ted
States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their
reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the most earnest
solicitude," they recommended the raising by taxes on the different
States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in
quarterly payments, for the service of 1778.

But having explained, justified, and recommended, the power of Congress
ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no
machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the
States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their
individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road
to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious
words that Dante read on the gates of Hell been written on it, they
could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling:--

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"

Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly
insufficient to relieve the actual pressure, and that pressure,
unrelieved, grew daily more severe. They had tried the regulating of
prices,--they had tried loans,--they had tried a lottery; and now they
were forced back again to their earliest and most dangerous expedient,
paper-money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them
greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he
sees the shadowy form of sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a
gleam of sunshine, a breath of pure air, while myriads of little
sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with
"Depreciation" written upon it in big yellow letters, dance merrily
around him, thrusting the bitter record in his face, whichever way he
turns, with gibes and taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was
almost ended: the grave was nigh, an unhonored grave; and as eager hands
heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men remember
that they who strayed from the path as he had done must sooner or later
find a grave like his.

It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid
decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought
manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its
value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of their
minds, and their policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In
January, 1776, they had solemnly resolved that everybody who ref