Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/274

 234 took place; and many of the states successively found apologies for their gross neglect in evils common to all, or complaints listened to by all. Many solemn and affecting appeals were, from time to time, made by congress to the states; but they were attended with no salutary effect. Many measures were devised to obviate the difficulties, nay, the dangers, which threatened the Union; but they failed to produce any amendments in the confederation. An attempt was made by congress, during the war, to procure from the states an authority to levy an impost of live per cent, upon imported and prize goods; but the assent of all the states could not be procured. The treasury was empty; the credit of the confederacy was sunk to a low ebb; the public burthens were increasing; and the public faith was prostrate.

§ 255. These general remarks may be easily verified by an appeal to the public acts and history of the times. The close of the revolution, independent of the enormous losses, occasioned by the excessive issue and circulation, and consequent depreciation of paper money, found the country burthened with a public debt of upwards of forty-two millions of dollars; eight millions of which was due for loans obtained in France or Holland, and the remainder to our own citizens, and principally to those, whose bravery and patriotism had saved their country. Congress, conscious of its inability to