO0,0J0
year was beyond the resources
of the government, and $500, 900 was the
limit of the loan it could secure from the
mOney-Ienders Of Europe. Even Wash
ington exclaimed in despair: 1 see one
head gradually changing into thirteen;
see one army gradually branching into
thirteen; which, instead OF looking up to
Congress as the supreme controlling power,
are considering themselves rs depending on
their respective states And later, when
independence had been won, the impOtency
of the government wrUng from him the eX
clamation: After gloriously and success
fully contending against the usurpation of
Great Britain, we may fall a prey 3 our
own folly and disputes.
But even through this Zimmerman dark
ness shot a flame which illumined the
coming century, and kept bright the beacon
fires of liberty. The architects of consti-
tutional freedom formed their institutions
with wisdom which fOrecasted the future.
They may not have understood at first the
whole truth, but, for that which they knew,
they had the martyrs spirit and the cru
saders' enthusiasm. Though the con-
federation was a government of checks
without balances, and of purpose without
power. the statesmen who guided it demon
Strated often the resistleSs force of great
souls animated by the pureSt patriotism,
and united in Judgment and effort to pro
mote the common good, by lofty appeals
aud high reasoning, to elevate the masses
above local greed and apparent sef-inte ,est
to their own broad plane.
1.-The most significant triumph of these
moral and intellectual forces was that
which secured the assent of the states to
the limitation of their boundaries to the
grant of the wilderness beyond them to the
general government, and to the insertion
in the ordinance erecting the north
west territories of the immortal pro-
viso prohibiting slavery or involuntary
servitude' within all of that broad domain.
The states carved out of this splendid con
cession were not sOvereignties which had
successfully rebelled, but they were the
children of the union. born of the covenant
and thrilled with its life and liberty. They
became the buiWarks of nationality and
the buttresses of freedom. Their pre-
pOnderating strength first checked and then
broke the slave power, their feryid loyalty
rights and secession for generations; and
when the crisis came. it was with their
overwhelming assistance that the nation
XII ed and buried its en- envy. The corner
stone of the editice whose centenary we are
decorating was the ordinance of 1871. II
was constructed by the feeblest Of Con
crosses, but few enactments of ancient or
modern times have had more far-reaching
and beneficient influence. 1t is one of the
Of hictn1.,r Int tbiC
weak Confederation of statessshould have
welded the chain against which, after sew
enty-four years of fretful efforts for re-
lease, its own spirit frantically dashed and
died
"The government of the republic by a
Congress of states, a diplomatic congention
of the ambassadors of petty common
wealths, after seven years trial, was fall
ing asunder. Threatened with civil war
among its members, instruction and law
lessness rife within the states, foreign
commerce ruined and internal trade par
alyzed, its currency worthless, its mer-
chants bankrupt its farms mortgaged, its
markets closed, its labor unemployed, it
was like helpless wreck upon the ocean,
tossed about by the tides and ready to be
engulfed in the storm. Washington gave
the warning and called for action. 1t was
a voice accustomed to command, but now
The veterans of the war and
the statesmen of the revolution stepped to
the front. The patriotism which had been
misled, but had never faltered, rose above
the interests of states and the jealousies of
Earring confederates to find the basis |
for union. 1T is clear to me as A, B, c.
said Washington, that an extension of
federal powers would make us one of the |
most happy, wealthy, respectable and |
powerful nations that ever inhabited the