It was obvious that the delays would be almost interminable should congress relax this determination, because every change would make it necessary again to submit the instrument as amended to the several states.

It is remarkable that Jersey alone proposed an enlargement of the powers of congress.

That state was desirous of investing the representatives of the state with the power of regulating commerce.
The states possessing no vacant lands, or an inconsiderable quantity within their chartered limits, pressed earnestly and perseveringly their claim to participate in the advantages of territory, which was, they said, acquired by the united arms of the whole; and Maryland refused, on this account, to accede to the confederation.

At length, several of the states empowered their members in congress to ratify that instrument as forming a union between the twelve states who had assented to it.

Maryland, alarmed at the prospect of being excluded from the union, gave her reluctant consent to the confederation, accompanied by a protest, in which she still asserted her claim to her interest in the vacant territory which should be acknowledged at the treaty of peace, to be within the United States.
It required the repeated lessons of a severe and instructive experience to persuade the American people that their greatness, their prosperity, their happiness, and even their safety, imperiously demanded the substitution of a government for their favourite league.] [Sidenote: Military transactions.] Such was the defensive strength of the positions taken by the adverse armies on the Hudson, and such their relative force, that no decisive blow could be given by either in that quarter of the continent.