Congress, and proposed to the legislatures of the states, with an explanatory and recommendatory letter.66 The ratifications of these, by their delegates in Congress, duly authorized, took place at successive dates, but were not completed till the 1st of March, 1781, when Maryland, who had made it a prerequisite that the vacant lands acquired from the British crown should be a common fund, yielded to the persuasion that a final and formal establishment of the federal union and government would make a favorable impression, not only on other foreign nations, but on Great Britain herself.67
The great difficulty experienced in so framing the federal system as to obtain the unanimity required for its due sanction, may be inferred from the long interval and recurring discussions between the commencement and completion of the work; from the changes made during its progress; from the language of Congress when proposing it to the states, which dwelt on the impracticability of devising a system acceptable to all of them; from the reluctant assent given by some, and the various alterations proposed by others; and by a tardiness in others, again, which produced a special address to them from Congress, enforcing the duty of sacrificing local considerations and favorite opinions to the public safety and the necessary harmony: nor was the assent of some of the states finally yielded without strong protests against particular articles, and a reliance on future amendments removing their objections. It is to be recollected, no doubt, that these delays might be occasioned, in some degree, by an occupation of the public councils, both general and local, with the deliberations and measures essential to a revolutionary struggle; but there must have been a balance for these causes in the obvious motives to hasten the establishment of a regular and efficient government; and in the tendency of the crisis to repress opinions and pretensions which might be inflexible in another state of things.
The principal difficulties which embarrassed the progress, and retarded the completion, of the plan of Confederation, may be traced to—first, the natural repugnance of the parties to a relinquishment of power; secondly, a natural jealousy of its abuse in other hands than their own; thirdly, the rule of suffrage among parties whose inequality in size did not correspond with that of their wealth, or of their military or free population; fourthly, the selection and definition of the powers, at once necessary to the federal head, and safe to the several members.
To these sources of difficulty, incident to the formation of all such confederacies, were added two others—one of a temporary, the other of a permanent nature. The first was the case of the crown lands, so called because they had been held by the British crown, and, being ungranted to individuals when its authority ceased, were considered by the states within whose charters or asserted limits they lay, as devolving on them; whilst it was contended by the others that, being wrested from the dethroned authority by the equal exertions of all, they resulted of right and in equity to the benefit of all. The lands
