A disposition in the members of congress, growing inevitably out of the organization of the government, to consult the will of their respective states, and to prefer that will to any other object, had discovered itself at an early period, and had gained strength with time.

The state of the national treasury was calculated to promote this disposition.

It was empty, and could be replenished only by taxes, which congress had not the power to impose; or by new emissions of bills of credit, which the government had pledged the public faith not to make, and which would rest for their redemption only on that faith, which would be violated in the very act of their emission.

Under these circumstances, it required a degree of energy seldom found, to struggle with surrounding difficulties for the preservation of a general system, and to resist the temptation to throw the nation at the feet of the states, in whom the vital principle of power, the right to levy taxes, was exclusively vested.
While the continental currency preserved its value, this essential defect of the constitution was, in some measure, concealed.

The facility with which money was obtained from the press, was a temporary substitute for the command of the resources of the country.