First to perceive, and swift to point out, the defects in the Articles of Confederation, they became manifest to all long before victory crowned the warfare conducted under them. Charged by them with the public defense, Congress could not put a soldier in the field; and charged with defraying expenses, it could not levy a dollar of imposts or taxes. It could, indeed, borrow money with the assent of nine states of the thirteen, but what mockery of finance was that, when the borrower could not command any resource of payment.
The states had indeed put but a scepter of straw in the legislative hand of the Confederation--what wonder that it soon wore a crown of thorns! The paper currency ere long dissolved to nothingness; for four days the army was without food, and whole regiments drifted from the ranks of our hard-pressed defenders. "I see," said Washington, "one head gradually changing into thirteen; I see one army gradually branching into thirteen, which, instead of looking up to Congress as the supreme controlling power, are considering themselves as dependent upon their respective states." While yet his sword could not slumber, his busy pen was warning the statesmen of the country that unless Congress were invested with adequate powers, or should assume them as matter of right, we should become but thirteen states, pursuing local interests, until annihilated in a general crash--the cause would be lost--and the fable of the bundle of sticks applied to us.
In rapid succession his notes of alarm and invocations for aid to Union followed each other to the leading men of the states, North and South. Turning to his own state, and appealing to George Mason, "Where," he exclaimed, "where are our men of abilities? Why do they not come forth and save the country?" He compared the affairs of this great continent to the mechanism of a clock, of which each state was putting its own small part in order, but neglecting the great wheel, or spring, which was to put the whole in motion. He summoned Jefferson, Wythe, and Pendleton to his assistance, telling them that the present temper of the states was friendly to lasting union, that the moment should be improved and might never return, and that "after gloriously and successfully contending against the usurpation of Britain we may fall a prey to our own folly and disputes."